1 . According to a 2018 report, people aged between 16 and 24 make up 15 per cent of the population but only 10 per cent of museum-goers. Similarly, people of colour aged over 35 go half as much as you would expect from their population size.

We have reached the point of recognizing a disconnect between art and audiences but haven’t yet determined how to bridge the gap. Two answers to tackling this challenge lie in telling a greater diversity of art histories and communicating these stories in more modern and accessible ways.

If you have ever tried to power through reading a museums complex wall text, you know art discussions can be full of special terms. In 2018, I started a podcast called Art Matters for the charity Art UK with the aim of discussing art from a pop-culture angle with topics that would engage younger and more diverse audiences. It offers an accessible pathway to art history with conversations on topics such as film, psychology and even Beyoncé, with few special terms. The series has been a useful way of connecting art to current events. Art history is about storytelling; art content shines when there is an effort to bring audiences along for the discussion.

More traditional institutions are paying attention. This summer, the Getty Museum in Los Angeles issued a social-media challenge for people to recreate paintings using items they had at home. Users displayed incredible creativity ---- toilet rolls featured frequently ---- and the museum was flooded with submissions. This reaction proves that there is a hidden desire for audiences to engage with art topics if the format is appealing.

Many people are intimidated (威胁) by art and feel that there’s a base level of understanding required to join the conversation. The Getty initiative embraced the visuality of art and served as a reminder that there are many pathways to engaging with it.

Another interesting byproduct of the Getty challenge was the attention given to a diversity of artworks. British opera singer Peter Brathwaite, for example, made scores of stunning recreations highlighting centuries of black portraiture, including a collaboration with London’s National Portrait Gallery. His efforts counter the perception that there are not many historical portraits of black figures. It is imperative (势在必行的) that we do a better job of showcasing the many complex and diverse stories that are represented in art. In doing so, we preserve more histories and welcome wider diversity of people.

Social media have offered a platform for people who have not traditionally had a seat at the table. Anyone can recognize a gap in the field and address it. Accounts have amassed tens of thousands of followers by dedicating their feeds to female artists, artists of of colour and more. Their followings are proof positive that there is a hunger to hear these art histories, and these themes work brilliantly for museum programming.

But there is only so much that can be done without Britain’s museums and galleries changing meaningfully from within. We need to see a better balance of these stories represented in permanent collections. We also need a much wider diversity of people and interests represented on boards and executive teams.

Ensuring that art ---- and writing and talking about art ---- resonates throughout the population depends on the rising generation of storytellers, inside institutions and out, getting the funding and support they need to paint a brighter picture for the sector.

1. Which of the following is NOT an example of the answers to tackling the challenge?

A．Engaging audiences in discussions in the podcast Art Matters

B．Holding pop-culture discussions with the charity Art UK

C．Encouraging people to recreate paintings with household items

D．Portraying historical black figures through art recreations

2. The podcast Art Matters bears the following features EXCEPT ________.

A．connecting art history to popular topics

B．having only a few special terms

C．being accessible to the poor and needy

D．engaging more diverse audiences

3. We can conclude from the passage that common audiences ________.

A．lack the ability to understand and talk about art history

B．prefer to view artworks and hear art stories on social media

C．long to engage with art topics and diverse art history stories

D．hope more people of colour are represented on museum boards

4. Which of the following best serves as the title for this passage?

A．Art for Change	B．Don’t Fear Art
C．Art on Social Media	D．Art for All

2 . Freedom and Responsibility

Freedom’s challenge in the Digital Age is a serious topic. We are facing today a strange new world and we are all wondering what we are going to do with it.

Some 2,500 years ago Greece discovered freedom. Before that there was no freedom. There were great civilizations, splendid empires, but no freedom anywhere. Egypt and Babylon were both tyrannies, one very powerful man ruling over helpless masses.

In Greece, in Athens, a little city in a little country, there were no helpless masses. And Athenians willingly obeyed the written laws which they themselves passed, and the unwritten, which must be obeyed if free men live together. They must show each other kindness and pity and the many qualities without which life would be very painful unless one chose to live alone in the desert. The Athenians never thought that a man was free if he could do what he wanted. A man was free if he was self-controlled. To make yourself obey what you approved was freedom. They were saved from looking at their lives as their own private affair. Each one felt responsible for the welfare of Athens, not because it was forced on him from the outside, but because the city was his pride and his safety. The essential belief of the first free government in the world was liberty for all men who could control themselves and would take responsibility for the state.

But discovering freedom is not like discovering computers. It cannot be discovered once for all. If people do not prize it, and work for it, it will go. Constant watch is its price. Athens changed. It was a change that took place without being noticed though it was of the extreme importance, a spiritual change which affected the whole state. It had been the Athenian’s pride and joy to give to their city. That they could get material benefits from her never entered their minds. There had to be a complete change of attitude before they could look at the city as an employer who paid her citizens for doing her work. Now instead of men giving to the state, the state was to give to them. What the people wanted was a   government which would provide a comfortable life for them; and with this as the primary object, ideas of freedom and self-reliance and responsibinreat wealth in which all citizens had a right to share.

Athens reached the point when the freedom she really wanted was freedom from responsibility. There could be only one result. If men insisted on being free from the burden of self-dependence and responsibility for the common good, they would cease to be free. Responsibility is the price every man must pay for freedom. It is to be had on no other terms. Athens, the Athens of Ancient Greece, refused responsibility; she reached the end of freedom and was never to have it again.

But, “the excellent becomes the permanent”, Aristotle said. Athens lost freedom forever, but freedom was not lost forever for the world. A great American, James Madison, referred to “ The capacity (能力) of mankind for self-government." No doubt he had nor an idea that he was speaking Greek. Athens was not in the farthest background of his mind, but once man has a great and good idea, it is never completely lost. The Digital Age cannot destroy it. Somehow in this or that man’s thought such an idea lives though unconsidered by the world of action. One can never be sure that it is not on the point of breaking out into action only sure that it will do so sometime.

1. What does the underlined word “tyrannies” in Paragraph2 refer to?

A．Countries where their people need help.

B．Governments ruled with absolute power.

C．Splendid empires where people enjoy freedom.

D．Powerful states with higher civilization.

2. People believing in freedom are those who ________.

A．regard their life as their own business

B．seek gains as their primary object

C．treat others with kindness and pity

D．behave within the laws and value systems

3. What change in attitude took place in Athens?

A．The Athenians refused to take their responsibility.

B．The Athenians no longer took pride in the city.

C．The Athenians benefited spiritually from the government.

D．The Athenians looked on the government as a business.

4. Why does the author refer to Aristotle and Madison?

A．The author is hopeful about freedom.

B．The author is cautious about self-government.

C．The author is skeptical of Greek civilization.

D．The author is proud of man’s capacity.

6 . Home to 8.2 million people, 36 percent of whom were born outside the United States, New York, known as the Big Apple, is the biggest city in America. Nearly twenty times bigger than the capital, Washington DC, you might expect New York to be twenty times more dangerous. Actually, it's safer. Recent figures show that New York now has fewer crimes per 100,000 people than 193 other US cities. It's also healthier than it used to be. For example, the smoking rate has gone down from 21.5 percent a few years ago, to 16.9 percent today.

New Yorkers should be delighted, shouldn't they? In fact, many feel that New York is losing its identity. It used to be the city that never sleeps. These days it's the city that never smokes, drinks or does anything naughty (at least, not in public). The Big Apple is quickly turning into the Forbidden Apple.

If you decided to have a picnic in Central Park, you'd need to be careful - if you decided to feed the birds with your sandwich, you could be arrested. It's banned. In many countries a mobile phone going off in the cinema in annoying. In New York it's illegal. So is putting your bag on an empty seat in the subway. If you went to a bar for a drink and a cigarette, that would be OK, wouldn't it? Er ... no. You can't smoke in public in New York City. In fact, you can't smoke outdoors on the street or in parks either. The angry editor of Vanity Fair magazine, Graydon Carter, says, "Under New York City law it is acceptable to keep a gun in your place of work, but not an empty ashtray. " He should know. The police came to his office and took away his ashtray.

But not all of New York's inhabitants are complaining. Marcia Dugarry, seventy-two, said, "The city has changed for the better. If more cities had these laws, America would be a better place to live."

The new laws have helped turn the city into one of the healthiest - and most pleasant places to live in America -- very different from its old image of a dirty and dangerous city. Its pavements are almost litter-free, its bars clean and its streets among American's safest. Not putting your bag on subway seats might be a small price to pay.

1. The author writes Paragraph 1 in order to tell the reader that New York is _________.

A．bigger than Washington D. C.	B．the city with most immigrants
C．safer and healthier	D．the most populated city in the U. S.

2. Which of the following is forbidden by law in New York?

A．Eating sandwich in the Central Park.	B．Putting a bag on an empty subway seat.
C．Turning on the sound of the mobile phone.	D．Smoking at home.

3. What does Graydon Carter imply?

A．Some of New York's new laws are not reasonable.

B．A gun is much easier to get than an ashtray.

C．The police had no right to take away his ashtray.

D．There should be a law to keep guns away from people.

7 . As we age, our ability to think and remember stars to deteriorate. It is normal for old age to be associated with gradual decline in memory and brain mass.     1     Some of us have brains that age more slowly. Super-agers are people over the age of 80 who have the brain structures and abilities of much younger people. Eighty-seven-year-old Bill Gurolnick is such a super-ager.

Scientists know that parts of the brain decrease in size with age. But in super-agers that process is much slower. Emily Rogalski is a neuro-scientist at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, in Chicago, Illinois. In a recent study, she showed that super-agers have young brains. The area of the brain responsible for attention and memory -- the cortex (脑皮层)— was shown to be thicker in super-agers.

"When we look at the cortex of their brain, we see that, on average, it looks more like a 50-year-old brain than it looks like an average 80-year-old brain."

    2     These large brain cells appear to be involved with social-emotional communication. But their exact purpose is still a mystery. Scientists writing for Smithsonian magazine also call them spindle neurons (纺锤体神经元), and say they are "brain cells for socializing."

Several factors affect how our brains age. Scientists say super-agers have several things in common, including an active lifestyle. Many travel and play sports. They are often big readers.     3    .

Super-agers also seem to have certain common personality traits. Rogalski says they are, for the most part, known for their optimism, resilience and perseverance. Growing old, she adds, does not have to be depressing and sad. "Perhaps, if we expected a bit better from ourselves, then we would understand that not all aging is doom and gloom."

    4     That they are special and few. She says she wants to find out the reasons Gurolnick's mind is working so well and not aging as quickly as most.

Gurolnick's own father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in his fifties Solving this mystery, Rogalski says, may help those who suffer from brain diseases such as Alzheimer's.

"We think if we can understand the factors contributing to super-aging, it may offer new hypotheses and new ways to explore the challenges in Alzheimer's disease."

A．Nowadays scientists are peeking into the brains of these "super-agers" to uncover their secret.

B．As lead investigator of the study, Rogalaski jokingly said that super-agers do not grow on trees.

C．And they usually have healthy relationships and spend time with friends.

D．Not only do super-agers have thicker cor-texes, they have more von Economo neurons.

E．However, there are reports of individuals who seem immune to age-related memory impairment.

F．It's pretty extraordinary for people in their 80s and 90s to keep the same sharp memory as someone several decades younger.

8 . Space exploration has always been the province of dreamers: The human imagination readily soars where human innovation struggles to follow. A Voyage to the Moon, often cited as the first science fiction story, was written by Cyrano de Bergerac in 1649. Cyrano was dead and buried for a good three centuries before the first manned rockets started to fly.

In 1961, when President Kennedy declared that America would send a man to the moon by the decade's end, those words, too, had a dreamlike quality. They resonated(共鸣) with optimism and ambition in much the same way as the most famous dream speech of all, delivered by Martin Luther King Jr. two years later. By the end of the decade, both visions had turned out concrete results and transformed American society. And yet in many ways the two dreams ended up conflicting with each other. The fight for racial and economic equality is intensely practical and immediate in its impact. The urge to explore space is just the opposite. It is actually unrealistic in its aims.

When the dust settled, the space dreamers lost out. There was no grand follow-up to the Apollo missions. The technologically compromised（妥协） space shuttle program has just come to an end, with no successor. The endless argument is that funds are tight, that we have more pressing problems here on Earth. Among the current concerns about the federal deficit (赤字), reaching toward the stars seems an unnecessary luxury---as if saving one-thousandth of a single year's budget would solve our problems.

But human innovation struggles on. NASA is developing a series of robotic devices that will get the most bang from a buck. They will serve as modern Magellans, mapping out the solar system for whatever explorers follow, whether man or machine. On the flip side, companies like Virgin Galactic are designing a bottom-up attack on the space dream by making it a reality to the public. Private spaceflight could lie within reach of rich civilians in a few years. Another decade or two and it could go mainstream.

The space dreamers end up benefiting all of us---not just because of the way they expand human knowledge, or because of the technologies they produce, but because the two types of dreams feed on each other. Both Martin Luther King and John Kennedy appealed to the idea that humans can get over what were once considered inborn limitations. Today we face seeming challenges in energy, the environment, healthcare. Tomorrow we will overcome these as well, and the dreamers will deserve a lot of the credit. The more evidence we collect that our species is capable of greatness, the more we will actually achieve it.

1. The author mentions Cyrano de Bergerac in order to show that _________.

A．imagination is the mother of invention

B．creativity is essential to science fiction writers

C．it takes patience for humans to realize their dreams

D．dreamers have always been interested in science fiction

2. Concerning the dreams of Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr, which of the following statements is NOT true?

A．They symbolized human beings' confidence in achievements.

B．They brought about dramatic changes in American society.

C．They are in complete conflict with each other.

D．They both sounded very much unrealistic to Americans.

3. Which of the following does the author imply in paragraph 3?

A．Space shuttle program is too dangerous for Americans to carry on.

B．The tight budget is to blame for the unsuccessful space program.

C．More problems on Earth call for our immediate attention.

D．Space program, necessary to the national dream, should be continued.

4. What does the author think of the problems facing human beings?

A．They pose a serious challenge to future human existence.

B．They can be solved sooner or later with human innovation.

C．Their solutions need joint efforts of the public and private sectors.

D．They can only be solved by people who are intelligently superior.

9 . The number of devices you can talk to is multiplying -- first it was your phone, then your car, and now you can boss around your appliances. Children are likely to grow up thinking everything is interactive. After interacting with Amazon's Alexa 2, my 2 year old son started talking to cup mat. But even without chatty gadgets, research suggests that under certain circumstances, people anthropomorphize (人格化) everyday products.

    1    . In one experiment, people who reported feeling isolated were more likely than others to attribute free will and consciousness to various gadgets. In turn, feeling close relationship with objects can reduce loneliness. When college students were reminded of a time they'd been excluded socially, they compensated by exaggerating their number of Facebook friends   --       2    . At other times, we personify products in an effort to understand them. One study found that three in four respondents cursed at their computer -- and the more their computer gave them problems, the more likely they were to report that it had "its own beliefs".

So how do people assign traits to an object? In part, we rely on looks. On humans, wide faces are associated with dominance. Similarly, people rated cars, clocks, and watches with wide faces as more dominant-looking than narrow-faced ones, and preferred them -- especially in competitive situations like confronting a former bully at a school reunion.     3    . An analysis of car sales in Germany found that cars with grilles (前保险杠) that were upturned like smiles and headlights like narrowed eyes sold best.

    4    . Most use symbols that were human or human-like: People (the Marlboro Man) were most popular images, accounting for 21 percent of the total, followed by birds (Twitter), domesticated animals (Morris the Cat), wild animals (Tony the Tiger), and various plants (Mr. Peanut).

A．It's little wonder so many companies use mascots to bring brands to life.

B．Sometimes we see things as human because we're lonely.

C．Some purchasers saw certain features as increasing a product's aggressiveness and friendliness, respectively.

D．There are various images that people use to anthropomorphize everyday products.

E．as if they were treated as real friends in either friendly or aggressive situations.

F．unless they were first given tasks that caused them to interact with their phone as if it had human qualities.