1 . Imagine two applicants are in a job interview: one expresses a great passion for the work, while the other points to family encouragement to pursue that field. Which applicant has a better chance of succeeding? Conventional wisdom suggests it would be the one who has a strong personal passion.

Passion is not a universally powerful basis of achievement, but the culture a person grew up in matters a lot. That means universities and companies that frequently rely on passion in candidates are pretermitting talented students and employees.

It seems that passion is a much stronger predictor of achievement in certain societies than others. “This leads to a blind spot among interviewers and is unfair to people from diverse backgrounds,” said Xingyu Li, the lead author of a new study. As a person coming from a collectivist (集体主义的) society, he knows exactly how people feel when they are rejected just because they are seemingly not as passionate as others. This research is novel for its using big data to compare a wider range of culturally diverse societies.

The researchers collected the data including scores from 1.2 million high school students across 59 countries. They found those who felt passionate about science, reading, or other subjects were more likely to be given better scores. This is quite true in individualist societies such as the United States and Australia, compared with collectivist countries such as China, Thailand, and Colombia, where the students felt that having family support for their interest was important.

Individualist countries regard the self as the source of motivation. For example, in the United States, doing well because of what others expect might seem to be evidence of a lack of potential. In collectivist societies, the self is inter-dependent, part of a web of relations, roles, and responsibilities. For instance, in the movie The Grandmaster, the legendary martial arts teacher Ip Man never said that he had a personal passion for kung fu. Rather, his drive to attain mastery came from the desire to live up to what his belt symbolized to his teacher and society.

The findings open up the possibility of designing educational interventions that don’t rely only on the western idea of cultivating (培育) passion. That helps better unlock the potential of our students and workforce.

1. Who is more likely to succeed in a job interview according to most employers?

A．Those who have a web of relations.	B．Those who are familiar with the company.
C．Those who gain much family encouragement.	D．Those who have great enthusiasm for the position.

2. What does the underlined word “pretermitting” in Paragraph 2 probably mean?

A．Neglecting.

B．Harvesting.

C．Exploring.

D．Defending.

3. What might be Xingyu Li’s team’s purpose of conducting the research?

A．To clarify the link between students’ passion and academic performance.

B．To encourage people to learn the cultures of different countries.

C．To win people from different cultural contexts more chances of admission

D．To show the importance of big data in culture-related studies at particular.

4. Who tends to regard family responsibility as a source of motivation?

A．An American.

B．A Colombian.

C．An Australian.

D．A Canadian.

5. What does the author intend to illustrate in Paragraph 5?

A．The model of motivation varies from culture to culture.

B．The negative effects of societal expectations on individuals.

C．The role of self-realization matters in a person’s success and well-being.

D．The typical personality types in individualist countries and collectivist ones.

2 . As the years went by, their ________ for each other grew stronger and they never regretted their marriage.

A．participation

B．ambition

C．affection

D．alternative

3 . At 65 years old, Warburton experienced great changes in her life. She _________ her mobility due to an illness, which made her upset and _________ about what to do in the future. During the boring _________ at home, Warburton came across some real estate listings (房地产宣传单) brought by her daughter one day. Among the listings, an offering of a small barbershop _________ Warburton’s eyes. She admits “the place was awful,” but she loved it _________. She regarded it as an opportunity to do something she’d _________ to do—run a bookshop.

Soon after making her _________, Warburton bought the store with the support of her family, and _________ her new business, The Book Rest.

Warburton has been a (an) _________ book collector since she was a child. She married a man with a similar __________. Therefore, their home was __________ with books. “The books are our __________. It still feels, when a special book goes out, which means a __________ to me—as if some little part of me has been __________,” she said in an interview with The Guardian. “But later the thought that the book may __________ others came to my mind, which gave me much __________. I was happy to __________ knowledge and happiness to them through my books,” she says.

Although Warburton’s business __________ a lot during the pandemic, she has no plan to close it. She sees every day in the bookstore as a chance to help others realize their dreams. “All the dreams are in the books and they are all there waiting to be __________,” she says.

And as a gatekeeper of her own small universe of literary wonders, Warburton says she plans to stay around __________ she can to ensure that they do.

1.

A．increased

B．gained

C．balanced

D．lost

2.

A．strict

B．excited

C．confused

D．considerate

3.

A．recovery

B．study

C．sales

D．regret

4.

A．tested

B．shaded

C．wiped

D．caught

5.

A．temporarily

B．instantly

C．slightly

D．randomly

6.

A．feared

B．desired

C．pretended

D．agreed

7.

A．invitation

B．fortune

C．decision

D．heritage

8.

A．replied

B．saved

C．discussed

D．started

9.

A．enthusiastic

B．famous

C．careful

D．courageous

10.

A．style

B．problem

C．hobby

D．job

11.

A．familiar

B．crowded

C．bored

D．content

12.

A．replacements

B．treasures

C．sources

D．professions

13.

A．depression

B．pleasure

C．trade

D．joke

14.

A．monitored

B．touched

C．woken up

D．taken away

15.

A．correct

B．embarrass

C．benefit

D．disappoint

16.

A．opportunity

B．comfort

C．reference

D．experience

17.

A．pass

B．return

C．acquire

D．explain

18.

A．achieved

B．improved

C．suffered

D．expanded

19.

A．put away

B．set aside

C．thrown away

D．picked up

20.

A．as soon as

B．now that

C．as long as

D．even if

4 . —What made your companion look that astonished?
—________ of stealing by his good friend.

A．Accused

B．Being accused

C．Accusing

D．To accuse

5 . Although Linda may not be a perfectly-behaved girl, her persistence has helped her become ________ she is today.

A．what

B．which

C．that

D．where

6 . In order to ________, the young wife has been doing five jobs in the past ten months, which makes her exhausted.

A．make ends meet

B．make full use

C．make sense

D．make sure

7 . With everything he had ________, he had nothing to support his life.

A．go

B．to go

C．going

D．gone

8 . There are a fair few benefits of waking up early. There is increasing evidence (证据) that suggests morning people could be healthier. According to a new study, women in particular who wake up earlier could be less likely to develop depression. Researchers wanted to see if a woman’s chronotype (睡眠类型) — whether they were an “early bird” or “night owl” — had any influence on their risk of depression (抑郁).

They used data from a large study that recorded the health of more than 32.000 female nurses in the US, with an average age of 55 for-nearly thirty years. In 2009, they were asked to tell whether they were a morning or evening person, then they followed up after four years to see how many of them developed depression. During that time there were 2,581 new cases of depression, and those morning types were somewhere between 12 and 27% less likely to develop depression.

The results show that someone’s chronotype could be a reason for developing depression, but the risk is small. The study was based on a special group of people, who are in a highly emotionally and energetically demanding job, and so there is no certainty that the risk of depression is influenced by their sleeping habits. The results are not necessarily suitable for other women of the same age, or men, or children, either.

However, the study does raise some interesting points of discussion. For example, recent research found that disrupting (干扰) our body clock can increase our risk of mood disorders like depression. Nurses work long hours and they often work at night. That may cause psychological problems.

Research has also found that too much sleep and too little sleep are both likely to be bad for your health, and the best way to make sure you’re getting the right amount is to stick to a schedule. That means that even if you have a late night, you should try and get up at the same time every day.

While the answer isn’t as simple as early birds being healthier than night owls, what is clear is that sleep is important to avoiding diseases.

1. Which of the following is TRUE about the research?

A．The subjects of it are all female nurses all over the world.

B．Researchers have followed the subjects for nearly thirty years.

C．Those people who got up early were less likely to have depression.

D．Those people who aged over 55 were more likely to develop depression.

2. What can we infer from the study results?

A．They are one-sided.	B．They are useless.
C．They are correct.	D．They are reasonable.

3. According to the passage, nurses are at risk of psychological problems because ______.

A．they have much work to do	B．their body clock is disordered
C．they always sleep late	D．their sleep time is short

4. What does the fifth paragraph mainly suggest?

A．Working less time.	B．Not working late at night.
C．Sleeping as long as possible.	D．Keeping the body clock.

5. What’s the best title for the passage?

A．The benefits of waking up early.	B．Is sleeping earlier better than late?
C．Nurses are likely to have depression	D．Can keeping early hours prevent depression?

9 . There is an old Amercian saying, “______.” This means that if you speak too much about something, it’ll cause all kinds of trouble.

A．Loose lips sink ships

B．Let off steam

C．Pull one’s weight

D．Rise to one’s feet

10 . Now that this method didn’t work, we can ______a different one to solve the problem.

A．afford

B．adopt

C．admit

D．affect