1 . A moment occurs in the exchange between professor and student when each of us adopts a look. My look says, “What, you don’t understand?” Theirs says, “We don’t. And we think you’re making it up.” We are having a problem. Basically, we’ve all read the same story, but we haven’t used the same analytical approaches. It may seem at times as if the professor is inventing interpretations out of thin air.
Actually, the truth is that as the slightly more experienced reader, the professor has acquired over the years the use of a certain “language reading”. Besides, he has grasped three professional tools-memory, symbol and pattern. These items separate the professional readers from the ordinary ones.
English professors are cursed with memory. When reading a new book, I constantly seek out connections and inferences, recalling faces and themes from past readings. I can’t not do it, although there are plenty of times when that ability is not something I want to exercise. This does not necessarily improve the experience of popular entertainment.
Professors also read and think symbolically. Everything is a symbol of something, it seems, until proven otherwise. We ask: What does the thing over there represent? The kind of mind that works its way through undergraduate and then graduate classes in literature and criticism tends to see things as existing in themselves while also representing something else. This tendency to understand the world in symbolic terms is enhanced by years of training and rewards the symbolic imagination.
A related phenomenon in professorial reading is pattern recognition. Most professional students of literature learn to take in the specific detail while seeing the patterns that the detail reveals. Experience has proved to them that life and books fall into similar patterns. Literature is full of patterns, and your reading experience will be much more rewarding when you can step back from the work, even while you are reading it, and look for those patterns.
1. How does the author introduce the topic?| A．By describing a real-life scene. | B．By using popular quotes. |
| C．By presenting conflicting ideas. | D．By raising an interesting question. |
| A．They have limited life experience. |
| B．They lack chances for sufficient reading. |
| C．They are unable to analyze the text thoroughly. |
| D．They do not trust the professor’s teaching abilities. |
| A．They have a strong desire to not have their good memory. |
| B．Their reading habit doesn’t always guarantee desirable effects. |
| C．Their memory adds to their reading pleasure of popular works. |
| D．They keep making connections with their own life while reading. |
| A．Identify the hidden text modes. | B．Perceive many things at the same time. |
| C．Look for details and language patterns. | D．Memorize patterns of symbolic meanings. |
2 . I’ve reached the turn-around point of the day’s kayaking (皮划艇) trip. Sweat runs down my cheek as I
Solo outings had never
In October 2022, I decided to
Pride
Adventuring alone has become like medicine for me! It’s also pushed me to go
| A．dip | B．raise | C．point | D．slip |
| A．exhausting | B．awesome | C．surprising | D．terrible |
| A．crossed | B．lost | C．cleared | D．occupied |
| A．available | B．crucial | C．tough | D．common |
| A．admissions | B．circumstances | C．connections | D．relationships |
| A．bring up | B．take up | C．pull up | D．put up |
| A．appreciate | B．collect | C．cut | D．sweep |
| A．ashamed | B．scared | C．aware | D．tired |
| A．time | B．effort | C．room | D．money |
| A．myth | B．regulation | C．definition | D．truth |
| A．pulled | B．looked | C．coursed | D．carried |
| A．occasionally | B．initially | C．constantly | D．instantly |
| A．visited | B．swam | C．rowed | D．admired |
| A．within | B．into | C．beyond | D．through |
| A．emerged | B．ballooned | C．surrounded | D．encountered |
3 . On June 6th Columbia University announced that it will no longer co-operate with US News & World Report’s undergraduate rankings. It is the first top-notch institution to do so. Might its departure be the start of a mass departure?
Columbia’s decision follows a rankings scandal last year. In February 2022 one of Columbia’s own maths professors accused the college of fudging its data in several areas. The university later admitted to having used “outdated and/or incorrect methodologies”.
In the 1980s prospective students started to expand their college search beyond their local area, and it was hard to learn about universities and compare them. Hence, US News began ranking America’s top universities in 1983, and has released its findings annually since 1988.
Colleges have gone to great lengths to move up in the ratings. Richard Freeland, Northeastern University’s former president, capped class sizes and hired faculty to improve its spot; it moved from 127th in 2003 to 44th this year. Others went too far. A dean at Temple University’s business school was sentenced to prison and was ordered to pay a $250,000 fine after being found guilty of fraud in relation to artificially inflating his programme’s rankings.
The ranking system used to seem unstoppable. Universities have tried to ditch it before, only to find that doing so can backfire badly. US News still ranks non-participating universities, using publicly available information, and the data often do not go in their favour. Reed College, a liberal-arts college, stopped taking part in 1995. It tumbled from the top quartile to the bottom. Columbia did not submit data for this year’s analysis, citing concerns about Dr Thaddeus’s claims, and its ranking fell from second in 2021-22 (tied with Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology) to 18th in 2022-23 (tied with the University of Notre Dame).
Recently the mood has begun to change, however, especially among graduate schools. In 2022, of the 15 highest-ranked law schools, only the University of Chicago submitted data. Some undergraduate schools have already opted out this year (Rhode Island School of Design, Colorado College, Stillman College), but none are as prestigious as Columbia.
In May US News announced changes to its ranking methodology. It is moving away from metrics that rely on reputation and towards student outcomes. One way or another, the rankings—and universities more broadly—are in a state of constant change.
1. What is true about the US News undergraduate rankings?| A．It faked the information for the ratings. | B．It filled an information gap at one time. |
| C．It promoted the quality of higher education. | D．It has been released every year for 40 years. |
| A．it will be ordered to pay a fine | B．it will be excluded from the list |
| C．its ranking will suffer consequently | D．its spot in the ranking won’t be affected |
| A．limited | B．increased | C．inflated | D．maintained |
| A．scores given by former students | B．donations from all walks of life |
| C．evaluations from other colleges | D．earnings for college graduates |
4 . Bird populations in the UK continue to crash, new data shows, as campaigners predict the government will fail to meet its own nature targets unless radical (彻底的) changes are made. In 2021, on average the abundance of 130 breeding species was 12% below its 1970 value. Between 2015 and 2020, 24% of species increased, 28% showed little change and 48% declined. Wildlife experts agree that the decline in bird populations is largely driven by habitat loss.
The government passed the Environment Act into law in 2021, which requires a halt in species decline by 2030. Campaigners have said that radical changes to government policy are needed if it is to meet its targets. The problems were highlighted by the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch this year, in which house sparrows remained the most frequently observed species in gardens for the 20th year in a row.
“The numbers speak for themselves when it comes to the astonishing declines of some of our once common birds,” said Beccy Speight, the RSPB’s chief executive. “We are in a nature and climate emergency and we’ve lost 38 million birds from our skies in the past 50 years. “This year, more than 500,000 people took part in the Big Garden Birdwatch, and more than 9 million birds were spotted. The results also identified problems faced by other common bird species, including chaffinches and greenfinches.
Richard Benwell, the chief executive of the environmental coalition Wildlife and Countryside Link, said: “Meeting the legal target to stop wildlife losses by the end of the next parliament (议会) can’t be achieved with a legal tweak (调整) here, some spare change there. Serious, sustained investment, proper punishment for pollution, and action in every department of government must be the features of any nature-positive manifesto (宣言).”
1. According to the text, what is the main cause of bird population decline in the UK?| A．Climate change. | B．Habitat loss. | C．Pollution. | D．Hunting. |
| A．Adjustment. | B．Instruction. | C．Stop. | D．Promotion. |
| A．House sparrows. | B．Chaffinches. |
| C．Greenfinches. | D．Uncommon birds. |
| A．To point out the ways to meet the nature target. |
| B．To stress the importance of setting specific goals. |
| C．To remind the next parliament to make new laws. |
| D．To prove the government’s failure in bird protection. |
One day Officer Jackson and Steve were discussing a serious case when they were informed of a disturbance (骚乱) in the nearby subway. So, they walked out of the station and got into their car.
The two officers had expected they’d have to deal with an annoying beggar troubling the passers-by for money. But when they arrived at the crime scene, they were shocked at the beggar’s appearance. The man had tears in his eyes and was sitting on the subway stairs, looking untidy and tired.
“Excuse me, sir,” Officer Jackson said. “You can’t stay here, nor can you bother the people to give you money. You have to leave this place.”
“Look, officers,” the man sighed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause any trouble, okay? I lost my cane (拐杖), and I can’t walk without it. I wanted a few cents so I could get myself something to eat.”
The two officers exchanged looks, knowing the man wasn’t a disturbance but someone who really needed their help. So they promised to get him food, buy him a cane, and drop him home.
After doing that, the officers drove to the beggar’s home, only to discover he had no home at all. He was just wandering in the streets and living off the leftovers he managed to find.
The poor man said his name was Eugene. When he was working at a skyscraper construction site, he was injured and became disabled, losing his ability to walk. Unfortunately, his disability forbade him from doing physical labor, and he wasn’t well-educated to find a desk job, so he remained jobless. Because he couldn’t provide for his family, his wife and children left him. “I don’t have any hopes of changing my destiny (命运), officers,” the man said.
But Officer Jackson wanted Eugene to change his life. “You’re still young,” he said.
“You can’t lose hope so soon. He brought him something warm to eat, helped him take a shower, and gave him his warm boots. After his work, Officer Jackson drove Eugene to a shelter for the homeless and left.
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。
Since that day, Eugene had never expected to meet the two officers again.
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A few months later, Eugene was a changed man.
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6 . Next time you’re having trouble solving a tricky puzzle, consider asking a nearby bumblebee.
A new study in the journal PLOS Biology finds that bumblebees can learn certain behaviors from each other, suggesting these social insects have a capacity for what we humans call “culture.”
In the past couple of decades, a growing body of evidence has shown that animals like chimps and birds show behaviors of learning. If what they learn lasts for a long time, it turns into a tradition. And culture is made up of multiple traditions. “Bumblebees, though, have some of the most complex behavioral abilities, nobody’s really thought to look at culture in such insects and generally assume they’re mostly driven by inborn factors instead,” says Alice Bridges, a behavioral ecologist at Anglia Ruskin University in England.
To prove them wrong, Bridges built a puzzle box, whose base held the reward: a drop of super sweet sugar water. The box was designed with a rotating (旋转) top that can be rotated by pushing either on a red tab clockwise or a blue tab anti-clockwise. Some bees were trained to push the red tab to get the sugar water while others pushed the blue one. Then, these tutor bees were placed inside different colonies (蜂群), along with the puzzle boxes.
The experiment ultimately played itself out. In colonies where the tutor bee had originally learned to push the red tab, the other bees in the colony usually pushed the red tab. In colonies where the tutor bee was trained to push the blue tab, their fellow bees also tended to do the same. In contrast, in the control groups without tutors, the bees sometimes learned how to open the boxes, but most of them would do it once or twice and then never again. “They perhaps hadn’t quite made the link between their behavior and the reward,” Bridges supposes.
“Many of us consider ourselves to be rather special…because we have culture, we can learn and we’re social,” Bridges says. “But now it turns out that even the bee also has culture, which is an uncomfortable truth: human culture, once thought unique, does not emerge ‘out of the blue’ but has obviously built on deep evolutionary foundations.
1. What is people’s common attitude to bumblebees having culture?| A．Positive. | B．Indifferent. | C．Interested. | D．Doubtful. |
| A．To test their learning capability in new settings. |
| B．To see if they will spread the secret of the boxes. |
| C．To evaluate their ruling power in various groups. |
| D．To observe if they will share their food with peers. |
| A．Its appeal to the public. | B．Implications on cultural origins. |
| C．Its practical application. | D．Suggestions for future directions. |
| A．Human Culture Is Losing Its Uniqueness |
| B．Bee’s Behavior Builds on Biological Factors |
| C．Culture May Be Present Among Bumblebees |
| D．Animals’ Evolution May Start From Colonies |
Dave had loved basketball for as long as he could remember and he had never had a day without playing it. At primary school and junior high school he joined basketball clubs, attended training programs and watched basketball games, from which he learned the moves of the star players, wishing to play in a professional team like them and shine on the court.
Now as a senior high school student, however, his dream of becoming a professional player was dimming (变暗) because he was only of average height. He had to give up the hope of joining the school team. The guys on the school team were all tall boys who played matches and won honors for the school. They were like heroes. Dave watched them play and cheered them but he knew he would never be one of them.
Dave felt it a pity not to be tall enough, but this didn’t stop him from pouring his passion into basketball. He just played for the love of the sport. He played in the school gym with other boys or by himself every day, even during holidays and weekends, when it was open for two hours in the morning. He enjoyed every minute on the court making every effort to play better.
It was one Saturday morning. Dave was playing in the gym by himself, as all the other boys were busy with other weekend affairs. Then he noticed a tall boy approaching. It was Lankas. Everybody knows him as captain of the school basketball team. “Hi, Lankas,” Dave greeted him. “My name is Dave.” “Hi, Dave,” Lankas replied as he got closer. “Nice to see you here. Do you need an opponent to play against?” Dave was shocked, frozen right there, unable to believe his ears but somehow, he answered, “Why not?”
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。
So, a game of two players began.
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The next Saturday, when Dave was playing in the gym, Lankas appeared shouting, “Dave, I have good news for you.”
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My uncle is a successful businessman. One day, he invited me to have a dinner with one of his clients (客户) to discuss about future cooperation between them, during which he received a call. Then to everyone’s shock, he asked the waiter to check out and put an end to the trade with the client. I felt very confused. After all, it was a deal of one billion. When we got home together, he solved my doubt and told me a story about an expensive “school fee” he had paid for his dishonesty.
It was 15 years ago when he decided to return to his homeland to start a company after having got a PhD degree. Before leaving the country where he had studied for 5 years, he bought himself a Rolex watch with the savings made through years of part-time jobs and the scholarships he had got. At the airport, as was often the case, he had to accept the custom check. Of course, the watch on his wrist was on the list of things to be checked. Remembering that carrying things like this should pay some tax and worried about paying for his watch, he lied to the custom officer, “My watch is only a worthless fake (假货).”
“OK. I see.” said the custom officer and at the same time, in the presence of my uncle, he began to hit the watch heavily. “No!” Before my uncle woke up from his “smart”, the watch which cost nearly ￥100,000 had changed into pieces. “Why?” Shocked and not knowing the reason, my uncle was taken to the office for further examination.
Without finding any suspicious items, the officer let him go but warned, “Never use or carry the fake again, or you will be fined according to the law.”
My uncle continued, “Now, you see, my secretary called me saying the client used the fake to trade with X company one month ago. Such a dishonest man doesn’t have the qualification to cooperate with me.”
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。
Hearing my uncle’s story, I was lost in thought.
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From the story, I know I was wrong.
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9 . If you want to tell the history of the whole world, a history that does not privilege one part of humanity, you cannot do it through texts alone, because only some of the world has ever had texts, while most of the world, for most of the time, has not. Writing is one of humanity’s later achievements, and until fairly recently even many literate (有文字的) societies recorded their concerns not only in writing but in things.
Ideally a history would bring together texts and objects, and some chapters of this book are able to do just that, but in many cases we simply can’t. The clearest example of this between literate and non-literate history is perhaps the first conflict, at Botany Bay, between Captain Cook’s voyage and the Australian Aboriginals. From the English side, we have scientific reports and the captain’s record of that terrible day. From the Australian side, we have only a wooden shield (盾) dropped by a man in flight after his first experience of gunshot. If we want to reconstruct what was actually going on that day, the shield must be questioned and interpreted as deeply and strictly as the written reports.
In addition to the problem of miscomprehension from both sides, there are victories accidentally or deliberately twisted, especially when only the victors know how to write. Those who are on the losing side often have only their things to tell their stories. The Caribbean Taino, the Australian Aboriginals, the African people of Benin and the Incas, all of whom appear in this book, can speak to us now of their past achievements most powerfully through the objects they made: a history told through things gives them back a voice. When we consider contact (联系) between literate and non-literate societies such as these, all our first-hand accounts are necessarily twisted, only one half of a dialogue. If we are to find the other half of that conversation, we have to read not just the texts, but the objects.
1. What is the first paragraph mainly about?| A．How past events should be presented. | B．What humanity is concerned about. |
| C．Whether facts speak louder than words. | D．Why written language is reliable. |
| A．His report was scientific. | B．He represented the local people. |
| C．He ruled over Botany Bay. | D．His record was one-sided. |
| A．Problem. | B．History. | C．Voice. | D．Society. |
| A． How Maps Tell Stories of the World | B． A Short History of Australia |
| C． A History of the World in 100 Objects | D． How Art Works Tell Stories |
| A．hopes me to become | B．wishes me to become | C．hopes that I became | D．wishes that I would become |
