2 . In the days before the Internet, critical thinking was the most important skill of informed citizens. But in the digital age, according to Anastasia Kozyreva, a psychologist at the Max Planck Institute of Human Development, and her colleagues, an even more important skill is critical ignoring.
As the researchers point out, we live in an attention economy where content producers on the Internet compete for our attention. They attract us with a lot of emotional and eye-catching stories while providing little useful information, so they can expose us to profit-generating advertisements. Therefore,we are no longer customers but products, and each link we click is a sale of our time and attention. Toprotect ourselves from this, Kozyreva advocates for learning the skill of critical ignoring, in which readers intentionally control their information environment to reduce exposure to false and low-quality information.
According to Kozyreva, critical ignoring comprises three strategies. The first is to design ourenvironments, which involves the removal of low-quality yet hard-to-resist information from around. Successful dieters need to keep unhealthy food out of their homes. Likewise, we need to set up a digital environment where attention-grabbing items are kept out of sight. As with dieting, if one tries to bank onwillpower not to click eye-catching “news”, he’ll surely fail. So, it’s better to just keep them out of sightto begin with.
The next is to evaluate the reliability of information, whose purpose is to protect you from false and misleading information. It can be realized by checking the source in the mainstream news agencies which have their reputations for being trustworthy.
The last goes by the phrase “do not feed the trolls.” Trolls are actors who internationally spread false and hurtful information online to cause harm. It may be appealing to respond to them to set the facts straight, but trolls just care about annoying others rather than facts. So, it’s best not to reward their bad behaviour with our attention.
By sharpening our critical ignoring skills in these ways, we can make the most of the Internet while avoiding falling victim to those who try to control our attention, time, and minds.
1. What can we learn about the attention economy from paragraph 2?| A．It offers little information. | B．It features depressing stories. |
| C．It saves time for Internet users. | D．It seeks profits from each click. |
| A．To discuss the quality of information |
| B．To prove the benefits of healthy food. |
| C．To show the importance of environments. |
| D．To explain the effectiveness of willpower. |
| A．Reveal their intention. | B．Turn a deaf ear to them. |
| C．Correct their behaviour. | D．Send hard facts to them. |
| A．Reasons for critical thinking in the attention economy. |
| B．Practising the skill of critical ignoring in the digital age. |
| C．Maximizing the benefits of critical ignoring on the Internet. |
| D．Strategies of abandoning critical thinking for Internet users |
An Unforgivable Mistake
A few years ago, the company I work for sent my wife and me to live in New York for a year. I’ve always loved jogging, so I was really happy when I found the apartment they had rented for us was next to Central Park. This meant that every morning I could go for a run before I went to work.
Because a lot of people had told me to be careful of muggers (行凶抢劫者) in the park, I didn’t usually take anything with me. How could they rob me if I didn’t have anything? But one morning my wife asked me to buy some bread on the way home, so I put a $10 bill in my back pocket.
It was a beautiful morning and the park was quiet with very few people walking or jogging around. While I was running, another jogger bumped (撞) into me. He apologized and continued running. For a while, I didn’t think too much of it. However, when I noticed the wide path where I was running, I thought it was kind of strange. The warning of muggers in the park occurred to me. It could have been a mugger! I suddenly became alarmed, so I checked my pocket. The money was missing! I immediately started to run after the jogger. I finally caught up with and grabbed him firmly by the arm. I started shouting and demanding that he give me the $10 bill. I’m not usually a hot-headed person, but I really lost my temper at that moment. I couldn’t believe the robbery was actually happening to me. Filled with anger, I shook my fist at him. This seemed to frighten him. He quickly put his hand in his pocket and gave me the money. Then he ran away as fast as he could.
I bought the bread and went home. As soon as I got home, I couldn’t wait to tell my wife the story. “You won’t believe what happened to me,” I started with pride. She immediately interrupted (插话), “I know, you left the money for the bread on the kitchen table.”
注意：续写词数应为150左右。Paragraph 1:
Looking at the money on the table, I stood there, shocked.
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For several days, I waited at the same place.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________4 . Running is often tiring and a lot of hard work, but nothing beats the feeling you get after finishing a long workout around the track.
But while it’s long been believed that endorphins (内啡肽) —chemicals in the body that cause happiness—are behind the so-called “runner’s high”, a study suggested that there may be more to this phenomenon than we previously knew.
According to a recent study published by a group of scientists from several German universities, a group of chemicals called endocannabinoids (内源性大麻素) may actually be responsible for this familiar great feeling.
To test this theory, the scientists turned to mice. Both mice and humans release high levels of endorphins and endocannabinoids after exercise. After exercising on running wheels, the mice seemed happy and relaxed and displayed no signs of anxiety. But after being given a drug to block their endorphins, the mice’s behavior didn’t seem to change. However, when their endocannabinoids were blocked with a different drug, their runners’ high symptoms seemed to fade.
“The long-held notion of endorphins being responsible for the runner’s high is false. Endorphins are effective pain relievers, but only when it comes to the pain in your body and muscles you feel after working out,” Patrick Lucas Austin wrote on science blog Lifchacker.
Similar studies are yet to be carried out on humans, but it’s already known that exercise is a highly effective way to get rid of stress or anxiety. The UK’s National Health Service even prescribes (开药 方) exercise to patients who are suffering from depression. “Being depressed can leave you feeling low in energy, which might put you off being more active. Regular exercise can improve your mood if you have depression, and its especially useful for people with mild to moderate (中等的) depression,” it wrote on its website.
It seems like nothing can beat that feeling we get after a good workout, even if we don’t fully understand where it comes from. At least if we’re feeling down, we know that all we have to do is to put on our running shoes.
1. What did scientists from German universities recently discover?| A．Working out is a highly effective way to treat depression. |
| B．The runner’s high could be caused by endocannabinoids. |
| C．Endorphins may contribute to one’s high spirits after running. |
| D．The level of endorphins and endocannabinoids could affect one’s mood. |
| A．To find what reduces the runner’s high symptoms. |
| B．To see the specific symptoms of the runner’s high. |
| C．To identify what is responsible for the runner’s high. |
| D．To test what influences the level of endocannabinoids released. |
| A．Effect. | B．Goal. | C．Opinion. | D．Question |
| A．They can help ease depression symptoms. |
| B．They are the best way to treat depression. |
| C．They only work for those with serious depression. |
| D．They can help people completely recover from depression. |
5 . Labor Day in America began more than 100 years ago to honor low-paid factory workers.
Labor Day also informally marks the end of summer. Many students return to school after Labor Day. The hot days of summer turn cooler. Many Americans celebrate the holiday with an outdoor family picnic.
But Labor Day started with a struggle. On May 1, 1889, workers demonstrated on the streets of Paris, France. International Labor Day was born. Most industrialized countries in the world—except the United States and Canada—celebrate Labor Day on the first of May.
On September 5, 1882, in New York City. About 10,000 workers walked through the streets to show the strength of organized labor. For many years after that, American workers used the first Monday in September to ask for better working conditions and pay. Music was a part of many of those marches.
Labor songs traditionally tell stories of conflict (冲突) and hopes for a better life. Many traditional American labor songs came from workers in the coal mines of the South. Mine owners were bitterly against workers’ unions (工会). In Kentucky, company police searched for union leaders. They waited outside a worker’s home for several days to stop him from organizing.
The coal miner’s wife, Florence Reece, stayed inside with her children. She wrote this song, “Which Side Are You On?” Another American labor song is called “Bread and Roses.” It is based on a poem by James Oppenheim, published in December of 1911.
The poem speaks about the women’s labor movement. At that time, conditions in factories, where many women worked, were horrible. A fire at a clothing factory in New York killed 146 people.
A month after Oppenheim’s poem was published, textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts went on strike, which won them higher pay and better working conditions. Oppenheim’s poem gained more attention.
1. What does Labor Day mean to students in the United States?| A．It’s a time to eat in the wild. | B．Their summer vacation is over. |
| C．It teaches them to respect labor. | D．They learn much about history. |
| A．Fought. | B．United. | C．Marched. | D．Quarreled. |
| A．To force him to stay at home. | B．To prevent his wife writing the song. |
| C．To try to communicate with him. | D．To stop marches being organized. |
| A．He cared for working women’s rights. | B．He created the song “Bread and Roses”. |
| C．He reported the fire at a clothing factory. | D．He led the labor movement in Lawrence. |
A young man was on his way to the office when a nurse called him and told him that his father was injured and in hospital. So he hurried to go to the hospital by taxi. After he went into the hospital, he found that he left his cell phone in the taxi, but the taxi had left. The worse thing was that he had forgotten to ask the nurse which ward his father was in. He had to scurry around in the hospital, looking for his father. Seeing a nurse, he asked her anxiously, ”My father is in hospital. He..”
The nurse interrupted him, “Oh, my God. It’s you. Come with me!” She led the anxious young man to the bed side of an elderly man. “Your son is here,” she whispered to the elderly patient. The old patient’s eyes opened only after she repeated the words several times.The old man was too weak so it was really hard for him to stay awake and he could vaguely (模糊地) see the young man standing beside him.
The old man reached out his hand with all his strength and the young man realized it and immediately held it.
The nurse brought a chair for the young man to sit beside the bed. The young man sat holding the old man’s hand and offering him words of love and strength, all through the night. The dying old man said nothing. The nurse suggested that the young man move away and rest for a while but he refused. He stayed.
As dawn approached, the old man peacefully died.The young man placed the lifeless hand on the bed and informed the nurse. While the nurse did what was necessary, the young man waited. When she finished her task, the nurse began to say words of sympathy the young man needed.
注意：1.续写词数应为 150 左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
But the young man shook his head.
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He replied, “I knew right away he was not my father.”
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7 . These days, we wonder a lot about why social networks go bad, full of terrible behavior. But it’s equally illuminating (有启发性的) to ask about the ones that work well. These communities share one characteristic: They’re small. Generally they have only a few hundred members, or maybe a couple thousand if they’re really popular.
And smallness makes all the difference. First, these groups have a sense of cohesion (凝聚性). The members have joined specifically to talk to people with whom they share an enthusiasm. That creates a type of social glue, a context and a mutual respect that can’t exist on a highly public site like Twitter, where anyone can crash any public conversation.
More important, small groups typically have people who work to keep interactions polite. Sometimes this will be the organizer or an active, long-term participant. They’ll greet newcomers to make them feel welcome, draw out quiet people and solve conflict when they see it emerge. But what’s crucial is that these key members model good behavior, illustrating by example the community’s best standards. The internet thinkers Heather Gold, Kevin Marks and Deb Schultz put a name to this: “tummeling,” after the Yiddish “tummeler,” who keeps a party going.
None of these positive elements can exist in a massive, public social network, where millions of people can get into each other’s spaces. That’s why perhaps the single biggest problem facing social media is that our mainstream networks are too interested in scale. But scale breaks social relations.
Is there any way to approach this problem? I’ve never heard of any simple solution. Strict antitrust laws for the big networks would be useful, to encourage competition among networks. But this likely wouldn’t fully solve the problem of scale, since many users fancy scale too. Longing for massive, global audiences, they will crowd into whichever site offers the hugest. Many of the well-known solutions to social media might help, but all ignore the biggest problem of all: Bigness itself.
1. Why do members from small online groups get along well?| A．They have some shared hobbies. | B．They are mostly highly educated. |
| C．They know the importance of safety. | D．They are familiar with each other. |
| A．A person organizes a successful birthday party. |
| B．A newcomer joins an organization. |
| C．An active team member starts a conflict. |
| D．A conversation organizer encourages others to speak. |
| A．Favorable. | B．Pessimistic. | C．Curious. | D．Uncaring. |
| A．Inappropriate behavior online | B．The small things that truly matter |
| C．Online communities that actually work | D．Different types of social networks |
8 . What does it mean to leave something better than you found it? For Breon Dennis Jr. , it
Breon is from Louisiana, and came to Dallas Baptist University in the late 2000s to
As the VP of the RoughRiders Foundation, his ultimate
A key part to Breon’s philosophy in helping others to
| A．shows | B．includes | C．collects | D．involves |
| A．obtain | B．learn | C．find | D．make |
| A．studying | B．training | C．working | D．living |
| A．earned | B．finished | C．lost | D．kept |
| A．labor | B．management | C．influence | D．project |
| A．reward | B．desire | C．effort | D．hobby |
| A．personally | B．mentally | C．physically | D．financially |
| A．businesses | B．events | C．occasions | D．tasks |
| A．demands | B．prefers | C．seeks | D．promises |
| A．expects | B．teaches | C．shows | D．encourages |
| A．grow | B．love | C．succeed | D．enjoy |
| A．meet with | B．agree with | C．live with | D．begin with |
| A．bring | B．take | C．move | D．pass |
| A．effects | B．knowledge | C．values | D．standards |
| A．richest | B．best | C．smartest | D．strongest |
1.阅读的好处
2.阅读习惯的培养与每天阅读，定期去书店、图书馆购买或借阅图书，分享读书心得等）。
注意：
1.词数100左右（开头和结尾已给出，但不计入总词数）
2.可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
Dear fellow students,
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Student Council
1.活动内容（朗读并表演文学作品）；
2.活动时间和地点；
3.表达希望。
注意：1.词数100左右；
2.开头和结尾已给出，不计入总词数。
提示词：读者剧场Reader's Theater
文学作品literary works
Dear Jim,
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yours,
Li Hua
