1 . Brenda Thomas’s heart became a shell when her 21-year-old son died in a motorcycle accident in September 2019, only one week into his senior year of college. But she has found something that helps her to deal with her grief.
She keeps “acts of kindness” cards in honor of her son. These folded pieces of paper are tucked in her purse at all times and always stored in the glove compartment of her car. Whenever she does a good deed for a stranger— which is about once a week— she passes along a card with a message written on it: “If you receive this card, then you must be a recipient of a random act of kindness.” At the top of each note is her son’s name, Trevor Paul Thomas.
Trevor was an athlete who played baseball at Allegany College of Maryland and Penn State Fayette. He was a loyal friend and a force for good, with a witty sense of humor and a big smile. According to his mother, one of Trevor’s best qualities was his compassion for others, no matter how well he knew them. He regularly shoveled(铲) snow off the driveways of older neighbors, delivered hot meals to those in need, and befriended classmates who struggled to fit in. It seemed a natural fit to launch a kindness campaign in his memory.
The Thomas family adopted the “acts of kindness” cards to mark what would have been Trevor’s 23 birthday. They hoped that these cards would encourage people to do a good deed as part of Trevor’s legacy. On each card, they included a mantra (箴言) that the family said best describes the way Trevor had lived his life: “Be somebody who makes everybody feel like somebody.”
Recently, while dining with her daughter Whitney in a restaurant, Brenda decided to pay for the meal of a mother and two children. The recipient of Brenda’s spontaneous (发自内心的) gift was Liana Arruda. She was taking her nine-year-old son and his five-year-old sister for dinner. She felt shocked and moved after the waitress handed her the card. She used it as an opportunity to teach her children about compassion and is now brainstorming ways to pass on the goodness. “I’m waiting to find the perfect opportunity,” she said. “I want it to matter, because it mattered to me.”
For the Thomas family, while there is still—and forever will be—a massive void(空虚感) in their lives without Trevor, committing to “living like him” has helped them turn their pain into purpose. “We’ll keep paying it forward in Trevor’s honor because it would make him so proud,” said Brenda.
1. Trevor Paul can be best described as________.| A．ambitious, witty and optimistic |
| B．sympathetic, humorous and warmhearted |
| C．faithful, passionate and competitive |
| D．compassionate, persistent and rigorous |
| A．Do as Romans do. |
| B．Serve others to be popular. |
| C．Influence others with what you do. |
| D．Nothing is impossible to a willing heart. |
| A．Trevor would have graduated from university within one year but for the accident. |
| B．Every time Brenda does a good deed for others, they’ll receive an anonymous card. |
| C．Liana was astonished and touched because her two children gave her the gift spontaneously. |
| D．Liana has found a perfect opportunity to pass on the goodness and teach her children about compassion. |
| A．Your pain can be turned into purpose to push you forward. |
| B．Compassion means standing in others shoes. |
| C．Void can be replaced with satisfaction by “living like him”. |
| D．Committing to “following his way” is a good way to honor somebody. |
2 . Does a reassuring touch on the back bring you comfort during a tough day? A new study finds, when it comes to touching, people aren’t even
Instead of being
In this research, 48 students engaged in a conversation with NAO – a programmable research robot. During the course, for some participants, the robot briefly and seemingly randomly
This differed from the design of other studies, which have relied on
“A robot’s non-functional touch
“It is remarkable that simple and brief tap on the back of participants’ hands showed such an effect. Involving more complex and
As the researchers argue, this small study – one of the first to examine the
| A．curious | B．crazy | C．picky | D．certain |
| A．happier | B．freer | C．more stressed | D．more frightened |
| A．hard | B．dependent | C．impressed | D．based |
| A．completion | B．formation | C．imagination | D．starvation |
| A．watched | B．patted | C．cleaned | D．blocked |
| A．human-initiated | B．time-pressed | C．technique-based | D．goal-oriented |
| A．made out | B．thought back | C．pulled away | D．set off |
| A．look over | B．go along with | C．take off | D．stand up against |
| A．physical | B．emotional | C．financial | D．social |
| A．However | B．Therefore | C．Furthermore | D．Still |
| A．matters | B．sees | C．relates | D．gets |
| A．warmer | B．longer | C．more friendly | D．more forceful |
| A．theory | B．history | C．trend | D．potential |
| A．warn | B．persuade | C．force | D．control |
| A．similarities | B．conflicts | C．constructions | D．interactions |
The idea that kindness can boost happiness is hardly new. Studies have shown that prosocial behavior — basically, voluntarily helping others — can help lower people’s daily stress levels, and that simple acts of connection, like texting a friend, mean more than many of us realize.
“I have found that kindness can be a really hard sell,” said Tara Cousineau, a clinical psychologist, “People desire kindness yet often feel troubled by the thought of being kind.”
If you are not already in the habit of performing random kind acts, or if it does not come naturally to you, start by thinking about what you like to do. It’s not about you being like, ‘Oh man, now I have to learn how to bake cookies in order to be nice’. It’s about:
| A．What skills and talents do you already have? |
| B．Stress can also keep people from being kind to others. |
| C．Why are recipients less likely to appreciate a random act of kindness? |
| D．But an act of kindness is unlikely to fail, and in some instances it can create even more kindness. |
| E．People who perform a random act of kindness tend to underestimate how much the recipient will appreciate it. |
| F．But researchers who study kindness and friendship say they hope the new findings strengthen the scientific case for making these types of gestures more often. |
4 . Although many companies offer tuition reimbursement (偿付), most companies reimburse employees only for classes that are relevant to their positions.
One good reason for giving employees unconditional tuition reimbursement is that it shows the company’s dedication to its employees and it is important for a company to demonstrate to its employees that it cares. The best way to do this is to make investments in them.
Though unconditional tuition reimbursement requires a significant investment on the employer’s part, it is perhaps one of the wisest investments a company can make.
| A．In this way, companies will have more productive employees. |
| B．In today’s economy, job security is a thing of the past and employees feel more and more expendable. |
| C．In return, this dedication to the betterment of employees will create greater loyalty. |
| D．This is indeed a very limiting policy. |
| E．Even if employees do leave, it generally takes several years to complete any degree program. |
5 . Robert Frank, an economist at Cornell, believes that his profession is restricting cooperation and generosity. In the U.S., economics professors give
Does studying economics change people? Maybe not. It could be self-selection: students who already believe in self-interest are drawn to economics. But this doesn’t exclude the possibility that studying economics pushes people further toward the selfish extreme.
“As a business school professor, these effects worry me, as economics,
If economics can discourage pro-social behavior, which is central to the well-being of people or society, what should we do about it? A change in economics and business education is suggested. Courses in behavioral economics, which considers the role of “social preferences” like
Not until then may the prophecy (预言) by Nobel Prize-winning economist and philosopher Amartya Sen be
| A．fewer | B．less | C．smaller | D．more |
| A．teamwork | B．greed | C．desire | D．economics |
| A．depending on | B．adapting to | C．differing from | D．relating to |
| A．potential | B．judgment | C．foundation | D．reason |
| A．competition | B．evaluation | C．community | D．generosity |
| A．in case of | B．in terms of | C．in relation to | D．in need of |
| A．concerned | B．anxious | C．curious | D．enthusiastic |
| A．However | B．Therefore | C．Furthermore | D．Otherwise |
| A．claiming | B．defining | C．overlooking | D．recalling |
| A．broken | B．predicted | C．challenged | D．fulfilled |
6 . For four lonely years, Evelyn Jones of Rockford, Illinois, lived friendless and forgotten in one room of a cheap hotel. “I wasn’t sick, but I was acting sick,” the 78-year-old widow says, “Every day was the same. I would just lie on my bed and maybe cook up some soup.” Then, six months ago, she was invited to The Brighter Side -- Rockford’s day care center for the elderly. Every weekday morning since then, she has left her home to meet nine other old people in a church for a rich program of charity work, trips, games, and -- most important of all -- friendly companionship.
Just a few years ago, there were few choices for the elderly between a normal life in their own homes and being totally confined in nursing homes. Many of them were sent to rest homes long before they needed full-time care. Others like Mrs. Jones were left to take care of themselves. But in 1971, the White House Conference on Aging called for the development of alternatives to care in nursing homes for old people, and since then, government-supported day-care programs like The Brighter Side have been developed in most big American cities.
“This represents a real alternative to the feared institution and makes old people believe they have not left the world of living”, says Alice Brophy, 64, director of New York City’s Office for the Aging, “They do well at the centers, and I hate it when people describe us as elderly playpens.” New York’s 138 centers encourage continuing contact for the aged with the community’s life. The centers serve more than 15,000 members, and volunteer workers are always looking for new ones. If someone doesn’t show up at the center for several days in a row, a worker at the center calls to make sure all is well. And although participation in the center is free, those who want to can pay for their lunches.
No normal studies have been made of these centers for the elderly, but government officials are enthusiastic. In the future, the Public Health Service will do a study to decide if the programs can receive federal Medicare money. And the old people themselves are very happy with the programs. “There is no way”, says Evelyn Jones, smiling at her new companions at the Brighter Side, “that I will ever go back to spending my day with all those loses at the hotel.”
1. According to the passage, many old people went to the nursing homes because________.| A．They are in urgent need of full-time care. |
| B．They were rather willing to go there. |
| C．They were sent there. |
| D．They were volunteers there. |
| A．the centers are like elderly playpens. |
| B．the old people do well at the day care centers. |
| C．old people like nursing institutions. |
| D．outside the Brighter side they don’t work for the old. |
| A．pessimistic. | B．concerned. |
| C．neutral. | D．optimistic. |
| A．Day care centers may be able to receive federal Medicare money. |
| B．Day care centers can make life better for elderly people. |
| C．Many old people in the United States are lonely. |
| D．Old people have no place in their society. |
| A. profits | B. donations | C. volunteers | D. selling |
| E. funding | F. flooded | G. appeal |
I love charity shops and so do lots of other people in Britain because you find quite a few of them on every high street. The charity shop is a British institution,
Now there are over 7,000 charity shops in the U.K. My favorite charity shop in my hometown is the Red Cross shop, where I always find children’s books, all 10 or 20 pence each. Most of the people working in the charity shops are
8 . Imagine you're standing in line to buy an after-school snack at a store. You step up to the counter and the cashier scans your food. Next, you have to pay. But instead of scanning a QR code with your smartphone, you just hold out your hand so the cashier can scan your fingerprint. Or, a camera scans your face, your eyes or even your ear.
In 2013, Apple introduced the iPhone 5s, one of the first smartphones with a fingerprint scanner. Since then, using one's fingerprint to unlock a phone and make mobile payments has become commonplace, bringing convenience to our lives. And since lasts year, San-sun has featured eye-scanning technology in its top smartphone, while Apple's new iPhone X can even scan a user's face.
When introducing the new iPhone's Face ID feature at Apple's Keynote Event in September. Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president, said. “
But it's already been done. In a video posted on community website Reddit on Nov 3, two brothers showed how they were each able to unlock the same iPhone X using their own face. Quartz reported. And they aren't even twins.
“We may expect too much from bio-metrics.” Anil Jain, a computer science professor at Michigan State University. told CBS news. “No security systems are perfect.”
Earlier this year, Jain found a way to trick biometric security. Using a printed copy of a thumbprint, she was able to unlock a dead person's smartphone for police.
“It's good to see bio-metrics being used more,” Jain told CBS News, “because it adds another factor for security.
| A．But despite its popularity, experts warn that bio-metrics might not be as secure as we'd imagined |
| B．Security experts don't think it absolutely necessary to use biometric technology. |
| C．But using different security measures is the best defense. |
| D．Now, this type of technology might not be far away. |
| E．If a person's biometric information is stolen, that could have extremely serious results for him. |
| F．The chance that a random person could look at your iPhone X and unlock it with his face is about one in a million. |
9 . What exactly is a lie? Is it anything we say which we know is untrue? Or is it something more than that? For example, suppose a firiend wants to borrow some money from you. You say “I wish I could help you but I'm short of money myself.” In fact, you are not short of money but your friend is in the habit of not paying his debts and you don't want to hurt his feelings by reminding him of this. Is this really a lie?
Professor Jerald Jellison of the University of Southern Califormia has made a scientific study of lying. According to him, women are better liars than men. particular when telling a “white lie”, such as when a woman at a party tells another woman that she likes her dress when she really thinks it looks awful. However, this is only one side of the story. Other researchers say that men are more likely to tell more serious lies, such as making a promise which they no intention of fulfilling. This is the kind of lie politicians and businessmen are supposed to be particularly skilled at: the lie from which the liar hopes to profit or gain in some way.
Research has also been done into the way people's behavior changes in a number of small apparently unimportant ways when they lie. It has been found that if they are sitting down at the time, they tend to move about in their chairs more than usual. To the trained observer they are saying “I wish I were somewhere else now.” They also tend to touch certain parts of the face more often, in particular the nose. One explanation of this may be that lying causes a slight increase in blood pressure. The up of the nose is very sensitive to such changes and the increased pressure make sit itch.
Another gesture which give liars away is that the writer Desmond Morris in his book Man-watching calls “the mouth cover” He says there are several typical forms of this, such as covering part of the mouth with the fingers, touching the upper-lip or putting a finger of the hand at one side of the mouth. Such as gesture can be understood as an unconscious attempt on the part of the lair to stop himself or herself from lying.
Of course, such gestures as rubbing the nose or covering the mouth, or moving about in a chair cannot be taken as proof that the speaker is lying. They simply tend to occur more frequently n this situation. It is not one gesture alone that gives the lair away but whole number of things and in particular the context in which the lie is told.
1. According to the passage, a “white lie” seems to be a lie ________.| A．that other people believe |
| B．that other people don't believe |
| C．told in order to avoid offending someone |
| D．told in order to take advantage of someone |
| A．generally lie far more than men do |
| B．are better at telling less serious lies than men are |
| C．lie at parties more often than men do |
| D．often make promise they don't intend to keep |
| A．he looks very serious |
| B．his blood pressure increase considerably |
| C．he uses his unconscious mind |
| D．there tends to be some small changes in his behavior |
| A．The touching of the tip of one's nose | B．The changes of one's behavior. |
| C．The circumstances where the lie is told | D．“The mouth cover” gesture. |
10 . Zelda Fitzgerald, as is revealed by numerous personal books and letters, wore many labels in her life. She was “the original flapper girl” and “the spirit of the Jazz Age.” Married to the celebrated writer F. Scott Fitzgerald (author of The Gireat Giatsby), she was by turns his muse and the woman who ruined his life. In her later years she was “Crazy Zelda”.
Accurate as all these descriptions may be, they do not tell the whole story. Born in Montgomery, Alabama, she was noted for her beauty and high spirits in dancing. In July 1918, at a country club dance, Fitzgerald was hooked immediately by the beautiful and charming 18-year-old Zelda who out-shined(使逊色)other beauties with her distinguished ballet. A light affection evolved into a lengthy long-distance pursuit of weekly letters, with Fitzgerald aware of her uncommitted dating of other men. He courted her after his discharge from the Army in February 1919, but Zelda had doubts. Her fiance wasn't rich and there was no guarantee he’d ever be famous. His short stories didn’t sell. His apartment was a dump. Zelda gave back the ring. Hoping to fix the “no money” part of his problem. Fitzgerald quit the job and started to rewrite novels for success and money so that he could win back his girl. Finally, he made it! On March 20, 1920, his novel This Side of Paradise got published and Zelda agreed to marry him.
However, their marriage was troubled by wild drinking, fighting, infidelity(不忠实)and bitter recriminations. Emest Hemingway, whom Zelda disliked, blamed her for Scot’s declining literary output, though she has also been portrayed as the victim of an overbearing husbano Actually. Zelda was also creative, pursuing both dancing and writing. Some scholars have portrayed Zelda as a creative talent ignored by the patriarchal(男权的)society of the day. Her inspiration was even drawn by her husband in literary creation-Scott used their relationship as material in his novels, even borrowing episodes from Zelda’s diary and applying them into his fictional writings. She detested(讨厌)her husband’s practice: “Mr. Fitzgerald-I believe that is how he spells his name-seems to believe that plagiarism begins at home.” To seek an artistic identity of her own value, as she put it “I wish I could write a beautiful book to break those hearts that are soon to cease to exist.”
Nevertheless her unique personality was starting to seem more unbalanced than charming. The couple-like the rest of the nation-was living on borrowed time. In October 1929 the stock market crashed, triggering the Great Depression. Six months later, Zelda suffered her first nervous breakdown. After being diagnosed with schizophrenia（精神分裂), she was increasingly confined to specialist clinics, and since then has departed with her husband. Zelda died later in a fire at her hospital in Asheville, North Carolina, putting an end to her flamboyant(绚丽夺目的)life. A young woman, especially one in the 1920s, who was against traditional dress and behavior.
1. Where will you most probably find this article?| A．In a newspaper. | B．In a literary magazine. |
| C．In a prepared speech | D．In a research report. |
| A．Ideal partnership | B．Unbalanced love relationship. |
| C．Love-hate relationship. | D．Mutually-jealous relationship |
| A．copying | B．adaption |
| C．reference | D．imagination |
| A．Fitzgerald successfully won Zelda’s heart by reading her his novels and writing her weekly letters. |
| B．Hemingway disliked Zelda because of her female identity and talent that outshined her husband. |
| C．Zelda was glad to be her husband’s muse and provided him with literary materials. |
| D．The “Crazy Zelda” died without Fitzgerald’s companion after severe schizophrenia. |
