1 . Regrets are often painful. A study suggests that some people can overcome them, said Jia Wei Zhang, a psychology graduate at the University of California. But this isn’t the case for everyone, he said.
The researchers wondered why some people report feeling improvement from regrets but others don’t. Does it lie in how people approach their regrets?
In the study, the researchers focused on self-compassion (自我同情) as a potential factor in why some people have an easier time leaving their regrets behind them.
400 people attended an experiment. First, they were asked to write about their biggest regret. Half wrote something they did but wish they hadn’t done; the other half wrote something they didn’t do but wish they had. Then, the participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups: self compassion, self-esteem and a control group. The self-esteem group was asked to respond by “talking to yourself about this regret from the aspect of confirming your positive qualities”.
The control group was asked to write about their favorite hobby rather than their regret. Then, they were asked about their feelings of forgiveness, acceptance and personal improvement following the exercise.
They found that the self-compassion group reported greater feelings of acceptance, forgiveness and personal improvement, compared with the control group and the self esteem group. In other words, focusing on your best qualities is not what helps you feel better about a regret. Rather, being compassionate toward yourself is what may make a difference, the researchers found.
It’s possible that people who practice self-compassion are able to confront their regrets and see what went wrong, so they can make a better choice in the future, Zhang told Live Science. Self-compassion pushes people to accept their regret instead of running away from it.
The researchers used an example of this from a previous study on breast cancer patients who were asked to try thinking about their treatment in a positive light before it began. The women who did so reported greater feelings of personal growth later on.
1. What does the underlined word “confront” in Paragraph 7 mean?| A．Handle | B．Forget. |
| C．Ignore | D．Show. |
| A．Think of a way out. | B．Write about their regrets. |
| C．Record their favorite hobbies. | D．Treat their regrets in positive ways. |
| A．To cover up their regrets. |
| B．To see if they have weaknesses. |
| C．To see if they have self compassion. |
| D．To help them feel better about their regrets. |
| A．They tend to focus on their best quality |
| B．They tend to be compassionate towards themselves. |
| C．They tend to refuse to make a choice |
| D．They tent to run away from the regrets. |
| A．To show the method of the research. |
| B．To show the value of the acceptance. |
| C．To show the truth of people’s feeling. |
| D．To show the difficulty of the research. |
2 . Some people say summer is the time when teachers should get more pay. But not everyone is grateful to teachers for keeping kids occupied (无空闲的) between August and June: Washington state representative Liz Pike has written a Facebook post, titled “A life in the day of a WA state representative,” and responded to teachers’ complaints of rising costs of living. The post has received criticism for being anti-teacher. After reading her post, I feel that Liz Pike should rethink her criticism of public school teaching and avoid comparing it to the private school.
Many of us teachers would certainly like teaching to be more like the private school. We see nothing wrong with fair pay for fair performance. In fact, performance is the name of the game. With standardized testing popular throughout K-12 education, teachers are some of the most analyzed and performance-measured employees in the United States. Liz Pike is very angry that teachers want raises even while test scores are dropping. Well, how are we supposed to have discipline (纪律) in the classroom when our hands are tied and we can hardly do anything with naughty students or fail students who are not prepared to move on to the next grade?
Teachers would love to be able to turn education around and improve student performance. But we can’t, and we should not suffer for it. Unlike private school businesses, public schools cannot turn away “customers”. A private school business serves customers who walk through the door of their own free will, while public schools have to educate students who only attend because courts say they must.
She says those who are “uninspired” by a lack of a cost of living increase should give up teaching. Is this the message that she thinks should be sent to the students whose academic performance she claims (声称) to care so much about? That “if you love it you’ll shut up and not stand up for yourself”? I think teachers should stand up for themselves and I also think supporting teachers can make teachers teach children how to stand up for themselves.
1. What is Liz Pike’s opinion?| A．Teachers shouldn’t ask for a pay rise. | B．Teachers should be treated equally. |
| C．Teachers should accept public criticism. | D．Teachers shouldn’t give students much homework. |
| A．Their performance is not measured. |
| B．They are under the control of a system of rules. |
| C．They can’t master the correct teaching method. |
| D．.Many schools are becoming private. |
| A．students | B．teachers |
| C．clever businessmen | D．private schools |
| A．some teachers are not excellent enough |
| B．teachers shouldn’t complain about their living costs |
| C．supporting teachers is helpful to students |
| D．Liz Pike doesn’t care about students’ academic performance |
3 . The Trump administration has cancelled a policy that would have banned foreign students from staying in the US if they take online-only classes for the fall semester.
The decision came after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced the policy on July 6, under which international students would not be allowed to stay in or come to the country if their schools operate online due to the pandemic.
The policy caused a string of lawsuits (诉讼) brought by universities and a group of 17 states. Harvard University, with overseas students making up more than 20 percent of the student body, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT), whose foreign undergraduates make up nearly 30 percent of enrollment, were the first to file suit.
The institutions claim the regulation is “arbitrary and capricious(任性的)”—arguing that the agency is not considering the health of students, faculty and staff members—and has not taken into account the “reality” of the pandemic continuing.
“President Trump’s arbitrary actions put the health and safety of our students and communities across the country at risk,” said Xavier Becerra, California attorney general( 检察长), in a Twitter post following the announcement of the rescission(废除). California is among the 17 states that filed suit against the policy.
On July 2, the American Council on Education (ACE) and 38 other groups wrote to the US State Department and the Department of Homeland Security, seeking flexibility into the next academic year.
But four days later, ICE reversed the relaxed regulation, requiring foreign students to transfer to institutions that offer some in-person instruction—or leave the US.
“International students are an extraordinary benefit not just to American higher education but to our entire nation, resulting in a wealth of new ideas, cultural connections, cutting-edge technology, and life-saving medical advances, including in the fight against COVID-19,” said Mitchell, ACE president.
He also noted that the economic benefit that comes with the roughly 1 million international students in the US is also immense, bringing about $ 41 billion and resulting in more than 450,000 US jobs.
1. Which issued a policy that forbade some foreign students to stay in the USA?| A．ACE. | B．Facebook. | C．ICE. | D．MIT. |
| A．Positive. | B．Tolerant. | C．Carefree. | D．Negative. |
| A．Extremely great. | B．Not ordinary or usual. |
| C．Uncertain and feeling doubt. | D．Having features that are the same. |
| A．Trump’s regulation is arbitrary and capricious |
| B．Trump administration drops foreign student visa rule |
| C．ACE tries to seek flexibility into next academic year |
| D．Foreign students in US have to take online-only classes |
4 . Are you aware that every single person on this planet who has ever lived, lives now or will live, has a different perception of reality? The way each of us perceives the world is to some degree different than any other person's perception of reality. __①__ What is absolutely real and right for you may be an illusion, or nonexistent, or completely false for another!
It's important to know this. __②__ For example, the news media loves to create drama, and one of their favorite methods is to elicit(引起) fear: fear of other people, fear of the weather, fear of the economy, etc. The news media tells us how to perceive the world—and if a person takes the newscasters at their word, they perceive the world to be very dangerous and hostile. To that person，the mental images and emotions suggested by other people create a version of reality that is completely different from the reality perceived by someone who does not watch the news.
Things are not always what they seem. For most people, seeing is believing, which is why magicians, artists and marketers are so successful. Just like the TV news, they show you only what they want you to see and it is perceived as reality. But how would that reality change if you saw what went on behind the scenes or what was left out?
What's your story?
We all have a story. Over time, your story takes on a life of its own and you become your story. But who's the author and why did him put so much crap in there? All that unnecessary suffering, struggle, heartache, worry and pain... wouldn't it be better to live a story without all that? Who wants to live in a story with that much boredom and unfulfilled longings?
The story got its start when you were born, and was coauthored by you along with the influences in your life. __③__ Anytime you were influenced by someone or something, you unconsciously handed your pen over and said “Here, you write this about me.” So you are not even writing your OWN story! No one does—until they recognize that fact, and make a conscious decision to take control of the pen. You CAN write your story the way you want it to play out.
________________
It is helpful to understand how the brain takes reality and filters it to create your unique perception of reality. It's an automatic unconscious action that is based on：
● Physical experiences (which is why some optical illusions are extremely unsettling)
● Past conditioning (how you are programmed to see the world)
__④__ When you become aware of the fact that you are constructing your own reality, you can take charge and build one that is more pleasing. If you change your mind, your vibration and your intentions, you can change your circumstances! Instead of, “I am a victim of circumstance，” imprint in your mind, “I am the cocreator of my life”； Instead of, “I am sick and tired of...” imprint in your mind，“I am in control and enthusiastic about what I do”.
Raise your vibration by thinking, talking and acting more positively. As positiveness becomes a mental habit，that change will become your new inner reality, which will soon manifest in your outer reality.
The power of perception is immense. Choose to see more good than bad, more abundance than lack, more love than indifference and more success than struggle.
1. What does the underlined word “perception” mean in the first paragraph?| A．sense | B．acceptance |
| C．reception | D．deception |
| A．By answering questions. | B．By giving examples. |
| C．By making comparisons. | D．By drawing conclusions. |
| A．① | B．② | C．③ | D．④ |
| A．Seeing is not believing |
| B．Live up to your expectations |
| C．Change your perception and create a new reality |
| D．Physical experiences and past conditioning really count |
| A．Instructive. | B．Humorous. |
| C．Critical. | D．Ironic. |
In an effort to prevent language loss, scholars from a number of organizations- UNESCO and National Geographic among them –have for many years been documenting dying languages and the cultures they reflect.
Mark Turin, a scientist at the Macmillan Center, Yale University, who specializes in the languages and oral traditions of the Himalayas, is following that tradition. His recently published book, A Grammar of Thangmi with an Ethnolinguistic Introduction to the Speakers and Their Culture, grows out of his experience living, looking and raising a family in a village in Nepal.
Documenting the Tangmi language and culture is just a starting point for Turin, who seeks to include other languages and oral traditions across the Himalayans reaches of India, Nepal, Bhutan, and China. But he is not content to simply record these voices before they disappear without record.
At the University of Cambridge Turin discovered a wealth of important materials- including photographs, films, tap recordings, and field notes- which had remained unstudied and were badly in need of care and protection.
Now, through the two organizations that he has founded-the Digital Himalaya Project and the World Oral Literature Project- Turin has started a campaign to make such documents, found in libraries and stores around the world, available not just to scholars but to the youngers.
Generations of communities from whom the materials were originally collected.Thanks to digital technology and the widely available Internet. Turin notes, the endangered languages can be saved and reconnected with speech communities.
1. Many scholars are making efforts to ________.
| A．promote global languages |
| B．rescue the disappearing languages |
| C．search for language communities |
| D．set up languages research organizations |
| A．Having first records of the languages. |
| B．Writing books on language searching. |
| C．Telling stories about language users. |
| D．Linking with the native speakers. |
| A．The cultural statics in India. |
| B．The documents available at Yale. |
| C．His language research in Britain. |
| D．His personal experience in Nepal. |
| A．Write sell and donate. |
| B．Record, repeat and reward. |
| C．Collect, protect and reconnect. |
| D．Design, experiment and report. |
6 . Time and how we experience it have always puzzled us. Physicists have created fascinating theories, but their time is measured by a pendulum (钟摆) and is not psychological time, which leaps with little regard to the clock or calendar. As someone who understood the distinction observed, ''When you sit with a nice girl for two hours it seems like a minute, but when you sit on a hot stove, a minute seems like two hours. ''
Psychologists have long noticed that larger units of time, such as months and years, fly on swifter wings as we age. They also note that the more time is structured with schedules and appointments, the more rapidly it seems to pass. For example, a day at the office flies compared with a day at the beach.
Expectation and familiarity also make time seem to flow more rapidly. Almost all of us have had the experience of driving somewhere we've never been before. Surrounded by unfamiliar scenery, with no real idea of when we’ll arrive, we experience the trip as lasing a long time. But the return trip, although exactly as long, seems to take far less time. The novelty of the outward journey has become routine.
When days become as identical as beads (小珠子)on a string, they mix together, and even months become a single day. To counter this, try to find ways to interrupt the structure of your day-- to stop time, so to speak.
Learning something new is one of the ways to slow the passage of time. One of the reasons the days of our youth seems to be full and long is that these are the days of learning and discovery. For many of us, learning ends when we leave school, but this doesn't have to be.
1. What is the underlined sentence in paragraph 1 used to show?| A．Psychological time is quite puzzling. |
| B．Time should not be measured by a pendulum. |
| C．Physical time is different from psychological time |
| D．Physical theory has nothing to do with the true sense of time |
| A．Our sense of time changes. |
| B．We spend less time at the beach |
| C．More time is structured and scheduled |
| D．Time is structured with too many appointments. |
| A．excitement | B．unfamiliarity | C．imagination | D．amusement |
| A．To give various explanations about time |
| B．To describe how we experience time physically |
| C．To show the differences of two kinds of time |
| D．To explain why time flies and how to slow it down |
7 . Hardware in general, and smartphones in particular, have become a huge environmental and health problem in the Global South's landfill sites （垃圾填埋场）.
Electronic waste（ e-waste ） currently takes up 5 percent of all global waste, and it is set to increase rapidly as more of us own more than one smartphone, laptop and power bank. They end up in places like Agbogbloshie on the outskirts of Ghana's capital, Accra. It is the biggest e-waste dump in the world, where 10, 000 informal workers walk through tons of abandoned goods as part of an informal recycling process. They risk their health searching for the precious metals that are found in abandoned smartphones.
But Agbogbloshie should not exist. The Basel Convention, a 1989 treaty, aims to prevent developed nations from unauthorized dumping of e-waste in less developed countries. The e-waste industry, however, circumvents the regulations by exporting e-waste labelled as "secondhand goods" to poor countries like Ghana, knowing full well that it is heading for a landfill site.
A recent report found Agbogbloshie contained some of the most dangerous chemicals. This is not surprising: smartphones contain chemicals like mercury （水银），lead and even arsenic（砷）. Reportedly, one egg from a free-range chicken in Agbogbloshie contained a certain chemical which can cause cancer and damage the immune system at a level that's about 220 times greater than a limit set by the European Food Safety Authority（EFSA） . Most worryingly, these poisonous chemicals are free to pollute the broader soil and water system. This should concern us all, since some of Ghana's top exports are cocoa and nuts.
Some governments have started to take responsibility for their consumers' waste. For example, Germany has started a project that includes a sustainable （可持续的）recycling system at Agbogbloshie, along with a health clinic for workers. However, governments cannot solve the problem alone, as there is an almost limitless consumer demand for hardware, especially when governments green policies are focused on issues like climate change.
Only the manufacturers can fix this. A more economically sustainable and politically possible solution is through encouraging hardware manufacturers to make the repair, reuse and recycling of hardware profitable, or at least cost-neutral.
1. What can we infer from Paragraph 2？| A．Electronic products need improving urgently. |
| B．Electronic waste is too complex to get fully recycled. |
| C．Electronic waste requires more landfill sites across Ghana. |
| D．Electronic pollution is a burning question in Agbogbloshie. |
| A．Tightens. | B．Abolishes. |
| C．Gets around. | D．Brings in. |
| A．The violation of EFSA's standards. |
| B．The lack of diversity in Ghana's exports. |
| C．The damage to chicken's immune system. |
| D．The threat of polluted food around the world. |
| A．Manufacturers' developing a sustainable hardware economy. |
| B．Governments' adjusting their green policies about e-waste. |
| C．Reducing customers 'demands for electronic products. |
| D．Letting governments take on the main responsibility. |
In the movie Jurassic World (2015), a theme park filled with dinosaurs, was brought back from extinction through cloning.
Although the film is of course fictional, the methods used in it to bring animals back from the dead may soon become reality.
Scientists from Harvard University in the US are currently working on resurrecting the woolly mammoth, a mammal that became extinct around 4,000 years ago.
However, it wouldn’t be an exact copy of the hairy beast. “Our aim is to produce a hybrid elephant-mammoth embryo,” Professor George Church, head of the team of scientists, told The Guardian.
“Actually, it would be more like an elephant with a number of mammoth traits. We’re not there yet, but it could happen in a couple of years.”
The team is hoping to make a “mammophant” — a mix between an elephant and a mammoth. It would be like a regular elephant but have features from the mammoth that would make it more adaptable to cold weather.
So why go through all the effort and expense to bring back an animal that died out thousands of years ago? The answer lies in climate change.
It’s hoped that the creatures will stop frost in the world’s tundra (冻土带) from melting and releasing huge amounts of harmful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
“Mammoths used to keep the tundra from thawing (融化) by punching through snow and allowing cold air to come in,” said Church. “In the summer, they knocked down trees and helped the grass grow.” Church and his team are attempting to mix mammoth DNA, recovered from frozen samples of the animal found in Siberia, with that of the Asian elephant, which is its closest relative.
“So far, scientists have managed to incorporate traits of the mammoth into elephant DNA. In a few years, they hope to make an embryo, but that’s a long way from creating a viable embryo,” Popular Science magazine wrote.
Although we may not be seeing woolly mammoths at the zoo any time in the near future, it’s still exciting to know that there is still the possibility of a real Jurassic Park someday, however tiny that possibility may be.
1. The underlined word “resurrecting” in Paragraph 3 probably means__________.| A．making something adaptable to current condition |
| B．studying a sample of something |
| C．bringing something back to life |
| D．producing a hybrid embryo of something |
| A．It would be a combination of elephant, mammoth and dinosaur. |
| B．It would be an exact copy of the woolly mammoth with long hair. |
| C．It would look like a normal elephant but also share some mammoth traits. |
| D．It would be like a bigger sized elephant with small ears and short hair. |
| A．To improve biodiversity. |
| B．To help fight global warming. |
| C．To remove frost in the tundra. |
| D．To help grass grow in the tundra. |
| A．The media holds a cautious attitude toward the mammophant program. |
| B．A hybrid elephant-mammoth embryo is likely to be produced within two years |
| C．The method used to produce mammophants was borrowed from the movie Jurassic World |
| D．Scientists still have a long way to fulfill the goals of the mammophant program. |
9 . A few weeks ago, I called an Uber to take me to the Boston airport for a flight home for the holidays. As I slid into the back seat of the car, the warm intonations (语调) of the driver’s accent washed over me in a familiar way.
I learned that he was a recent West African immigrant with a few young children, working hard to provide for his family. I could relate: I am the daughter of two Ethiopian immigrants who made their share of sacrifices to ensure my success. I told him I was on a college break and headed home to visit my parents. That’s how he found out I go to Harvard. An approving eye glinted at me in the rearview window, and quickly, we crossed the boundaries of rider and driver. I became his daughter, all grown up—the product of his sacrifice.
And then came the fateful question: “What do you study?” I answered “history and literature” and the pride in his voice faded, as I knew it might. I didn’t even get to add “and African-American studies” before he cut in, his voice thick with disappointment, “All that work to get into Harvard, and you study history?”
Here I was, his daughter, squandering the biggest opportunity of her life. He went on to deliver the age-old lecture that all immigrant kids know. We are to become doctors (or lawyers, if our parents are being generous) — to make money and send money back home. The unspoken demand, made across generations which my Uber driver laid out plainly, is simple: Fulfill your role in the narrative (故事)of upward mobility so your children can do the same.
I used to feel anxious and backed into a corner by the questioning, but now as a junior in college, I’m grateful for their support more than anything. This holiday season, I’ve promised myself I won’t huff and get annoyed at their inquiries. I won’t defensively respond with “but I plan to go to law school” when I get unrequested advice. I’ll just smile and nod, and enjoy the warmth of the occasion.
1. What disappointed the driver?| A．The author’s attitude towards study. |
| B．The sacrifice of the author’s parents. |
| C．The author’s majors at college. |
| D．The lack of African-American studies. |
| A．Wasting. | B．Creating. | C．Valuing. | D．Expecting. |
| A．Because these professions are considered highly profitable. |
| B．Because their parents want them to move upward in society |
| C．Because their parents are generous enough to afford the fees. |
| D．Because they have more opportunities to benefit their children. |
| A．Getting embarrassed. | B．Feeling quite content. |
| C．Defending herself. | D．Appreciating his concern. |
10 . When Rachel Ratelle saw a news video of a burned koala trying to climb a tree to safety in fire-ravaged（火灾肆虐的）Australia, she decided to do something about it.
She looked up wildlife rescue and relief agencies in Australia to find out what they needed most. Besides donations, many organizations asked for hand-sewn and knitted pouches（袋子）and wraps for koalas and other animals that were burned or had lost their homes and parents in the fires.
This idea attracted Ratelle, but there was just one problem.
"I'd never sewn in my life," said Ratelle, 17, a senior at Rancho Buena Vista High School in Vista, US. "Giving money seemed like something too simple. But I wanted to directly help these animals by doing something myself, so I decided to learn how to sew."
Over the next few months, Ratelle bought her own sewing machine and taught herself how to sew via videos online. Then she bought 18 yards of fabric and sewed 25 pouches of different sizes and shipped them off to Fir Australian Wildlife Needing Aid (FAWNA), one of several relief organizations that have rushed to rescue koalas, kangaroos and other species suffering from bums. A week later, she received a photo from FAWNA with a baby kangaroo in one of her larger pouches. "It made me feel like I contributed to the world and it showed how a simple act of kindness can go a long way," said Ratelle, who hopes to study biology for a future career as a nurse practitioner.
"I plan to use my new sewing skills to help animals and people devastated by natural disaster," she said.
Several craft union websites around the world have called for Australian relief by making the animal pouches. Karen Newberry and her two daughters Madison, 12 and Rochelle, 8, from San Diego also offered their help in such a way. For Newberry, "It was a big push that made us crafters, sewers realize there's something more we can do than just make things for ourselves," she said.
1. What do the first two paragraphs mainly talk about?| A．What inspired Ratelle to learn to sew. |
| B．What is needed to save koalas and other species. |
| C．The poor living conditions of wild animals in Australia. |
| D．Different ways to help koalas and other animals in Australia. |
| A．Surprised. | B．Calm. | C．Proud. | D．Moved. |
| A．Ruined | B．Challenged | C．Reduced | D．Abandoned |
| A．People should stay united through difficult times. |
| B．Life is not easy for crafters and sewers in Australia. |
| C．It is challenging for crafters and sewers to do relief work. |
| D．Crafters and sewers can do more to help animals. |
