1 . You’re in the shower. You grab the showerhead. What do you do? You sing.
Have you ever wondered about this phenomenon? Some of us wouldn’t sing in public if someone paid us. Yet we’ll sing in the shower without embarrassment. Believe it or not, there’s a scientific explanation behind it.
First, let’s look at why we’re relaxed enough in the shower to burst into song. Think about it: you don’t sing when you’re sad (unless you’re singing the blues, of course). For many people, shower time is the only time they’re alone all day. You’re in a warm, small, safe environment. You’re comfortable enough to be yourself! When you relax, your brain releases dopamine (多巴胺), which can give your creative juices an extra kickstart.
Warm water is rushing over you, and now you’re relaxed and feeling good. It turns out that singing makes you feel even better. Singing, because of the breathing you put into it, gets more oxygen into the blood. This gives you better circulation, which in turn improves your body and mood. And because you have to breathe a little deeper to belt out a song, you get some of the same relaxation and mind-clearing benefits as meditation (冥想). Another neat thing is that when you’re singing, you really can’t think about your problems—more stress relief.
But the best thing about singing in the shower? The acoustics (音响效果)! You can never ask for a better sound system than a bathroom. Because bathroom tiles (墙砖) don’t absorb sound, your voice bounces back and forth around the room before fading away, which makes your voice hang in the air longer. And because the shower is a small space, it boosts your voice, making your singing sound more powerful. So you will sound better than you actually are, which is a confidence boost.
We don’t sing in the shower simply because we have “Call Me Maybe” stuck in our heads. It turns out we do it for many reasons: stress relief, happiness, great acoustics, or maybe just because we like to hear our own voices. Whatever the reason, keep it up. It’s good for you. And if you’ve never tried it, pick a song, grab the showerhead and put on your own private concert.
1. Why do many people feel comfortable singing in the shower?| A．The acoustics are perfect in public places. | B．Shower time is relaxing and private. |
| C．Singing boosts stress levels. | D．Showering improves vocal abilities. |
| A．Released dopamine due to relaxation. | B．Increased exposure to blues music. |
| C．Enhanced oxygen absorption from water. | D．Strengthened lung capacity. |
| A．The bathroom’s small size encourages relaxation. |
| B．Breathing while singing improves circulation. |
| C．Singing removes the need for deep breaths. |
| D．Tile walls absorb sound and stress. |
| A．Science. | B．Technology. | C．Culture. | D．People. |
2 . According to a study published this week, habitual napping (打盹) appears to be associated with a large brain volume in adults although experts stressed that further research was needed. It reduces the cost caused from the lost time and the fatigue-related errors. The work followed previous studies that suggested a brief doze could improve people’s ability to learn.
Arianna Huffington, a co-founder of Huff Post and the founder and chief executive of Thrive Global, said, “Given the latest science on the effectiveness of napping and the clear link between employees feeling well rested and their productivity, it’s long past time that businesses embrace short naps at work.”
Some businesses, including Thrive Global, have already introduced facilities for employees to take naps. Google introduced sleep pods as far back as 2014 and companies like Nike and Ben & Jerry’s introduced nap rooms. The practice has even been adopted by the NHS, with a growing number of hospitals introducing sleep pods for staff in an effort to help them get more rest. Employees, it seems, are enthusiastic. Sean Greenwood, of Ben & Jerry’s, said, “If a quick nap gets employees more involved and creative, we’re happy to provide that for our team members.”
Unfortunately, the practice of napping still suffers from our collective concept that sleep equals weakness and laziness. However, the performance-enhancing benefits of naps have been no secret to many leaders throughout history. It also gives the higher-ups the chance to acknowledge the 24/7 culture and come up with top-down solutions that encourage workers to take care of themselves in and out of work.
While sleep experts stressed that a daytime doze could be beneficial, they said it was crucial to get enough shut-eye at the end of a day. It is the late stage of sleep, sometimes missed by early risers, that strengthens the nerve circuits that make for learning and memory, allowing the brain to make and consolidate new neutral connections. Additionally, prioritizing sufficient sleep during the regular nightly sleep period is essential for overall well-being.
1. What is paragraph 1 mainly about?| A．Work stress. | B．Learning abilities. |
| C．A research finding. | D．The brain volume. |
| A．Dismissive. | B．Approving. |
| C．Unclear. | D．Critical. |
| A．To advocate enough rest. | B．To praise creative employees. |
| C．To compare the differences. | D．To present the current situation. |
| A．The approaches to shut-eye. | B．The importance of napping. |
| C．The secrets to well-being. | D．The benefits of memory. |
3 . With greater climate disasters lying ahead, it is natural for us to make every effort to stop a series of floods, unusual snowstorms, and alarming reports from scientists. For many of us, part of that means running out to buy reusable drinking tubes, organic cleaners, and packaging-free products.
However, before you are joyful of your “green” purchases, take a second to consider a principle that should be obvious: simply consuming less is better for the planet. After all, every new item a factory pumps out requires some resources to produce. But in the confusing stream of environmental news, this simple truth can get lost. Take plastic bag bans for instance. If your city is getting rid of single-use shopping bags, it can be tempting to pay for that fashionable organic cotton bag hanging in the check-outline of supermarkets. However, experts who have analyzed the data on environmental impact insist that growing cotton is actually no better for the Earth than producing the conventional plastic bag. Any bag you already own is your best bet for carrying your groceries if you care about sustainability.
It is not just the Earth that will be happier if you buy less. You will feel more contented too. There is a common view that green buying patterns mean people are going green. However, it doesn’t seem to be that way. Reduced consumption has positive effects on increased well-being, but you don’t see that with “green” consumption.
Many studies have shown that materialism in general makes us unhappy and lonely. It is perfectly possible to be a materialist and an environmentalist at the same time. Lusting (欲望) for every new “green” product on the market might make you feel good about yourself but it presents the same emotional traps as lusting for whatever the Joneses next door are buying. If you relieve yourself of that burden of ownership, most people report feeling a lot better and freer.
1. What is the function of Paragraph 1?| A．To introduce the topic. |
| B．To send a warning. |
| C．To offer practical advice. |
| D．To advocate green purchases. |
| A．To promote cotton bags. |
| B．To call for less consumption. |
| C．To ban the using of plastic bags. |
| D．To reveal the harm of using plastic bags. |
| A．Buying less does benefit to the Earth. |
| B．Green consumption increases well-being. |
| C．Buying green indicates a green awareness. |
| D．Being green gives rise to more consumption. |
| A．Green Products Win Popularity |
| B．Don’t Be Lost in Environmental Passion |
| C．Buying Green Is Never a Final Solution |
| D．Buying Less Beats Buying Green |
4 . There is a song by the great Jamaican singer Bob Marley called So Much Trouble in The World. Marley understood that part of the reason why there are so many problems in the world is the lack of tolerance between people. The UN understands this too— that is why it made November 16th “International Day for Tolerance”.
But first, what is tolerance? According to French philosopher Voltaire, “Tolerance is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty (脆弱) and error; let us pardon each other’s fool— that is the first law of nature.”
Very often, people do not realize that they are intolerant. This is because intolerance has a lot to do with ignorance. For example, the UN’s campaign is in part about the treatment of females by males. But often, the behavior of men toward women is intolerant because men do not put themselves in the shoes of women.
It is worth thinking a little about the words “tolerance” and “intolerance”. Are they the best words to describe the evils of which we are speaking here? To agree to be “tolerant” of someone is not necessarily a very respectful thing. When someone is tolerated, it implies that there is something wrong with them.
Still, what Voltaire said stands: We humans are not perfect and this weakness is something that we all share. That is the reason we should be tolerant. It is a little like generosity. We can give things to another person, and we can also give our forgiveness.
1. What is the purpose of the UN “International Day for Tolerance”?| A．To celebrate the founding of the UN. |
| B．To solve the problem of global warming. |
| C．To change people’s opinion towards globalization. |
| D．To arouse the awareness of tolerance among people. |
| A．Because men do not realize the purpose of the UN. |
| B．Because men are physically stronger than women. |
| C．Because men are not willing to understand women. |
| D．Because men do not appreciate the shoes of women. |
| A．Because they cannot be used in a respectful way. |
| B．Because they are hard to pronounce in English. |
| C．Because they cannot be translated into other languages. |
| D．Because they do not express the exact meaning people refer to. |
| A．Humans tend to find faults in others. |
| B．Humans need to give something to others. |
| C．Humans are advised to treat others better. |
| D．Humans change their attitudes towards others. |
5 . On January 1st, 2018, “gaming disorder” — in which games are played uncontrollably, despite causing harm — gained recognition from the World Health Organization (WHO). Last year, China, the world’s biggest gaming market, announced new rules limiting children to just a single hour of play a day. Clinics are appearing around the world, promising to cure patients of their habit.
Are games really addictive? Psychologists have different opinions. The case for the defence is that this is just another moral panic. Similar warnings have been given about television, rock’ n’ roll, jazz, comic books, and even novels. As the newest form of mass media, gaming is merely enduring (忍受) its own time before it finally stops being controversial.
However, some argue that unlike rock bands or novelists, games developers have both the motive and the means to engineer their products to make them addictive. For one thing, the business-model has changed. In the old days games were bought once and for all. But these days, games are free and money is earned from purchases of in-game goods, which ties playtime directly to developers’ income. For another, games makers combine psychological theory and data, which helps them maximize the playtime. Smartphones and modern video game machines use their permanent Internet connections to send gameplay data back to developers. That allows products to be constantly adjusted to increase spending on games.
The gaming industry should realize that, in the real world, it has a problem, and that problem is growing. Now that gaming addiction comes with an official WHO recognition, diagnoses (诊断) become more common. Clinics are already reporting booming business, as lockdowns have given gamers more time to spend with their hobby. And being put together in the public mind, fairly or not, with gambling will not do the industry any favours.
1. What is the function of Paragraph 1?| A．To arouse the readers’ interest about the topic. |
| B．To inform the readers of the harmful effects of games. |
| C．To discuss whether it is necessary to panic about games. |
| D．To show growing public concern about the problem of games. |
| A．To prove that the panic over games will fade away. |
| B．To show that they are as highly addictive as games. |
| C．To compare the differences among these media forms. |
| D．To argue that these media forms are not harmful at all. |
| A．They don’t charge players for in-game goods. |
| B．They adjust products based on received data. |
| C．They reward top players with more playtime. |
| D．They keep players’ video game machines updated. |
| A．offer a suggestion | B．make a prediction |
| C．give a warning | D．put forward a solution |
6 . Although problems are a part of our lives, it certainly doesn't mean that we let them rule our lives forever. One day or another, you'll have to stand up and say—problems, I don't want you in my life.
But good news is that all problems can be dealt with. Now read on to know how to solve your problems.
Talk, it really helps. What most of us think is that our problem can be understood only by us and that no talking is going to help.
Write your problems.
Don't lose faith and hope. No matter what you lose in life, don't lose faith and hope. Even if you lose all your money, family…you should still have faith.
Your problems aren't the worst. No matter what problem you get in life, there are another one million people whose problems are huger than yours.
Go about and solve your problems because every problem, however big or small, always has a way out.
| A．Of course, we've been fighting troubles ever since we were born. |
| B．When we have a problem, a pressing, critical, urgent, life-threatening problem, how do we try and solve it？ |
| C．Having a personal diary can also be of huge help if you don't want a real person to talk with. |
| D．But the truth is that when you talk about it, you're setting free the negative energies that have been gathering within you. |
| E．We can often overcome the problem and achieve the goal by making a direct attack. |
| F．Tell yourself：when they can deal with them, why can't I？ |
| G．With faith and hope, you can rebuild everything that you lose. |
7 . As more and more people speak the global language of English, Chinese, Spanish, and Arabic, other languages are rapidly disappearing. In fact, half of the 6,000-7,000 languages spoken around the world today will be likely to die out by the next century, according the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
In an effort to prevent language loss, scholars from a number of organizations — UNESCO and National Geographic among them — have for many years been documenting dying languages and the cultures they reflect.
Mark Turin, a scientist at the Macmillan Center, Yale University, who specializes in the languages and oral traditions of the Himalayas, is following in that tradition. His recently published book, A Grammar of Thangmi and Their Culture, grows out of his experience living, working, and raising a family in a village in Nepal.
Documenting the Thangmi language and culture is just a starting point for Turin, who seeks to include other languages and oral traditions across the Himalayan reaches of India, Nepal, Bhutan, and China. But he is not content to simply record these voices before they disappear without record.
At the University of Cambridge Turin discovered a wealth of important materials —including photographs, films, tape recordings, and field notes — which had remained unstudied and were badly in need of care and protection. Now, through the two organizations that he has founded — the Digital Himalaya Project and the World Oral Literature Project — Turin has started a campaign to make such documents, found in libraries and stores around the world, available not just to schools but to the younger generations of communities from whom the materials were originally collected. Thanks to digital technology and the widely available Internet, Turin notes, the endangered languages can be saved and reconnected with speech communities.
1. Many scholars are making efforts to ________.| A．promote global languages | B．rescue disappearing languages |
| C．search for languages communities | D．set up language research organizations |
| A．having detailed records of the languages | B．writing books on language users |
| C．telling stories about language speakers | D．living with the native speakers |
| A．The cultural studies in India. | B．The documents available at Yale. |
| C．His language research in Bhutan. | D．His personal experience in Nepal. |
| A．Write, sell and donate. | B．Record, repair and reward. |
| C．Collect, protect and reconnect. | D．Design, experiment and report. |
8 . Alexa is Amazon’s cloud-based voice service available on hundreds of millions of devices from Amazon and third-party device manufacturers. With Alexa, you can build natural voice experiences that offer customers a way to interact with the technology they use every day.
Alexa is always eavesdropping (窃听). (So are Siri, Google Assistant, and any other virtual assistant you invite into your home.) This is and isn’t as horrible as it sounds. Although it’s true that the device can hear everything you say within range of its microphones, it is listening for its wake word before it starts recording.Once it hears that —“Alexa” is the default (默认), but there are other options — everything in the following few seconds is considered to be a command or a request and is sent to (and stored on) servers in the cloud, where the correct response is triggered. Think of a smart speaker like a dog: It’s always listening, but it understands only “cookie,” “walk,” or “Buddy.” Everything else goes right over its head.
Every time Alexa hears a command, Amazon — its parent company — has just learned something about you. Maybe the company learned only that you like to listen to the Police, or that you like funny jokes, or that you turn your lights off at 11 p.m. every night. If you were to say “Alexa, where should I bury the body?” you’re not going to have the police showing up at your door. (I know because I’ve tried it.)
Alexa does make mistakes.Sometimes this can be funny, such as when Alexa hears its wake word in a TV show.Other times it’s more serious, including an instance in 2018 when Alexa mistakenly sent an entire private conversation to a random person’s Echo device. Occasionally there are even humans listening to your request for weather reports or trying to figure out what you meant when you added “mangosteens” to your shopping list. Sound disturbing? You likely already agreed to it in the app’s terms of use when you installed the device.
What bits of privacy are you willing to sacrifice for the convenience provided by a smart speaker? If you trust that Amazon’s intentions are no more immoral than getting a better idea of what you want to buy on Prime Day, then you have your answer. If you worry about your private information falling into the hands of the wrong people, then you have another answer.
1. Why does the author compare smart speakers to dogs?| A．To show smart speakers are life companions like dogs. |
| B．To show smart speakers are sensitive to users’ commands. |
| C．To show smart speakers are woken by specific words. |
| D．To show wake words for smart speakers are different. |
| A．The tech company knows less than users imagine. |
| B．The tech company is spying on users’ everyday life.. |
| C．The tech company turns a blind eye to some crimes. |
| D．The tech company is interested in users’ music taste. |
| A．All-round. |
| B．Imperfect. |
| C．Funny. |
| D．Immoral. |
| A．It is a matter of opinion. |
| B．Privacy is a high price to pay. |
| C．It is part and parcel of life. |
| D．Convenience always comes first. |
9 . Hanukkah (光明节) is a Jewish festival. It is celebrated on the 25th day of the Jewish month of Kislev (犹太教历), which is usually sometime in December. It is often called the festival of lights. The festival celebrates the time, over 2，000 years ago, when the Jewish people fought against an emperor who would not let them follow their own traditions and religion. When the Jewish people won back their temple in Jerusalem, they found there was only little holy oil to keep the sacred light burning for one day. However, to their surprise, this small amount of oil kept the light burning for eight days and nights until the people had time to make more oil.
At the center of the Hanukkah celebrations is a candlestick (called a Menorah) that holds nine candles. On the first night of Hanukkah the first candle is lit, and each day this candle is used to light another candle, until on the eighth day, the last day, all the candles are lit. During Hanukkah, people go to the synagogue (犹太教堂) to pray and to remember the miracle (奇迹) of the holy oil. Hanukkah is a time for family and friends to come together. People exchange gifts and greeting cards, and children go to parties. Parents often give their children money at Hanukkah. Potato cakes, called latkes, are a traditional Hanukkah food.
1. From the first paragraph we know that Hanukkah is a festival about ________.| A．Jewish month of Kislev | B．Jewish traditions and religion |
| C．how to make more holy oil | D．traditional Hanukkah food |
| A．Oil. | B．Money. | C．Cards. | D．Candles. |
| A．The war that they fought 2，000 years ago. |
| B．The God that they honored best. |
| C．The miracle of the holy oil that happened 2，000 years ago. |
| D．The church they built 2，000 years ago. |
| A．the history of Hanukkah and how it is celebrated |
| B．why Jewish people celebrate Hanukkah |
| C．why Jewish people protect their traditions |
| D．the miracle of the holy oil in the Jewish temple |
10 . Most scientists are now certain that global warming is taking place. Gases such as carbon dioxide are creating a warm blanket around the earth. This blanket is trapping heat in the atmosphere, and so raising the temperature of the earth.
In Europe, eight of the last ten years have seen record high temperatures. On the other hand, the countries around the Mediterranean Sea are receiving even less rain than before. In Sub- Saharan Africa the crops are drying out in the fields and people are dying of starvation. In 1999, the southern United States was struck by a serious of destructive(毁灭性的) hurricanes. Scientists expect such trends to continue, and to worsen, if global warming cannot be stopped.
In addition to worrying about rising global temperatures and extreme weather conditions, scientists are closely monitoring sea levels around the world. They are slowly rising, as the northern and southern polar ice caps start to melt. This will have serious consequences for low-lying countries near the sea. Already parts of these places are disappearing under the rising sea water.
According to a new research, one contradictory feature(特征) of global warming is that it will probably lead to a period of much colder weather. Scientists base their theory on what happened the last time the world warmed up, 8,300 years ago. They have discovered that when the ice melted from the northern polar ice cap it became trapped in a lake in northern Canada. As more ice melted, this lake suddenly burst open, pouring millions of tons of freezing fresh water into the North Atlantic. This flood of water prevented the normal flow of water in the Atlantic, which takes warm water from the tropics(热带地区) north to Europe. When this flow of warm water was cut off, temperatures in Europe dropped by between three and eight degrees over the next 200 years. ''That's the concern here,'' says Richard Alley, an American climate expert. ''The climate hasn't varied much in 8, 000 years. But big changes could come back!''
1. What is the overall effect of global warming on Europe?| A．A warmer climate. | B．A decline in rainfall. |
| C．An increase of hurricanes. | D．A decrease of crop production. |
| A．The rising sea level. | B．The melting of icebergs. |
| C．The increase in disasters. | D．The cause of global warming. |
| A．By offering statistics. | B．By giving an example. |
| C．By making comparisons. | D．By analyzing the process. |
| A．Global climate change will bring more disasters. |
| B．Global warming will likely produce a colder climate. |
| C．Global warming will continue for the next two centuries. |
| D．Global climate will remain unchangeable in the next 8,000 years. |
