1 . Newspapers, advertisements, and labels surround us everywhere, turning our environment into a mass of texts to be read or ignored. As the quantity of information we receive continually increases and as information spreading is shifting from page to screen, it may be time to ask how changes in our way of reading may affect our mental life. For how we receive information bears vitally on the ways we experience and interpret reality.
What is most obvious in the evolution of reading is the gradual displacement of the vertical (垂直的) by the horizontal—a shift from intensive to extensive reading. In our culture, access is not a problem, but proliferation (激增) is. And the reading act is necessarily different than it was in its earliest days. Awed by the availability of texts, the reader tends to move across surfaces without allowing the words to resonate (共鸣) inwardly.
Interestingly, this shift from vertical to horizontal parallels the overall societal shift from bounded lifetimes spent in single locales to lives lived in wider geographical areas amid streams of data. This larger access was once regarded as worldliness—one traveled, knew the life of cities, the ways of diverse people…. It has now become the birthright of anyone who owns a television set.
How do we square the advantages and disadvantages of horizontal and vertical awareness? The villagers, who know everything about their surroundings, are blessedly unaware of events in distant lands. The media-obsessed urbanites, by contrast, never lose their awareness of what happens in different parts of the world.
We may ask, which people are happier? The villagers may have found more sense in things owing both to the limited range of their concern and the depth on their information. But restricted conditions and habit also suggest boredom and limitation. The lack of a larger perspective (视角) leads to suspiciousness and cautious conservatism, but for the same reason, the constant availability of data and macro-perspectives has its own decreasing returns. When everything is happening everywhere, it gets harder to care about anything.
How do we assign value? Where do we find the fixed context that allows us to create a narrative of sense about our lives? Ideally, I suppose, one would have the best of both worlds—the purposeful fixity of the local, as well as the availability of enhancing views: a natural ecology of information and context.
1. What can we learn about the first two paragraphs?| A．Readers today tend to ignore deep engagement with texts. |
| B．It’s difficult to shift from vertical to horizontal reading. |
| C．Where and how we read texts shapes our mental life. |
| D．People are tired of information proliferation. |
| A．have a deeper understanding of their surroundings |
| B．show no interest in what happens in the world |
| C．are less bored than media-obsessed urbanites |
| D．cannot adapt to changing situations |
| A．Vertical awareness allows us to care about others. |
| B．Changes in our reading habits lead to the societal shift. |
| C．It’s wise to keep a balance between a local and a global view. |
| D．Horizontal reading affects our mindset more than vertical reading. |
2 . Many people would answer the question of what makes us human by insisting that we are cultural beings. There is no doubt that we are. But one definition of culture is the totality of traditions acquired in a community by social learning from other individuals, and many animal species have traditions. Can we then say that some animals are cultural beings too?
One approach to study culture in animals is the so-called Method of Exclusion (排除), in which scientists investigate behavioral variations across populations of one species. In a famous study, scientists learned that chimpanzee (黑猩猩) behaviors were socially passed on as they were present at some sites but not at others, despite having same ecological settings. For example, chimpanzees in Tai National Park in Ivory Coast are well-known for their nut-cracking skills. Chimpanzees in Gombe national part in Tanzania, on the other hand, do not crack nuts, although nuts exist in their environment too.
However, when applying the Method of Exclusion, one has to be very careful. There are other factors that could also explain the pattern of behavioral evaluation. For example, some of the chimpanzee techniques scientists evaluated occur in only one of the three subspecies. So it’s quite possible that these behaviors also have an innate component. This would mean that one chimpanzee subspecies uses a new technique not out of cultural tradition, but because the behavior is fixed to specific genes. Another factor that has to be excluded is of course the environment Chimpanzees in Mahale do not fish algae (水藻), simply because algae does not exist there.
But when we exclude all the variations that can be explained by genes or environment, we still find that animals do show cultural variations. Does that mean there is no real difference between them and us after all? Not exactly: There is a fundamental difference between human and animal culture. Only humans can build culturally on what generations before us have learned. This is called “cumulative culture”. We don’t have to keep reinventing the wheel. This is called the “ratchet (棘轮) effect”. Like a ratchet that can be turned forward but not back, people’s cultural techniques evolve.
It is likely that behaviors we see today in chimpanzee cultures could be invented over and over again by individual animals themselves. In contrast, a child born today would not be able to invent a computer without the knowledge of many past generations.
1. Why does the author mention the example of the chimpanzees in two parks in Paragraph 2?| A．To prove that culture does exist in animals. |
| B．To justify the uniqueness of the research method. |
| C．To compare how chimpanzees behave in different parks. |
| D．To stress the importance of environment in studying culture. |
| A．Advanced. | B．Inborn. | C．Adaptive. | D．Intelligent. |
| A．Cumulative culture is what sets humans apart from animals. |
| B．Culure in animals is as worthy to be valued as human culture. |
| C．Animals don’t have the ability to invent behaviors in a community. |
| D．The “ratchet effect” decides if humans can build on past experiences. |
3 . It shouldn’t come as news to anyone that the planet is moving quickly towards a climate emergency. And fast fashion certainly plays its part in this.
Fast fashion brands, which release hundreds of new styles every week, have caused trends cycles to speed up rapidly, leading to overproduction and overconsumption. British shoppers are buying twice as much as we did a decade ago and both brands and consumers are throwing away “unfashionable” clothing more often—over £300,000 of it ends up in landfill every year. How do we solve this issue?
One answer lies in the new generation of made-to-order brands making their way into the mainstream. These brands make clothes only as and when they’re ordered, and because there’s no overproduction, less unwanted stock ends up in landfills. They also promote a slower fashion model, with pieces taking between three weeks and three months to arrive once purchased. The focus is on creating special, well-made pieces for consumers to treasure for years to come.
Made-to-order fashion is nothing new. Until the mid-20th century, it was the norm. However, the 1960s brought about the dawn of fast fashion and a shift in our relationship with our clothes. The value once placed on craftsmanship and quality was replaced by the desire for low cost and volume, resulting in cut-cost production and the attitude that clothing should be cheap and disposable.
Of course, made-to-order fashion has continued to exist alongside this, though research clearly shows that fast fashion prevails (盛行). Cue a made-to-order brand bringing bespoke (定制) back to the mainstream. Spanish brand Alas features a slow business model. It takes orders each week which are then handmade and delivered in about three weeks. It also revolves around an on-demand production process that rewards consumers for “pre-planned responsible shopping.” Every week, they launch a new drop, available to pre-order for a discounted rate for a limited time. From pre-order, Alas determines how popular each new item is and calculates how many units should be produced to fulfill both pre-orders and future full-price orders, therefore reducing the overproduction of stock.
With made-to-order brands growing in popularity, it begs the question—could this be the dawn of a new, environmentally responsible era? The answer is self-evident.
1. What do the first two paragraphs mainly show?| A．Our strong desire for fashion. |
| B．The fast development of fashion industry. |
| C．The urgent need for a different fashion model. |
| D．The advantages and disadvantages of fast fashion. |
| A．The shadow of fast fashion. |
| B．The value placed on quality. |
| C．The shift towards a green lifestyle. |
| D．The criticism for cheapness and quantity. |
| A．The reward mechanism is a must in slow fashion. |
| B．It takes patience and thought to buy made-to-order items. |
| C．The pre-order model reduces the cost of purchasing brands. |
| D．Consumers have a say about how their orders are produced. |
| A．anxious | B．confident |
| C．puzzled | D．curious |
4 . Earlier this week the online UK supermarket Ocado told its customers that it had “limited ability” to deliver ice ream. Why? Because the price of natural gas has increased greatly, which has hit the supply of CO2 in the UK. And that has led to a cut in the supply of dry ice that supermarkets use to keep food cool in their delivery vans (小型货车). So no ice cream.
This mini crisis has been fairly quickly resolve, for now at least. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t worry. This incident serves as a timely reminder of just how reliant we are on fossil fuels. Despite our optimistic enthusiasm for wind and solar power, one way or another oil and gas use is shot through every part of our economic and social lives. That will be the case for many decades to come.
In his recently updated book There is No Planet B, Mike Berners-Lee lays out the challenge. When we talk about shifting from fossil fuels to clean energy of one kind or another, we aren’t discussing taking the amount of energy we use now and producing that amount in a different way. Instead, our target is always on the move. The more energy we can get our hands on, the more we use—even if our use of it becomes more efficient.
Energy usage is going to keep rising, while energy transitions (转变) tend to both take a very long time and never actually end. We just pile new sources on top of old. The world still uses much the same amount of traditional biomass (wood etc) as it did 100 years ago. We are running to stand still. This will change. But not as fast as you might like to think. In 2019, 33 percent of our new power generation needs were met by renewable energy. That’s a start. But 40 percent were met by natural gas.
There’s urgency here of course—which might speed things up. But there is something else that might slow us down. It didn’t take much to move people to fossil fuels—they are relatively easy to extract, relatively easy to transport, hugely energy dense and efficient and, of course, cheap. Until their externalities were understood, who could possibly have objected? Our current transition is different: people and companies will switch not because the new sources are easier to access, cheaper or more energy dense but because regulation mandates that they must.
Either way, the truth is that whether we like it or not our energy transition involves long term reliance on fossil fuels. That means we should stop demolishing them. Instead, we should focus on making their extraction cleaner and more efficient while we wait for the engineering challenges around a renewables-led future to be solved.
If we don’t do this—if we allow ourselves to be beguiled by the idea that solar is so advanced that we no longer need filthy fuels to have ice cream, we, will find the future held back by needlessly expensive energy—and almost certainly ice-cream free.
1. What do the first two paragraphs mainly show?| A．The necessity for traditional fuels. |
| B．Our enthusiasm for clean energy. |
| C．The seriousness of energy crisis. |
| D．UK’s dependence on dry ice. |
| A．we have more types of energy on hand |
| B．the use of energy becomes more efficient |
| C．energy transition is far from being realized |
| D．we are closer to the aim of replacing fossil fuels |
| A．wasting | B．devaluing |
| C．distributing | D．justifying |
| A．Indifferent. | B．Defensive. |
| C．Disapproving. | D．Cautious. |
5 . Local barber (理发师) goes above and beyond for a little boy
“That day started all wrong,” LaQuista Erinna said. “And we forgot his headphones. We were running late, traffic was horrible, so I knew it was going to be difficult that day.”
When Erinna and her son finally arrived at their appointment, it seemed like there was no way 6-year-old Jackson, a boy with autism (自闭症), would be getting his hair cut.
“He just immediately got anxious,” Erinna explained. “Usually I have to do some coaching to get him in the chair. He will put on his headphones, and we power through.”
Erinna said Jackson is a typical little boy who loves to play and loves art. But some tasks can be sensory overload, and haircuts are one of them.
The stress was so intense for mom and son that almost two years went by before Jackson got another haircut. But this time, he was in the hands of Ree, the barber, and things were getting easier.
Ree noticed his Super Mario Bros shirt and told him that he needed to save Mario by making sure no hair got on him. She cut his hair while he moved and ran around the shop. She talked to him throughout the entire process, encouraging him and reminding him about protecting Mario to keep him engaged.
“It just touched me so much,” Erinna said: “She nurtured that relationship. She gained his trust.”
“I feel good I can go above and beyond for a child,” Ree said. “I know children want to be free.They want to express themselves so I try to find a different strategy to make them feel comfortable”
Jackson’s smile told the rest of the story.
Erinna was very moved by her son’s haircut. She shared a video online, which has gotten millions of views. Given the huge response, Erinna also set up a special GoFundMe to support Ree to make sure she’s able to continue to work and replace any lost income from the impact of the pandemic (流行病).
1. What usually helped to calm Jackson during haircuts?| A．His mother’s trust. | B．His art books. |
| C．His barber’s encouragement. | D．His headphones |
| A．By inspiring him to be brave |
| B．By cooperating with his mother. |
| C．By turning the haircut into a game. |
| D．By telling stories about Super Mario. |
| A．raised money to support her |
| B．advertised her hair cutting skills |
| C．got haircuts at her shop regularly |
| D．posted photos of Jackson’s haircut online |
| A．Kind and honest. | B．Caring and generous. |
| C．Patient and creative. | D．Confident and friendly. |
6 . According to statistics published by the BPI (Buying Power Index) a couple of months ago, digital streaming (流媒体) now accounts for 80 percent of the music consumption in the UK. Despite the incredible growth of online streaming platforms like iTunes, Apple Music and Tidal over the past 15 years, a more traditional medium has also seen a return of interest and sales in the music industry. In 2020, almost one in five of all albums purchased in the UK is vinyl (黑胶唱片), and it has once again become the most popular physical musical medium.
With digital streaming so easy and convenient, why are so many people drawn to traditional records? Some experts claim that vinyl is a physical medium for experiencing music, something tangible (有形的) to hold and own. For most people, having something tangible and interacting with it gives depth to the experience of music. Listening to an album and touching it the way the artist intended can make them feel more connected to the music and the artist. Records are physical products that can be not only displayed but also gifted, shared, traded and passed down through generations.
Sound quality is another hot topic. A lot of music lovers feel that the analogue sound (模拟声音) vinyl offers is superior to modern digital audio, particularly with regards to the compressed formats streaming platforms use. There’s a common belief that old-school analogue audio has a warmer, fuller sound than digitised music. For vinyl followers, the very defect traditional recorders often have, such as the familiar crackle (劈啪作响) when the record starts, bring the music to life in a different way.
There’s a ritualistic aspect to vinyl that a lot of people are drawn to, too. The act of putting a record on—carefully removing the record from the sleeve, placing it on the record player and gently dropping the needle on the right groove (凹槽)—is a more assiduous (一丝不苟的), mindful way of engaging with music. When you’re listening to vinyl, you can’t tap a button and go about your day while the streaming service provides hours of music. You need to stay close to the record player to move the needle and flip the record over.
It’s clear that the vinyl interest is well underway, and vinyl records are truly making a comeback. In an increasingly digital society, there’s something to be said for analogue experiences. Perhaps one of the great things about being alive in the 21st century is our ability to have the best of both worlds—the timeless appeal of physical records alongside the easy access to vast music libraries that streaming offers.
1. What are the statistics published by the BPI used to show?| A．An increase in music consumption. |
| B．The recovery of music industry. |
| C．A comeback of a physical medium. |
| D．The acceptance of online streaming. |
| A．It attracts people by its realistic feel. |
| B．It offers simple access to different music. |
| C．It shares a new way to enjoy music. |
| D．It provides people with perfect sound effect. |
| A．Overlooked by society. |
| B．Updated very frequently. |
| C．Performed as part of a ceremony. |
| D．Kept for a long time without changing. |
| A．Traditional records will get underway. |
| B．The analogue experiences may matter more. |
| C．Vinyl sales will boom with technological advance. |
| D．There should be a good mix of old and new. |
