1 . The law of supply and demand determines that an overabundance of anything will lead to a decrease in price. This rule applies not only to goods and services, but also to lifestyle and fashion trends.

In the 19th century, the primitive paintings of Picasso and Matisse shook up the positive image of the French bourgeoisie (中产阶级). In the 1970s, talented musicians with tailored costumes and egos were overshadowed by a band of punk rockers who sang about the harsh realities of ordinary life in poor urban areas.

I predict that this will also happen with beauty standards. The idealized version of life portrayed in fashion magazines will reach a turning point, as people become tired of unattainable perfection.

During my time in Washington D.C. in the 1990s, I had the opportunity to interact with numerous political celebrities. While chatting with former presidents or bumping into TV pundits (名嘴) in elevators, I also assisted former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who was my boss’s boss. What struck me was how ordinary these people appeared in real life despite their public characters. Like everyone else, they grappled with insecurities and mood swings, even though they were constantly under the spotlight.

Yes, it was great to drop names on the phone to my friends. My father, of course, couldn’t understand why I would ever want to leave. “Because you’re not me and I’m not impressed,” I told him. We do not need to lead a luxurious life or make groundbreaking achievements to be content. Happiness can be found in living out the ordinary moments of an authentic life.

Most of us end up being ordinary people without doing anything that changes the world, but that does not mean our lives are meaningless. In fact, it is precisely this realization that leads to sustainable happiness because, when all is said and done, no one’s lifestyle is essentially better than any other’s.

1. Which of the following phrase can best replace the underline phrase in paragraph 4?

A．struggled with

B．put up with

C．came up with

D．fought with

2. What’s the author’s father’s attitude towards his decision to leave Washington D.C.?

A．supportive

B． indifferent

C．opposed

D．unimpressed

3. What does the author’s observation about political celebrities suggest?

A．They are just like ordinary people.

B．They lack the ability to lead a normal life.

C．They are not as successful as they claim to be.

D．They are not as intelligent as they appear on TV.

4. What does the author want to imply in the last paragraph?

A．People should strive for a better lifestyle.

B．No one’s lifestyle is inherently superior to others’.

C．People should be content with their own lifestyles.

D．People should critically evaluate other people’s lifestyles.

4 . A new outdoor fabric (织物) stores energy by day and then lights up at night. Being tested in a city park, this totally “cool” fabric has attracted interest for its many urban uses.

This is the invention of Anai Green, an industrial and product designer based in Tel Aviv, Israel. She designed a fabric that includes organic and solar photovoltaic cells (光伏电池). The cells capture sunlight and store the energy in strips with LEDs. This allows the fabric to shade public space by day. When night falls, these strips light up. Green said, “We use LumiWeave to light public space without carbon emissions, making the lighting all-natural. And we spread light in the area we want to light only.”

The system was designed to adapt to all weather conditions and can continue to provide lighting even after three days without sunlight. In addition, you simply put LumiWeave up and the sun will do the work. This in itself saves 50 percent of the cost of building standard lighting, and it saves 100 percent on the electricity bills. This is great news for cities. Tel Aviv, Green’s hometown, is trying out LumiWeave in AtidimPark.

The mayor of Tel Aviv, Ron Huldai, is making efforts to address climate change. “LumiWeave will turn out to be a groundbreaking project,” Huldai said. The mayor added that LumiWeave is especially important as it solves the issue of shading urban areas and uses clean energy.

The new fabric can be fixed atop bike paths, in children’s parks and in walking areas. Many big cities in Israel are planning on adopting LumiWeave. As there is also use for the fabric in outdoor sitting areas of restaurants and hotels, Green has developed a LumiWeave parasol (大遮阳伞). “We are now developing the possibility of controlling it from the phone — we’re creating an application,” Green said. LumiWeave provides an ideal solution for urban parks and gardens. We hope that it will soon be lighting up night skies around the world.

1. How does the new outdoor fabric work?

A．By turning household waste into clean energy.

B．By using photovoltaic cells to promote plant growth.

C．By providing shade and energy in an eco-friendly way.

D．By changing its temperatures according to the weather.

2. Which of the following can be the feature of LumiWeave?

A．It’s functional and cost-effective.

B．It takes up a lot of public space.

C．It’s equipped with self-repair materials.

D．It can broadcast weather conditions more quickly.

3. What’s Ron Huldai’s attitude towards LumiWeave?

A．Worried.

B．Doubtful.

C．Unclear.

D．Supportive.

4. What can we infer about LumiWeave from Paragraph 5?

A．It may cause safety concerns.

B．It will be further developed for wider use.

C．It will be replaced by more intelligent devices.

D．It can reduce the waiting time in some places.

5 . Imagine you need milk, so you go to the grocery store to pick some up, only to find there are dozens of options. These days, you have to make a decision on not only the percentage of fat you want, but also what source you want your milk to be coming from: cows, soybeans... You have no idea what milk to pick. There are so many choices that you are confused.

This phenomenon is known as the paradox (悖论) of choice and it is becoming a concern in the modern world, where more and more options are becoming easily available to us. While we might believe that being presented with multiple options actually makes it easier to choose one that we are happy with, and thus increases consumer satisfaction, having too many options actually requires more effort to make a decision and can leave us feeling unsatisfied with our choice.

The idea was popularized by American psychologist Barry Schwartz when he published his book, The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less. Schwartz, who has long studied the ways in which economics and psychology intersect (交叉), became interested in seeing the way that choices were affecting the happiness of citizens in Western societies. He identified that the range of choices that we have available to us these days is far greater than that people had in the past; however, consumer satisfaction has not increased as much as traditional economics theories might expect.

Schwartz identified that the paradox of choice carries the most consequence for people that are maximizers. Maximizers, unlike satisficers, are concerned with making the best choice instead of simply making a choice that they are happy with. When there are many options available to maximizers, it becomes harder for them to determine which is the best, which can cause them to feel a great deal of regret after they have made a choice.

Instead of believing that freedom of choice is unlimited, Schwartz advocates that the role of psychology and behavioral economics should be to find the kind of limitations on freedom that can lead to the greatest level of happiness within society.

1. What’s the author’s purpose in mentioning buying milk in paragraph 1?

A．To lead in the topic.

B．To draw a conclusion.

C．To show that we have more choices when shopping.

D．To indicate that people pay greater attention to health when shopping.

2. What does the paradox of choice suggest?

A．More options mean less satisfaction.

B．Consumer satisfaction has greatly increased.

C．People are happy with more choices.

D．Modern people are happier than their ancestors.

3. What can be learned about satisficers?

A．They aim for the very best.	B．They tend to follow their feelings.
C．They often regret their decisions.	D．They have trouble making a decision.

4. What does Schwartz suggest people do?

A．Hold on to their beliefs.	B．Accept their own behavior.
C．Give up freedom.	D．Limit their own choices.

7 . Despite heavy illegal hunting of rhinos, South Africa’s Kruger National Park is still a natural paradise. One of the largest remaining lion populations in Africa lives there. Yet there is something the local animals fear even more than the big cats.

Liana Zanette of Western University in Ontario and her colleagues were able to show that animals react most strongly to human voices and flee in response. For their experiment, the team placed camera traps and loudspeakers at water holes in the national park, which allowed the researchers to influence and record the behavior of a total of 19 mammal species. They played the animals sounds of normal conversations of humans in four South African languages, dogs barking, gunshots and lion sounds.

The study group found that animals were twice as likely to flee and yacated an area faster when they heard human voices than when they heard lions or gunshots. This was true for 95 percent of the animal species observed, including giraffes, leopards, hyenas, zebras, kudu, warthogs, impalas and rhinos. Only elephants were significantly more likely to run from lions than from humans.

The same was true of the time that animals spent at water holes: they usually stayed longer when lion sounds were played to them than when human voices were heard. Wild dogs, leopards and buffalo were the only animals who stayed at water holes longer when they heard humans, and the difference was not statistically significant for these species. “There is a notion that animals get used to humans when they are not being hunted. But we’ve shown that’s not the case,” Clinchy says. “Fear of humans is deeply rooted and common, so we need to seriously address it for conservation reasons.”

The team is now investigating whether its customized sound systems can be used to help endangered species, such as the southern white rhino, away from known poaching(偷猎) areas in South Africa. Initial tests of keeping rhinos away from such areas through the use of human voices have been successful.

1. What can we know about South Africa’s Kruger National Park?

A．Rhinos are effectively protected in the park.

B．Lions are the biggest threat for local animals.

C．Human voices cause fear in the local wildlife.

D．It is a natural paradise without illegal hunting.

2. What does the underlined word “vacated” in paragraph 3 probably mean?

A．Occupied.

B．Left.

C．Encountered.

D．Filled.

3. What did researchers find about animals’ reaction to different sounds?

A．Elephants are more afraid of humans than lions.

B．Giraffes react most strongly to lions or gunshots.

C．Rhinos were more likely to run from lions than gunshots

D．Wild dogs stayed at water holes longer when hearing humans

4. What is the best title for the text?

A．Human Voices: a surprising deep-rooted fear in wildlife

B．Lions: the primary source of threat for the local animals

C．Lion Sounds: the potential use for wildlife protection

D．Humans: the impact on decreasing rhino population

8 . People usually consider voluntary work as a completely selfless act, but voluntary work has its place in everyone’s lives, and my personal experiences have confirmed my belief in this.

    1     I once cleaned up flats where the poor lived in. The space was overcrowded and the items were covered in dust. I couldn’t contain my judgement and was critical about them. However, after talking to the residents and hearing about their misfortunes, I regretted my hasty judgment. This allowed me to know more about the less fortunate who don’t share my lifestyles.     2     Life is more complex than expected and I should sympathize with the disadvantaged.

Volunteer work has reminded me to cherish and appreciate little things in life. When I volunteered to teach life skills to students with cerebral palsy (脑瘫), I found that they were very grateful to the teachers and assistants by saying “thank you” and smiling.     3     Consequently, this has made me more mindful of my priorities in life, and more deliberate in not letting insignificant things bother me. Doing voluntary work has taught me to be happier and more grateful.

Doing voluntary work has given my life more meaning.     4     However, excessively pursuing them can often lead to increased discontent and can’t give meaning to one’s life. After doing voluntary work and learning the stories of others, I have a stronger sense of purpose in my life. Instead of just being absorbed in my own wants and needs, I make up my mind to try my best to help those in need.     5    

A．I felt that they had taught me a lesson on gratitude.

B．It is easy to be obsessed with material wants in society.

C．I am now able to go through life with more love and compassion.

D．Volunteer work has provided me with opportunities to make friends.

E．With the determination, the decisions I make are now more meaningful.

F．Moreover, I realized they are often unreasonably judged by other people.

G．Voluntary work has helped me better understand the lives of the less fortunate.

9 . The giant panda’s special black-and-white fur makes it one of the most recognizable animals on the planet. But why does it have this unique coloring? To hide from natural enemies, both in the snow and in the shadows, study lead author Tim Caro, a professor in the Department of Wildlife, Fish & Conservation Biology at the University of California, Davis, said in a new statement. Moreover, the large black circles around a panda’s eyes may help other pandas recognize it, the researchers said.

Understanding why the giant panda has such noticeable color has been a long-term problem to solve. To find out the answer, Caro and his colleagues looked at photos of pandas and 195 other carnivore(食肉动物) species, including 39 subspecies of bear. Then, they recorded the coloring on each area of those animals’ bodies, and compared them with areas of the panda’s body. “Compared with the previous studies, the breakthrough in this study was treating each part of the body as an independent area,” Caro said.

The research team tried to figure out the purpose of the dark-colored furry areas. After going through many comparisons, the researchers determined that the white parts of the giant panda help it hide in the snow. In contrast, its black arms and legs help it hide in the shadows, they said. The panda’s white-and-black coloring didn’t appear to be related to temperature regulation. Nor did they find evidence that the dark circles around a panda’s eyes helped to make them look cuter.

“This really was a great effort by our team, finding and scoring thousands of images and scoring more than 10 areas per picture from over 20 possible colors,” study co-author Ted Stankowich, an assistant professor of biology at California State University, Long Beach, said in the statement. “Sometimes it takes hundreds of hours of hard work to answer the simplest question: Why is the panda black and white?”

1. What does the new study focus on?

A．How pandas hide from natural enemies successfully.

B．Why pandas have unique black-and-white coloring.

C．Whether the black circles around a panda’s eyes are useful. ”

D．What makes pandas so cute and eye-catching.

2. What makes the new study different from the previous studies?

A．Researching more carnivore species.	B．Using the method of comparison.
C．Treating each part of the body separately.	D．Recording the number of photos.

3. What can we learn from Paragraph 3?

A．The giant panda gets used to living in the snow.

B．The white-and-black fur can help pandas hide.

C．The coloring of pandas is related to temperature.

D．The function of the dark-colored areas is unknown.

4. What is implied from Ted Stankowich’s words?

A．Keeping your curiosity can make a difference.

B．Hundreds of hours of hard work is annoying.

C．Scientists dislike doing research on simple issues.

D．It needs efforts to find the why behind what you see.

10 . Sui Xin and her friends spend an afternoon roasting nuts and fruits around a stove (炉子) while enjoying freshly brewed (冲泡的) tea. For the 28-year-old, this has become a new way to connect with friends away from the busy daily life in Beijing. This traditional practice of tea brewing over a fire has been shown in many Chinese paintings, poetry and literary works. However, in recent years, it has appealed to more and more young people in China as a way to make healthy habits become a part of modern lifestyles.

To promote tea culture among younger generations, traditional teahouses have changed to new-style Chinese teahouses. Some teahouses have created new social scenes by providing unique tea experiences and well-designed comfortable spaces for drinking tea. The decoration of some stores features a combination of traditional Chinese styles and youthful design, such as Heytea’s Zhongguancun store in Beijing. The store’s designer made the roof elements of traditional Beijing buildings become a part of the modern tea space, creating a unique combination of old and new.

Sun Xuling, co-founder of Theatre Tea, observed that people’s awareness of their health has showed in their preference for seasonal teas and drinks with less sweetness. At Theatre Tea, tea-flavored dessert is one of their specialties, which is always ordered together with their drinks. Sun notes that there has been a clear increase in people’s awareness of Chinese tea in the past two years. To cater to the need of young people, Theatre Tea is planning on opening a tea experience store, which will enable customers to try the different ways of making tea and to learn more about tea culture.

The exploration of new combinations between traditional tea culture, pop culture, and modern life is an exciting and important trend in China. With the increasing popularity of Chinese tea, tea makers and teahouses are continuously finding new ways to promote the cultures to younger generations while preserving its traditional customs.

1. What can be inferred about brewing tea over a charcoal fire in Paragraph 1?

A．It is a practice originating in Tang dynasty.

B．It gains greater popularity among young people.

C．It is helpful to protect people from diseases.

D．It first appeared in the area of Beijing.

2. Why is Heytea’s Zhongguancun store so special?

A．It was designed and built by famous young architects.

B．It offers tea-flavored dessert and drinks with less sweetness.

C．Customers can experience making tea by themselves there.

D．Its decoration features a mixture of traditional and modern styles.

3. What do the underlines words “cater to” in Paragraph 3 mean?

A．Increase.

B．Meet.

C．Study

D．Change

4. What can be a suitable title for the text?

A．A New Trend for Chinese Tea Culture

B．The Rise and Fall of Teahouses in Beijing

C．Ways to Promote Traditional Culture Abroad

D．New Eating Habits of Younger Generations