1 . We have been defending humanities for many decades now, but the crisis of the humanities only grows. In the face of declining student interest and mounting political scrutiny (审查), universities and colleges are increasingly putting humanities departments on the chopping block.
As a humanist, I am prepared to admit that I do not know what the value of the humanities is. I once asked the best teacher I ever had why she no longer taught her favorite novel, and she said that she stopped teaching a book when she found she was no longer curious about it. The humanistic spirit is, fundamentally, an inquisitive one.
In contrast, defenses of the humanities are not - and cannot be - conducted in an inquisitive spirit, because a defensive spirit is inimical to an inquisitive one. Defensiveness is, it must be admitted, an understandable response when the chopping block is brought out and you need to explain why you shouldn’t be on it, which requires their participants to pretend to know things that they do not actually know.
Nonetheless, we should be alert to the danger of becoming accustomed to putting our worst foot forward. An atmosphere of urgency and calls for immediate action are hostile to fields of study like literature and philosophy that require a reflective mood, and the pretense (假装) of knowing what one doesn’t actually know is hostile to forms of inquiry that demand an open mind.
A defensive mindset also encourages politicization. If the study of literature or philosophy helps to fight sexism or to promote democracy — and everyone agrees that sexism is bad, and democracy is good-then you have your answer as to why we shouldn’t cut funding for the study of literature or philosophy. Politicization is a way of arming the humanities for its political battles, but it comes at an intellectual cost. Why is sexism so bad? Why is democracy so good? Politicization silences these and other questions, whereas the function of the humanities is to raise them.
Humanists are not alone in their ignorance about the purpose of their disciplines. But scientists are under a lot less pressure to explain why they exist because the society at large believes itself to already have the answer to that question. If at some point I am called on to defend the study of Homer or Descartes at some official hearing, I will do my best, but I will not run to battle; the battle will have to come to me.
The task of humanists is to invite, to welcome, to excite, to engage. And when we let ourselves classrooms but also in our public-self presentation, we find we don’t need to defend or prove anything: We are irresistible.
1. What is the main concern regarding the crisis in humanities?| A．Students’ lack of interest in studying humanities courses. |
| B．People’s little knowledge regarding the purpose of humanities. |
| C．The mounting political scrutiny faced by humanities departments. |
| D．The pressure on humanists to argue for the value of their disciplines. |
| A．contrary. | B．relevant. | C．sensitive. | D．immune. |
| A．It is the worst action to take in the face of the crisis. |
| B．It leads to a compromise on human’s intellectual depth. |
| C．It requires a reflective mood on the study of humanities. |
| D．It brings about a lower chance of survival for humanities. |
| A．Humanities may not need any defense. | B．Science is more useful than humanities. |
| C．The future of humanities remains cloudy. | D．The battle of humanities is a hard one to fight. |
2 . For many American high school seniors and their families, May 1 is “National College Decision Day,” when students make a decision about their academic future.
It is understandable why many students and families suspect that college is no longer “worth it.” College tuition has been rising for years, and many students fear being burdened with loans after graduation. But in fact, the net price of a four-year college, which is what students pay after financial aid, has been falling since 2018 and is now lower than it was in 2006.
To make smart decisions about where to go and what to study, students and parents can make use of resources available today to make informed choices.
| A．To acquire these advanced skills, college remains the surest path. |
| B．However, recent years have seen a sharp drop in college registration. |
| C．These attitudes are also reflected in the actions of the youngest generation. |
| D．Higher education must make college pricing clear to would-be college-goers. |
| E．Huge data shows a college degree actually gives graduates economic advantages. |
| F．Furthermore, students in debt were more likely to finish their degrees and earn more later. |
| G．For example, tools like College Scorecard offer graduation rates and future earnings across schools. |
3 . If the great dinosaurs hadn’t gone extinct, would they have dominated Earth today? There has been a debate about this possibility for decades. Recently two analyses have put the surprising cognitive (认知) abilities of dinosaurs — and their potential limitations — in a new light.
In one study, Suzana Herculano-Houzel at Vanderbilt University calculated the likely number of neurons (神经细胞) in dinosaurs’ pallium, a brain structure that is responsible for advanced cognitive functions. Research suggests that it is the number of neurons in these areas, rather than the brain size, that indicates an animal’s cognitive potential. For example, despite having a very small head, birds have more densely packed brain cells than many mammals (哺乳动物) and so can possess roughly as many neurons as monkeys. The result is that some birds show great cognitive abilities, comparable to the smartest non-human mammals. And it is precisely birds, being the only surviving lineage (宗系) of dinosaurs, that are Herculano-Houzel’s foundation. By comparing the relationship between brain size, number of neurons and body size in numerous existing birds and available fossils of dinosaurs, Herculano-Houzel concludes that a large dinosaur such as T. rex could have housed two billion to three billion neurons in its pallium. If so, dinosaurs could have had the capacity for tool use and planning for the future.
But neurons’ number may not be enough. For intelligence, brain architecture also matters. And this could be the weakness of dinosaurs, argues Anton Reiner from the University of Tennessee. Over 350 million years of separate evolution, mammals and dinosaurs found two rather different ways to organize cognitive functions. The mammalian neurons are organized in a relatively thin layer formed by compact columns. In each column, different parts can communicate with one another over short distances. In contrast, in the dinosaurs that survive today, namely birds, the organization is less compact. According to Reiner, expanding brain capabilities beyond a certain point could make the structure far more complex and less efficient than it is in humans. If this were the case, an increase in brain size would correspond to a greater distance between different parts of the brain, slowing down their communication.
The issue remains open to debate. Herculano-Houzel and Reiner each published a paper with rejections to the other’s argument. Meanwhile, other scientists have entered the fight. For example, neurobiologist Giorgio Vallortigara assumes that speed in transmitting information between networks of neurons is probably one of dinosaurs’ strengths.
Whatever the truth is, understanding how and if brain architecture imposes limits on the development of cognition could reveal much about the evolution of abilities and behaviors of various animals. Also, this debate may tell us more about our own species than about dinosaurs.
1. Why do Herculano-Houzel and Reiner study birds?| A．Because birds are more intelligent than dinosaurs. |
| B．Because birds’ brain structures are the same as dinosaurs’. |
| C．Because birds are the only survivors of the dinosaur family. |
| D．Because birds have the same cognitive abilities as dinosaurs. |
| A．Tight. | B．Light. | C．Large. | D．Wide. |
| A．Dinosaurs’ ability for tool use owes to bigger brains. |
| B．The number of neurons has little to do with brain architecture. |
| C．Greater inter-brain distance causes higher cognitive efficiency. |
| D．The factors behind dinosaur intelligence remain to be identified. |
| A．Are Dinosaurs Comparable to Humans in Intelligence? |
| B．Are Dinosaurs with Bigger Brains the Ultimate Geniuses? |
| C．How Smart Were Dinosaurs? New Studies Fuel the Debate |
| D．Can Dinosaurs Outsmart Birds? Researches Cast a New Light |
4 . “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 |
| 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. |
| 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. |
5 . Bed rotting — the practice of spending long periods of time just staying under the covers with snacks, screens and other creature comforts — is gaining popularity on social media. Some Generation Z trend followers are now viewing it as a form of self-care, but doctors warn too much could be “sign of depression”. Are these extended breaks really wise for one’s mental health — or could they be a cause for concern?
Dr. Ryan Sultan, a professor at Columbia University in New York, who treats many young people, called the bed rotting trend attractive. “In our culture today, with too much to do, too many expectations and too much productivity, many young individuals (个人) are feeling burned out and often aren’t getting enough sleep. It’s easy to see why taking time off to lie around is attractive,” Sultan said. “In many ways, this is beneficial. It’s a chance to get away from real-life problems and clear your head before returning to life in a better state of mind, ” he added.
For the downside, however, he said a long-term need or desire for bed rotting could do harm to one’s physical health. Spending too many daytime hours in bed — awake or not — could destroy sleep schedules. Our brains are fine-tuned for sleep in darkness and alertness in light. Lying in bed half-asleep during the day will worsen sleep schedules — once that happens, it is a challenge to fix. It could also lead to blood pressure problems and obesity (肥胖).
Long-term need or desire for bed rotting could also be a warning sign of depression, according to a mental health expert. Dr. Marc Siegel, professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center and a Fox News medical contributor, agreed that while some downtime can be useful in terms of de-stressing and rejuvenation (更新), too much bed rotting is a bad health practice. In addition to increasing the risk of depression, it contributes to decreased motivation (动力) as well.
Instead of bed rotting, Siegel recommends regular exercise as a better form of de-stressing. While the occasional lazy day can be beneficial, too much could have the opposite effect. If it happens every day, that’s a fairly sensitive test for depression. Those who lack the motivation to get out of bed could also try calling or texting a family member for support, socializing with close friends, finding a small task to complete, or reaching out to a medical professional for help.
1. According to Dr. Ryan Sultan, why do young people like bed rotting?| A．They are fond of what is popular on social media. | B．They are unwilling to socialize with friends. |
| C．Bed rotting is away to escape stress. | D．Bed rotting helps fix sleep schedules. |
| A．Quickly-activated. | B．Well-trained. | C．Badly-needed. | D．Ill-equipped. |
| A．Being lazy from time to time can be good for individuals. |
| B．Sleeping in light can increase the risk of depression. |
| C．Bed rotting can allow people to avoid expectations. |
| D．Feeling down leads to decreased motivation. |
| A．Different opinions on how to become motivated. |
| B．Main causes of the long-term need for bed rotting. |
| C．Practical suggestions for young people to deal with stress. |
| D．Possible problems from lying in bed for extended periods of time. |
6 . 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 |
| 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. |
A． | B． | C． | D． |
“What if…?” thinking is anytime you try to guess the future outcome of an action you take. For example, “I want to ask for a pay raise but what if…?” Your mind then fills in the blank with many alternate scenarios, almost all of them negative.
It’s a powerful combination of focusing on the negative and the unrealistic. It causes you to suffer through events that may not even happen as you try to predict the future and work out how you’ll cope with all these possible(yet unlikely)scenarios. But the absolute worst thing about “what if…” thinking though, is that it tries to convince you it’s helping. You tell yourself that you’re just preparing yourself, you’re protecting yourself. But “what if…” thinking rarely leads to taking practical, preventative actions. Instead, you torture yourself by imagining all sorts of terrible outcomes, all in the name of being “prepared”, the idea of which is captured beautifully by this quote: “Do not be fooled by ‘what if…’ thinking! You are not a fortune teller. Even if you were, mentally rehearsing how you’ll cope with a negative outcome has limited usefulness. You’re much better off just coping with the situation once when it happens.” By torturing yourself imagining all the possible bad things that could happen, you end up living through all these horrible possibilities that you don’t have to.
Even if you do get it right, and one of the negative scenarios is the outcome, you’re unlikely to remember your well-rehearsed comeback or safety strategy in the heat of the moment.
Another separate problem with “what if…?” thinking is that it makes you so fearful of all these potentially hideous outcomes that it stops you from actually living through the situation, if you can at all avoid it.
By stopping yourself from acting, not only do you cut off the potential benefits of actually asking, but you also cut off the opportunity to see that your predictions were wrong—because you don’t test them out by entering the situation regardless. Unchallenged like this, “What if…” thinking seems like it actually protects you and seems even more “helpful” next time around.
Once you’ve decided on a course of action, “what if…” has got much louder and soon will stop you from taking action. I like to not give them an opportunity. Once you’ve made a decision, force your own hand: make the phone call straight away, enroll and pay for the course, make an appointment in your calendar, etc. before your fears and negativity even get a chance to get up off the couch.
1. What is “what if…” thinking?2. What is the absolute worst thing about “what if…” thinking?
3. Decide which part of the following statement is wrong. Underline it and explain why.
“What if…” thinking actually protects one because it cuts off the opportunity to see that one’s predictions were wrong.
4. Briefly introduce one of your experiences of fighting “what if…” thinking.(In about 40 words)
8 . 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| A．Embracing Disagreement: Refusing Overcomplexity |
| B．Simplifying Information: Enhancing Comprehension |
| C．Understanding Differences: Establishing Relationships |
| D．Navigating Complexity: Challenging Oversimplification |
| even though be opposed to call off as though agree with care for spare spot consist of shut down |
2. Your story doesn’t
3. My grandma stared at me
4. The game was
5. Most bosses
6. It can be hard for even a trained doctor to
7. Jack went ahead with his experiment
8. The International Olympic Committee
9. Could you possibly
10. He thanked the nurses who had
10 . Mindfulness—in basic terms, the practice of being “present” in the moment and paying attention to one’s own thoughts and feelings—has seen something of a boom over the last few years. While it certainly has its benefits, some argue that it encourages blind acceptance of the status quo, taking us so far into ourselves that we forget the rest of the world. In a new preprint on PsyArxiv, Michael Poulin and colleagues from New York’s University at Buffalo also find that mindfulness can decrease prosocial behaviours (亲社会行为).
The first study was designed to look at the impact of mindfulness on prosocial activity, and in particular, whether this depends on a person’s “self-construal”. In short, if someone has an independent self-construal they see the self as separate from others, rather than thinking more collectively and conceptualizing themselves as part of a wider group.
Participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions, one oriented around mindfulness meditation, and the other focusing on a control meditation in the form of mind wandering. Those in the mindfulness condition listened to a tape designed to inspire mindfulness through mindful breathing, while those in the mind wandering condition were instructed to “let your mind wander and think freely”.
After listening to the tapes, participants read about a local poverty and homelessness charity, before being asked whether or not they wanted to stuff envelopes in support of the organisation. Participants who decided to take part were left to do so for as long as they wanted. The team also measured participants’ self-construal by asking them to indicate how much they identified with friends, family, and wider groups compared to how much they thought of themselves as independent.
Most participants (84%) stuffed at least some envelopes after the task. People who participated in the mindfulness meditation stuffed 15% more envelopes than those who did the control mediation—if they had an interdependent self-construal. But for those with independent self-construals, mindfulness decreased the number of envelopes stuffed by 15%.
As the second study took place online, participants were not asked to stuff envelopes, but instead to sign up (or not) to chat online with alumni donors to request financial support for the same charity. And similar to the results of the first study, those in the interdependent condition saw an increased likelihood of volunteering after the mindfulness task, while those with independent self-construal were less likely to volunteer after listening to the mindfulness exercise.
Mindfulness has often been positioned as a panacea (灵丹妙药), not only for anxiety or other mental health conditions but in other areas, too: productivity, creativity, personal relationships, and particular traits or habits. Rather than treating it as a wholesale good, however, it may be better to understand when mindfulness might be truly beneficial—and, importantly, for whom.
1. What does the underlined word “stuff envelopes” in Para. 4 mean?| A．To employ people. | B．To write letters. | C．To donate money. | D．To open envelopes. |
| A．people less value charity work |
| B．people more willing to volunteer |
| C．interdependent people more independent |
| D．independent-minded people less prosocial |
| A．closely related to charity | B．not as popular as it used to be |
| C．useful under certain circumstances | D．effective in solving social problems |
| A．Supportive. | B．Disapproving. | C．Neutral. | D．Critical. |
