1 . A decade ago, at the end of my first semester teaching at Wharton, a student stopped by for office hours. He sat down and burst into tears. My mind started cycling through a list of events that could make a college junior cry: his girlfriend had left him; he had been accused of cheating in exams; he forgot to turn in papers by the deadline. “I just got my first A-minus," he said, his voice shaking.
Year after year, I watch in sadness as students go all for straight A's. Some sacrifice their health; a few have even tried to charge their school after falling short. All hold the belief that top marks are a ticket to best graduate schools and high-paying job offers. I was one of them. I started college with the goal of graduating with a GPA of 4.0. It would be a reflection of my brainpower and willpower, revealing that I had the right stuff to succeed. But I was wrong.
The evidence is clear: academic excellence is not a strong predictor of career excellence. Across industries, research shows that the connection between grades and job performance is modest in the first year after college and unimportant within a handful of years. For example, a Google, once employees are two or three years out of college, their grades have no bearing on their performance. (Of course, it must be said that if you got D's, you probably didn't end up at Google.)
In a classic 1962 study, a team of psychologists tracked down America's most creative architects and compared them with their technically skilled but less original matches. One of the factors that distinguished the creative architects was a record of grades. “In college our creative architects earned about a B average," Donald MacKinnon wrote. “In work and courses which caught their interest they could turn in an A performance, but in courses that failed to strike their imagination, they were quite willing to do no work at all."
Academic grades rarely assess qualities like creativity, leadership and teamwork skills, or social, emotional and political intelligence. Yes, straight-A students master large amounts of information and reproduce it in exams. But career success is rarely about finding the right solution to a problem—it is more about finding the right problem to solve. This might explain why Steve Jobs finished high school with a 2.65 GPA, J. K. Rowling graduated from the University of Exeter with roughly a C average, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. got only one A in his four years at Morehouse.
1. Why did the author list the events that crossed his mind in the first paragraph?| A．To make sure he didn't misunderstand the student. |
| B．To make the real trouble of the student more striking. |
| C．To show sympathy for the student. |
| D．To describe an unusual meeting with a student. |
| A．Academic achievements don't always mean success in career. |
| B．Top marks meant well-paid job offers. |
| C．Nobody was to blame for falling short in school. |
| D．Marks didn't reflect willpower and brainpower |
| A．Straight A's don't necessarily lead to professional success. |
| B．Straight A's are a ticket to a number of opportunities. |
| C．Straight A's are of little value in future careers. |
| D．Straight A's can't help people find right solutions. |
| A．How to be a creative leader. | B．How to solve a challenging problem. |
| C．What is the right problem to solve. | D．What really interests them. |
2 . Israeli company Watergen has produced an appliance that can generate clean,drinkable water out of air. The device,called GENNY, is small enough to be used in a home or office but can generate up to 30 liters of water a day.
GENNY takes air in and passes through a filter(过滤器)to remove dust and dirt. The filter is powerful enough to work with high air pollution. The air is directed through GENius,a heating and cooling process which causes water in the air to condense(凝结).This water is then passed through several more filters and minerals are added to improve the flavor of the water. Finally, the water is stored in a tank where it is continually circulated to keep it fresh. Therefore,the water produced by GENNY is often of a higher quality than water running through filtration systems attached to the city's water lines.
The technology of GENius is much better than other technologies that generate water from air. It produces four to five times more water per kilowatt-hour.Watergen has other products that use this same technology on a larger scale, the largest of which can produce up to 5,000 liters of water per day.
As an added bonus,during the water generation process, GENNY can emit clean air which is healthier for people to breathe.
At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, GENNY was named the Energy Efficient Product of the Year. The award series recognize the world's top high-tech home products.
Last year,Watergen's large-scale products were donated to authorities in Brazil,Vietnam and India. They also assisted rescue and recovery efforts during the 2018 California wildfires and provided clean,safe water for the residents of Texas and Florida in the aftermath of the devastation caused by hurricanes Harvey and Irma.
Watergen also seeks to help protect the environment by reducing waste generated by plastic water bottles. People are called upon to put the water from GEENY into reusable bottles so that plastic ones don't get used and thrown away.
1. What does GENNY accomplish by adding minerals to the water?| A．It keeps the water fresh. |
| B．It helps kill harmful bacteria. |
| C．It satisfies local water regulations. |
| D．It makes the water taste better. |
| A．Energy-efficient. | B．Cost-saving. | C．Time-saving. | D．Environment-friendly. |
| A．Cut down. | B．Blow away. | C．Give off. | D．Use up. |
| A．Consume plastic waste. |
| B．Respond to natural disasters. |
| C．Test water quality globally. |
| D．Relieve drought in some countries. |
3 . Maybe you’re depressed because you didn’t sleep well. Or you feel stuck when you read an email with some bad news that prevented your enthusiastic imagination. Whatever the case may be, you tell yourself working now is in vain (徒劳的), because you couldn’t possibly come up with anything inventive in this mood.
Several studies in psychology have shown that negative emotions narrow our vision and limit our thinking. However, positive emotions can improve creativity because they broaden our way of thinking by encouraging us to try new things or look at situations differently.
Creativity is the ability to produce and carry out both new and useful ideas. Creativity can result from a person’s own creative ideas and observations, or it can appear as a response to a direct assignment or problem as well.
Both positive and negative moods can lead to two different kinds of creativity that benefit different tasks. Research shows that the key factor influencing our creativity is not our mood itself, but the strength of our feelings and the motivation (动机) behind our work. For example, anger or anxiety can help us to focus our attention on producing effective results. Great excitement or joy, on the other hand, can encourage an instant at which the solution to a problem becomes clear all of a sudden. In fact, one study even finds that while we’re 20 percent more likely to have creative abilities to understand mixed situations when we’re feeling good, people in a negative mood perform better when the quality of solutions—not quantity—matters most.
But of course, we are rarely entirely happy or entirely sad. More often, we experience mixed emotions. In psychology, these strong emotions whether they are positive or negative, lead to greater creative actions.
It comes as no surprise then that highly creative people tend to be very familiar with their emotions. They report experiencing very strong emotions more frequently than less creative people and are more willing to experience those emotions.
1. What is the author’s purpose in writing the first paragraph?| A．To expect us to be creative. |
| B．To show the importance of creativity. |
| C．To tell us negative emotions exist everywhere. |
| D．To clarify how moods influence your creativity. |
| A．Supportive. | B．Critical. | C．Doubtful. | D．Objective. |
| A．We should always try to keep ourselves in good mood. |
| B．People feel either very happy or very sad most of the time. |
| C．Strong emotions play an important role in creativity. |
| D．Creativity only results from creative ideas and observations. |
| A．Avoid negative moods totally. |
| B．Face up to inner feelings positively. |
| C．Try out new things cautiously. |
| D．Understand mixed situations clearly. |
4 . For some people, walking or running outdoors is a great way to work out. What may not be so pleasant is seeing trash all over the ground. Well, some people are doing something about it. They are plogging!
“Plogging” began in Sweden. The name combines the Swedish word “plocka,” which means to pick up, and the word Jogging, which means to run slowly. A Swedish man named Erik, started the movement in 2016. On the World Environment
Day website, Erik says that he moved to Stockholm from a small community in northern Sweden each day he would ride his bike to work. Concerned about the amount of trash and litter he saw each day on his way to work, he took matters into his own hands.
Plogging, by that term, may have officially begun in Sweden. But many people who exercise outdoors have been doing this for years. Take Jeff Horowitz for example. He is a personal trainer in Washington, D.C. He often picks up trash while running outside. He even has turned it into a game; he will try to pick up the trash without stopping. “I didn’t know it was a thing really. This is just my personal ethics (道德标准), where I go for a run and if I happen to see a piece of garbage lying around and it’s within reach — it is a kind of a little test for me to see if I can grab it and throw it in a near trash can without stopping. And that way, I think, it gives me a little exercise and a little focus for my run. And it helps clean up the neighborhood,” he announced.
Today, plogging is an official activity, one that is becoming increasingly popular. Cities around the world now hold logging events, “I would just hope people would think twice before dropping a garbage on the ground. We have containers seems on every block. So, it’s easy to put your garbage in the trash cans. I just think people should think about it a little bit more. I do hope one day there will not be a need for plogging.” said an interviewee.
1. Which of the following can replace the underlined phrase “took matters into his own hands”?| A．called on people to join him. | B．appealed to people to go green. |
| C．began to pick up the trash. | D．had the collected trash recycled. |
| A．Plogging comes naturally to joggers who care about the environment. |
| B．Plogging is an easy way to clean the environment. |
| C．It doesn’t make any sense to joy without picking up trash. |
| D．It is better to clean up the neighborhood by plogging. |
| A．Jogging is truly beneficial. | B．Trash cans should be within reach. |
| C．Littering is not acceptable. | D．Communities should be kept clean. |
| A．New Exercise Enjoys unbelievable popularity |
| B．New Exercise Trend Also Helps Environment |
| C．Plogging — a Fashionable Way to clear waste |
| D．Plogging — an Exercise Originating in Sweden |
5 . Along the hallway (走廊), I saw mixed expressions on the faces of my students: excited, nervous, and worried.No doubt about it: they were this term’s freshmen. My own first day at high school flashed into my mind.
Since our family had just moved to the place, I didn’t know anyone at the school. On arriving, I picked up a map and my schedule (日程表). Oh, my goodness, what a large school it was! Nervously, I looked about for where my first class was to be held.
When I finally found my class, everyone was talking and laughing together, and I felt so lonely. Throughout the day, each period brought some new faces I had not seen before. But when my English class came around, I had a surprise: an old classmate! It was Ben, who had left my middle school right after sixth grade. We talked and joked about middle school and the clubs we were in together. My nerves eased (放松) a little.
Next was the P E. class. This was the first class that I found without difficulty. Sitting through the boring introduction to the class by the teacher, I started talking to a girl sitting near me. I found out that her family had just moved here too, and she didn’t know anyone either. As we talked, we discovered that we had a lot in common, and had a lot of classes together. This girl ended up becoming my best friend. I am so glad that I met her.
By the end of that day, I was full of optimism (乐观). I knew that high school would be an amazing experience.
1. The writer of this passage is a __________.| A．parent | B．college student | C．high school student | D．high school teacher |
| A．the school was very large | B．the map did not show the way |
| C．the teacher would be serious | D．the first class would be difficult |
| A．met her old classmate Ben | B．made friends with a girl |
| C．had P.E. class together with Ben | D．finally found her first class |
| A．Nervous. | B．Bored. | C．Hopeful. | D．Satisfied. |
6 . Since the earliest days of the United States, Americans have begun their day by eating whatever is most easily available. These foods often include bread, eggs or leftovers — food left over from the night before. Today, ease is still an important factor when it comes to breakfast. However, what people eat has changed over time. Some of today’s common breakfast foods, such as cereals (谷类食物), are popular because of very effective marketing.
“Advertising was practically invented to sell cereals. One of the first ways advertising was successfully or effectively used was to convince mothers that it was okay for their children to eat instant cereals. They offered working mothers a chance to let kids take care of themselves in the morning,” says Heather Arndt Anderson. She is the writer of the book Breakfast: A History.
Advertising also played an important part in orange juice becoming a morning drink. In 1916, farmers grew more oranges than usual, so advertisers began saying, “Drink an orange.” They aimed to persuade people that drinking orange juice was a healthy way to start the day.
Pancakes have also been around for a very long time. Researchers believe the world’s oldest naturally preserved human mummy (木乃伊) ate a pancake-like food as one of his last meals. Researchers think pancakes may have been made in the morning because they are much quicker to prepare than bread. Cooks could then have time to make fresh bread for dinner.
Americans still eat some of the same breakfast foods — like bread and eggs — that their ancestors did. Writer Heather Arndt Anderson notes that people’s concerns about healthy food choices have also stayed the same. She hopes more Americans will see leftovers as breakfast foods. After all, they taste good and are a great way to reduce waste.
1. What is the advantage of the instant cereal?| A．It makes kids healthier. | B．It saves mothers’ time. |
| C．It satisfies everybody’s taste. | D．It costs less than other foods. |
| A．To market the orange juice. |
| B．To recommend a popular lifestyle. |
| C．To promote oranges as a healthy breakfast item. |
| D．To encourage farmers in planting more oranges. |
| A．To explain the origin of pancakes. |
| B．To present the benefit of pancakes. |
| C．To prove the long history of pancakes. |
| D．To show the wide spreading of pancakes. |
| A．The History of the Americans’ Diet. |
| B．The Effects of Advertising Foods. |
| C．The Importance of Having Healthy Meals. |
| D．The Development of the Americans’ Breakfast. |
7 . Once I told someone I wanted to get a master’s degree of fine arts in creative writing and they told me it was the second-to-worst post-graduation plan they’d ever heard from a student.Arts degrees — especially fine arts degrees, which usually come in the form of music, studio art, creative writing and theater — have been, over the years, labeled (称为) useless.
It’s true that for the most part, STEM degrees give rise to higher paying jobs than liberal and fine arts degrees, and it’s understandable why young people care about a higher starting salary and financial security.Student loan debt is playing a role in the physical and mental stress of young people.
And while STEM majors usually have starting salaries that are $20,000 higher than those of liberal arts majors, by the time people reach the age of 40, the salaries between those who majored in the liberal arts and those who majored in STEM are virtually the same.For example, women who major in STEM earned nearly 50% more than social science and history majors at ages 23-25, but only 10% more by ages 38-40, a New York Times analysis reported.So even in terms of salary, which doesn’t solely determine whether or not a degree is useful, liberal arts degrees aren’t all that far behind STEM.
It seems too that since people nowadays are going to have to work longer, it’s more important than ever that we actually like and care about what we’re doing.Pursuing (追求) something enjoyable, or else a passion, is continuously found to be a key factor in maintaining healthy relationships, mental health, physical health and energy.In other words, not useless.
And just because someone’s primary job isn’t in their field of study — a writer who teaches high school for example— doesn’t make the degree useless.It just means that their way of finding a stable income is different.The same goes for artists who have to work multiple jobs to support themselves.They might have to find other means of supporting themselves and their artistry.It might be copy editing or it might be tutoring.
So I am going to graduate school, and I am going to graduate school for writing.I might be paying rent by way of overnight restaurant shifts — there’s so much I’m not sure of.But one thing I am sure of is this — I would rather be a writer working two jobs to pay my bills than be no writer at all.
1. A New York Times analysis report is mentioned in Paragraph 3 to ______.| A．analyse the value of different majors | B．prove the argument against arts wrong |
| C．raise the opinion on majors by example | D．present the link between majors and incomes |
| A．Following art dreams keeps one in good condition. |
| B．Doing what one loves builds up one’s confidence. |
| C．Arts improves one’s understanding of different jobs. |
| D．A love for arts helps one maintain passion for work. |
| A．unavoidable | B．common | C．acceptable | D．traditional |
| A．Arts students concern more about the value of life. |
| B．The man not loving his work won’t stick with a job. |
| C．Income often comes first when people choose majors. |
| D．Graduates in arts can find possible development. |
8 . Recently I spoke to some of my students about what they wanted to do after they graduated, and what kind of job prospects they thought they had.
Given that I teach students who are trained to be doctors, I was surprised to find that most students thought that they would not be able to get the jobs they wanted without “outside help”.“What kind of help is that?” I asked, expecting them to tell me that they would need a relative or family friend to help them out.
“Surgery (整形手术)”, one replied.I was pretty alarmed by that response.It seems that the graduates of today are increasingly willing to go under the knife to get ahead of others when it comes to getting a job.One girl told me that she was considering surgery to increase her height.“They break your legs, put in special extending screws, and slowly expand the gap between the two ends of the bone as it regrows.You can get at least 5 cm taller!”
At that point, I was shocked.I am short.I can’t deny that, but I don’t think I would put myself through months of pain just to be a few centimeters taller.I don’t even bother to wear shoes with thick soles, as I’m not trying to hide the fact that I am just not tall!
It seems to me that there is a trend toward wanting “perfection”, and that is an ideal that just does not exist in reality.
No one is born perfect, yet magazines, TV shows and movies present images of thin, tall, beautiful people as being the norm（标准）.Advertisements for slimming aids, beauty treatments and cosmetic surgery clinics fill the pages of newspapers, further creating an idea that “perfection” is a requirement, and that it must be purchased, no matter what the cost.In my opinion, skills, rather than appearance, should determine how successful a person is in his chosen career.
1. We can know from the passage that the author works as ________.| A．a doctor | B．a model | C．a teacher | D．a reporter |
| A．marry a better man/woman | B．become a model |
| C．get an advantage over others in job-hunting | D．attract more admirers |
| A．Excited. | B．Surprised. | C．Happy. | D．Angry. |
| A．everyone should pursue perfection, whatever the cost |
| B．it’s right for graduates to ask for others to help them out in hunting for jobs |
| C．media are to blame for misleading young people in their seeking for surgery |
| D．it is one’s appearance instead of skills that really matters in one’s career |
9 . Tired of your quiet day-to-day life? How about leaving your computer games behind and taking up an extreme sport?
You can ride a bicycle, right? In that case you’re halfway to becoming a mountain biker. All you have to do is take your bike off the road and try some hilly areas. Mountain biking was developed in California in the 1970s and became an Olympic sport in 1996.
Not challenging enough? Skydivers jump from planes at a height of 1,000 to 4,000 meters. You have to be fit but there’s no age limit with this sport. For example, Dilys Price from Cardiff went on her first jump aged 54. The minute she came down, she wanted to go up again. She said: “It was so attractive”.
Some adventures have invented base jumping, in which people jump from tall structures, such as buildings or bridges, with a parachute. Many of their jumps aren’t legal, especially in the cities.Dan Witchalls has jumped off The Shard —London’s 310 meter-high building four times.He says, “Base jumping is scarier than jumping out of a plane. In a plane there is no sense of height, but when you are standing on the edge of the building you can see people and cars, the experience makes it very real.”
It seems there’s no shortage of imagination when it comes to risking life to look cool and get the heart beating wildly. Surfing, diving, rock climbing ...And how about extreme ironing? That is, pressing your clothes on top of a mountain! Extreme ironing is said to have been created in the 1990s in England by a man who saw a large amount of wrinkled clothes and felt bored when doing the cloth ironing. That man was Phil Shaw. For him, the excitement of this sport comes from looking at the viewers’ faces. Shaw says, “Sometimes they look confused; sometimes they laugh. It’s fun to see how people react to it.”
1. What does the author think about mountain biking?| A．A bit boring. | B．Challenging indeed. |
| C．Great fun. | D．Not very hard. |
| A．Skydivers have to be very healthy. | B．Skydiving is not challenging enough. |
| C．Elderly people can also take up skydiving. | D．People can easily become crazy about skydiving. |
| A．The sense of height. | B．Base jumping experience. |
| C．The edge of the building. | D．Jumping out of a plane. |
| A．He liked ironing clothes. | B．He wanted to make clothes ironing more fun. |
| C．He enjoyed different looks on people's faces. | D．He had a good view standing on top of a mountain. |
10 . Snowy weather can be beautiful especially when you are inside looking out. When bad weather happens in Canadian cities like Victoria on Vancouver Island, many workplaces close. Necessary places like hospitals must remain open and that’s where the snow angels come in. Almost 100 people volunteer their time to drive hundreds of health workers to their jobs. They are members of the VI Toyota 4×4 group whose vehicles are set up for snow driving with bigger tires(轮胎)that can make them through deeper snow.
The 4×4 group volunteered to drive workers when there was a heavy snow in 2019. Afterwards, they started a Facebook page and that’s where the work rides are coordinated(协调). When a large snowstorm was due to hit earlier in January 2020, the group reached out to Island Health — the publicly funded health care provider — to say that they were ready to spring into action.
The volunteers were really happy to give a helping hand. “While there were no charges for the service, people were donating money for gas and giving us delicious homemade baked food,” the driver Shelby Newcombe said. “I’ve been running from Sooke all the way to Saanich Peninsula Hospital and anywhere in between. I’ve been driving all walks of life, from doctors to housekeeping staff, and have met people that I normally wouldn’t have.”
The snow angels say their goal is to make sure that all the patients at Island’s hospitals are taken care of and that’s why they do their part. Having people that are giving back to their communities is part of what makes this Victoria rank in the top twenty of the world’s cities for quality of life even when it snows.
1. What do snow angels do in bad weather?| A．They sweep the snow on the roads. |
| B．They provide food for poor people. |
| C．They look after the patients in the hospital. |
| D．They offer free rides to medical workers. |
| A．The contributions of the volunteers. |
| B．The great effect of the heavy snow. |
| C．The reasons for snow angels’ action. |
| D．The results of starting a Facebook page. |
| A．People raised some money for patients. |
| B．He worked in Saanich Peninsula Hospital. |
| C．He helped many people with different jobs. |
| D．People gave homemade baked food to doctors. |
| A．To work for communities. | B．To attract visitors to Victoria. |
| C．To improve the quality of life. | D．To give support to medical work. |
