1 . “Find your passion!” is an appeal well-intended and meant to inspire. But is it good advice?

“Finding” a passion implies that it already exists and is simply waiting to be discovered. Unfortunately, this idea doesn’t square with what science tells us. Instead, passions are developed. They often begin with a spark (火花) of curiosity caused by something in one’s environment, such as a fascinating physics lecture. Through a process involving repeated engagement and-positive experiences, people can come to personally value that content or activity and internalize it. What was at first interesting becomes an interest. If these qualities continue to intensify, a passion can emerge.

Actually, assuming passion as inborn tend to cause people to be less open, less courageous in the face of challenges and less creative in pursuit of new interests. Thus, encouraging people to “find” their passion may cause them to eventually believe that interests and passions are unchangeable. People who think this have a fixed mindset of interest. By contrast, some people, whom we refer to as having a growth mindset of interest, view their interests and passions as developed.

People with a fixed mindset of interest, for example, may fall into the trap of thinking, “If I have already found my passion, why keep exploring?” In recent studies, after engaging in a new science task, arts students with a fixed mindset expressed less interest in a scientific topic than arts students with a growth mindset. Meanwhile, science students with a fixed mindset responded similarly to an art-related task. For those with a growth mindset, having a strong pre-existing interest in the arts or sciences did not get in the way of them viewing a new area as interesting.

Worse still, people with a fixed mindset of interest tend to expect their passions to provide limitless motivation, such that their favorite topics should never feel too difficult or demanding. Such a mindset can also limit creativity and innovation. If people believe they are restricted to only a few inborn interests and, in consequence, do not explore other areas, they may miss seeing important connections across different fields. That loss is especially unfortunate considering how leaders at innovative companies have long prized problem-solving that draw ideas from diverse disciplines.

Of course, not every activity will become a burning passion. But a growth mindset of interest will help you remain open and curious. The old saying “find something you love to do, and you’ll never have to work a day in your life” needs to be updated.

1. The author uses the sentence underlined in Paragraph 1 to ________.

A．set a target for criticism	B．point out the fact
C．confirm people’s finding	D．voice his opinion

2. What can we learn from the passage?

A．Any interesting activity can spark a passion.

B．Companies prefer those who specialize in one field.

C．People with a fixed mindset of interest are hard to be motivated.

D．A growth mindset of interest promotes creativity and innovation.

3. Which will the author probably agree with?

A．One should count on luck to excite a burning passion.

B．Reinforced positive experiences contribute to passion.

C．Those already interested in a field find new areas boring.

D．We’d better cherish the existing passion and look for more.

2 . As higher education leaders dive deeper into the conversation on Digital Transformation and Education 4.0, they are also learning how to incorporate the Digital Twins realm concept into their curricula, because Digital Twin technology can serve the university of the future.

A Digital Twin is a virtual representation of a real object or system which is updated from real-time data and uses machine learning, simulation (模拟), and reasoning to help decision-making. In other words, a Digital Twin can create a highly complex virtual model which is the exact replica of a physical thing. Connected sensors on a smart campus can collect data in real time. This data is used to create a map onto the virtual model, thus creating a Digital Twin of a campus. When school administrators look at the Digital Twin, they can see crucial information about how the real campus is doing.

The applications for Digital Twin technology do not stop there. Students and faculty can benefit from using the technology as well. For example, hybrid classrooms have become more and more common nowadays. Digital technologies have accelerated the transition into the university of the future. Digital Twin technology, one of the trending technologies related to Industry 4.0, helps faculty create simulation models based on course requirements.

Digital Twin technology makes the ultimate immersive learning experience possible. By using a Digital Twin, students can learn highly engaging tasks which can be too dangerous, complex, or expensive for the classroom. Rather than hands-on laboratory dissection of a physical frog to learn animal science or having to wait for available human organs in the health science lah, medical students can use the virtual twin of an animal or human organs for their study.

The complexity of chemistry or microbiology requires students to be totally engaged. By using Digital Twins in a Virtual Reality simulated learning experience, faculty can achieve a maximum level of engagement helping each student learn abstract concepts in their own unique way and much faster. By running simulations, students can better explore system behavior under different conditions, understand failure and develop an understanding of system sensibilities as well as how changes in the system parameters (参数) and external disruptions make an impact on the results.

Some universities, such as Stanford and Copenhagen School of Marine Engineering, have incorporated Digital Twin technology into their teaching curricula, applying it to disciplines like architecture and engineering as they believe they are the reality of the industry. Overall, this enhances student motivation, accelerates understanding, and improves the overall learning experience. Moreover, the industry encourages universities to incorporate educational Digital Twins in automation to give students the initial understanding of tools and skills they will need in their future.

1. It can be learned from Paragraph 2 that Digital Twins ________.

A．remain a concept	B．are virtual copies of real objects
C．represent future education	D．can operate campuses remotely

2. Which of the following statements might the author agree with?

A．Education 4.0 facilitates the development of Digital Twins.

B．New technology poses potential threats to college teachers.

C．Digital Twin technology in higher education is on the horizon.

D．Virtual classrooms have grown in popularity under Industry 4.0.

3. Which of the following shows the structure of the passage?

A．

B．

C．

D．

3 . 阅读下面短文, 根据短文内容填空。在未给提示词的空白处仅填写1个适当的单词。在给出提示词的空白处用括号内所给词的正确形式填空。

Speaking of medicine, through new technology, people who have brain     1     other injuries will be able to find new hope. There     2     (be) recently, for example, technology which can help blind people to see using cameras and deaf people to hear using microphones that     3     (connect) to their brains. Future technology will assist people in overcoming all sorts of physical disabilities.

4 . Many of us set goals, but sometimes we fail to achieve them. There are many causes why we don’t manage to realize our goals.    1    There is a way, though, to help address this problem: set reminders. People employ a psychological strategy called cognitive (认知的) offloading, where we use a physical action to reduce demands on our brain. Specifically, we may outsource our intentions from being stored in our brains to reminders outside our head.    2    

Understanding the benefits of cognitive offloading can improve our ability to remember and follow through with our intentions. The biggest benefit is simply that it improves memory performance. It increases the probability that we will work towards the goals we need to reach.     3    “The more we offload unimportant information, such as items on a shopping list, the more we can use our brain for those more significant cognitive tasks, such as creativity,” said Sam Gilbert, professor at the University College London.

    4    Still, there are potential negative parts for it. We are more likely to forget what we offloaded if we no longer access our storage, such as when our smartphone dies. We also tend to offload the important things we most want to remember. In a surprise test where their reminders were wiped clean, the participants were more likely to forget the important items and recall the unimportant ones, that is, the more important the intention we want to remember, the more likely we are to offload it—and to forget it.

We’d better tend to create reminders when we think we need them, but not necessarily when we do need them.     5    “If our understanding of our memory ability is wrong, this suggests that we will either overuse or underuse reminders,” Gilbert said. “We can learn by noticing the times that we have forgotten to do something and could have used reminders to help.”

A．Cognitive offloading has noticeable benefits.

B．One common reason is that we simply forget them.

C．Besides, it can free up our limited cognitive resources.

D．A good example can be documents on our smartphone calendars.

E．The process of cognitive offloading helps us identify false information.

F．Our beliefs about how good our memory is directly influence whether we set them.

G．Other experts say it’s too soon to understand how cognitive offloading affects our brains.

5 . Upgrade your problems

In 2017, I spent all my money buying my first flat — which meant I had no money to fix my first homeowner’s problem. I was sleeping on an air mattress because I couldn’t afford furniture. Then I noticed a leaky pipe under the bath, which created a wet puddle (水坑). I couldn’t afford a plumber (水管工) but I didn’t want to introduce myself to the neighbour by crashing through their wet ceiling.

The only option left for me was that I had to solve the problem on my own. I took the bus to a nearby store and talked with the nice guy behind the counter. He explained how to fix it and sold me a pipe cutter and a bit of pipework. I went back home, pushed my head under the bath, and got the job done.

It taught me a lesson that has since become a bit of motto for me: Upgrade your problems.

Having a wet bathroom floor is a problem — and the day before I bought the place, I would have had a landlord to call. But once the place was mine, this became my problem. I saw this as progress: You must own your own property to take care of this sort of situation.

Years later, when I founded my professional services company with my business partner, Adam, this motto became core to how we approach the business. There have been many problems, and there will continue to be new ones. However, we remember the reason we have these problems — it’s because we run our own business! A late-paying customer is a problem, but it’s one we encounter only if we have paying customers.

That is why I still keep the pipe cutter on my desk today. It reminds me that, no matter my level of frustration (挫败), I am fortunate to face the problems I do. The more I solve them, the more I upgrade to even better ones.

1. What did the author notice in his first flat?
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
2. How did the author solve his problem with the bath?
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
3. Please decide which part is false in the following statement, then underline it and explain why.
The author still keeps the pipe cutter on his desk today because it reminds him of his success in business.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
4. What else would you do when you encounter problems in life? (In about 40 words)
_______________________________________________________________________________________________

6 . A Way Out of Social Anxiety: Volunteering and Acts of Kindness

As a socially anxious introvert, I can attest(证明)to the benefits of serving others through volunteering in my community.

A volunteer job doesn’t need to require stepping into a busy room full of 100 people at a school or hospital.     1     This kind of work is much more suitable and agreeable for introverts.

    2     When I help elders or people with disabilities who are more isolated and lonelier than I am, I feel my nervousness and self-consciousness disappear. My social awkwardness loses its grip on me when I’m focused on helping someone else rather than myself or my social performance. Unlike showing up at a job interview, business meeting, or speaking engagement, working as a volunteer with people in need takes the spotlight away from being measured or judged.     3    

Social scientists have an apt name for stressful social situations where we need to perform and would likely be judged or evaluated. The “social-evaluative threat” is particularly threatening for people with social anxiety as stress hormones rapidly increase. Any time we are in evaluative situations where we are judged by others, we face this social-evaluative threat and endure a sudden rush of stress hormones that increase anxiety.     4     Yet when we are in situations where we are offering casual acts of kindness or nurturing others we tend to feel less threatened or judged by others. Helping others and sharing simple acts of kindness does not pose such a social-evaluative threat, but instead, calms and soothes us. Neuroscientists have studied the warm glow of doing good that makes us feel good.

“Kindness may help socially anxious people,” says Dr. Lynn Alden, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia.     5     She found that acts of kindness may help to counter the socially anxious person’s fear of negative evaluation by promoting more positive perceptions and expectations of how other people will respond.

A．Some people are naturally reserved while others are rather outgoing.

B．In social anxiety disorder, fear and anxiety lead to avoidance which can disrupt our life.

C．Indeed, my own act of kindness has always been a sure bet to bring me out of my shell.

D．Instead, my volunteer service consists of quiet one-on-one visits with isolated older adults.

E．When I am giving my free time to help others, I feel truly liberated in my mission to serve.

F．High-performance events such as public speaking or job interviews can be really unbearable.

G．She and her colleagues conducted a study with 115 undergraduate students who had reported high levels of social anxiety.

7 . In our information-driven society, shaping our worldview through the media is similar to forming an opinion about someone solely based on a picture of their foot. While the media might not deliberately deceive us, it often fails to provide a comprehensive view of reality.

Consequently, the question arises: Where, then, shall we get our information from if not from the media? Who can we trust? How about experts—people who devote their working lives to understanding their chosen slice of the world? However, even experts can fall prey to the allure of oversimplification, leading to the “single perspective instinct” that hampers(阻碍)our ability to grasp the intricacies of the world.

Simple ideas can be appealing because they offer a sense of understanding and certainty. And it is easy to take off down a slippery slope, from one attention-grabbing simple idea to a feeling that this idea beautifully explains, or is the beautiful solution for, lots of other things. The world becomes simple that way.

Yet, when we embrace a singular cause or solution for all problems, we risk oversimplifying complex issues. For instance, championing the concept of equality may lead us to view all problems through the lens of inequality and see resource distribution as the sole panacea. However, such rigidity prevents us from seeing the multidimensional nature of challenges and hinders true comprehension of reality. This “single perspective instinct” ultimately clouds our judgment and restricts our capacity to tackle complex issues effectively.

It saves a lot of time to think like this. You can have opinions and answers without having to learn about a problem from scratch and you can get on with using your brain for other tasks. But it’s not so useful if you like to understand the world. Being always in favor of or always against any particular idea makes you blind to information that doesn’t fit your perspective. This is usually a bad approach if you would like to understand reality.

Instead, constantly test your favorite ideas for weaknesses. Be humble about the extent of your expertise. Be curious about new information that doesn’t fit, and information from other fields. And rather than talking only to people who agree with you, or collecting examples that fit your ideas, consult people who contradict you, disagree with you, and put forward different ideas as a great resource for understanding the world. I have been wrong about the world so many times. Sometimes, coming up against reality is what helps me see my mistakes, but often it is talking to, and trying to understand, someone with different ideas.

If this means you don’t have time to form so many opinions, so what? Wouldn’t you rather have few opinions that are right than many that are wrong?

1. What does the underlined word “allure” in Para.2 probably mean?

A．Temptation.

B．Tradition.

C．Convenience.

D．Consequence.

2. Why are simple ideas appealing according to the passage?

A．They meet people’s demand for high efficiency.

B．They generate a sense of complete understanding.

C．They are raised and supported by multiple experts.

D．They reflect the opinions of like-minded individuals.

3. What will the author probably agree with?

A．Simplifying matters releases energy for human brains.

B．Constant tests on our ideas help make up for our weakness.

C．A well-founded opinion counts more than many shallow ones.

D．People who disagree with us often have comprehensive views.

4. Which of the following can be the best title of the passage?

A．Embracing Disagreement: Refusing Overcomplexity

B．Simplifying Information: Enhancing Comprehension

C．Understanding Differences: Establishing Relationships

D．Navigating Complexity: Challenging Oversimplification

8 . 语法填空

Don’t worry. This is natural for many people. In 1885, Hermann Ebbinghaus    1     (publish) a book called Memory and presented a famous forgetting curve. According to him, the sharpest     2    (lose) of memory occurs during the very early period after learning. This means timely review during this period, with a few revisits to     3     is learnt, can significantly help us to remember the information.

9 . Sitting in the garden for my friend’s birthday. I felt a buzz (振动) in my pocket. My heart raced when I saw the email sender’s name. The email started off: “Dear Mr Green, thank you for your interest” and “the review process took longer than expected.” It ended with “We are sorry to inform you…” and my vision blurred (模糊). The position—measuring soil quality in the Sahara Desert as part of an undergraduate research programme — had felt like the answer I had spent years looking for.

I had put so much time and emotional energy into applying, and I thought the rejection meant the end of the road for my science career.

So I was shocked when, not long after the email, Professor Mary Devon, who was running the programme, invited me to observe the work being done in her lab. I jumped at the chance, and a few weeks later I was equally shocked—and overjoyed—when she invited me to talk with her about potential projects I could pursue in her lab. What she proposed didn’t seem as exciting as the original project I had applied to, but I was going to give it my all.

I found myself working with a robotics professor on techniques for collecting data from the desert remotely. That project, which I could complete from my sofa instead of in the burning heat of the desert, not only survived the lockdown but worked where traditional methods didn’t. In the end, I had a new scientific interest to pursue.

When I applied to graduate school, I found three programmes promising to allow me to follow my desired research direction. And I applied with the same anxious excitement as before. When I was rejected from one that had seemed like a perfect fit, it was undoubtedly difficult. But this time I had the perspective (视角) to keep it from sending me into panic. It helped that in the end I was accepted into one of the other programmes I was also excited about.

Rather than setting plans in stone, I’ve learned that sometimes I need to take the opportunities that are offered, even if they don’t sound perfect at the time, and make the most of them.

1. How did the author feel upon seeing the email sender’s name?

A．Anxious.

B．Angry.

C．Surprised.

D．Settled.

2. After talking with Professor Devon, the author decided to ________.

A．criticise the review process	B．stay longer in the Sahara Desert
C．apply to the original project again	D．put his heart and soul into the lab work

3. According to the author, the project with the robotics professor was ________.

A．demanding

B．inspiring

C．misleading

D．amusing

4. What can we learn from this passage?

A．An invitation is a reputation.	B．An innovation is a resolution.
C．A rejection can be a redirection.	D．A reflection can be a restriction.

10 . Four Ways to Improve Your Mental Health in the Coming New Year

1. Practice optimism

Now, let’s get real: Being an optimist doesn’t mean you ignore the stress of daily life. Who can do that? It simply means that when crummy (糟糕的) things happen, you don’t blame yourself unnecessarily. If you face a challenge or obstacle, you’re more likely to see it as temporary or even positive, allowing you to learn and grow. Optimists also believe they have control over their fate and can create opportunities for good things to happen.

2. Start volunteering

A prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assisi tell us, “It is in giving that we receive.”

Turns out he was scientifically right. Studies have shown that volunteering stimulates the reward centers of the brain. Those feel-good chemicals flood our system, producing a sort of “helper’s high.” There are physical benefits, too: volunteering minimizes stress and improves depression. It can reduce the risk for cognitive impairment. It can even help us live longer.

Even if you have little time to offer, just the act of giving has been shown to improve our health, possibly by temporarily reducing our sense of pain.

3. Be grateful

The benefits of thankfulness is backed by science: counting our blessings protects us against anxiety and depression and boosts optimism, having less problem behaviour.

One of the best ways to make thankfulness a part of your life is to keep a daily journal. Before you go to bed, jot down any positive experience you had that day, no matter how small. That sense of appreciation can broaden to others in your life and bolster optimism and better mental health.

4. Bolster your social connections

“People who are more socially connected to family, to friends, to community, are happier, they’re physically healthier, and they live longer than people who are less well connected,” said Harvard psychiatrist Robert Waldinger in his popular TEDx talk.

The proof for this comes from the Harvard Study of Adult Development, which tracked 724 Boston men for more than 75 years and then began following more than 2,000 of their offspring and wives.

1. Which of the following is NOT the recommended way to improve mental health?

A．Be optimistic.	B．Help others without expecting rewards.
C．Show gratitude.	D．Cut off social connections.

2. Which of the following will the author agree with?

A．To be optimistic, one had better ignore the stress in life.

B．Voluntary service benefits a person mentally, but not physically.

C．Every night, write down your every gratitude in the day however small it may be.

D．The less you’re socially connected, the healthier you will be.

3. Which of the four recommended ways doesn’t have scientific support?

A．Practicing optimism.	B．Starting volunteering.
C．Being grateful.	D．Bolstering your social connections.