1 . History has been characterized differently. It’s hard to define such a monumental thing without dealing with the tensions between what is fact and what is fiction, as well as what was included and what was left out. So it’s only fitting that those tensions are wrapped up in the history of the word itself.
The short version is that the term history has evolved from an ancient Greek verb that means “to know”. The Greek word historia originally meant inquiry, the act of seeking knowledge, as well as the knowledge that results from inquiry. And from there it’s a short jump to the accounts of events that a person might put together from making inquiries-what we might call stories.
The words story and history share much of their ancestry, and in previous eras, the overlap between them was much messier than it is today. The working out of distinction has taken centuries. Today, we might think of the dividing line as the one between fact and fiction. Stories are fanciful tales woven at bedtime. That word can even be used to describe an outright lie. Histories, on the other hand, are records of events. That word refers to all time before this very moment and everything that really happened up to now.
The distinction is still messier than that, of course. Plenty of stories like the story of a person’s life or a "true story" on which a less-true film is based -are supposed to be factual. And plenty of stories go against easy categorization one way or the other. Take the notion of someone telling their side of a story. To them, that account might be perfectly correct. To someone else, that account might be totally incorrect.
As the linguistic divide has evolved since the Middle Ages, we have come to expect more from history -that it be free from the imperfections of viewpoint and selective memory that stories so often contain. Yet it isn’t, humans being the imperfect creatures and history being something that is made rather than handed down from some all-knowing writer.
That is why feminists, for example, rejected the word history and championed the notion of herstory during the 1970s to point out the fact that history has mostly come from a male perspective. The “his” in history has nothing, linguistically, to do with the pronoun referring to a male person. And some critics pointed that out back in the 1970s, saying that the invention of herstory showed ignorance about where the word comes from. But there’s evidence that the feminists knew as much at the time. And more importantly, the fact that it sounds possible that there would be a link can still tell us something. It can suggest a lot the about gender and whether a female viewpoint is included in the tales passed down in textbooks. That’s why, even if the origins of the word “history” are clear, the question of who gets to decide which version of the past is the right one remains a controversial debate centuries after the term came to be.
1. The word “overlap” in Paragraph 3 probably indicates ____.| A．the knowledge people put together from different inquiries |
| B．the distinction between the ancestry of “story” and “history” |
| C．the meaning and use both “story” and “history” shared |
| D．the dividing line between tales and records of events |
| A．people often feel reluctant to tell a true story in a factual way |
| B．different sides of stories fall into different categories too easily |
| C．people have to tell correct or incorrect stories against their will |
| D．sometimes it is very hard to distinguish between fact and fiction |
| A．history can be plainly interpreted as “his story” |
| B．feminists didn’t know about the origins of “history” |
| C．women should decide what to be written in history |
| D．history is something made as a one-sided story |
| A．These Are the Characteristics of the Word “History” |
| B．This Is Where the Word “History” Comes From |
| C．How do “History”, “Story” and “Herstory” Differ? |
| D．History Doesn’t Always Tell All the Truth to Us |
| A．discuss the origin and meaning of the word “history” |
| B．point out the problems with the way history is taught |
| C．show that history is often influenced by personal biases |
| D．emphasize the importance of knowing the true meaning of words |
2 . To put it simply, stress can be the father of growth, while a crisis can be the mother of innovation. The notion that great good can emerge from great adversity (逆境) is as old as the legend of the great phoenix (凤凰), who not only arises but soars to new heights from its own ashes.
In 1598, William Shakespeare penned the play As You Like It. One of the most famous lines from that play is spoken in Act 2 Scene 1 by Duke Senior, “Sweet are the uses of adversity which, like the toad (癞蛤蟆), ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head.” Even 500 years ago, the potential value of adversity was recognized, not by a great healer, but by a great playwright. Can this really be the case?
Fast-forward to the great silent film star Mary Pickford. She was called the most popular actress in the world in the 1910s and 1920s. Failing to continue acting with the advent of the “talkies”(movies with recorded sound), she co-founded the film company United Artists. Shifting her talents to producing and directing, she became the most powerful woman in the entertainment industry. She once noted, “You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call ‘failure’ is not the falling down, but the staying down.”
Rather than fear and try to avoid adversity, perhaps we should accept the inevitability (必然) of adversity and prepare for it. Indeed, positive things can emerge from adversity.
Adversity reveals true opportunities for those preparing to take advantage. Dr. John Krumboltz’s happenstance theory states that career and life development is best fostered by preparing for opportunities that you may not know even exist in the current moment. Numerous unpredictable factors are potentially shaping the future. These include the crises adversity brings.
In Friedrich Nietzsche’s book, Behold the Man, the German philosopher writes that a person who has “turned out well” could be recognized by the ability to take advantage of and prosper from adversity, just as he wrote before, “What does not kill him makes him stronger.”
So, the next time adversity enters your life, will you run from it, or will you embrace it and use it as a step ping stone to greater happiness and success?
1. Why does the author quote the line from Shakespeare’s play?| A．To emphasize the great wisdom of Shakespeare. |
| B．To highlight the beauty of Shakespeare’s language. |
| C．To challenge the conventional belief regarding adversity. |
| D．To show the long-standing recognition of adversity’s value. |
| A．Fame can block one’s achievements. |
| B．Strong determination overcomes adversity. |
| C．Accepting adversity results in positive outcomes. |
| D．Courage in the face of challenges leads to success. |
| A．Embracing uncertainty. | B．Managing life’s challenges. |
| C．Seizing hidden opportunities. | D．Focusing on personal growth. |
| A．Cautious. | B．Favorable. | C．Neutral. | D．Doubtful. |
| A．Finding value and opportunity in facing adversity. |
| B．Stress as the primary cause of growth and innovation. |
| C．How to avoid adversity and negative experiences in life. |
| D．Historical figures who failed to overcome adversity effectively. |
1．成立该社团的目的；
2．社团拟开展的活动及原因。
参考词汇：校委会：School Committee
注意：
1．词数不少于100；
2．可适当加入细节，以使内容充实、行文连贯。
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I am sitting in an empty football field after my last high school football game has finished a few hours ago. I’m the quarterback (前卫) on my team. But in fact that’s not true now. I was the quarterback, and that’s a good way to end a high school football career at a high point.
I’ve been sitting here by myself shivering in the cold and thinking back over the game and other games I’ve played in my life. I’m looking at the goal and thinking how it always seemed to reach out and pull me with a secret, magical force.
I was 8 when I first started playing football. My dad loved football and would practice with me at home- passing, catching, running. He tried to teach me everything he knew about the game. “Just remember: don’t ever give up.” “Stay in the game. Don’t lose your concentration.” “Go out there-and give 110 percent every time.” Well, that was a long time ago but I still hear his words ringing in my ears. I had a lot on my mind before the game today. I don’t like things to be an end, I guess, and this was the last game, and it was the league championship. I was talking to myself and reminding myself about what to do and not to do. I didn’t sleep at all last night. But when the game started my mind became empty. Everything dropped away from me. I just lived in this game, this moment. I didn’t hear the crowd; I didn’t feel the cold or the pain; I never felt tired. I just kept my eyes on the ball, and inside a soft white light showing me the way to the goal, which was a beautiful feeling.
It’s all over now and it’s really getting cold here. It’s starting to snow. The sun’s almost gone and I can hardly see the goal. Now it’s dark and I’m sitting here all alone. Well, I guess it’s time to say goodbye and move on.
1. Why does the writer say that he was the quarterback in paragraph 1? (no more than 15 words)2. For what reason did the writer have a lot on his mind before the game? (no more than 20 words)
3. What made him feel beautiful in his last game? (no more than 15 words)
4. How can you understand the underlined sentence? (no more than 10 words)
5. What is the goal of your life? And how will you make it realized? (no more than 20 words)
5 . Back in 1930, economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that with technological change and improvements in productivity, we’d be working only 15 hours a week in the near future. But while working hours have declined by 26%, most of us still work 42.5 hours a week on average, according to Eurostat figures.
One of the things Keynes underestimated is our desire to compete with our peers — a drive that makes us work more than we need to. “We don’t measure productivity by how many acres we’ve harvested, so the amount of working time becomes an indicator.” says Alex Soojung-Kim Pang.
Due to computerization and globalization in the 1980s, managers could demand more of employees under the threat that jobs could be given to someone else, so the pressure increased. And we took it, overwhelmed with the pressure while shouldering the burden all the same at the cost of our health. Psychologist Barbara Killinger writes such a phenomenon in Workaholics: The Respectable Addicts.
But far from delivering productivity, value, or personal fulfillment, overwork has been proven to lead to burnout, stress, poor health, etc. Nevertheless, we persisted — until the fourth Industrial Revolution came along.
The fourth Industrial Revolution has accelerated the move towards automation and AI, especially for jobs with high physical proximity (接近). Economist Dr. Carl Frey predicts that at least 40% of current jobs will be lost to automation by 2050.
There are exceptions. Jobs that involve complex social interactions are beyond current robot skills, such as teaching, cleaning jobs, and jobs that rely on creativity, according to Frey and Osborne.
According to McKinsey, those whose work falls outside the caring, cleaning and creative fields will still work in the future, just differently. In about 60% of occupations, it’s estimated that a third of the tasks can be automated, meaning substantial changes to the way we work. A large-scale study carried out by accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers predicted that over the next 20 years, although 7 million jobs will be lost to AI, 7.2 million new ones will be created as a result. So we will work in the future: we just don’t know what we’ll be doing yet.
1. What do the figures in Paragraph 1 mainly indicate?| A．Our working time failed to decrease as much as predicted. |
| B．Technology keeps changing with the development of society. |
| C．Keynes’ prediction mainly focused on productivity improvement. |
| D．Overwork will result in fierce competition between employees. |
| A．People’s false sense of time. |
| B．People’s awareness of peer competition. |
| C．People’s ignoring the quality of their jobs. |
| D．People’s pressure to increase productivity. |
| A．They argued for fairness. |
| B．They devoted more to their work. |
| C．They tried to escape shouldering the burden. |
| D．They emphasized the importance of their health. |
| A．Counseling service will be paid less attention to. |
| B．More and more cleaners become unemployed in cities. |
| C．A majority of teachers will be replaced by robots. |
| D．The types of jobs with high physical proximity will be transformed. |
| A．Worried. | B．Hopeful. | C．Objective. | D．Indifferent. |
6 . Welcome to the library, new students! The library will play a big part in your experience while you’re at the University of York. There’s a lot to take in if you’re new.
Buildings
We have several library sites, including a main library on Campus West and two other libraries in the City Centre. Our main library is made up of three connected buildings: the Morrell, the Fairhurst and the Burton. You enter all three buildings through the Morrell.
Resources
Our library has lots of books and journal articles that will help with your studies and research. We also provide videos, slides and interactive tutorials (学习指南) to help you develop your information skills, learn to code (编码), work with data and get creative with digital technologies. We’ll show you how to follow good academic practice and develop your digital skills for effective reading, note-making, essay writing and problem solving.
Checking out
Always bring Library Card with you as you will need it to enter the library and borrow items. You can borrow books and access the electronic resources provided by the library for free. There’s no need to request books that are available. This means you will need to go to the shelves yourself to find the books you need. You can borrow up to 75 items at once, and you’ll need to check your emails to find out when to bring them back.
Opening Hours
The library is usually open from 8 am to midnight. The exceptions to this are days over the Christmas period when the library closes early or is closed all day, and the exam period at the end of each semester when the library opens 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
1. The entrance of the main library is in ______.| A．the Morrell | B．the Fairhurst | C．the Burton | D．the City Centre |
| A．Effective reading and public speaking. | B．Video editing and slide making. |
| C．Note-making and problem solving. | D．Information coding and tutorial making. |
| A．You need make a request in advance. |
| B．You should pay the deposit with your Library Card. |
| C．You can directly take them from the shelves on your own. |
| D．You can borrow 75 books at once and return them anytime you want. |
| A．On December 25th. | B．On the day before the final exam. |
| C．On weekend. | D．On the first day of a new semester. |
| A．An education journal. | B．A travel brochure. | C．A local newspaper. | D．A student guide. |
7 . Having a rival (对手) can keep you committed to achieving your goals and enhance your overall performance. But before you go out and find an entrepreneur (创业者) to outcompete(胜出), it’s important to understand and avoid the traps that often come with rivalry. After all, competitive rivalry can also make it difficult for you to make a decision and increase your willingness to take risks, behaviors that can ultimately hurt your venture’s (风险项目) success.
Finding someone you’re committed to outcompeting can be a great way to stay focused on your goals and push your venture to the next level. But when you’re intently focused on outperforming your rivals, you may begin to develop a “win-at-all-costs” mentality (心态) that causes you to ignore how you achieve success. One group of researchers, for example, examined the link between rivalry and unethical(不道德的) behavior. They found that when people compete against their rivals, they are more willing to behave unethically to win. But such behavior may damage your reputation and strain(使……紧张) relationships important to your success. One way to avoid this trap is to stop and reflect on what’s important. While outperforming your rivals may provide short-term benefits, the loss of your integrity(正直) will have long-term consequences.
One reason having a rival can enhance your venture’s performance is that it creates a level of excitement that drives you to work harder. But this eagerness to win may also hurt your venture’s success, particularly when it causes you to make impulsive, insensible decisions. But it’s possible to avoid such costly mistakes by making a habit of engaging in critical thinking, such as considering opposing viewpoints and conducting cost-benefit analyses, especially for those decisions that are complex and can determine the future of your venture.
The sense of eagerness that comes with having a rival can not only cause you to make poorer decisions, but it can also lead you to take greater risks that put your venture in great dangers. One way you can overcome the risk-inducing (诱发) effects of rivalry that stand to endanger your venture’s success is to remain attentive to your emotional state and actively monitor how such feelings are affecting your decision-making.
1. How can competitive rivalry benefit entrepreneurs according to the passage?| A．By enabling them to outcompete other entrepreneurs. |
| B．By enabling them to make their venture a success. |
| C．By helping them to reach long-term goals. |
| D．By helping them to stay goal-oriented. |
| A．They may adopt strategies that are bound to ruin their venture. |
| B．They may depend on unethical means to outperform their rivals. |
| C．They may be too eager to succeed while ignoring the huge labor cost. |
| D．They may be intently focused on winning at the current market level. |
| A．Think very carefully about what really matters. |
| B．Prioritize obtaining immediate benefits. |
| C．Estimate the long-term consequences. |
| D．Reflect on what successes are achievable. |
| A．By engaging themselves in critical reasoning. |
| B．By developing a habit of keeping their integrity. |
| C．By criticizing themselves for previous poor performances. |
| D．By stopping themselves from being too excited about their successes. |
| A．By paying close attention to their current performance. |
| B．By taking steps that stand to endanger their rivals’ success. |
| C．By monitoring how their decision-making impacts their mentality. |
| D．By keeping their emotions in check to avoid making poor decisions. |
（1）邀请他的原因以及访谈的时间和地点；
（2）该期访谈节目的介绍（访谈话题、访谈目的等）；
（3）希望他对同学们如何学好英语提出一些建议。
注意：（1）词数不少于100；
（2）可适当加入细节，使内容充实、行文连贯。
参考词汇：微信视频号：WeChat Video Channel
Dear Chris,
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Yours,
Li Jin
9 . Nancy was a single mother with two kids and no savings. Desiring work but lacking work
The next day, Nancy got the job. It turned out that the scattered money was also a part of the
Earning trust is not that difficult. You choose what is
| A．luck | B．finance | C．determination | D．experience |
| A．well-paid | B．ill-advised | C．heart-warming | D．labor-saving |
| A．benefit | B．approach | C．impress | D．assist |
| A．hurriedly | B．thoroughly | C．gracefully | D．flexibly |
| A．replace | B．reveal | C．skip | D．spare |
| A．change | B．treasure | C．dust | D．waste |
| A．compassion | B．enthusiasm | C．experience | D．wealth |
| A．deliberately | B．aimlessly | C．randomly | D．occasionally |
| A．rule | B．feed | C．upset | D．free |
| A．lesson | B．theme | C．regulation | D．judgment |
| A．capable | B．smart | C．thoughtful | D．truthful |
| A．mark | B．steal | C．smooth | D．cover |
| A．although | B．before | C．unless | D．since |
| A．interview | B．reward | C．recognition | D．relaxation |
| A．trusted | B．motivated | C．followed | D．persuaded |
| A．improvements | B．assumptions | C．principles | D．advantages |
| A．share | B．stress | C．balance | D．overlook |
| A．missed out | B．stuck to | C．broke through | D．turned down |
| A．potential | B．influential | C．independent | D．right |
| A．distinguish | B．claim | C．update | D．collect |
10 . In his senior year of high school, Wei Fangjie happened to see a poster for recruiting (征募) PLA Air Force pilots. “The pilots on the poster looked really cool, and I got to know that a pilot is known as a profession of the brave. So, I decided to give it a try,” said Wei, 26, who now works as a flight instructor at the Air Force Aviation (航空) University.
According to Wei, pilot students need to not only study aviation theory but also practice difficult aerobatics (飞行特技), which require strong resistance to gravity force. “To do some of the movements, a pilot has to bear about three times their body weight pressing down on them,” said Wei. They also use special equipment like a spinning ladder to overcome dizziness.
Despite all the training, becoming a top PLA Air Force pilot remains a tough job. “During flight, pilots must carefully decide how to land, especially at night, and maintain position during formation flight,” explained Wei. He added that the key to these skills lies in continuous practice.
In the world of aviation, a balanced mentality and quick thinking are very important. One of Wei’s most unforgettable experiences was dealing with illusions during a formation flight up above the clouds. All he could see in front of him was the lead aircraft and clouds. “I felt like I was turning all the time, but my instruments showed that my flight was level,” said Wei. “In such situations, trusting instruments is essential to making sound decisions.”
But what always remains constant is the great sense of freedom and pride that Wei feels as he flies his aircraft in the sky and looks down at Earth from above. Now, as an experienced flight instructor, Wei hopes to channel his passion for aviation into the “training and development of a new generation of skilled pilots.”
1. Why did Wei Fangjie determine to become a pilot?(no more than 20 words)2. What should students learn to qualify as pilots according to Wei Fangjie?(no more than 5 words)
3. In Wei Fangjie’s opinion, what is crucial in mastering the skills required to become a top pilot?(no more than 5 words)
4. What does the underlined word mean in Paragraph 5?(1 word)
5. What do you think of Wei Fangjie? Please explain it in your own words.(no more than 25 words)
