1 . Directions: Read the following three passages. Summarize the main idea and the main point(s) of the passage in no more than 60 words. Use your own words as far as possible.

The Achievement Gap in the United States

The achievement gap in the United States refers to the observed, persistent disparity(差异)in measures of educational performance among subgroups of U. S. students, especially groups defined by socio-economic status, race and gender. The achievement gap can be observed on a variety of measures including standardized test scores, grade point average, dropout rates, and college enrollment and completion rates.

Research into the causes of the disparity in academic achievement between students has been ongoing since 1966. Many experts argue that achievement gaps are the result of more subtle environmental factors and “opportunity gaps” in the resources available to poor versus wealthy children.

Home environments have a stronger impact on school achievement than in-school factors, in part, because children spend more time outside of school than in school. Studies have found that children in poverty whose parents provide engaging learning environments at home do not start school with the same academic readiness gaps seen among poor children generally.

In addition, the out-of-school factors influencing academic performance differ significantly between children living in poverty and children from middle-income households. Being raised in a low-income family, for example, often means having fewer educational resources at home, in addition to poor health care and nutrition.

The achievement gap has become a focal point of education reform efforts by a number of non-profit organizations and advocacy groups. Attempts to minimize the achievement gap by improving equality of access to educational opportunities have been numerous, such as multicultural education, finance equalization, and interventions to improve school testing, teacher quality and responsibility.

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2 . Homesickness

The longing for the family has caused pain to writers and poets since the beginning of time. Most of us associate very strongly with the place of our birth or the place we have learned to call home.     1    

When you left home to attend school, you may or may not have experienced homesickness to some degree.     2     Other students are very excited in the beginning only to find, after several weeks, that they are starting to miss what was familiar and wish for a visit with friends and family. Still others dread the unfamiliar surroundings from the beginning and are sad and somewhat miserable for a period of time ranging from a few days to an entire semester.

Homesickness can strike any of us when we have moved to new surroundings and are being called upon to meet our needs in a different way and with different people. Each of us has a different tolerance for change and learned different methods for coping with unfamiliar surroundings.     3     Sometimes it can become a more serious depression if the person cannot begin to meet his/her needs for love and belonging with new people. In those incidences, a new student (or an experienced student felling homesick) may want to seek out professional help to talk through his/her concerns.

    4     Often times, new people can show us the way to create new meanings for ourselves and can encourage us to stick with the problem and more through our feelings to new understandings. Often, homesickness is another way of saying we are scared to face the future, or that we’re doubling our ability to cope. Talking with new friends, getting involved in some new activities (until they too become familiar) or speaking with an interested counselor or teacher, can go a long way towards alleviating the worst feelings.

A．The problem can be doubled for an international student struggling to fit in.

B．It can hurt very much not to be able to go there physically in order to feel secure.

C．Paradoxically(看似矛盾)homesickness can often “hit” after Christmas, when you come back after the break and the newness of university life has worn off.

D．Homesickness can be a general term that represents grieving, feeling sad, feeling loss of meaning, fearing change, anticipating disappointment, or being lonely.

E．There is no easy cure for homesickness but it certainly feels better to talk with someone else when you’re experiencing great sadness.

F．Some students get very caught up in the excitement of new friends and activities and seem to forget about their former life entirely.

3 . Deliberation is not always the best option

Humans have developed over millions of years of evolution to respond to certain situations without thinking too hard. If your ancestors _______ movement in the undergrowth, they would run first and ask questions later. At the same time, the _______ to analyse and to plan is part of what distinguishes people from other animals.

The question of when to trust your gut(直觉)and when to test your _______—whether to think fast or slow, in the language of Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist—_______ in the office as much as it does in the savannah(大草原).

Deliberative thinking is the feature of a well-managed workplace. Strategic changes and budget discussions are built on rounds of meetings, memos, formulas and presentations. Processes are increasingly designed to _______ instinctive responses. From blind screening of job applicants to using “red-teaming” techniques to pick apart a firm’s plans, precision _______ instinct.

Yet instinct also has its place. Some decisions are more connected to emotional responses and inherently(固有的)less _______ to analysis. Does a marketing campaign capture the _______ of your company, say, or would this person work well with other people in a team? In _______ customer-service situations, intuition is often a better guide to how to behave than a script.

Gut instincts can also be ________. Plenty of research has shown that intuition becomes more unfailing with experience. In one well-known experiment, conducted in 2012, volunteers were asked to ________ whether a selection of designer handbags were fake or real. Some were instructed to operate on instinct and others to deliberate over their decision. Intuition worked better for those who owned at least three designer handbags; indeed, it ________ analysis. The more expert you become, the better your instincts tend to be.

________, the real reason to embrace fast thinking is that it is, well, fast. Instinctive decision-making is often the only way to get through the day. Researchers at Cornell University once estimated that people make over 200 decisions a day about food alone. The workplace is ________ but a succession of choices, a few big and many small: what to ________, when to intervene, whom to avoid in the lifts and, now, where to work each day.

1.

A．uncovered

B．spotted

C．blocked

D．encountered

2.

A．capacity

B．motive

C．reluctance

D．urge

3.

A．consultation

B．anticipation

C．assumptions

D．reaction

4.

A．integrates

B．matters

C．works

D．abuses

5.

A．bring out

B．pick out

C．make out

D．stamp out

6.

A．equals

B．comprises

C．beats

D．boosts

7.

A．manageable

B．adaptable

C．familiar

D．sensitive

8.

A．attention

B．opportunity

C．status

D．essence

9.

A．rough

B．tough

C．nervous

D．neutral

10.

A．improved

B．copied

C．transferred

D．weakened

11.

A．ensure

B．extinguish

C．clarify

D．assess

12.

A．undertook

B．outperformed

C．facilitated

D．paralleled

13.

A．Likewise

B．However

C．Consequently

D．Moreover

14.

A．anything

B．something

C．nothing

D．everything

15.

A．cooperate

B．prioritize

C．convince

D．strive

4 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passages coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

The first time I invited a good friend not just over to but into my house, post-vaccination, without masks, I couldn’t even wait until she walked up to my door —I ran outside to greet her, and we hugged each other in the driveway. We both held on tight, as we took turns exclaiming how good it was to see each other. We     1    (not hang) out in person since January 2020, and of course I was looking forward to talking, sharing a meal, catching up on all her news—but somehow I felt that     2     any of that happened, I would also get to hug her. It was my first hug from a friend in more than a year, and a reminder of just how     3     (comfort) a good hug can be.

I’ve been a huger since middle school, when my friends and I     4     embrace between classes in the hall as though we hadn’t just seen one another the day before. In high school, I volunteered at a Girl Scouts camp every summer, and at the end of each session, many of our campers would seek us out     5     (say) goodbye. My fellow counselors and I would typically offer     6     a choice: Hug, handshake or high five? Most of the kids would choose a hug. But there were always at least a few     7     would opt for a handshake, at times delivered so solemnly that I felt like we were going into business together, or a high five, some slapping so hard that my hand     8     (hurt). I always appreciated this ritual, especially the individual ask, for the simple reason     9     it allowed me to think about and honor each camper’s wishes. As I venture out from my pandemic bubble, I hope to bring the same kind of intentionality to every much     10     (anticipate) reunion.