1 . For Western designers, China and its rich culture have long been an inspiration for Western creative.
“It’s no secret that China has always been a source(来源) of inspiration for designers,” says Amanda Hill, chief creative officer at A+E Networks, a global media company and home to some of the biggest fashion(时尚) shows.
Earlier this year, the China Through A Looking Glass exhibition in New York exhibited 140 pieces of China-inspired fashionable clothing alongside Chinese works of art, with the aim of exploring the influence of Chinese aesthetics(美学) on Western fashion and how China has fueled the fashionable imagination for centuries. The exhibition had record attendance, showing that there is huge interest in Chinese influences.
“China is impossible to overlook,” says Hill. “Chinese models are the faces of beauty and fashion campaigns that sell dreams to women all over the world, which means Chinese women are not just consumers of fashion — they are central to its movement.” Of course, not only are today’s top Western designers being influenced by China—some of the best designers of contemporary fashion are themselves Chinese. “Vera Wang, Alexander Wang, Jason Wu are taking on Galliano, Albaz, Marc Jacobs—and beating them hands down in design and sales,” adds Hill.
For Hill, it is impossible not to talk about China as the leading player when discussing fashion. “The most famous designers are Chinese, so are the models, and so are the consumers,” she says. “China is no longer just another market; in many senses it has become the market. If you talk about fashion today, you are talking about China—its influences, its direction, its breathtaking clothes, and how young designers and models are finally acknowledging that in many ways.”
1. What can we learn about the exhibition in New York?| A．It promoted the sales of artworks. | B．It attracted a large number of visitors. |
| C．It showed ancient Chinese clothes. | D．It aimed to introduce Chinese models. |
| A．They are setting the fashion. | B．They start many fashion campaigns. |
| C．They admire super models. | D．They do business all over the world. |
| A．learning from | B．looking down on | C．working with | D．competing against |
| A．Young Models Selling Dreams to the World |
| B．A Chinese Art Exhibition Held in New York |
| C．Differences Between Eastern and Western Aesthetics |
| D．Chinese Culture Fueling International Fashion Trends |
2 . By the end of the century, if not sooner, the world’s oceans will be bluer and greener thanks to a warming climate, according to a new study.
At the heart of the phenomenon lie tiny marine microorganisms(海洋微生物) called phytoplankton. Because of the way light reflects off the organisms, these phytoplankton create colourful patterns at the ocean surface. Ocean colour varies from green to blue, depending on the type and concentration of phytoplankton. Climate change will fuel the growth of phytoplankton in some areas, while reducing it in other spots, leading to changes in the ocean’s appearance.
Phytoplankton live at the ocean surface, where they pull carbon dioxide(二氧化碳) into the ocean while giving off oxygen. When these organisms die, they bury carbon in the deep ocean, an important process that helps to regulate the global climate. But phytoplankton are vulnerable to the ocean’s warming trend. Warming changes key characteristics of the ocean and can affect phytoplankton growth, since they need not only sunlight and carbon dioxide to grow, but also nutrients.
Stephanie Dutkiewicz, a scientist in MIT’s Center for Global Change Science, built a climate model that projects changes to the oceans throughout the century. In a world that warms up by 3℃, it found that multiple changes to the colour of the oceans would occur. The model projects that currently blue areas with little phytoplankton could become even bluer. But in some waters, such as those of the Arctic, a warming will make conditions riper for phytoplankton, and these areas will turn greener. “Not only are the quantities of phytoplankton in the ocean changing. ” she said, “but the type of phytoplankton is changing.”
And why does that matter? Phytoplankton are the base of the food web. If certain kinds begin to disappear from the ocean, Dutkiewicz said, “it will change the type of fish that will be able to survive.” Those kinds of changes could affect the food chain.
Whatever colour changes the ocean experiences in the coming decades will probably be too gradual and unnoticeable, but they could mean significant changes. “It’ll be a while before we can statistically show that the changes are happening because of climate change,” Dutkiewicz said, “but the change in the colour of the ocean will be one of the early warning signals that we really have changed our planet.”
1. What are the first two paragraphs mainly about?| A．The various patterns at the ocean surface. |
| B．The cause of the changes in ocean colour. |
| C．The way light reflects off marine organisms. |
| D．The efforts to fuel the growth of phytoplankton. |
| A．Sensitive. | B．Beneficial. | C．Significant. | D．Unnoticeable. |
| A．Phytoplankton play a declining role in the marine ecosystem. |
| B．Dutkiewicz’s model aims to project phytoplankton changes. |
| C．Phytoplankton have been used to control global climate. |
| D．Oceans with more phytoplankton may appear greener. |
| A．To assess the consequences of ocean colour changes. |
| B．To analyse the composition of the ocean food chain. |
| C．To explain the effects of climate change on oceans. |
| D．To introduce a new method to study phytoplankton. |
3 . A study of teenage girls’ selfie-taking (自拍) behaviors found that taking and sharing selfies on social media is not linked to poor body image or appearance concerns. However, when adolescent girls spend too much time struggling over which photo of themselves to post, or rely heavily on editing apps to alter their images, there may be cause for concern.
The study, by researchers at the University of Arizona, found that selfie editing and time invested in creating and selecting the perfect selfie were both related to self-objectification, which led to body shame, appearance anxiety and more negative appearance evaluations in teen girls. “Self-objectification is the idea that you come to think of yourself as an external object to be viewed by other people,” said senior study author Jennifer Aubrey, an associate professor at the UA.
Based on a study of 278 teenage girls, “Our main finding was that we really shouldn’t be too worried about kids who take selfies and share them; that’s not where the negative effects come from. It’s the investment and the editing that yielded negative effects,” Aubrey said. “Selfie editing and selfie investment predicted self-objectification, and girls who self-objectify were more likely to feel shameful about their bodies or anxious about their appearance.”
“Self-objectification is the pathway to so many things in adolescence that we want to prevent,” Aubrey said. “So, interventions really should focus on how we can encourage girls to develop an awareness of themselves that doesn’t only depend on what they look like to other people.” The researchers said parents and caregivers of adolescent girls should be aware that if a teen seems to be obsessed (痴迷的), it might be time for a talk.
The researchers also note that there can be different motivations for sharing selfies. “Selfies are a part of the media landscape, but you should post them for reasons other than trying to get people to admire your appearance or your body.” Aubrey said. With an estimated 93 million selfies taken each day, they aren’t going away anytime soon, nor should they. The important thing to remember is: Selfies aren’t bad. Just don’t obsess.
1. What behavior of adolescent girls may cause concern?| A．Taking selfies. |
| B．Caring about their images. |
| C．Sharing selfies on social media. |
| D．Overusing editing apps to beautify their images. |
| A．It predicts selfie investment. | B．It is linked to selfie obsession. |
| C．It prevents problems in adolescence. | D．It contributes to objective evaluation. |
| A．When to have a talk with teen girls. | B．When to end selfie-taking behaviors. |
| C．How to help form a healthy self-awareness. | D．How to prevent teenage girls' craze for selfies. |
| A．A travel brochure. | B．A science newspaper. |
| C．A psychology textbook. | D．An entertainment magazine. |
4 . I write this on a spring morning, in the van I have called home for two years now.
From one small window, I have a view of joggers pounding the sunny path by the Oxford Canal, and the other looks onto the busy railway line along which trains travel from Southampton Docks to Birmingham.
The woods where I’ve parked my van have grown up between them. This ancient van, a vehicle designed for freedom and the open road, has proved a stable solution for surviving the current housing crisis.
I became a travel writer after my studies ended, committing to brief “residencies” with museums and art centres—where temporary accommodation is often provided in exchange for producing new work about a community. Over the years that followed, living and working on location in the polar regions or Scandinavia or the Alps, not settling down for very long, meant wherever I landed was always “home”.
During the pandemic it was necessary to adopt a more permanent engagement with locality. Oxford had often drawn me back. It’s a crossroads of reality and the imagination, the perfect city for a writer.
It takes a surprising amount of work to keep a tiny home in order: buying a used van online; ensuring the smooth running of a gas cooker and car batteries; fetching water and emptying the mobile toilet. I began to enjoy taking care of my immediate surroundings. Over the summer, I worked to turn waste-ground into a wild garden, replacing weeds with wild plants.
I made friends with the self-sufficient boaters living nearby, always ready to share knowledge on the low-carbon simplicity of life without electricity. I’ve learnt that comfort can be found away from the bright infrastructure of urban life: in watching the birds that nest in the tree and the foxes playing in the woods at dawn, in making a cup of coffee on a spring morning.
My step away from conventional housing has been a necessary act of personal economy, but the benefits include taking nothing for granted, and unexpected delight.
1. Why did the writer make the van his home?| A．Because the feature of the van and that of his occupation are matching. |
| B．Because the van is equivalent to a crossroads of reality and the imagination. |
| C．Because the views of joggers and trains outside the van can relieve his pressure. |
| D．Because living and working on location in the polar regions are appealing to him. |
| A．a used van | B．a gas cooker | C．a wild garden | D．a mobile toilet |
| A．Joining joggers to do exercise. | B．Keeping a tiny home in order easily. |
| C．Improving the economy of Oxford. | D．Embracing delightful surprises. |
| A．Cautious. | B．Ironical. | C．Favorable. | D．Neutral. |
5 . Zachariah Fike has an unusual hobby. He finds old military(军队的) medals for sale in antique stores and on the Internet. But unlike most collectors, Zac tracks down the medals’ rightful owners, and returns them.
His effort to reunite families with lost medals began with a Christmas gift from his mother, a Purple Heart with the name Corrado A. G. Piccoli, found in an antique shop. Zac knows the meaning of a Purple Heart—he earned one himself in a war as a soldier. So when his mother gave him the medal, he knew right away what he had to do.
Through the Internet, Zac tracked down Corrado’s sister Adeline Rockko. But when he finally reached her, the woman flooded him with questions: “Who are you? What antique shop?” However, when she hung up, she regretted the way she had handled the call. So she called Zac back and apologized. Soon she drove to meet Zac in Watertown, N.Y. “At that point, I knew she meant business,” Zac says. “To drive eight hours to come to see me.”
The Piccolis grew up the children of Italian immigrants in Watertown. Corrado, a translator for the Army during WWII, was killed in action in Europe.
Before hearing from Zac, Adeline hadn’t realized the medal was missing. Like many military medals, the one Zac’s mother had found was a family treasure. “This medal was very precious to my parents. Only on special occasions(场合) would they take it out and let us hold it in our hands,” Adeline says.
As a child, Adeline couldn’t understand why the medal was so significant. “But as I grew older,” Adeline says, “and missed my brother more and more, I realized that was the only thing we had left.” Corrado Piccoli’s Purple Heart medal now hangs at the Italian American Civic Association in Watertown.
Zac recently returned another lost medal to a family in Alabama. Since he first reunited Corrado’s medal, Zac says his record is now 5 for 5.
1. Where did Zac get a Purple Heart medal for himself？| A．In the army. |
| B．In an antique shop. |
| C．From his mother. |
| D．From Adeline Rockko. |
| A．She was very impolite. |
| B．She was serious about the medal. |
| C．She suspected his honesty. |
| D．She came from a wealthy family. |
| A．Her parents’ advice. |
| B．Her knowledge of antiques. |
| C．Her childhood dream. |
| D．Her memory of her brother. |
6 . Antibiotics, which can destroy or prevent the growth of bacteria and cure infections, are vital to modern medicine. Their ability to kill bacteria without harming the patient has saved billions of lives and made surgical procedures much safer. But after decades of overuse, their powers are fading. Some bacteria have evolved resistance, creating a growing army of superbugs, against which there is little effective treatment. Antimicrobial (抗菌的) resistance, expected to kill 10 million people a year by 2050 up from around 1 million in 2019, has been seen as a crisis by many.
It would be unwise to rely on new antibiotics to solve the problem. The rate at which resistance emerges is increasing. Some new drugs last only two years before bacteria develop resistance. When new antibiotics do arrive, doctors often store them, using them only reluctantly and for short periods when faced with the most persistent infections. That limits sales, making new antibiotics an unappealing idea for most drug firms.
Governments have been trying to fix the problem by channeling cash into research in drug firms. That has produced only limited improvements. But there is a phenomenon worth a look. Microbiologists have known for decades that disease-causing bacteria can suffer from illnesses of their own. They are supersensitive to attacks by phages, specialized viruses that infect bacteria and often kill them. Phages are considered a promising alternative to antibiotics.
Using one disease-causing virus to fight bacteria has several advantages. Like antibiotics, phages only tend to choose particular targets, leaving human cells alone as they infect and destroy bacterial ones. Unlike antibiotics, phages can evolve just as readily as bacteria can, meaning that even if bacteria do develop resistance, phages may be able to evolve around them in turn.
That, at least, is the theory. The trouble with phages is that comparatively little is known about them. After the discovery of penicillin, the first antibiotic, in 1928, they were largely ignored in the West. Given the severity of the antibiotic-resistance problem, it would be a good idea to find out more about them.
The first step is to run more clinical trials. Interest from Western firms is growing. But it is being held back by the fact that phages are an even less appealing investment than antibiotics. Since they are natural living things, there may be trouble patenting them, making it hard to recover any investment.
Governments can help fun d basic research into phage treatment and clarify the law around exactly what is and is not patentable. In time they can set up phage banks so as to make production cheaper. And they can spread awareness of the risks of overusing antibiotics, and the potential benefits of phages.
1. We can learn from paragraphs 1 and 2 that .| A．doctors tend to use new antibiotics when the patients ask for them |
| B．antimicrobial resistance is developing more rapidly than predicted |
| C．new antibiotics fail to attract drug firms due to limited use of them |
| D．previous antibiotics are effective in solving modern health problems |
| A．They can increase human cells when fighting bacteria. |
| B．They are not particular about which cells to infect and kill. |
| C．They can evolve accordingly when bacteria develop resistance. |
| D．They are too sensitive to be infected by disease-causing bacteria. |
| A．there is little chance of patenting phages in the future |
| B．governments provide financial support for other research |
| C．the emergence of superbugs holds back drug firms’ interest |
| D．over-dependence on antibiotics distracts attention from phages |
| A．Governments fail to stop the use of antibiotics. |
| B．Phages could help prevent an antibiotics crisis. |
| C．Development of antibiotics is limited by phages. |
| D．Antimicrobial resistance calls for new antibiotics. |
7 . Of all the changes that have taken place in English-language newspapers during the past quarter-century, perhaps the most far-reaching one has been the inevitable decline in the scope and seriousness of their arts coverage.
It is difficult to the point of impossibility for the average reader under the age of forty to imagine a time when high-quality arts criticism could be found in most big-city newspapers. Yet a considerable number of the most significant collections of criticism published in the 20th century consisted in large part of newspaper reviews. To read such books today is to marvel at the fact that their learned contents were once considered suitable for publication in general-circulation dailies.
We are even farther removed from the unfocused newspaper reviews published in England between the turn of the 20th century and the eve of World War II, at a time when newsprint was dirt-cheap and stylish arts criticism was considered an ornament (装饰) to the publications in which it appeared. In those far-off days, it was taken for granted that the critics of major papers would write in detail and at length about the events they covered. Theirs was a serious business, and even those reviewers who wore their learning lightly, like George Bernard Shaw and Ernest Newman, could be trusted to know what they were about. These men believed in journalism as a calling, and were proud to be published in the daily press. “So few authors have brains enough or literary gift enough to keep their own end up in journalism,” Newman wrote, “that I am tempted to define ‘journalism’ as ‘a term of contempt applied by writers who are not read to writers who are’.”
Unfortunately, these critics are virtually forgotten. Neville Cardus, who wrote for the Manchester Guardian from 1917 until shortly before his death in 1975, is now known solely as a writer of essays on the game of cricket. During his lifetime, though, he was also one of England’s foremost classical-music critics, a stylist so widely admired that his Autobiography (1947) became a best-seller. He was knighted in 1967, the first music critic to be so honored. Yet only one of his books is now in print, and his vast body of writings on music is unknown save to specialists.
Is there any chance that Cardus’s criticism will enjoy a revival? The prospect seems remote. Journalistic tastes had changed long before his death, and postmodern readers have little use for the richly upholstered Vicwardian prose in which he specialized. Moreover, the amateur tradition in music criticism has been in headlong retreat.
1. Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the first two paragraphs?| A．English-language newspapers with more arts coverage sell well. |
| B．Young readers nowadays enjoy reading high-quality arts criticism. |
| C．The criticism published in the 20th century lacked learned contents. |
| D．There were more arts reviews in English-language newspapers in the past. |
| A．The newsprint was too cheap to make profits. |
| B．Not all writers were capable of journalistic writing. |
| C．Arts criticism was removed from the print newspapers. |
| D．Writers are likely to be tempted into journalism. |
| A．Because he mainly wrote essays on the game of cricket. |
| B．Because people cast doubt on his reputation as a knight. |
| C．Because his music criticism failed to appeal to readers nowadays. |
| D．Because his works were quite amateur rather than professional. |
| A．The Distinguished Critics in Memory | B．The Lost Horizon in Newspapers |
| C．The Shortage of Literary Geniuses | D．The Newspapers of the Good Old Days |
8 . Iron Cooks
Robots have arrived in American restaurants and hotels for the same reasons they first arrived on factory floors.
“We think we’ve hit the point where labor-wage rates are now making automation of those tasks make a lot more sense,” Bob Wright, the chief operations officer of the fast-food chain Wendy’s, said in a conference call with investors last February, referring to jobs that feature “repetitive production tasks.” Wendy’s and McDonald’s are in the process of installing self-service kiosks in locations across the country, allowing customers to order without ever talking to an employee.
How many employees, though, do you need working in the café?
The experience of Eatsa may be instructive. The start-up restaurant, based in San Francisco, allows customers to order its quinoa bowls and salads on their smartphone or an in-store tablet and then pick up their order from a white wall of cubbies — an Automat for the app age. Initially, two greeters were stationed alongside the cubbies to welcome and direct customers.
| A．The early success of the kiosks suggests that, at least when ordering fast food, customers prize speed over high-touch customer service. |
| B．Business owners insist that robots will take over work that is dirty, dangerous, or just dull, enabling humans to focus on other tasks. |
| C．The better hope for workers might be that automation helps the food-service industry continue to develop. |
| D．But over time, customers relied less frequently on the greeters. |
| E．The cost of machines has fallen significantly in recent years, dropping 40 percent since 2005. |
| F．This has typically been the story of automation: Technology eliminates old jobs, but it also creates new ones. |
9 . In these times of worldwide communications, science is no different from other professions in that English is now the established “universal” language. Like it or not, most scientific reports are published in English, although some countries also have journals that are published in their native languages. But how did English develop into the dominant language of scientific discourse (会话)? Was it a joint decision or did it happen progressively and “accidentally”? And was it a positive move for all?
Arabic was used in all countries with an Islamic culture in the middle ages, while in Europe Latin was used for communication in science and education until the 17th century. During the Enlightenment, Latin lost favour as it was thought to be too complicated. Instead, scientific communication became more “provincial”; German, French, Italian and English were used in their respective countries and colonies, with different languages being more important in different disciplines — German, for instance, was widely used in physics, chemistry and some aspects of medicine and psychology. The relative use of these languages changed through history, reflecting the relative growth and decline of science, culture and economics in these countries. Thus, the use of French predominated in the 18th century, whereas German was most widespread in the 19th and English dominated the 20th. Social upheaval (剧变) also played a role — the use of French declined dramatically after World War I, whereas that of German increased in parallel until World War II. After World War II, and especially in the past 30 years, English progressively established itself as the primary language for scientific communication as America came to dominate both basic research and technology. In the 1920s the need for a universal language of science was debated, and a synthetic language, Esperanto, was developed but never widely used.
Despite the obvious appeal of having a common language that allows scientists around the world to communicate with one another, there can indeed be some drawbacks in using English for all communication — non-native English speakers can be at a disadvantage compared with native speakers when it comes to expressing and highlighting the interest of their papers and communicating with editors and referees. Careful copy editing can tackle the problem of accessibility of accepted manuscripts, but upstream of this stage it is down to all parties to ensure that they evaluate work on its scientific merit rather than its proper use of grammar.
The use of a universal language for communication in science is unavoidable as one obvious advantage is that findings can be more widely accessed, and resisting this concept for the sake of cultural difference would seem to be anything but productive. However, the use of national language and less technical language is useful in communicating science to the general public, as is the case with the Nature gateways in Japanese, Chinese, Korean and German.
1. Which of the following does NOT contribute to the changes of languages in science through history?| A．Scientific development. | B．Cultural influence. |
| C．Economic climate. | D．Social communication. |
| A．some scientific work being undervalued due to its improper use of grammar |
| B．acknowledged manuscripts sometimes not being accessed with enough care |
| C．editors and referees’ failure to communicate with the authors of the papers |
| D．non-native English speakers being unable to express what interests them well |
| A．Creating a universal language in scientific communication is inevitable. |
| B．A universal language enables more people to read about scientific findings. |
| C．Cultural difference adds to the difficulty in increasing scientific productivity. |
| D．Ordinary people also benefit from the use of technical language in science. |
| A．Universal Language Established | B．Universal Language of Science |
| C．Breaking the Language Barrier | D．Breaking the Language Dominance |
10 . I wanted the pleasure of being in Africa again. Feeling that the place was so large that it contained many untold tales and some hope and comedy and sweetness too, I aimed to reinsert myself in the bundy, as we used to call the bush, and to wander around. There I had lived and worked, happily, almost forty years ago, in the heart of the greenest continent.
In those old undramatic days of my school teaching in the bundu, folks lived their lives on bush paths at the end of unpaved roads of red clay, in villages of grass-roofed huts. They had a new national flag, they had just gotten the vote, some had bikes, many talked about buying their first pair of shoes. They were hopeful, and, so was I, a schoolteacher living near a settlement of mud-huts among trees and fields—children shouting at play; and women bent double—most with infants on their backs—hoeing(锄地) the corn beans; and the men sitting in the shade.
The Swahili word safari means “journey”, it has nothing to do with animals, someone “on safari” is just away and unobtainable and out of touch. Out of touch in Africa was where I wanted to be. The wish to disappear sends many travellers away. If you are thoroughly sick of being kept waiting at home or at work, travel is perfect: let other people wait for a change. Travel is a sort of revenge(报复) for having been put on hold, or having to leave messages on answering machines, not knowing your party’s extension, being kept waiting all your working life. But also being kept waiting is the human condition.
Travel in the African bush can also be a sort of revenge on mobile phones and email, on telephones and the daily paper, on the aspects of globalization that allow anyone who chooses to get their hands on you. I desired to be unobtainable. I was going to Africa for the best of reasons—in a spirit of discovery—simply to disappear, to light out, with a suggestion of I dare you to try to find me.
Home had become a routine, and routine made time pass quickly. I was a sitting duck in this predictable routine: people knew when to call me, they knew when I would be at my desk. I was in such regular touch that it was like having a job, a mode of life I hated. I was sick of being called up and asked for favors, hit up for money. You stick around too long and people begin to impose their own deadlines on you.
1. What did the writer expect from his journey?| A．To have a variety of enjoyable experiences. | B．To see how Africa had changed. |
| C．To see impressive scenery. | D．To meet some old friend. |
| A．Little was likely to change. | B．Things were likely to improve. |
| C．Women would do most of the work. | D．People’s expectations were too limited. |
| A．He wanted a change of activity. | B．He wanted people to be unable to contact him. |
| C．His health was suffering from staying at home. | D．He had been waiting to return to Africa for long. |
| A．he was boring | B．he was easy to find |
| C．he is fond of ducks | D．he was always lending money |
