1 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. drive     B. return     C. mobilizes     D. significant     AB. helpless AC. familiarize   AD. address   BC. shameless     BD. appeals CD. transformation     ABC. attempts

In Times of Crists, We Need Classical Music

          It’s still lying in front of me on my desk. The booklet, entitled Time for Outrange(愤怒) , was written by the 93-year-old French diplomat(外交官) Stephane Hessel. “The power of money,” Hessel says, filled with anger, “has never been as great and selfish and     1     as it is now.”
          But what does the outrage of this Frenchman have to do with classical music and , ultimately, with me, music director of the Orchestre Symphenique de Montreal(蒙特利尔交响乐团) ?
          A lot, I, too, am outraged by the direction of industrial society, with materialism and consumerism leading the way. I want to show that, because of its powerful impact, classical music can play a(n)     2     role right now.
          We all sense that our society is experiencing an almost revolutionary     3    . Life is getting faster, competition is fiercer and social cohesion(凝聚力) is reducing. Like most people, I have no idea how liberty and civil rights would develop in the era of globalization and ever-evolving technological advancement.
          But I see this as an opportunity for a(n)     4     to classical music. The great symphonies of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven are not museum pieces we should listen to only if we want to     5     ourselves with some music history. Now are they a decoration or a relaxation exercise for the quickened pace of life.
          They are more than what a radio station for classical music once promised - “your oasis(绿洲) of well-being.” They are timeless compositions that     6     all the uncertainties and insecurities of this new period. They can support us in our search for meaning. Beethoven, for example, was convinced that man had the capacity to change for the better and to go throughout life. This is why there is so much hope in his music. His symphonies was mean to     7     people forward.
          Classic music     8     our senses and emotions in such a way that we were thrown back onto ourselves. It     9     to listeners to make use of their own reason and reflect on their actions. Music’s sole purpose is to be experienced. That experience, in turn, is why music can change our perceptions(认知) of ourselves and thereby our interactions with others.
              10     to explain this powerful impact of music will always remain unsatisfying, but this much is certain: aesthetic(审美的) experiences can transform people.

2 . Directions: Read the following passage. Summarize in no more than 60 words the main idea and the main point(s) of the passage. Use your own words as far as possible.

Right Colors for Restaurant Walls?

Have you ever noticed that many restaurants have red or orange walls? This fashion comes from the widely held belief that these two colors stimulate the appetite. Restauranteurs hope that by stimulating the appetites of their customers in this way, they can encourage them to order more food.

A large fast - food chain recently decided to test the belief that the color of the decoration affects how much food their customers order. This company has restaurants in major cities across the US and serves customers of all ages, including small children. The traditional decoration of this restaurant chain includes beige（米色的）paint on the walls. For this test, the company painted the walls in half of its restaurants orange, leaving the other half of its restaurants with their original beige walls. In order to make up for the possible influence of cultural differences between cities, the company made sure that in every city where its restaurants are located, there were both restaurants with orange walls and restaurants with beige walls.

The restaurant chain kept track of exactly what foods were ordered in each restaurant for one year before the walls were painted, and then again for one year after the walls had been painted. They found no difference. On average, customers in each restaurant, whether is had beige or of the company said. “We have proven it.”

The wall s of all the restaurants in the chain have been restored to their original beige color. The company president explained that this color is part of the company’s image. Now that the study is over, people might be confused if they walked into a restaurant expecting beige walls and got orange instead, so the company president explained.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

3 . We all have a tendency to fake laugh, particularly when authority figures in our lives try to make a joke that just doesn’t land. Though it might feel rude not to laugh when your in-laws or boss try to say something funny, pretending to do so might not be much better. It turns out, even if you think that your forced laughing sounds genuine, people are usually pretty good at separating truly spirited belly laughs from fake ones. But how can they possible know the difference?

Well, when researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles studied the acoustic and perceptual differences between real and fake laughter, they found that some of the sounds associated with genuine laughter is “really hard to fake.” In their study, the researchers determined that subjects were only fooled by 37 percent of fake laughter.

The most prominent factor distinguishing real laughter from fake laughter is duration -- or, more specifically, the number of breaths taken in in between sounds. Seeing as it takes more effort and concentration to fake a laugh as opposed to do it genuinely, people tend to pause more in between their “ha-ha’s” when they’re faking it. Evidently, that pausing is pretty noticeable.

“A fake laugh is basically an imitation of a real laugh, but produced with a slightly different set of vocal muscles controlled by a different part of our brain,” Greg Bryant, the lead UCLA researcher on the study, explained. “The result is that there are subtle features of the laugh that sound like speech, and ... people are unconsciously quite sensitive to them.”

People have also proven to be emotionally sensitive to laughter as well. “Our rains are very sensitive to the social and emotional significance of laughter,” said Carolyn McGettigan, a scientist at Royal Holloway, University of London.

McGettigan conducted a 2014 study that recorded participants’ brain responses as they listened to the same people produce genuine laughter by watching funny videos, as opposed to fake laughter. “During our study, when participants heard a laugh that was posed, they activated regions of the brain associated with mentalizing in an attempt to understand the other person’s emotional and mental state,” she said.

So, while we may understand that certain social situations sometimes require fake laughter, most of the time, our instincts and emotional intelligence are just too smart to buy into them.

According to McGettigan, that’s a good thing. “Evolutionarily speaking, it’s good to be able to detect if someone is authentically experiencing an emotion or if they’re not,” she said. “Because you don’t want to be fooled.”

1. What do researchers at the University of California want to find out in this study?

A．What is the difference between a fake laugh and a real one.

B．Which part of the brain controls the sound of our laughter.

C．Why do people need to fake laugh when they don’t want to.

D．How to laugh as genuinely as possible when you are faking it.

2. Your forced laughing is more noticeable than you think, mainly because_______.

A．you seem more concentrated when you laugh for real

B．you take more breaths when you try to fake a laugh

C．a fake laugh often happens after a sudden pause

D．a real laugh usually lasts longer than a fake one

3. Which of the following is true according to Greg Bryant?

A．Real laughter is not at all controllable by our brain.

B．People may notice fake laughter without knowing why.

C．People use the same set of muscles to laugh and to speak.

D．Faking laugh shares the same techniques as making speech.

4. What has Carolyn McGettigan’s 2014 study proven?

A．Certain social situations may require us to fake a laugh.

B．Evolution has enabled us to recognize other’s emotions.

C．By instincts, we are able to tell a person’s mental state.

D．We can sense other’s emotional state when they laugh.

4 . When we say that residents in the Chicago suburb of North Riverside, Illinois, “wrote the book” on how to be good neighbors, we are not exaggerating. The residents of North Riverside really did write a book on neighborliness that has helped make their town a remarkable place.

Neighbors All: Creating Community One Block at a Time is a 65 - page manual filled with friendly suggestions and inspiring stories, all designed to build “family bonds” among neighbors. Every household gets a copy, delivered by a volunteer “block captain” tasked with welcoming new arrivals, helping seniors, making sure kids play nice, and more. It’s a big job, but the 90 captains across the town of 6,700 don’t do it alone. They are organized by their own captain, Caro Saple, and the neighborhood Services Committee, which appoints leaders of all ages, including a team of school - age “angels”.

If all this seems somewhat bureaucratic (官僚制度的), in practice Neighbors All has very much lived up to its title. One captain got to chatting with an elder couple who revealed that they couldn’t afford to replace their broken stove. Before long, the Neighborhood Services Committee had collected enough money to buy them a new one.

Another resident, a woman from Poland, told her captain that she was having trouble sorting out the paperwork to get her citizenship. The captain told the committee, which told the mayor, who got the help of their local congressperson, and soon the woman’s paperwork was all in order.

“ I have been in North Riverside over 34 years and am very proud of the small-town caring the community demonstrates every day,” said Vera Jandacek Wilt. “Waters rising in the river, ready to flood nearby homes? Residents and officials are filling sandbags to hold back the floods. Lonely seniors have not stepped out of the house? A block captain shows up to invite them to a block party. This community truly looks out for one another.”

Does all this mean that North Riverside is perfect? No -- neighbors still quarrel. Kids still fight. But the community spirit that is part of North Riverside’s DNA appears all over town.

1. In paragraph 1, the phrase “wrote the book” is closest in meaning to _______.

A．showed expertise	B．learned a lesson
C．put down in writing	D．revealed secrets

2. Which of the following is true of the book Neighbors All?

A．It includes inspiring stories written by Caro Saple.

B．It gives advice and instructions on how to be nice.

C．It is a historical record of the North Riverside.

D．It is for the Neighborhood Services Committee.

3. What among the following are the responsibilities of a block captain?
(1) Spreading copies of the book Neighbors All;
(2) Appointing school - age kids as volunteer “angels”;
(3) visiting and accompanying lonely seniors.

A．(1) and (2)	B．(2) and (3)
C．(1) and (3)	D．All of above

4. According to the passage, Vera Jandacek Wilt felt really proud of _______.

A．the neighborliness in North Riverside

B．the block parties for senior residents

C．living in a perfectly safe community

D．becoming a captain for those in need

5 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

The Rise of the Smart City

The information revolution is changing the way cities are run - and the lives of its residents. Cities have a way to go before they can be considered geniuses. But they’re getting smart pretty fast.

In just the past few years, mayors and other officials in cities across the country have begun to draw on     1     - about income, traffic, fires, illnesses, parking tickets and more - to handle many of the problems of urban life. Whether it’s making it easier for residents to find parking places, or giving smoke alarms to the households that are most likely to suffer fatal fires, big - data technologies are beginning to     2     the way cities work.

Cities have just     3     the surface in using data to improve operations, but big changes are already under way in leading smart cities, says Stephen Goldsmith, a professor of government and director of the Innovations in Government Program at the Harvard Kennedy School. “In terms of city governance, we are at one of the most     4     periods in the last century,” he says.

Although cities have been using data in various forms for decades, the modern practice of civic analytics（民情分析）has only begun to take off in the past few years, thanks to a host of     5     changes. Among them: the growth of cloud computing, which dramatically lowers the costs of storing information; new developments in machine learning, which put     6     analytical tools in the hand of city officials; the Internet and the rise of inexpensive sensors that can track vast amount of information such as traffic or air pollution; and the widespread use of smart phone apps and mobile devices that enable citizens and city workers alike to monitor problems and     7     information about them back to city hall.

All this data collection raises understandable privacy     8    . Most cities have policies designed to safeguard citizen privacy and prevent the release of information that might     9     any one individual. In theory, anyway. Widespread use of sensors and video can also present privacy risks unless     10     are taken. The technology “is forcing cities to face questions of privacy that they haven’t had to face before,” says Ben Green, a fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society and lead author of a recent report on open-data privacy.

6 . Directions: Read the following passage. Summarize the main idea and the main point(s) of the passage in NO MORE THAN 60 WORDS. Use your own words as far as possible. Write your answer on the answer sheet.

To understand the changing role of women in China, consider the runaway success of a novel titled Du Lala’s Rise.   Decades after Mao Zedong declared that women hold up half the   sky,” the success of Du Lala and her peers reflects a curious fact about women in China: they appear to be far more ambitious than their counterparts (对应者)in the United States.

Rjpa Rashid, a senior vice president at the Center for Work-Life Policy, says the rapid growth “creates this excitement”， and builds on a cultural and historical legacy (遗产)in which Chinese women are not just encouraged to participate in the workforce, they are expected to.

One result has been a generation of women and girls who believe they belong among China’s power elite ( 精 英 ). In the US, that shift followed decades of battles over equality and women’s rights. In China, there are fewer institutional barriers for women trying to succeed professionally.

That’s true, too, in the executive suite. Grant Thornton International, the tax consultancy, found that roughly eight out of 10 companies in China had women in senior management roles, compared with approximately half in the European Union and two thirds in the US.     Similarly,       in China, 31 percent of top executives are female, compared with 20 percent in America.

Thirdly, child care is easily accessible in China, enabling them to pursue their careers after giving birth to their children. Fourthly, ambition has become a matter of necessity in fast-paced China, and both the husband and wife have to work in order to keep up with the skyrocketing housing prices.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

7 . Now the Bush team is pushing hard an idea which is inherited from the Clinton administration and which, in some way, builds on the debt-relief initiative. For the very poorest countries, America strongly favors moving from loans   to   grants,   though   other   industrial-country donors are still doubtful of the wisdom of this. Giving grants, they argue, will cut future aid flows because some of the funding for loans on generous terms comes from money which has been repaid to donors.

America takes the view that, since many developing—country loans will never be repaid, mainly because the recipients cannot afford to make large payments to their creditors, it makes more sense to treat them as grants in the first place. The Bush administration has threatened to hold up the provision of the funds used for this sort of aid. International Development Assistance (IDA), if it cannot persuade everyone else to come on board. All members talked about having made progress in this area, but it remains a stumbling block.

Work is also under way in the IMF and the G7 to reform the international financial system. This now has two objectives.   One is to make it harder for terrorist organizations to obtain   funding by cracking down on money—laundering and increasing financial   transparency.   The other is to reduce the occurrence and severity of financial crises in emerging—market countries. On this,   American views seem to have prevailed.     The G7 meeting on April 19th and 20th     ended with an unexpected decision to proceed with an American plan to include collective action clauses in future loans taken out by emerging- market governments.   The idea is that in the event of a delay of payment—such as that by Argentina last December--a government could negotiate with a “super-majority” of its creditors to restructure its   debts,     rather than, as now,     have a     small minority of creditors able to weaken such attempts.

This market--based approach is still controversial and implementing it could be difficult given the previous reluctance of governments to include such clauses in loan contracts (lest they appear to be signaling a readiness to default   (拖欠)even as they borrow).   Work on IMF plans for more far —reaching reforms of supreme debt, on which the Bush team recently appeared to pour cold water, is to proceed at the same time. The two approaches, said the G7, are “complementary”.

1. According to the passage,   America   favors   moving   from   loans   to   grants   on   the   purpose of____

A．making more money for the donors

B．relieving debt of the poorest countries

C．solving the problem of poverty completely

D．collecting more money for future aid to other countries

2. It can be seen that the undertaking of moving from loans to grants____

A．makes no progress at all

B．makes progress smoothly

C．still face some difficulties

D．will achieve its success in near future

3. The purpose of the reform of the international financial system includes____.

A．relieving the debt of poor countries

B．establishing a global financial market

C．distributing money more fairly in the world

D．preventing the possible financial crisis and terrorists to raise money through the system

4. It can be inferred from Para. 3 that at present .

A．a country can never expect to reconstruct its debts

B．a country can reconstruct its debt with the permission of IMF

C．a country in default cannot reconstruct its debts without the permission of all of its creditors

D．a country in default can reconstruct its debts by acquiring the permission of most of its creditors.

8 . Not too many decades ago it seemed “obvious” both to the general public and to sociologists that modern society has changed people’s natural relations, loosened their responsibilities to kin (亲戚) and neighbors, and substituted in their place superficial relationships with passing acquaintances. However, in recent years a growing body of research   has revealed that the “obvious” is not true. It seems that if you are a city resident, you typically know a smaller proportion of your neighbors than you do if you are a resident of a smaller community. But, for the most part, this fact has few significant consequences. It does not necessarily follow that if you know few of your neighbors you will know no one else.

Even in very large cities, people maintain close social ties within small, private social worlds. Indeed, the number and   quality of   meaningful   relationships   do   not   differ   between more and less urban people. Small-town residents are more involved with kin than are big-city residents. Yet city dwellers compensate by developing friendships with people who share similar interests and activities. Urbanism many produce a different style of life, but the quality of life   does not differ between town and city. Nor are residents of large communities any likelier to display psychological symptoms of stress or alienation, a feeling of not belonging, than are residents of smaller communities. However, city dwellers do worry more about crime, and this leads them to a distrust of strangers.

These findings do not imply that urbanism makes little or no difference. If neighbors are strangers to one another, they are less likely to sweep the sidewalk of an elderly couple living   next door or keep an eye out for young trouble makers. Moreover, as Wirth suggested, there may be a link between a community’s population size and its social heterogeneity (多样性). For instance, sociologists have found much evidence that the size of a community is associated with bad behavior including gambling, drugs, etc. Large-city urbanities are also more likely than their small-town counterparts to have a cosmopolitan(见多识广)outlook, to display less responsibility to traditional kinship roles, to vote for leftist political candidates, and to be tolerant of nontraditional religious groups, unpopular political groups, and so—called undesirables. Everything considered, heterogeneity and unusual behavior seem to be outcomes of large population size.

1. Which of the following statements best describes the organization of the first paragraph?

A．An argument is examined and possible solutions given.

B．Two contrasting views are presented.

C．Research results concerning the quality of urban life are presented in order of time.

D．A detail description of the difference between urban and small-town life is given.

2. According to the passage, it was once a common belief that urban residents .

A．could not develop long-standing relationships.

B．did not have the same interests as their neighbors.

C．tended to be associated with bad behavior.

D．usually had more friends.

3. One of the   consequences   of   urban   life   is   that   impersonal   relationships   among   neighbors .

A．disrupt people’s natural relations.

B．make them worry about crime.

C．cause them no to show concern for one another.

D．cause them to be suspicious of each other.

4. It can be inferred from the passage that the bigger a community is____,

A．the better its quality of life

B．the more tolerant and open-minded it is.

C．the likelier it is to display psychological symptoms of stress.

D．the more similar its interests

9 . Each stage of life has different major demands mainly because our needs change. As children, a period of deep uncertainty and sensitivity,___ and   family   are   the   top   needs although we may not think of them in those terms. As teenagers, we are__the waters of adult life, preparing ourselves for the exciting unknown and as young adults, we search for a__. The drive to fulfill each stage is so strong that sometimes we have to hold the breath to___.

At each stage, although everyone may___in dreams, we will all try to   take hold of the means to achieve our particular dreams. Some will be driven with   almost   tunnel vision,   others take a(n)____attitude to getting there. Anyway,   without dreams it is   hard to direct   life. If   you   are   fortunate   enough   to   achieve   your   current   dreams,   you   can   move   forward   for___desires and prepare yourself for a new conquest.

For each period of life,   the   needs are   decided by that stage,   and as we grow older, whether we like it or not, we gain___, which, on the basis of former facts and information,   permits us to see a broader view if we are wise enough to take on board what is there. As we mature,   the sharpness of the___of youth, the black and white approach to life, will be tempered by what is possible, kind, just and fair.   Ageing helps us to grow if we allow it.   So often   we___that process, holding on tightly to   rooted beliefs   which do not do us   any favour, yet our needs change and in result we will___be different.

Physically,   even when we stay fit and able, the body cannot deliver in quite the   same way as youth. This comes as a(n)___to most of us who start life in the belief that we are unbeatable and will live forever. Again, coming to terms with this fact helps us to___anxiety, and finally realize the unexpected benefits which come along with___face and slowed body.   What was important when we were young can be seen now in a new light, and a different list of importance emerges. In the end, extreme age can be as demanding and sensitive as babyhood, so while ones need changes through life, it seems to come___.

1.

A．finance

B．security

C．marriage

D．education

2.

A．testing

B．sharing

C．changing

D．setting

3.

A．financial advisor

B．childhood companion

C．life partner

D．household keeper

4.

A．take action

B．calm down

C．look forward

D．pay attention

5.

A．believe

B．persevere

C．vary

D．persist

6.

A．easy

B．random

C．formal

D．similar

7.

A．noble

B．fresh

C．reasonable

D．superior

8.

A．experience

B．responsibility

C．respect

D．agreement

9.

A．individualism

B．materialism

C．idealism

D．socialism

10.

A．resist

B．enjoy

C．evolve

D．strengthen

11.

A．unexpectedly

B．terribly

C．comparatively

D．necessarily

12.

A．inquiry

B．instinct

C．refusal

D．shock

13.

A．worsen

B．manage

C．judge

D．feel

14.

A．wrinkled

B．depressed

C．impressive

D．serious

15.

A．with high requirements

B．in full circle

C．without difficulty

D．on a large scale

10 . 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.

We are familiar with pop culture, but what is peep culture? In pop culture, we turn on the TV and watch our favorite celebrities entertain us     1    their performance. In peep culture, we turn on the computer, we move through people’s lives on reality TV, blogs. Facebook and YouTube.       2    getting our entertainment from scripted performances, we get our entertainment from peeping into other people’s lives. It can be friends and family.

    3    it’s just likely to be people we have never met from around the world.

Suddenly, we consume all of our time    4     (track) other people. And we also invite them to watch us!     People reveal themselves to get attention and to feel like they are part     of a community. In peep culture, ordinary people are turned into celebrities. This has never happened     5    , turning the spotlight on random regular people. There aren’t secrets anymore. The notion of private life     6    (change).

    7    society has become extremely fast-paced, most of us are really unaware of these changes in our lives.     We are moving into a time     8    our virtual personality is going to be more important than our actually physical presence. What we have online is going to be more important than what we do offline. We are now socially judged by our virtual profiles.

In the age of “peep culture,,” a tell-all, show-all, know-all digital phenomenon is dramatically changing notions of privacy, individuality, security,   and   even   humanity.   Susan Boyle became a(n) overnight   celebrity     9    peep culture. The entire world was staring   at her     10    her transformation from a resident of a small Scottish town to a global celebrity. We like the story because she’s like a movie, only she’s real.