1 . With the development of our society, cellphones have become a common part in our lives. Have you ever run into a careless cellphone user in the street? Maybe they were busy talking, texting or checking updates on WeChat without looking at what was going on around them. As the number of this new "species" of human has kept rising, they have been given a new name—phubbers (低头族).
Recently a cartoon created by students from China Central Academy of Fine Arts put this group of people under the spotlight. In the short film, phubbers with various social identities bury themselves in their phones. A doctor plays with his cellphone while letting his patient die. A pretty woman takes a selfie (自拍) in front of a car accident site. And a father loses his child without knowing about it while using his mobile phone. A chain of similar events will finally lead to the destruction(毁灭) of the world.
Although the ending of the film sounds unrealistic, the damage phubbing can bring is real. Your health is the first to bear the effect and the result of it. "Always bending your head to check your cellphone could damage your neck," Guangming Daily quoted doctors' words. "The neck is like a rope that breaks after long-term stretching." Also, staring at cellphones for a long time will damage your eyesight gradually, according to the report.
But that's not all. Being a phubber could also damage your social skills and drive you away from your friends and family. When getting together with family or friends, many people prefer to play their cellphones while others are chatting happily with each other and this creates a strange atmosphere, Qilu Evening News reported.
It can also cost your life. There have been lots of reports on phubbers who fell to their death, suffered accidents, and were robbed of their cellphones in broad daylight.
1. Why does the author give the example of a cartoon in Paragraph 2?| A．To suggest phubbers will destroy the world. |
| B．To call for people to go walking without phones. |
| C．To tell people the bad effects of phubbing. |
| D．To advise students to create more cartoons like this. |
① Destructing the world.
② Affecting his social skills.
③ Damaging his neck and eyesight.
④ Getting separated from his friends and family.
| A．①②④ | B．②③④ | C．①③④ | D．①②③④ |
| A．Supportive. | B．Confident. | C．Disapproving. | D．Unconcerned. |
| A．Ways to avoid the risks of phubbing. | B．Bad effects of phubbing. |
| C．Daily life of phubbers. | D．Behaviours of phubbers. |
2 . The other day, my sister and I were sitting in the restaurant, trying to have a conversation, but her children, four-year-old Willow and seven-year-old Luca, would not stop fighting. The arguments——over a fork, or who had more water in a glass--never stopped.
Then my sister reached into her handbag, produced two shiny iPads, and handed one to each child. Suddenly, the two were quiet. They sat playing games and watching videos, and we continued with our conversation.
After our meal, as my sister stuffed the iPads back into her bag, she said, “I don’t want to give them the iPads at the dinner table, but if they keep them occupied for an hour so we can eat in peace, I often just hand them over. I am afraid that it’s bad for them. I do worry that it makes them think it’s OK to use electronics at the dinner table in the future.”
Dr. Gary Small, director of the Longevity Center at the University of California, Los Angeles says that the brain is highly sensitive to stimuli(刺激物), like iPads and smartphone screen, and if people spend too much time on one technology, and less time interacting(互动)with people like parents at the dinner table, that could prevent the development of certain communication skills.
“Conversations with each other are the way children learn to have conversations with themselves, and learn how to be alone,” said Sherry Turkle, a professor of science, technology and society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She fears that children who do not learn real interactions, which often have imperfections, will come to know a world where perfect, shiny screens give them a false sense of intimacy(亲密) without risk. However, they need to be able to gather themselves and know who they are. So someday they can form a relationship with another person without a panic of being alone. “If you don’t teach your children to be alone, they will only know how to be lonely,” she said.
1. What did Willow and Luca fight about?| A．Little things. | B．iPads. |
| C．Delicious food. | D．Interesting things. |
| A．She loved doing it very much | B．She was uncertain about its effects. |
| C．She felt it was worth a try. | D．She felt surprised at its effect. |
| A．Provide their children with various technologies. |
| B．Teach their children communication skills. |
| C．Limit their children’s screen time. |
| D．Talk to their children at the dinner table. |
| A．Children are afraid of taking risks. |
| B．Children try to escape from the real world. |
| C．Children can’t deal with time when they have to be alone. |
| D．Children can’t live without electronic devices. |
3 . Everyone may face difficult circumstances.
Be Flexible.
When you are pursuing your goals, you may suddenly hit a roadblock and all movement comes to a standstill. When you hit a roadblock, don’t throw out your entire plan. Take a moment to step back from the situation and figure out how to adapt your plan to handle the roadblock. Be flexible in your approach.
Build Support.
Long before you encounter any obstacles, it is important that you are always building your network of support.
During times of adversity, it’s important that you don’t focus on negative emotions. Rather than dwelling on events and mistakes that you may have just made, leave them in your past. You can learn lessons from those mistakes and then let them go. Move on by focusing on the future and what your life will be like when you achieve your goals.
It’s the Small Things that Matter.
When hardships occur, and threaten to permanently spoil your plans, it can make you desperate. At these times, it’s especially important to positive emotions to give you the ability to persist and improve performance.
| A．Focus on the Future. |
| B．Learn to ignore mistakes. |
| C．Look for people who believe in you and your vision. |
| D．Remember that small accomplishments add up to greater successes. |
| E．The difficult circumstances manage to force you to give up your goals. |
| F．In these situations, courage is a must if you want to achieve your goals. |
| G．You never know what good things this unexpected roadblock might uncover. |
4 . Playing video games is an enjoyable pastime for many of us. But have you ever thought of becoming a video game developer and designing your own games?
If so, Electronic Arts’ (EA) “Get in the Game” program might be for you. The program targets high school girls, giving them a chance to work alongside professional female game developers, with a view to encourage more girls to pursue a career in the tech industry.
EA is the largest video game development studio in Central Florida, US. This year, 15lucky students were selected for the program and given the chance to put the finishing touches onto future EA titles.
Edgewater High School student Lyla Lovett,17,raised her hands in celebration after she fixed an in-game glitch(故障) and successfully found a potential solution. Current EA software engineer Alanna Berklund said: “That trial-and-error is something that happens every day in game development.”
She added: “Building games is not simple ... you have to try a lot of things, and most of the time it's a matter of changing something and seeing what happens.”
Years ago, when Berklund was a new graduate, she would ask technology companies whether their business tried to hire women. “They would say, ‘we just hire the best people’.” Berklund concluded. “Technology has always been a boys’ club, and it's about not keeping the present situation.”
The gender(性别)gap in technology goes far beyond the video game industry. According to the National Center for Women in Information Technology, the percentage of female science-based degree students, in the US, dropped from 37 percent to 19 percent between1985 and 2016. This decline in female science students is one of the reasons why non-profit groups such as “Girls Who Code” have appeared in recent years.
As more industries look to fill technology jobs, it’s important that women are equally represented.
Lyla said spending a week with female engineers convinced her to pursue a career in the industry.
“It’s fearful when you see lots of men in the field. But seeing female developers working successfully in the industry makes me think change is possible,” Lyla explained.
She added that, working with other women in the technology industry was “a big thing in my life. It helped me learn to communicate better, to manage problems, and to express my feelings.”
1. What can we learn about Electronic Arts’ (EA) “Get in the Game” program from the text?| A．Girls can play their favorite video games. |
| B．Girls can design video games with professionals. |
| C．Girls can team up with players around the world. |
| D．Girls can compete with boys while playing video games. |
| A．She was refused by many technology companies. |
| B．She wanted to compete with the men in the technology industry. |
| C．She had to work harder than her male colleagues. |
| D．She was given the chance to work in technology companies. |
| A．Traditional women's work in the tech industry is highly valued in the USA. |
| B．Non-profit groups such as “Girls Who Code” have disappeared in recent years. |
| C．The percentage of female science-based degree students has declined recently. |
| D．Becoming a video game developer and designing your own games are an easy thing. |
| A．The difficulties girls have in the technology industry. |
| B．Ways of attracting more girls to the technology industry. |
| C．The advantages girls have in the technology industry. |
| D．The gender gap girls face in the technology industry. |
5 . To move visual technology into the future, sometimes it helps to make a little noise. Researchers have used sound waves to produce floating 3-D images, create a sense of touch and even supply a soundtrack.
Since the 1940s, scientists have toyed with the concept of acoustic levitation(声悬浮), the use of soundwave vibrations(震动) to trap tiny things in midair. The technology has gained greater capabilities in the past decade. Some researchers believe this improvement could lead to applications such as contributing to novel 3-D printing methods, or creating displays that would be visible from any angle without requiring a screen.
Other researchers have also worked on visual displays that use acoustic levitation. In addition to visuals, the system can also produce audible noise to give the display a soundtrack. And the ultrasound speakers can also concentrate vibrations in one spot so that a finger might feel a sense pushing back—a little like the object shown by the floating image is really there. Soundwaves create a 3-D display!
Display without a screen is remarkably useful. It means that everybody in the room can see the image—any angle, location—and that’s extremely helpful. As a communications system, such a display might one day allow users to chat with a 3-D projection(投影) of a person who can turn his or her head to follow as they move around a room.
The display will require a lot more work before you can install it in your living room, however. So far, this has been done in the research laboratory. We need to push it a little bit harder. We need to do more analysis to see if it would make sense to create a real display that people would have at home. The current system can only show simple graphics, such as a smiley face or figure eight, in real time.
Still, we are optimistic about the potential for this type of technology. If the system had only one speaker-covered surface instead of two, it could generate images that are bigger than the device itself. We can’t make a TV image that’s bigger than the TV—even a projector has to have a projection screen that’s bigger than the image itself. But with a volumetric(容积的) display, a small, portable device might produce a much larger picture. We can imagine, in the future, having volumetric displays in watches, for example, that create large images that just project out of your watch.
1. From the first two paragraphs soundwave vibrations can be used to _________.| A．catch very small objects in midair |
| B．develop 3-D printer’s capabilities |
| C．replace a creative display screen |
| D．compose soundtracks by making no noise |
| A．Different. | B．New. | C．Storied. | D．Formal. |
| A．Room for the technical improvement. |
| B．Situations of the modern technology. |
| C．Praise for the cutting-edge technology. |
| D．Outlooks for the new technology. |
| A．Hearing is Seeing—Sound Waves Create a 3-D Display. |
| B．Seeing is Believing—3-D Printing Methods Arrive. |
| C．Advancing Sense of Touch—3-D Images Float in the Air. |
| D．Promoting TV Technology—Chat with 3-D Projections. |
6 . People walk almost an extra mile each day if they have an activity tracker on their smartphone or watch, a study has found.
Researchers analyzed dozens of studies comparing people's exercise activity with and without a tracking app, and found that being able to keep tabs on progress boosted how far people walked or ran. The studies involved a total of 7,454 people.
Overall, people walked an average of 1,850 more steps if they had an app -- a significant increase in daily workouts. Most people take somewhere around 2,000 steps to walk a mile.
Authors of the study, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, said doctors might consider prescribing(开处方) such apps and trackers for patients looking to get fitter.
Just 4,400 steps a day tied to women living longer, study says.
"Interventions(介入) using smartphone apps or activity trackers seem promising from a clinical and public health perspective," the authors wrote.
"Given the wide and increasing reach of smartphones, even modest improvements in physical activity can produce large effects at the population level."
The study looked at research conducted mainly in the United States, and less than a third of the subjects involved were women, so it's unclear how widespread the findings would be.
The average number of steps taken by American adults is between 4,000 and 5,000 per day, previous research has shown.
1. What does the study find about the walking tracker?| A．It speeds up walking. | B．It follows your position. |
| C．It assists the research. | D．It benefits the walkers. |
| A．To replace medicine. | B．To help keep healthy. |
| C．To communicate with them. | D．To record their health condition. |
| A．Indifferent. | B．Ambiguous. | C．Optimistic. | D．Skeptical. |
| A．It involved mainly men. | B．It involved a total of 4,400 people. |
| C．It was applied widely around the world. | D．It was published in an American magazine. |
This little South American Magellanic penguin swims 5,000 miles, to a beach in Brazil, every year in order to be reunited with the man who saved its life. It sounds like something out of a fairy tale, but it’s true!
71-year-old retired brick worker Joao, who lives in an island village just outside Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, found the small Magellanic penguin lying on rocks at his local beach in 2011. The penguin was covered in oil and running out of time fast. Joao rescued the penguin, naming it Din, cleaned the oil off its feathers and fed him a daily diet of fish to rebuild its strength. After a week of recovery, Joao attempted to release the penguin back into the wild. However, Din had already formed a family bond with his rescuer and wouldn’t leave.
“He stayed with me for 11 months and then, just after he changed his coat with new feathers, he disappeared,” Joao recalls. “I love the penguin like it’s my own child and I believe the penguin loves me,” Joao told Globo TV. “No one else is allowed to touch him. He pecks (啄) them if they do. He lies on my lap, lets me give him showers, and allows me to feed him.”
Professor Krajewski, a biologist who interviewed the fisherman for Globo TV, told The Independent: “I have never seen anything like this before. I think the penguin believes Joao is part of his family and probably a penguin as well.”
However, environmentalists warn that, while hundreds of the Magellanic species are known to naturally migrate (迁徙) thousands of miles north in search of food, there has been a worrying rise in the phenomenon of oceanic creatures washing up on Brazil’s beaches. Professor David Zee from Rio de Janeiro’s State University, said the increase is due in part to global climatic changes. Professor Zee added that sea animals face increased danger from leaked tanker oil.
Luckily the ending for Joao and Din has been a happy one, even though it is illegal in Brazil to keep wild animals as pets.
Professor Krajewski said: “Professionals who work with animals try to avoid relationships like this occurring so they are able to reintroduce the animal into the wild. But in this single case the authorities allowed Din to stay with Joao because of his kindness.”
1. What is the purpose of Din swimming a long distance to the beach in Brazil every year?| A．To avoid being killed. | B．To meet his rescuer. |
| C．To escape from ocean currents. | D．To find much more fish. |
| A．He was going to die. | B．He was running on the beach. |
| C．He was resting on a rock | D．He was cleaning oil off his feathers. |
| A．He is not allowed to keep the penguin as a pet by the authorities. |
| B．He overprotects the penguin by keeping him away from others. |
| C．His contact with the penguin is encouraged by professionals. |
| D．His kindness wins the complete trust from the penguin. |
| A．The environmental impact on wildlife. |
| B．The love between humans and wildlife. |
| C．The tendency of wildlife to bond with humans. |
| D．The protection of threatened wildlife by mankind. |
8 . Most polar bears could disappear by the end of the century, scientists say. Global warming is to blame. According to a study published this month in Nature Climate Change, most polar bear populations will be in serious decline by 2080. The cause is melting sea ice.
Polar bears hunt seals on the ice. Without ice, the bears must wander on the shore, where they are spending more and more time away from their main food source. That means the animals could starve.
“There’s not enough food on land to sustain a polar bear population,” Péter K. Molnár told the New York Times. He is the study’s lead author.
Lack of food leads to another problem: Mother bears may not be fat enough to produce milk for their cubs. Some bear populations could stop having babies, leading to a rapid decline in numbers.
Arctic sea ice usually melts in the spring and summer, then grows in the winter. But now, the ice is taking longer to grow back. Weather statistics say the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet. Ice in the region has declined 13% every 10 years since the 1970s.
The Arctic is home to roughly 25,000 polar bears. Scientists have long known that the animals are in danger. This study, which looked at 13 of the world’s 19 polar bear populations, is the first to identify when they could disappear.
But the study also notes that it is still possible to slow Arctic melting. The world can reduce the burning of fossil fuels and lower the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. It would have to be a drastic reduction. Bringing emissions to only a moderate level will still mean the loss of some polar bears.
Saving the bears is up to us, Holland says. “I believe that there is hope,” she says. “But humans need to act quickly to turn that hope into a reality.”
1. Why are polar bears in danger of disappearing?| A．Lack of seals. | B．Global warming. |
| C．Less milk for cubs. | D．The loss of home. |
| A．Reduce. | B．Suffer. | C．Support. | D．Increase. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Neutral. | C．Negative. | D．Positive. |
9 . Dolly Alderton， a journalist and co-host of The High Low podcast chooses her five favourite books. Her memoir(回忆录), Everything I Know About Love, was a Sunday Times bestseller.
Postcards from the Edge by Carrie Fisher, 1987 (Simon &Schuster £8.99)
Fisher’s first writing was this novel about an actress with a drug addiction who is trying to start again. Most of it is from rehab(戒毒所) —— a mixture of self-aware soul-searching and funny accounts of the characters she meets in crisis. It’s warm but pessimistic, and funny as well as sad.
The Rules Do Not Apply by Ariel Levy, 2017 (Fleet £8.79)
This is one of the most extraordinary memoirs I’ve read, written by one of my favourite journalists. It is a raw account of ambition, sorrow, heartbreak and what it means to accept that you don’t always get everything you want.
On Beauty by Zadie Smith, 2005 (Penguin £8.89)
This novel is a moving exploration of the end of a marriage. I’m always interested in the love stories that pick up after happily ever after. This one is gentle and tragic, packed with deep observations on how love waxes and wanes(兴衰）through various ages and phases of life.
The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank, 1999 (Penguin £8.69)
A hugely hopeful, wise and funny book about a woman’s search for love.The Interconnecting
stories all show recognisable mistakes made and lessons learnt. It had a huge effect on me and, although it’s fiction, was the major influence on my memoir Everything I Know About Love.
Money by Martin Amis,1984 (Vintage £8.99)
Based on Amis’s own experiences as a script（剧本) writer on a Hollywood feature film, Money is a appealing, cinematic novel that takes a searing look at greed. It’s dark and funny, frightening and deep.
1. Which book will you choose if you want to learn something about drug addiction?| A．Money. | B．On Beauty. |
| C．Postcards from the Edge. | D．The Rules Do Not Apply. |
| A．On Beauty. | B．Postcards from the Edge. |
| C．The Rules Do Not Apply. | D．The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing. |
| A．To introduce some favourite books of Alderton. |
| B．To present some Sunday Times bestsellers. |
| C．To sell some books at a reasonable price. |
| D．To call on readers to read more books. |
10 . Summer job offers
Red Lemon shop Assistants(售货员)
We are looking for shop assistants for the summer. If you are a social person and good at salesmanship, we want you to join our team. Good conditions. Perfect for students.
Phone 0151-897-6643 for information about how to apply.
Cinerama Cinemas
We need people to work evenings and at the weekend. Responsibilities include checking tickets and selling popcorn and soft drinks. Watch the latest films ... free! Join our young and friendly team!
Phone 0161-754-6022 for more information about wages (工资)and conditions.
US Au Pairs
Ever wanted to visit California? Are you patient, caring and good with kids? Work as an au pair in Los Angeles this summer. Free food and accommodation(食宿).
Phone 0121-077, 2001 for information about how to get application forms(申请表).
Are You Mad About Sport?
Would you like to spend all summer teaching sport to people from around the world? Then come and work at our international sports camp Sports Star Camp!
Phone 0191-121-5533 for information about how to get and where to send application forms, etc.
1. Which number can you call if you want to get a job that provides free films?| A．0151-897-6643. | B．0161-754-6022. | C．0121-077-2001. | D．0191-121-5533. |
| A．It is a high-paid job. | B．It is perfect for kids. |
| C．It offers job-related training. | D．It requires somebody with patience. |
| A．Jill, who dreams of being a sports star. |
| B．Jack, who wants to become a sports coach. |
| C．Joe, who expects to travel around the world. |
| D．Jim, who loves to take part in sports competitions. |
