1 . I remember that it was a fall morning when the orchestra (管弦乐队) teachers came into Miss Newell’s third-grade classroom. “You have hands for the viola (中提琴),” Miss Ciano told me. I was excited because my hands were finally good for something. I told my parents I wanted to play, and naturally, they agreed.
Since I first touched the viola, I haven’t been able to put it down. Ignoring the difficulty, I am pulled closer to it each day.
Classical music is truly my best friend. It is the trusted friend of every man, woman and child. Various feelings are expressed in classical music. I discovered that when I was eleven and played a cello concerto (大提琴协奏曲) of Bach in a competition, the first movement was joyful, but the second movement was mysterious and full of pain. From the piece, I learned that music expresses not only feelings, but also sudden mood changes. By listening to classical music, I know that someone else shares these feelings. Since I am lucky enough to be able to play classical music, I am comforted by it when I am upset. It gives me a way to escape from my problems for a short period. Classical music can express my joy, sadness and anger.
Now look back at that fall day in the third grade and think how gullible I was for believing that anyone, even music teachers, could tell whether hands were perfect for a certain instrument. I’m certain they told me I had “ viola hands” not because they were fortune-tellers (算命师), but because there was a lack of violists in our district. Classical music is one of the best things that ever happened to mankind. If you get introduced to it in the right way, it will become your friend for life.
1. What’s the author’s purpose in writing the first and second paragraphs?| A．To introduce an interesting musical class. |
| B．To show the importance of proper guide. |
| C．To offer the evidence of her gift for music. |
| D．To tell the power of support from parents. |
| A．By developing social skills. | B．By broadening life experience. |
| C．By improving mental health. | D．By building close relationship. |
| A．generous | B．definite | C．relaxed | D．upset |
| A．Lifetime dream, great effort. | B．Happy childhood, unforgotten |
| C．Special event, sweet memory. | D．Classical music, endless friendship |
2 . There’s a useful concept from psychology that helps explain why good people do things that harm the environment: the false consensus effect. That’s where we overvalue how acceptable and prevalent (普遍的) our own behavior is in society. Put simply, if you’re doing something (even if you secretly know you probably shouldn’t), you’re more likely to think plenty of other people do it too. What’s more, you likely overestimate how much other people think that behavior is broadly OK.
This bias (偏见) allows people to justify socially unacceptable or illegal behaviors. Researchers have observed the false consensus effect in drug use and illegal hunting. More recently, conservationists are beginning to reveal how this effect contributes to environmental damage.
In Australia, people who admitted to poaching (偷猎) thought it was much more prevalent in society than it really was, and had higher estimates than fishers who obeyed the law. They also believed others viewed poaching as socially acceptable; however, in reality, more than 90% of fishers held the opposite view. The false consensus effect has also shown up in studies examining support for nuclear energy and offshore wind farms.
Just as concepts from psychology can help explain some forms of environmental damage, so too can they help address it. For example, research shows people are more likely to litter in areas where there’s already a-lot of trash scattered around; so making sure the ground around a bin is not covered in rubbish may help.
Factual information on how other people think and behave can be very powerful. Energy companies have substantially reduced energy consumption simply by showing people how their electricity use compares to their neighbors. Encouragingly, stimulating people’s natural desire for status has also been successful in getting people to “go green to be seen”, or to publicly buy eco-friendly products.
As the research evidence shows, social norms can be a powerful force in encouraging and popularizing environmentally friendly behaviors. Perhaps you can do your bit by sharing this article!
1. Which example best illustrates the false consensus effect?| A．A student spends long hours surfing the internet. |
| B．A blogger assumes many people dislike his posts. |
| C．A driver frequently parks illegally in public places. |
| D．A smoker believes people generally approve of smoking. |
| A．It is unacceptable. | B．It is widespread. |
| C．It is controversial. | D．It is complex. |
| A．Embrace green habits for better health. |
| B．Make green choices that others can perceive. |
| C．Join green movements for personal fulfillment. |
| D．Choose green items that are easy to spot in stores. |
| A．Understate social norms. | B．Highlight personal responsibilities. |
| C．Publicize sustainable practices. | D．Encourage technological innovations. |
3 . It was February 24, 2017, and my husband, David, and I were both at work. It was a day like any other. Our 15-year-old son, Justin, his sister and his friend Mike were playing with a ball in our backyard. Completely a common day!
What happened next was exactly a storm. Justin suddenly suffered cardiac arrest (心脏停搏) caused by a hit to the chest, and his heart just stopped. No pulse, no heartbeat. There are only about 10 to 20 cases a year. And it was almost always deadly until recently, when CPR (心肺复苏) has worked in up to one-third of cases.
Thankfully, the other children acted immediately instead of freezing in fear. Mike called 911 while my daughter called my husband. That second call proved vitally important, as my husband was able to get in touch with a neighbor who ran over and started CPR. And later, the doctors arrived and quickly shocked Justin’s heartbeat rhythm (节奏) back to normal.
Since then, I’ve found myself changed as a parent. There is more worry now. This unexpected incident has made me realize that anything can happen to my children. So, we’re doing what we can to be prepared. Earlier this year, Justin took part in a community education event with our fire department teaching Hands-Only CPR to the public. At least 100 participants showed up, and Justin shared his story to show why CPR is so important. At a local university where I work as a nurse lecturer, I’ve volunteered to join the CPR and AED first aid training for incoming freshmen.
David and I feel very fortunate to still have our son with us. If the kids hadn’t known to call 911, he wouldn’t be here. If our neighbor hadn’t known CPR, Justin wouldn’t be here. I think everyone should take the time to learn CPR. You could save a life — maybe the life of someone you love. Cardiac arrest often comes without warning. Everything will be normal right up until the point it isn’t. You have to know what to do.
1. Why does the author say the incident was a storm?| A．Her son played dangerous sports. | B．Her son had a close encounter with death. |
| C．Her children made a real mess when playing. | D．Her neighbor complained of the children's noise. |
| A．Curious. | B．Grateful. | C．Surprised. | D．Puzzled. |
| A．They worked as medical workers. | B．They shared their stories on speaking tours. |
| C．They trained others in first aid skills. | D．They introduced first aid courses to schools. |
| A．The theory behind CPR. | B．The ways of ensuring child safety. |
| C．The causes of cardiac arrest. | D．The importance of learning first aid. |
4 . A speech in a play by Shakespeare can be as short as a word or as long as several hundred. But what is the most common length?
Staying away from Shakespeare himself for a moment, we can take Ben Jonson’s play Volpone (1606) and count the number of speeches and their lengths. The most common length is four words. The next most common length is five words. Of the other 16 Jonson’s plays, 12 also have a speech length mode (模式) of four. It was not just Jonson; it was everybody. After 1602, four-word speeches were the most common kind across all the early modern plays that survived.
The London theatre industry took off in the late 1580s and early 1590s and we see a concentration of speech length modes of nine or ten. After 1602, the mode of four predominated. If we look just at Shakespeare’s plays, we find him doing what everyone else did: changing from favoring nine-word speeches to favouring four-word speeches around 1597-1602 and never going back.
Our suggestion is that the playwrights (剧作家) learned progressively from one another how to represent more closely the speech lengths of everyday exchanges and found that audiences responded well to these. They started to focus less on strict writing rules and more on the liveliness of everyday speech.
Another way to think of this is offered by the Russian literary scholar Boris Yarkho. He put forward an “index (指数) of liveliness” — the ratio of the number of speeches to the total number of lines in a play. He researched the works of the 17th-century French playwright Pierre Corneille and found that his comedies have a higher index because of their shorter speeches. The move from a mode of nine words to a mode of four represents the shortened average speech, and thus a move to livelier drama in Yarkho’s terms.
Nevertheless, we have no record of any dramatist or playgoer reflecting on the shortening of average speech lengths; our only knowledge of it comes from counting the words in the plays for ourselves.
1. What happened in English plays around the 1600s?| A．Their storylines were about famous writers. | B．They were influenced by a poetic writing style. |
| C．They featured different storytelling techniques. | D．Their speeches were generally shorter in length. |
| A．Remained unique. | B．Took the leading position. |
| C．Disappeared slowly. | D．Played an educational role. |
| A．To challenge traditional writing rules. | B．To stand out by applying their unique style. |
| C．To avoid being affected by social values. | D．To create realistic and acceptable speeches. |
| A．It saved actors the trouble of memorizing their lines. |
| B．It reflected people's preference for serious dialogues. |
| C．It helped present dramas in an active and pleasant way. |
| D．It made the characters express their feelings effectively. |
5 . Tea is currently the world’s most popular drink, only after water. However, there was a time when tea was known only to the Chinese. So, how did tea originate in China? And how did it get to conquer the world to the extent that people often describe something they really like as their “cup of tea”?
While we know that tea drink started in China, its true origin remains something unknown. Legend has it that about 5, 000 years ago, Shennong came across tea when dried leaves blew into a pot of boiling water. Following his discovery, tea was used as medicine, included in meals and later offered as a refreshing drink to officials and noblemen. Eventually, it became a common drink enjoyed by all Chinese people.
The love of tea inspired many people to write about it. Over the years, tea drinking became an important part of China’s rich culture. The great poet Du Fu described his tea-drinking experience in poetic language. Lu Yu, a tea master, wrote The Classic of Tea, which remains the earliest and most famous detailed study on tea in the world.
It is then not surprising that the beauty of tea was eventually spread to a wider world. Tang and Song Dynasties needed strong Tibetan horses, so the Tea Horse Road was born. Porters (脚夫) carrying back-breaking loads of tea bricks made their way through dangerous snow-covered mountain passes, to trade Sichuan and Yunnan tea for horses. Over time, the gift of tea was further delivered to Western Asia and Easten Africa. As early as the Tang Dynasty, Saicho, a Japanese monk came to study in China and took tea seeds and tea-making customs to Japan. Around the 1600s, tea was shipped to Europe from China by Portuguese and Dutch sea traders.
1. What was tea first used as in China?| A．Medicine. | B．Drink. | C．Food. | D．Goods. |
| A．Shennong. | B．Saicho. | C．Du Fu. | D．Lu Yu. |
| A．Taken by monks. | B．Carried by porters. |
| C．Shipped by traders. | D．Delivered by horses. |
| A．To study the customs of tea. | B．To introduce the history of tea. |
| C．To show the importance of tea. | D．To describe different uses of tea. |
6 . Handwritten notes in class might seem outdated as digital technology involves nearly every aspect of learning. But a steady stream of research suggests that compared with typing, taking notes with pen and paper is still a better way to learn. And scientists are zeroing in on why.
In a recently published study, scientists found that those writing by hand had higher levels of electrical activity across many interconnected brain regions. They added 256 sensors into a hairnet, which helped monitor 36 students’ brains as they wrote or typed words displayed on a screen. When students wrote by hand, the sensors picked up widespread brain connectivity including visual regions, regions that receive and process sensory information, and the motor cortex (运动皮层) . Typing, however, resulted in minimal activity in these brain regions.
Across many contexts, studies have shown that students appear to learn better when they’re asked to produce letters or other visual items using their fingers and hands. The educational neuroscientist Sophia Vinci-Booher says the recent study highlights the clear tie between motor action and conceptual recognition: “As you’re drawing a letter or writing a word, you’re taking this perceptual (感知的) understanding of something and using your motor system to create it. That creation is then fed back into the visual system, where it’s processed again — strengthening the connection between an action and the images or words associated with it.”
The new findings don’t mean technology is always a disadvantage in the classroom. Laptops, smartphones, and other such devices can be more efficient for writing essays and can offer fairer access to educational resources. But people now increasingly tend to “offload” mental tasks to digital devices, such as by taking a photograph instead of committing information to memory, says Yadurshana Sivashankar at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. “If we’re not actively using these areas, then they are going to worsen over time, whether it’s memory or motor skills.”
1. What is the function of the sensors in the recent study according to Paragraph 2?| A．To record brain activity. | B．To activate brain waves. |
| C．To connect visual regions. | D．To process sensory information. |
| A．One’s motor system boosts his creativity. | B．One’s writing action enhances his perception. |
| C．Learning performance relies on visual memory. | D．Concrete images contributes to comprehension. |
| A．Owe. | B．Link. | C．Shift. | D．Bring. |
| A．Note-taking: the key to a good grade | B．Digital learning: beneficial or harmful |
| C．Typing vs handwriting: efficiency counts | D．Handwritten notes: conventional but effective |
7 . Willful ignorance exists in large amount in daily life. People regularly look the other way rather than examining the consequences of their actions. Despite plenty of scientific evidence for climate change, for instance, many people still avoid engaging with facts about global warming.
We wanted to understand how common willful ignorance is and why people engage in it. After collecting data from multiple research projects that involved more than 6,000 individuals, we discovered that willful ignorance is common and harmful, with 40 percent of people choosing “not to know” the consequences of their actions to free themselves of guilt while maximizing their own gains. But we also found that about 40 percent of people are unselfish: rather than avoiding information about the consequences of their actions, they seek it out to increase the benefits to others.
In the experiments, the decisions were made in one of two settings. In the transparent (透明的) setting, decision-makers had information about how their choice would affect themselves and their partner. In an ambiguous (模糊的) setting, decision-makers knew how their choice would matter for themselves but not for their teammate — although they could request that insight.
The overall balance tipped toward selfishness when participants had the option to avoid information. Only 39 percent of people in the ambiguous setting made the choice that ultimately benefited their partner — a significant drop from 55 percent in the transparent condition.
If we can avoid putting a strong moral emphasis on decisions, it may make people feel less threatened and, as a result, be less willfully ignorant. Other research groups have found promising ways to do this. For instance, we could encourage people to think more positively about good deeds rather than guilt-trip them for what they have failed to do. Highlighting recent global achievements, such as healing the ozone (臭氧) layer, can inspire people to keep up the good work rather than feeling like the battle is lost and that the situation is hopeless.
In short, we can encourage one another and ourselves toward more selfless and generous actions.
1. Why do some people choose not to know the consequences of their actions?| A．To make easier choices to be a good person. |
| B．To increase their own benefits more than others’. |
| C．To avoid the influence of consequences on actions. |
| D．To get the most benefits without a sense of shame. |
| A．By focusing less on its morality. | B．By stressing its potential threat. |
| C．By being more positive about oneself. | D．By getting people aware of their actions. |
| A．Culture. | B．Environment. | C．Psychology. | D．Biology. |
| A．The reason for willful ignorance. |
| B．The results of willful ignorance. |
| C．The harmful effects of willful ignorance. |
| D．The influence of willful ignorance on environment. |
8 . Washington D. C. is home to over 70 museums, including 19 free Smithsonian museums and galleries. With each museum boasting numerous must-see exhibits, trying to choose where to start can be a challenge. Here, we’ve broken down a few exhibits coming to D. C. in 2024 you want to make sure you catch:
The National Museum of Women in the Arts
The NMWA has a stunning exhibition called “In Focus: Artists at Work” that highlights the practices and perspectives of eight contemporary collection artists via short documentary-style videos. In addition to other interesting exhibits, this museum is a must-visit in 2024!
Monet: The Immersive Experience
In this multi-sensory wonderland, Monet’s vivid masterpieces are brought to life through 360° digital projections of the French artist’s iconic pieces and his impressionist brushstrokes (笔画). Famous works like The Water Lily Pond, Poppies, Sunrise, and more will turn around the room, completely captivating you as you wander about the open space, or sit and take it all in.
Hirsh horn Museum: OSGEMEOS: ENDLESS STORY
The “OSGEMEOS: ENDLESS STORY” exhibit will be one of the largest displays of the Brazillian twin artists, Gustavo and Otavio Pandolfo. The extremely interesting and innovative exhibit reflects the artists’ use of modern styles like street graffiti (涂鸦) and urban art, conveyed using mediums like wood and canvas.
The Rubell Museum’s Alexandre Diop: Jooba Jubba, l’ Art du Defi
It features the work of Franco-Sangalese Vienna-based artist Alexandre Diop. The work is inspired by concepts like colonialism and migration and their impact on themes like ancestry, tradition, and suffering.
1. How does the art come lively to audience in Monet: The Immersive Experience?| A．By documentary-style videos. | B．By digital projections. |
| C．By modern styles. | D．By lifelike artwork. |
| A．The National Museum of Women in the Arts. |
| B．Monet: The Immersive Experience. |
| C．Hirsh horn Museum: OSGEMEOS: ENDLESS STORY. |
| D．The Rubell Museum’s Alexandre Diop: Jooba Jubba, I’ Art du Defi. |
| A．Perspectives of artists. | B．Impressionist masterpieces. |
| C．Street graffiti and urban art. | D．The influence of history on art. |
9 . In the rich countries of the West, the electric vehicle revolution is well occurring. Climate-conscious consumers drive Teslas or Polestars for reasons of morality (道德) and fashion. Poorer countries are also experiencing a wave of electrified trend. In Bangladesh, electric three-wheeler taxis, known as tuk-tuks, are rapidly replacing gas-powered ones on the streets. Such electric vehicles are climate friendly, cost effective, and help reduce air pollution.
Yet a glance under the hood (引擎盖) of these vehicles shows a poisonous secret: each tuk-tuk runs on five massive lead-acid batteries (铅酸电池), containing almost 300 pounds of lead (铅) in total. Every year and a half or so, when those batteries need to be replaced and recycled, about 60 pounds of lead leaks into the environment. Battery recycling, often at small-scale unregulated factories, is a highly profitable (高利润的) but deadly business.
Lead is dangerous, and any exposure to it is harmful to human health. Lead that has entered the environment hurts people on an unexpected scale. The numerous ways lead enters air, water, soil, and homes across the developing world and the enormous damage it does to human health, wealth, and welfare cause one of the biggest environmental problems in the world yet receives little attention.
The World Bank estimates that lead kills 5.5 million people per year, making it a bigger global killer than AIDS, malaria, diabetes, and road traffic deaths combined. On top of the shocking deaths, the social burden of lead poisoning is heavy, as is its contribution to global inequality — our research on the cognitive (认知的) effects of lead poisoning suggests that it may explain about one-fifth of the educational achievement gap between rich and poor countries.
But unlike many challenges faced by developing countries, lead poisoning is a problem that can be resolved through financial investment (财政投入). Better monitoring, research, and rules can help protect children all over the world from the unpleasant effects of lead poisoning and reduce the massive global costs it brings.
1. How does the author describe the lead problem in paragraph 2?| A．By listing some numbers. | B．By analyzing hidden causes. |
| C．By making an interesting comparison. | D．By explaining its working principle. |
| A．Lead enters poor countries in one way. |
| B．Lead leaking has been avoided in all the countries. |
| C．Lead will definitely not harm anymore. |
| D．Lead poisoning may make poor societies poorer. |
| A．Fixing these used batteries. | B．Reducing the cost of recycling lead. |
| C．Ignoring the illegal use of lead. | D．Putting certain effort and money. |
| A．The Impacts of Lead Poisoning on Man. |
| B．The Global Lead Poisoning Problem. |
| C．The Ways to Solve Lead Problem. |
| D．The Benefits of Using Electric Vehicles. |
10 . In the book Consciousness Explained, the cognitive (认知的) scientist Daniel Dennett describes a kind of fish, which wanders through the sea looking for a suitable rock to make its home for life. On finding one, the fish no longer needs its brain and eats it. Humanity is unlikely to adopt such an eating habit but there is a worrying trend that people are dumping themselves down by becoming overly dependent on “intelligent” machines, especially when ChatGPT comes out.
Since its launch in November 2022, ChatGPT has drawn 1 million people to register during the first week. Its allure is obvious: ChatGPT can produce jokes, write undergraduate essays and create computer code from a short writing prompt (提示).
But this is a false impression. Computers have become more capable but they lack genuine thinking, developed in humans through constant social practices. ChatGPT does not know what it is doing; it is unable to say how or why it produced a response; and cannot tell if it is making sense. So why all the fuss? Google’s new Al-powered search tool, Bard was released in March 2023, making its ambition obvious in its promotional video. The profit-driven competition to fill our daily lives with artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly fierce.
Humans have a long track of turning a blind eye to the risks of new breakthroughs. Web companies want to draw their users to think extremely highly of their Al tools, encouraging humanity to think them far beyond human’s cognitive competence. As we know, the rise of civilization through art and agriculture contributes mostly to the remarkable human mental powers. No one knows what will happen to such technologies if the software engineers of the future make themselves become software programs. Maybe the danger is not machines being treated like humans, but humans being treated like machines.
1. Why does the author mention “the fish” in the first paragraph?| A．To stress the importance of intelligent machines. |
| B．To introduce a new kind of eating habit in animals. |
| C．To compare with human’s unwillingness to think. |
| D．To praise the excellence of human thinking ability. |
| A．Target. | B．Attraction. | C．Weakness. | D．Access. |
| A．Computers are skilled at completing cognitive tasks. |
| B．Making money is not so important in the AI competition. |
| C．Machines and humans should be treated equally. |
| D．Web companies want the users to overstate AI tools. |
| A．ChatGPT has both benefits and risks. |
| B．Human depends overly on intelligent tools. |
| C．More intelligent technology is always better. |
| D．Human’s cognitive competence is irreplaceable. |
