1 . How I Failed My Oxford Interview

As soon as the words left my mouth I knew I’d_______. “You think Jane Austen is... soft?” The man opposite me asked in disbelief. Then, he and his colleague took turns to_______my claim, finishing each other’s sentences as they stressed Austen’s novels were, in fact, savage.

“I just mean...” I said in a_______voice, trying to keep the tone light, “that she’s not as biting as Virginia Woolf.”

The two professors patted this idea around, too, like a couple of cats toying with a frightened bird---giving _______ examples of how Austen’s work was, _________, more biting than Woolf’s. With no more defensive action to take, I simply smiled and said, “Let’s just agree to disagree, shall we?” And at that moment, my dreams of going to Oxford university_______in a puff of smoke.

Part of my problem, in hindsight was a lack of confidence._______I was a straight A student and had prepared for the interview to the best of my ability, I wasn’t a skilled debater. When faced with two experts who told me that I was wrong, instead of defending myself, I rolled over and accepted_______.

To pass the interview, you need confidence, of course. You also need   a_______ passion for your subject, not just a keen interest. In other words, don’t put comments on your personal statement that you don’t have________for your in-person backup.

So, months later, I already knew the contents of my thin envelope when it appeared on my doormat. ________, I felt a pang of disappointment. I had wanted to go to Oxford since I was 13. I used to look up images of my favorite college with the same________of a bride-to-be browsing wedding dresses.

Ultimately, I didn’t have what it took---but, looking back, that was________a bad thing. Instead of going to Oxford, I found a university that was a better fit for my interests. I loved my eclectic course, where I could write an essay comparing Jane Eyre to 50 Shades of Grey.

Failing my Oxford interview also provided a valuable life lesson. I’m now more confident in my opinions, more passionate when it comes to debate, and I try to back up my points with________evidence. What’s more, I had never since ended a discussion by giving a ____________smile and saying,” let’s just agree to disagree, shall we?”

1.

A．produced sensation

B．made a mistake

C．sparked controversy

D．caused disruption

2.

A．clarify

B．provoke

C．manipulate

D．challenge

3.

A．subtle

B．bright

C．sophisticated

D．vague

4.

A．specific

B．brief

C．ambiguous

D．abstract

5.

A．for one thing

B．in turn

C．on the contrary

D．at large

6.

A．vanished

B．facilitated

C．implanted

D．distributed

7.

A．As long as

B．Even though

C．Despite

D．Because

8.

A．paradox

B．compromise

C．defeat

D．embarrassment

9.

A．burning

B．fulfilling

C．dying

D．innate

10.

A．substitute

B．readiness

C．optimism

D．concern

11.

A．Previously

B．Practically

C．Naturally

D．Exclusively

12.

A．resentment

B．controversy

C．distraction

D．eagerness

13.

A．not necessarily

B．all but

C．in particular

D．at length

14.

A．stubborn

B．hard

C．radical

D．generous

15.

A．stunning

B．winning

C．overwhelming

D．simpering

2 . Are Food Miles Really Important?

A popular narrative with food is simple: “eating local” is one of the best ways to reduce your carbon footprint. It seems quite reasonable intuitively, but how reliable is it? Well, it is indeed true that the food sector uses a lot of energy, contributing 20 to 30 percent of all greenhouse gases. But how much of this is directly connected to moving food around the globe from farm to fork? Perhaps less than you might think.

In one of the most comprehensive studies, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania have reported that the shipment of food around the world only contributes around 4 percent of global carbon emissions. The report is in line with much research from around the world, which suggests that transportation only generates between 4 to 6 percent of the food system’s carbon footprint. Many studies revealed that most emissions were actually generated from other aspects of food production, such as agriculture, processing and cooking. In fact, it is the end consumer that used by far the most energy. Transport? The least.

One UK government study found that tomatoes trucked hundreds of kilometers from sunny Spain had a carbon footprint that was less than a third of that of those grown in heated glasshouses in chilly UK. In contrast to the simple “local=more eco-friendly” narrative, the authors therefore concluded that: “A single indicator based on total food kilometers travelled would not be a valid indicator of sustainability.”

When it comes to our carbon footprint, transport methods vary enormously too. For example, as air freight produces more than 75 times more emissions than sea freight, shipping food to the UK all the way from South-East Asia would involve far less carbon than the same product popped on a short flight from Italy. In this context, the emissions that come from shipping food by air freight one mile, is equal to the emissions from shipping food for more than 9 miles by road, and 75 miles by sea, making the concept of distance as a direct indicator of emissions highly problematic.

So is eating local really a better option? It depends. There are many reasons why you might be choosing to do so, aside from environmental concerns. Indeed, there are many other ways to measure environmental impact other than carbon emissions. But when we look at the evidence, only one thing is clear: food miles alone really aren’t a good proxy(指标)for sustainability. In fact, sometimes they are incredibly misleading. While we can’t disregard them entirely, we should view them in the context of a suite of other factors, recognizing that they often make up a tiny fraction of food’s carbon impact.

1. The data mentioned in the second paragraph are used to ______ .

A．illustrate that “food miles” has nothing to do with carbon emissions

B．encourage readers to consume imported food without guilt

C．prove that blaming carbon emissions on “food miles” only is unwise

D．warn readers that food transport is to blame for global warming

2. The author is likely to agree that _______ .

A．eating local actually doesn’t help cut down on the carbon footprint of food

B．cutting transport distance always helps to cut down on food’s carbon footprint

C．food transport has more to do with carbon emissions than food processing does

D．food’s carbon footprint depends both on the distance and the method of transport

3. What’s the author’s attitude towards “food miles” as an indicator for sustainability?

A．neutral

B．serious

C．opposing

D．supportive

3 . Directions: Read the following two passages. Fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper from of the given word. For the other blanks, fill in each blank with one proper word. Make sure that your answers are grammatically correct.

American Mikah Meyer has an unusual goal. He wants to visit all of the more than 400 properties operated by the National Park Service.

He spent January 2017 visiting historic areas in the southeastern United States.

One of his first stops was Fort Sumter,     1     former military position in waters just off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina. Fort Sumter is famous for being the place where the first shot of the Civil War     2    (fire). It is also     3     the first person killed in the conflict died.

After years of rising tensions between Northern and Southern states, the two sides clashed in Charleston Harbor on April 12, 1861. That was when the Southern army launched an artillery attack on Fort Sumter. Federal troops surrendered the fort a short time later. Union forces eventually fought     4    (regain) control of the base, and defeated the South in 1865. A lone cannon symbolizes the fierce battle that took place on April 12, 1861, when Confederate artillery opened fire on this federal fort in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, marking it     5     the day when the Civil War began.

As he stood inside the large walls of Fort Sumter National Monument, Mikah Meyer looked across the water to the port at Charleston. He imagined what the area must have looked like more than a century and half ago. “You’ll see across that bridge, Charleston, South Carolina. It was under siege at one point for 17 months. There were cannons that     6     fire from where I'm standing on the fort all the way to the old town...” Meyer also visited the Charles Pinckney National Historic Site in South Carolina. There he had a chance to learn about Charles Pinckney, who helped write — and was a signer of — the U.S. Constitution. Charles Pinckney was 29 years old when he helped draft the United States Constitution,     7     he signed as a representative of South Carolina. He dedicated his considerable political and legal talents to     8    (establish) a strong national government. “Some people call him our forgotten founding father, but he was a political figure of early America who helped shape     9     our eventual constitution ended up looking like...” The National Park Service helps care for what remains of Pinckney’s former home and farm. Park service workers tell the stories of 18th-century plantation life for free and enslaved people.

During his travels in January, Meyer had a surprise. Barack Obama, in his last few days as president, named a new national park site in Beaufort, just south of Charleston. It is called the Reconstruction Era National Monument. The Reconstruction Era National Monument will help tell the story of post-Civil war America.

The Reconstruction Era     10    (stretch) from 1861 to 1898. It was a period when Americans struggled with the treatment of newly freed African Americans. The new national monument will help tell that story.

4 . Family violence and abuse prevention strategies are focused at three levels: the general population, specific groups thought to be at high risk for abuse, and families who have already experienced abuse. Public education and media campaigns aimed at the general population convey the criminal nature of domestic assault, suggest ways to prevent abuse, and identify where abuse victims can get help. However, to prevent or reduce family violence, education, elements of American culture that contribute to such violence must change. For example, violence in the media must be controlled or eliminated, and traditional gender roles and views of women and children as property must be replaced with egalitarian gender roles and respect for women and children.

Another cultural change is to reduce violence-related stress by reducing poverty and unemployment and by providing adequate housing, nutrition, media care, and educational opportunities for everyone. Though programs such as Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) were not designed to prevent domestic violence and abuse, “they provide important assistance to low income families and thus support the functioning of these families.” Integrating families into networks of community would also enhance family’s well-being and provide support for families under stress.

What social interventions are available for families that are already experiencing abuse or neglected? Abused women and children may seek relief at a shelter or a safe house for abused women and children with housing, food, counseling services, legal assistance, employment assistance, and an environment that empowers women by encouraging them to make independent choices about their abusive relationships and about their future. Shelters also provide a communal living situation with other abused women, which reduces the sense of isolation and helps the women express their anger and overcome feelings of guilt and inadequacy. An alternative to shelter is a safe house, a private home of individuals who volunteer to provide temporary housing to abused women who decide to leave their violent homes. Battered men are not allowed to stay at women’s shelters, but many shelters help abused men by providing money for a motel room, counseling, and support services.

1. The word “egalitarian” in the first paragraph most probably means “_______”.

A．relating to economics	B．relating to everyday events
C．having to do with legal contracts	D．having to do with equal treatment

2. Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the passage as a way to directly reduce violence in families?

A．Cutting down on violence in the media

B．the AFDC program

C．Reducing unemployment

D．Strengthening family ties

3. According to the passage, which of the following statements does the writer seem to support?

A．Providing women more wealth can largely reduce family abuse.

B．Laws must be passed to prevent family abuse.

C．Unfair attitude towards women is the only cause of family abuse.

D．Women should be equally paid.

4. The last paragraph is organized by ____.

A．listing the order of events in helping abused women

B．defining the term “safe house”

C．discussing the effects of family violence

D．listing social interventions available to help the abused

5 . You've been painting for a few years, and maybe you have even sold a painting or two. Are you ready to ______ the title of an amateur artist?

Distinguishing green hand from professional artists is ______ task. It is not just a matter of your ability to create nice paintings. It's not only about painting techniques. And for most cases, it doesn't happen ______. Very few artists become overnight success without years of struggle and suffering.

To turn professional, people find it critical to develop a personal style. What makes your paintings _______ among other paintings out there? Are your paintings standing out unmistakably directed to you as the creator? A personal style comes along with technique, painting medium, and subject and it tends to develop gradually over time. You _______ it through unconscious and constant exploring and self-shaping. Style does not mean that you are painting the same subject or using the same painting medium. Salvador Dali used to use many artistic media, but they all have a _______ Dali style. Style refers to the emotions and thoughts delivered by your paintings, which people can identify with. (认同/产生共鸣) Their _______ of the painter is then a sure thing.

Artists talk about their _______ all of the time. What gets you out of bed every morning to paint? How do you find the energy to have all your time devoted to painting?   ______, we all love to do what we do and we get a satisfaction out of creating. For the professional artist, it goes beyond that. Some artists wish to convey a deep message concerning life, society or even politics. Others simply seek   _______ returns to cover kids' tuition fees or pay family bills. Yet, all professional artists know that they have to keep working to achieve the goals.

Many amateur artists passively wait for   _______ to come. If they are not in the mood, they do not bother wasting the time. They sometimes allow themselves to be occupied by events like parties. Professionals are never easily _______ or torn away from their art work in progress. Focused on their work so much, some even regard spending time outside their _______ as crime. _______ is their secret to high productivity.

Besides, professional artists are constantly prepared to grab new ideas for the next painting, which they believe is sure to be better than the previous one. The belief that there is always room for _______ keeps driving them forward in the art world where many masters have come along.

1.

A．step beyond

B．turn off

C．see through

D．make up

2.

A．rewarding

B．tricky

C．formal

D．temporary

3.

A．individually

B．thoroughly

C．instantly

D．sincerely

4.

A．different

B．superior

C．practical

D．reliable

5.

A．get

B．transfer

C．imitate

D．analyze

6.

A．recent

B．clear

C．modest

D．logical

7.

A．preservation

B．employment

C．adaption

D．recognition

8.

A．background

B．significance

C．motivation

D．routine

9.

A．To sum up

B．In contrast

C．In addition

D．In general

10.

A．academic

B．global

C．financial

D．original

11.

A．inspiration

B．fame

C．guidance

D．solution

12.

A．offended

B．dominated

C．distracted

D．rewarded

13.

A．studio

B．bedroom

C．garage

D．garden

14.

A．Reflection

B．Devotion

C．Creativity

D．Illustration

15.

A．negotiation

B．profit

C．criticism

D．improvement

6 . Top College Graduates Get Paid More, but do They Perform Better?

It’s generally believed that better universities attract better students and provide better training, so it makes sense to use the university rank as a predictor of employee performance. But is it a good hiring strategy? Do university rankings predict job performance? Our research suggests yes — but only to a degree.

In a recent study, we tested the relationship between the university rank and performance of graduates. We tracked the performance of 28,339 students from 294 universities that ranked from Top 10 to about top 20,000 in the Webometrics global university rankings.     1    Importantly, we captured not only the quality of the output, but a wide range of hard and soft competencies including cooperation with team members, leadership, language proficiency, technical skills, emotional intelligence, creativity, and more.

Our results offer some comfort to the traditional recruiters. After controlling for age, gender, and the year of study, we found that graduates from higher-ranked universities performed better, but only nominally and only on some dimensions of performance.

    2    The first was selection: higher-ranked universities usually can choose from a larger pool of applicants, which leads to steeper competition and a higher quality of the incoming class. Corroborating the selectivity hypothesis, our data demonstrated that students at higher-ranked universities indeed score higher on general cognitive ability tests, have more international experience, better English proficiency, and higher cultural intelligence.

Second, higher-ranked universities should provide better training. Top universities employ better instructors, offer access to better-equipped facilities, attract better speakers and guests to campus, which in turn, should lead to better training and subsequent performance.

Finally, it might be expected that higher-ranked institutions might provide a more stimulating academic environment.     3     Having notable, hardworking, celebrity-status professors, along with being around intelligent, highly-motivated, achievement-oriented peers, positively affects self-efficacy, motivation, effort, and work ethic.

Despite their slightly better overall performance, hiring graduates from higher-ranked institutions could have a downside. Our data suggest that students from higher-ranked universities might damage team cooperation, sometimes carelessly.     4     In some instances, graduates from top universities tend to be less friendly, are more prone to conflict, and are less likely to identify with their team.

A．Indeed, education is not only lectures and seminars.

B．However, our study revealed no difference in the following aspects.

C．They clearly know that interpersonal relationships at work play a critical role in career success.

D．They tend to excessively focus on the instrumental tasks, paying insufficient attention to interpersonal relationships.

E．We also found several reasons why the graduates from the top universities performed better than those from the lower-ranked schools.

F．We observed the students’ performance for two months as they were working in global virtual teams on real-life business consulting projects.

7 . Directions: Complete the following passage by using the words in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

No More Food Waste

Last week Meituan co-published a proposal with a number of business organizations, including the China General Chamber of Commerce and China Cuisine Association, calling on restaurants to stop food waste and help     1    new eating habits for customers.

“Restaurants should innovate means of publicity using official accounts on social media and live-streaming to promote and advocate food-saving actions,” the proposal said.

Meituan and the organizations are advocating that merchants offer     2     to consumers, including reminding them during the ordering process about the taste of the ingredients, portion sizes and other information about the dishes, to help them avoid food waste due to     3     information.

Catering associations in more than 18 provinces have also joined the campaign to eliminate food waste. On Friday the China Cuisine Association announced that it had     4     up with Ele.me, the Alibaba Group Holding-owned food delivery platform, to launch a “half-dish plan”,     5    restaurants to provide customers with the option to order smaller portions.

The Wuhan Catering Association     6     an “N-1” ordering code for restaurants in which a group of 10 diners would only order enough for nine people. More food is only brought to the table if required.

To curb (限制) portrayals of food waste on social media platforms, popular Chinese video platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou have stepped up content     7     of food-related live streams and implemented regulation of online eating shows.

Now if users search certain keywords, such as “eating show” or “competitive eaters”, a cautionary message pops up to remind them to cherish food and maintain a     8    diet.

Across the country, about 40% of all the food Americans buy ends up in the trash. That food waste costs the average family of four about $1,500     9    . It also takes up valuable space in landfills.

The state of Vermont has long been a leader in environmental issues. Now it has just    10    down on its bid to get Vermonters to rethink their relationship with food and waste.

As of July 1st, it became the first state in the nation to make it illegal for residents to throw their food scraps into the trash. That means everyone in the state — from businesses to residents — must now keep their food waste out of the garbage.

8 . Do Brain Training Games Work?

With an ageing population worried about cognitive (认知的) decline, brain training apps have soared in popularity. Search “brain training”, and you will find _________ apps and websites promising to make you mentally agile (敏捷的). In the same way that we might go to the gym to exercise, a daily mental _________ is said to produce physical changes in the brain. All you will have to do is to _________ a few minutes each day to complete puzzles, memory games and word quizzes.

At least that’s the idea. And there are a lot of people who are _________ into it. In 2018, consumers spent an estimated $1.9 billion on brain training apps—a fourfold increase from 2012. Of course, smartphones were not the original home for brain training games. _________, Nintendo recently released its fourth all-time best-selling game, Brain Age, and brought it to the Switch in Japan last month. The idea of improving mental fitness clearly has widespread appeal, but is it based on scientific evidence or _________ marketing promises?

In 2014, the Stanford Center on Longevity published an open letter _________ by 69 international neuroscientists (神经科学家) and cognitive psychologists. There is no convincing scientific evidence, the experts argued, that playing brain games improves cognitive abilities in everyday life.

Two years later, another team of psychologists reviewed every scientific study cited by major brain training companies _________ their products. They questioned not only how the evidence had been reported and interpreted, but the way many of the studies had been designed. The _________ included small sample sizes, inadequate control groups, and cherry-picking (挑选最有利的) research outcomes to __________.

If the science is so __________ flawed (错误的), why do people feel the need to train their brains with these apps and games?

That’s __________, according to Til Wykes, a professor at King’s College London. Nintendo’s Brain Age game, for instance, assigns players a score based on their gaming performance. They might start with a “brain age” score of 60 and after a few weeks of __________, will be told they have reduced it to 40. For some people, there is clearly some positive reward for seeing themselves improve over time. Wykes stresses, __________, that for people who are really worried about their cognition, learning a new language would be more beneficial, which has been shown to improve brain __________.

1.

A．endless

B．advanced

C．protective

D．imaginary

2.

A．outcome

B．tryout

C．workout

D．outlook

3.

A．set out

B．set back

C．set off

D．set aside

4.

A．buying

B．engaging

C．overlooking

D．inquiring

5.

A．By contrast

B．For instance

C．Of course

D．In conclusion

6.

A．reliable

B．precious

C．secret

D．empty

7.

A．signed

B．secured

C．received

D．sought

8.

A．in presence of

B．in support of

C．in case of

D．in memory of

9.

A．expectation

B．solution

C．criticism

D．standard

10.

A．report

B．design

C．produce

D．negotiate

11.

A．effortlessly

B．temporarily

C．seriously

D．unfairly

12.

A．dependable

B．understandable

C．comparable

D．achievable

13.

A．experiment

B．theory

C．practice

D．performance

14.

A．altogether

B．therefore

C．however

D．likewise

15.

A．movement

B．cooperation

C．evaluation

D．function

9 . 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.

Female Entertainers Fight Ageism in the Reality Show

A band of entertainment industry "has-beens" has stepped back into the spotlight in Older Sisters Riding Winds and Breaking Waves. It is a girl group knockout reality show     1     (feature) performers older than 30.

Produced by Mango TV, the reality show has made huge waves across China's social platforms.The show consists of 30 seasoned, established female singers, actors and hosts,     2    were born before 1990.

"    3     some possibilities in life fade after you hit 30, you can still transcend time and reinvent yourself," reads part of the show's preamble(开场白), conveying a clear message     4     the ageism facing women.

Some contestants spoke out about their attitude towards aging and age discrimination.

Wu Xin, 37, a hostess on the popular variety show Happy Camp,     5    (voice) her opinion, believing she's at the best age of her life. "I used to limit myself due to a narrow vision, and thus missed a lot of opportunities.     6    I get older, I've come to realize that I can do many things, so I decided       7    (seize) this chance to stretch myself," she said.

While some people see the successfully staged show as a progression in challenging society’s youth-obsessed pop culture,     8     remain doubtful and critical.

Some viewers reveal that their anxiety towards aging has gotten     9     (bad) after watching the show.

“My heart quivered as I heard 50-year-old Christy Chung say she still feels as young as 20 physically and would always be 18 at heart. The show actually points out the possibility     10    a woman’s actual age is neither acceptable for the public nor for herself,” reads a Weibo post by Tang Shuang, a senior fashion editor of Vogue China.

10 . Your Next Nurse Could Be a Robot

Dr. De Momi, of the Politecnico di Milano (Italy), led an international team that trained a robot to imitate natural human actions.     1     Over time this should lead to improvements in safety during surgeries because unlike their human counterparts robots do not tire and can complete an endless series of precise movements. The goal is not to remove human skill from the operating room, but to complement it with a robot’s particular skills and benefits.

“As a roboticist, I am convinced that robotic (co)workers and collaborators will definitely change the work market, but they won’t steal job opportunities.     2    ” De Momi explains.

To conduct their experiment De Momi’s team photographed a human being conducting numerous reaching motions, in a way similar to handing instruments to a surgeon. These camera captures were input into the neural network of the robotic arm, which is crucial to controlling movements. Next a human operator guided the robotic arm in imitating the reaching motions that the human subject had initially performed. Although there was not a perfect overlap between the robotic and human actions, they were broadly similar.

    3     These observers determined whether the actions of the robotic arms were “biologically inspired,” which would indicate that their neural networks had effectively learned to imitate human behavior. About 70% of the time this is exactly what the human observers concluded.

These results are promising, although further research is necessary to confirm or refine De Momi’s conclusions. If robotic arms can indeed imitate human behavior, it would be necessary to build conditions in which humans and robots can cooperate effectively in high stress environments like operating rooms.     4     De Momi’s work is part of the growing field of healthcare robotics, which has the potential to change the way we receive health care sooner rather than later.

A．This future may not be as far away as we think.

B．Robots can’t successfully imitate doctors’ motions in the operating room.

C．Finally, several humans observed as the robotic arm made numerous motions.

D．The nursing assistant for your next trip to the hospital will still be a robot instead of human beings.

E．They will just allow us to decrease workload and achieve better performances in several tasks.

F．His work indicates that humans and robots can effectively cooperate during high-risk events such as surgeries.