1 . It’s worth being aware that developmental changes could make children more sensitive to the negative side of social media. During the teenage years, for example, the brain changes massively, and this can influence how young people act and feel—including making them more sensitive to social relationships, and status.
“Being a teenager is a really a major time of development,” says Orben. “You’re much more impacted by your peers, you’re much more interested in what other people think about you. And the design of social media might be more stressful at certain times.”
As well as age, other factors could influence the impact of social media on children and teenagers—but researchers are only just beginning to explore these individual differences. “There will be people who are more negatively or positively impacted at different time points. That might be due to living different lives, going through development at different points. They might be using social media differently.” says Orben.
For many parents, buying a child a phone is a practical decision. “In a lot of cases, parents are the ones that want the younger children to have phones so that they can keep in touch throughout the day.” says Odgers.
It can also be seen as a milestone on the road to adulthood. “I think for children it gives them a sense of independence and responsibility,” says Anja Stevie, researcher at the University of Vienna, Austria. “This is definitely something that parents should consider: are their children at a stage where they are responsible enough to have their own device?”
One factor parents shouldn’t overlook is how comfortable they feel with their child having a smart phone. Besides, it’s worth remembering, though, that having a smart phone need not open the floodgates to every single app or game available. “I’m increasingly hearing, when I interview children, that parents are giving them the phone but introducing requirements to check and discuss which apps they get, and I think that is probably really wise,” says Livingstone.
1. According to the passage, which of the following statements is TRUE?| A．Parents feel comfortable when children have smart phones. |
| B．Many parents have a tendency to buy children smart phones. |
| C．Age does not influence the impact of social media on children. |
| D．It is unacceptable for parents to check apps on children’s phones. |
| A．Concerned. | B．Puzzled. | C．Pessimistic. | D．Subjective. |
| A．Parents’ Practical Decision | B．Negative Sides of Social Media |
| C．An Introduction of Apps & Games | D．When to Buy Children Smartphones |
2 . I have a friend who bird watches. She feels comfortable whenever she’s doing it. If you ask her why she likes it, she will say things like “Well, birds are the world’s most magical creatures.” I have another friend who knits. She likes it because it’s satisfying, and has an astonishingly impressive impact on people for whom being able to knit gloves is out of reach.
As a term, “hobby” has always been of arguable meaning. Ask someone what they think a hobby is, and you’ll get a dictionary definition that they will have just looked up on their phones and, then, a passionate speech on all of the activities that can under no circumstances be put into groups as hobbies by their own highly unique and inflexible standards. Being online is not a hobby, apparently, nor is listening to music.
Hardly anyone knows what a hobby is, and this is particularly the case now that so many of us are spending our leisure time online arguing about these sorts of basic definitions with people, as the writer Max Read put it in an essay, “to whom the world has been created again every morning, for whom every settled argument of modernity must be rewritten, but this time with their engagement.”
Even taking these difficulties into account, however, it seems obvious that birdwatching and knitting are classic hobbies. They are enjoyable, involve practice and reward effort, and they are given immediate access to a group with the same interests. They are the sorts of hobbies advice columnists (专栏作家) have in mind when people write in about their imbalanced lives. It’s interesting, then, that not one of my two clearly hobby-having friends would admit to the practice.
They worried that their hobbies, which give them pleasure and keep them far from their computers, made them seem like they had too much leisure time and too Lew inner resources that would enable them to naturally avoid boredom. They are fully paid-up members of society, with busy lives, fulfilling interpersonal relationships and, again, hobbies that make them happy. It’s just that hobbies have an undeservedly bad reputation, one made worse by the Internet, like everything else.
The birdwatcher said the problem with having a hobby was that it made people seem like they were contributing and learning nothing. The knitter said that she personally connected hobbies with having no friends and no idea of what normal people do to have fun, Actually, they do not want to be seen as mad people who intentionally get away from the correct course.
Well, I enjoy certain light operas. I play music for my own amusement. And yes, I am an ordinary student, and that is not a sign of madness.
1. The author mentions two friends with different hobbies in Paragraph 1 mainly to .
| A．explain the definition of “hobby” |
| B．attract the readers’ attention to hobbies |
| C．stress the importance of having a hobby |
| D．compare two different types of hobbies |
| A．“Hobby” as a term can only be defined without the Internet. |
| B．People online discuss the definition of “hobby” to change lives. |
| C．People create a new world by expressing their ideas of hobbies online. |
| D．It is hard for online people to reach an agreement on the definition of “hobby”. |
| A．They are afraid of being seen as crazy people. |
| B．They fear their hobbies are not impressive enough. |
| C．They find it necessary to share hobbies to balance their lives. |
| D．They refuse to share their feelings about their hobbies with mad people. |
| A．Hobbies are great for people’s mental health. |
| B．Different people have their own standards of hobbies. |
| C．It is reasonable and normal for people to have hobbies. |
| D．People who suffer from madness can also have hobbies. |
3 . Understanding The Metaverse
The metaverse is rapidly being described as the next frontier in the tech, business, and finance world. The idea gained popularity in July 2021, after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg renamed the company to Meta to reflect its growing focus on the metaverse. Today, everyone, from major corporations like Microsoft and Disney to creative startups, is struggling to enter the market that is predicted to reach over $780 billion by 2024.
In simplest terms, the metaverse is a fully immersive (沉浸式) virtual world that is like our real life.
Zuckerberg may have drawn the world’s attention to the metaverse, but the idea of a virtual world is not new.
However, experts believe the technologies need to improve greatly before that happens. The still heavy virtual reality headsets often cause motion sickness and are not ready for long time use. The amount of computing power required to house billions of people worldwide in a virtual universe also presents an issue.
The various Metaverse companies will also have different virtual worlds. They will have to standardize the technology so users can move seamlessly (无缝) between them.
| A．But what exactly is the metaverse? |
| B．The development of the metaverse still has a long way to go. |
| C．However, a metaverse is not a specific type of technology. |
| D．The metaverse industry will create jobs for hundreds and thousands of people. |
| E．Most importantly, the virtual experience has to be very attractive and affordable for consumers. |
| F．Fans believe that the metaverse will enable people to conduct their daily lives in an online world. |
| G．The gaming industry has been building the fundamental elements of the metaverse for many years. |
4 . I always imagined I’d be a good birder one day. But it was not to be. I finally had to acknowledge this the day I met a real birder. Toward evening, a beautiful song erupted from the woods. “Oh! What’s that one?” I asked. She looked at me with unbelieving eyes and said, “That’s still a cardinal (红雀).”
Nevertheless, after decades, I’ve gotten pretty good at the 20 or so regular bird visitors to my garden. And now I have a new ambition. I want to be able to tell individual birds apart. You know, my personal birds.
I thought my ability to distinguish our local hummingbirds (蜂鸟) would be limited to telling the females from the males, which is easy, because their feathers look different. But there’s way more going on than that. I get a good look because, like many people, I put out a nectar (花蜜) feeder. That’s mainly for my benefit, to draw them close. Hummingbirds get plenty of juice from my flowers. But they also eat insects and spiders. Some more than others.
The hummingbird that has dominated (控制) our feeder — Hannibal Nectar — is one round, spider-filled little ball. But then there’s Noodle. She visits the feeder any time she senses Hannibal isn’t looking. She always picks her place carefully so she can look out for Hannibal. She looks right, left, up, down, and only then lowers and sucks everything she can. Hannibal comes way more often and drinks less at a time, because he knows he’s the boss. But he’s also the only hummingbird I’ve seen that makes a regular habit of checking out the nectar feeder from underneath. I know what he’s doing: There might be ants.
Poor Noodle. She’ll be attacking spider webs for material for her nest one of these days, and I hope she’s real comfortable in there, because that’s one place Hannibal will not be invited. I’d love to bring her a housewarming gift. Maybe a nice spider pot pie.
1. How did the author probably feel after hearing the real birder’s answer?| A．Excited. | B．Moved. | C．Frightened. | D．Embarrassed. |
| A．To hunt hummingbirds. | B．To train hummingbirds. |
| C．To observe hummingbirds. | D．To give hummingbirds a home. |
| A．He is more battlesome. | B．He eats insects and spiders. |
| C．He sucks more nectar at a time. | D．He is particular about the material for his nest. |
| A．The joy of raising birds | B．Useful advice from a real birder |
| C．There are birds, and then there’s Noodle | D．Hummingbirds bring music to my garden |
5 . It was an unexpected call for Aranza Delgado from the shelter, Peewee’s Pet Adoption World, 800 miles away in Texas. She was so pleasantly
However, Aranza had a limited window of time, and could only come to pick up Puppies one week later. Ernie Cochran, a volunteer of the shelter, replied that they were more than
“If we can get a dog back to his family, it’s a wonderful thing,” thought Ernie. Ernie and the other locals teamed up with a plan to get Puppies back home as
“Everybody has been amazing, from the shelter to the people who are helping me transport Puppies,” Aranza told Kris News. She was happy to be
Although she may never completely know what Puppies went through during the four years, Aranza hopes that her story
| A．surprised | B．encouraged | C．informed | D．amused |
| A．found | B．adopted | C．chipped | D．abandoned |
| A．owner | B．shelter | C．rescuer | D．center |
| A．grateful | B．willing | C．excited | D．patient |
| A．recently | B．secretly | C．early | D．urgently |
| A．connected | B．reunited | C．associated | D．concerned |
| A．understand | B．forget | C．admit | D．realize |
| A．requests | B．troubles | C．regrets | D．messages |
| A．leave | B．keep | C．feed | D．see |
| A．repays | B．deserves | C．inspires | D．highlights |
