1 . In an increasingly globalized business world, companies demand Human Resources (HR) leaders who can overcome cultural barriers to achieve key goals. This year, students in the Master of Human Resources and Industrial Relations (MHRIR) Program will get hands-on experience leading multicultural teams as they work together with peers (同辈) from all corners of the globe.
“Our students get firsthand experience on global teams, which helps them understand the challenges and the opportunities they will face in the business world,” said MHRIR Program Director Stacy Hove.
Elishka Correa joined the program to explore how HR leaders can help businesses grow quickly in the global marketplace. “Companies appreciate diversity — not only in terms of products and markets, but the people they hire — so that they can expand their business and reach customers in different parts of the world,” she said. “When I go into an organization, I’m not only going to work with Indians or Americans, it’s going to be a mix of people. That trend is beginning to grow, so I think it’s very important to appreciate people from different backgrounds.”
As they progress through the program, the students are discovering unexpected challenges as they work on projects in diverse teams. Each contributor brings a different approach to solving problems, communicating, and challenging one another’s opinions.
Devin Roll, a student from North Dakota, appreciating the unique views his classmates share, said, “The benefits of having cross-cultural experiences go far beyond the classroom. Diverse teams and companies outperform their competitors, and HR leaders act as a vital partner in acquiring and maintaining diversity in the workforce.”
Many of the international students in the program said they would return to their home countries after graduation and bring along connections to their classmates, who would build careers (职业) in countries around the world. They hope to stay in touch, and share their expert knowledge.
1. What is the aim of the program?| A．To help students to set clear goals. |
| B．To provide jobs for foreign students. |
| C．To teach students to run their own business. |
| D．To train students to build multicultural teams. |
| A．It prevents social advance. | B．It makes it easy to hire people. |
| C．It can help business growth. | D．It can put an end to the conflict. |
| A．It is predictable. | B．It is short-lived. | C．It is unidentifiable. | D．It is far-reaching. |
| A．Work for the university. | B．Keep closely connected. |
| C．Stay in their home countries. | D．Reform teaching methods. |
The best time to visit Toronto is typically in the spring (April and May) or during the fall (September to early November). At these times, you’ll likely find fewer crowds, cheaper accommodations, and the best weather for sightseeing as it is neither too hot nor too cold.
Getting AroundThe Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) makes it easy to get around the city via many buses, subway, and streetcars. Figuring out how to get where you want to go is easily done using the TTC’s convenient Trip Planner.
Travel TipWhile you may choose to base yourself near many of the city’s main landmarks, it’s also worth taking some time to explore some great neighborhoods that each offer their own unique charms, including colorful Kensington Market, the Junction, Leslieville, and Little India.
Things to DoGet a Dose of Art & Culture: The Royal Ontario Museum is Canada’s largest museum and showcases everything from art and archaeology to natural science in over 30 galleries. Or, stop by the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), one of the largest art museums in North America with a collection of more than 90,000 works of art.
Take in the Views From the CN Tower: High-speed elevators send visitors to the top of the tower in just 58 seconds for full views over the city. You can even try EdgeWalk to experience a hands-free walk around the main pod of the tower, 116 stories above the ground.
Spend a Day in the Distillery District: Explore the historic Distillery District to walk casually among Victorian-era buildings on pedestrian-only cobblestone streets filled with shops, cafes, and restaurants.
1. If a tourist travels to Toronto in October, what is he likely to find?| A．Free attractions. | B．Discounted hotels. |
| C．Extreme weather. | D．Crowded scenic spots. |
| A．Help people buy tickets. | B．Help tourists in urgent situations. |
| C．Guide people to their destinations. | D．Introduce scenic spots to tourists. |
| A．It is home to over 90,000 artworks. |
| B．It’s noted for its Victorian-era buildings. |
| C．It’s one of the largest museums in Canada. |
| D．Its displays range from art to natural science. |
| A．Little India. | B．EdgeWalk. | C．The Junction. | D．The Distillery District. |
| A．Planning Your Trip in Toronto |
| B．Some Hidden Truth about Toronto |
| C．The Main Tourist Attractions in Toronto |
| D．The Reasons for the Popularity of Toronto |
3 . It’s not great when a person breathes in all the oxygen out of a room. When a battery does it to a tumor (肿瘤), though, it could be a good thing.
Scientists have developed a new type of battery that can be implanted (植入) directly into tumors to deliver a steady stream of electricity. The battery is made from salt water and can be recharged by the body’s own heat. It works by splitting (使分离) salt water into hydrogen and oxygen gas. The hydrogen gas is then used to generate electricity, which can be used to kill cancer cells. The oxygen gas is released harmlessly into the body.
The new battery has several advantages over traditional cancer treatment. First, it is more targeted, meaning that it can deliver the electricity directly to the tumor cells, while sparing healthy cells. This can reduce the side effects of treatment. Second, the battery is self-charging, which means that it does not require surgery to remove or replace. This can make treatment more convenient and less expensive for patients. Third, the battery is small and lightweight, and it can be implanted directly into tumors. This means that patients will not have to need surgery to remove the battery, which can reduce the risk of complications.
The battery has been tested in animal studies, and it has been shown to be effective in killing cancer cells. The scientists who developed the battery are now planning to begin clinical trials in humans. They are thinking about how the battery might have to be made more flexible and more powerful to work on human-sized tumors. If the trials are successful, the battery could become a new standard of cancer treatment. It is a more targeted, convenient, and affordable way to deliver electricity to tumors. This could lead to more effective ways to treat cancer in humans.
1. What does paragraph 3 mainly tell us about the new battery?| A．Its benefits. | B．Its side effects. | C．Its weight. | D．Its working process. |
| A．Test the treatment in humans. | B．Reduce the cost of surgery. |
| C．Implant the battery into animals. | D．Make the battery affordable. |
| A．Negative. | B．Uncaring. | C．Optimistic. | D．Unclear. |
| A．Business. | B．Science. | C．Education. | D．Sports. |
4 . In recent studies we have been investigating mirror writing by typical 4- to 6-year-old children. The term is used because the characters — numbers and capital letters — are reversed (反向), yet are correct when looked at in a mirror.
Mirror writing entered the scientific literature in 1878. The explanations for the phenomenon were not only insufficient but also often wrong. One of them is — writing with the left hand. Throughout the 20th century, scientific journals have published mirror writing mostly produced by left-handed children. Even today, left-handedness is often the favorite explanation of teachers when children produce mirror writing.
The explanation we find for the phenomenon of mirror writing of characters works on two successive levels, the first cerebral and the second behavioral. The cerebral level shows that the brain removes orientation (left or right) when storing images, a process called symmetrisation or mirror generalization. This mirror-generalization process leads children aged 5 to know, from memory, the shape of the characters, but not their left/right orientation. Given the features of the process — horizontal mirror in the visual modality (视觉模式) — it is important to note that the initial learning of the form of the characters by the children is mainly visual, and that the children only produce horizontal mirror writing.
At the behavioral level, when children write the characters from memory, they must give them an orientation. In countries whose primary languages are written in Latin characters — written from left to right — children most often point them toward the right. This leads them to reverse mainly the left-oriented characters: J, Z, 1, 2, 3, 7, and 9. However, when spatial constraints cause them to write from right to left, the children instead reverse the right-oriented letters.
Since this explanation has nothing to do with the handedness of the children, it can be predicted that right-handed children will reverse characters almost often as left-handed children, and that – left-handed or right-handed – children will primarily reverse left-oriented characters in Western culture. This is because they strictly orient the characters in the direction of writing.
1. What aspect of a character does mirror generalization help children to know?| A．Its form. | B．Its pronunciation. |
| C．Its meaning. | D．Its orientation. |
| A．Paragraph 2. | B．Paragraph 3. |
| C．Paragraph 4. | D．Paragraph 5. |
| A．M. | B．C. | C．8. | D．9. |
| A．Handedness is the main reason for mirror writing. |
| B．Right-handed children won’t write reversed characters. |
| C．Left-handed children reverse right-oriented characters more often. |
| D．Children in the US tend to primarily reverse left-oriented characters. |
5 . Lena Mars and her parents had taken a trip to Costa Rica. While enjoying one of the country’s many beautiful beaches, the girl’s parents gave her a snack. But it turned out that she wasn’t the only one who was hungry: A wild iguana (鬣蜥) appeared unexpectedly as the girl at e her cake by the water. The iguana ran up to the girl and bit her on the back of her left middle finger, causing her to drop the cake. The animal then ran off with the snack, but it did leave something else behind.
The Mars immediately took the girl to a local clinic, where a doctor disinfected the wound with alcohol and gave her some antibiotics (抗生素). The wound appeared to have cleared up in about two weeks. It was five months later, when Lena’s parents noticed a coin-sized bump (肿块) on her hand in the same spot causing mild pain, that they thought they should take her to another doctor.
The doctor removed the 2-centimeter mass and took a closer look at the growth in the lab and discovered that the child had a rare infection that more commonly causes a tuberculosis-like illness in fish. It’s ubiquitous in fresh and salt water but rarely infects humans. Typically, when humans are infected, it’s after a wound has been exposed to the bacteria in water.
Most antibiotics alone don’t work on these kinds of infections, so the doctor gave the girl a different medical treatment often used for skin infections. She responded well to the treatment.
“Generally, iguanas will go about their day. But like any wildlife, if they start associating people with food, they’re going to risk coming closer.” said Anna Meyer, operations manager at a zoo in Florida. “The lesson here is that no one should feed wildlife, because they will most likely give you a bite.”
1. What can we learn about Lena Mars?| A．She tried to feed an animal. | B．She was bitten by an iguana. |
| C．She left the cake on the beach. | D．She found a rare wild animal. |
| A．The antibiotics were harmful. | B．They distrusted the first doctor. |
| C．Her wound became infected. | D．She took the medicine wrongly. |
| A．Common. | B．Dangerous. | C．Lively. | D．Useful. |
| A．It is good for wildlife. | B．It puts animals in danger. |
| C．It is a risky behavior. | D．It gets us close to nature. |
6 . Most people, if you quizzed them, probably wouldn’t know how much of all global trade is done by sea. It’s one of several reasons that the pollution and carbon emissions from shipping gain much less attention than those from road transport and other industries. It’s over the horizon, out of sight and out of mind.
Today, the international shipping industry is the main mode of transport for around 90 per cent of world trade. It’s powered almost entirely by fossil fuels. Studies show that alternative technologies and zero-emission fuels — including electrofuels such as hydrogen, ammonia and methanol — have the potential to significantly reduce the industry’s carbon footprint and thus require urgent implementation (实施). There’s just one catch: they don’t exist yet.
Even if the technology were available, the infrastructure (基础设施) for that technology or fuel is going to take time to develop. And an even bigger challenge is going to be whether that methanol or ammonia fuel is green, which touches on other industries such as renewable electricity. Do we even have enough renewable electricity in the world to be able to generate these fuels? It’s a complex supply chain that requires cooperation across the industry. It’s not something that one company can solve by itself.
According to Piotr Konopka, senior manager for energy and decarbonisation (碳减排) programs at DP World, there are some simple behavioral changes that can help cut down on fuel used in the meantime, from the regular maintenance and reduced idling of port equipment to the implementation of weather routing that helps ships avoid rougher, more fuel-intensive stretches of water. “Of course, efficiency is unlikely to ever reduce emissions by more than five or ten per cent, but it’s definitely a low-hanging fruit,” he says.
“This is the last moment for the IMO to act decisively to eliminate shipping emissions” says Delaine McCullough, shipping emissions policy manager at environmental NGO Ocean Conservancy. “We need countries to demand that the IMO set strong emission-reduction goals and take action at home if the IMO fails to do the right thing.”
1. What makes people neglect shipping emissions?| A．Prejudice. |
| B．Nearsightedness. |
| C．Low intelligence. |
| D．Lack of knowledge. |
| A．Device. | B．Harvest. | C．Problem. | D．Prey. |
| A．Alternative fuels. | B．Efficient use of fuel. |
| C．Renewable electricity. | D．Advanced technologies. |
| A．①/②③/④⑤ | B．①②/③④/⑤ |
| C．①②③/④/⑤ | D．①/②③④/⑤ |
7 . A common claim states that a sheet of paper cannot be folded in half more than seven times. But is this true?
In 2002, Britney Gallivan, then a junior in high school in Pomona, California, folded a single piece of paper in half 12 times. She currently holds the Guinness World Record for the most times to fold a sheet of paper in half.
The prompt that led Gallivan to accomplish this was an extra-credit challenge in math class to fold anything in half 12 times. Her teacher asked the students to fold something thicker: a piece of paper.
Gallivan said “it was very frustrating, as I had many unsuccessful attempts at trying to fold different papers in half. I began to question if folding paper in half more than eight times could be impossible.” However, Gallivan recalled. “I knew I needed to understand what was limiting the folding progression.”
The equations (方程式) that Gallivan came up with calculated how many times a sheet of paper could be folded. She found that in order to fold many times, a long thin sheet is needed — the more a sheet is folded, the thicker the resulting stack becomes, and once the stack becomes thicker than it is long, there is nothing left to fold. She ultimately set her record with a sheet of tissue paper she found online that was 4,000 feet (1,219 meters) — more than three-quarters of a mile, or over a kilometer long, Guinness World Records noted.
“Working on the problem took a tremendous amount of time and effort,” Gallivan said. “As frustrating as it was at times, I learned an immense amount from the experience, which has been valuable to me throughout my life in more capacities than one would expect.”
Since Gallivan set her record, others have made claims of folding a sheet of paper more than 12 times. Still, “I anticipate that my current record will be surpassed,” Gallivan said.
1. What prompts Gallivan to accept the challenge?| A．Peer pressure. |
| B．Mathematics anxiety. |
| C．Academic requirement. |
| D．Guinness World Records. |
| A．The stack is as thick as it’s long. |
| B．The paper is neither long nor thin. |
| C．The stack is thicker than it’s long. |
| D．The paper is longer than it’s thick. |
| A．It’s risky. |
| B．It’s fruitless. |
| C．It’s meaningless. |
| D．It’s energy-consuming. |
| A．Gallivan’s record is impossible to break. |
| B．Folding paper in half is merely a math problem. |
| C．Folding things in half may not be limited to 12. |
| D．Folding paper 12 times is a required credit in high schools. |
8 . Sometimes, determining which projects you should devote your time and energy to first takes energy you don’t have to spare (which is why we have tips for how to do it). But even when you know what tasks need to be done, you still need to figure out how to prioritize them. Try the 3-3-3 method.
This technique comes from Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals($13.99). He advocates planning each workday around a 3-3-3 model, first devoting three hours to deep work on your most important project. Next, complete three other urgent tasks that don’t require three hours of focus. Finally, do three “maintenance” tasks, like cleaning, answering emails, or scheduling other work.
What distinguishes this method from other approaches are those first three hours of deep work. Jumping into them first means you’ll be fresh, focused, and more likely to be able to jump into a task without getting distracted. Keep those three hours free of emails, texts, chats, or other menial duties, to the best of your ability. (Check out our full guide to engaging in deep work here.)
Deep work produces major productivity, so you’ll get a lot accomplished if you commit to it, but you can’t stay in that mindset (思维模式) forever. You’ll top out after about three hours, so it’s best to have those three other, smaller tasks lined up and ready to go so you can stay productive even while slowing down into less demanding responsibilities.
1. What does the 3-3-3 method focus on?| A．Urgent tasks. | B．Planning and scheduling. |
| C．Spare time. | D．The first three hours. |
| A．Unskilled. | B．Significant. | C．Urgent. | D．Necessary. |
| A．Smaller tasks take less time. | B．We can’t do two things at once. |
| C．Deep work takes energy. | D．Our attention is limited. |
| A．What is the 3-3-3 method? | B．Why the 3-3-3- method works |
| C．Get More Done With the “3-3-3Method” | D．How to Organize Your Life and Career |
9 . ChatGPT is an amazing artificial intelligence tool that has recently been released, along with other mind-blowing generative AI tools like Midjourney and DALL-E. These tools have the potential to revolutionize the way we create digital content, making it faster and cheaper.
However, there is a downside to these AI tools that cannot be ignored. What happens when they start replacing copywriters, journalists, customer service agents, and digital marketers? For years, experts have been warning that AI could threaten white-collar jobs, which were once considered safe from automation. Some even predict that up to 47 percent of jobs in the US could be at risk.
While no one can say for sure whether generative AI will cause mass job loss among highly educated workers, it is clear that it has the potential to disrupt the employment landscape. Tasks that were once considered impossible to automate are now becoming automatable. Whether or not jobs are removed, the essence of these jobs is likely to change.
Companies will always choose machines over humans when they can, and AI has the ability to perform tasks currently done by copywriters, digital content producers, and other professionals. This means that these jobs may soon undergo significant changes. However, it is important to note that AI cannot replace certain aspects of these jobs. It cannot conduct interviews, find historical documents, or assess the quality of studies. It lacks authority, understanding, and the ability to correct itself or generate genuinely new ideas.
This implies that while AI may create a vast amount of simpler content, it could also make original journalism more valuable and investigative journalists more productive. AI may be able to generate listicles and summaries of public meetings, but it is humans who will write in-depth stories. Experts believe that AI will ultimately help people use their expertise more effectively, and allow them to focus on areas where human intelligence is crucial.
While there is a risk that AI technologies could lead to sudden changes in the labor market, it is important to recognize the benefits of having such technology.
1. What’s the potential impact of generative AI tools on the employment market?| A．They may offer jobs faster and cheaper. |
| B．They may make the nature of certain jobs different. |
| C．They may cause mass job loss for white collars. |
| D．They may revolutionize the way digital content is created. |
| A．By making positions more valuable. |
| B．By making their jobs more irreplaceable. |
| C．By removing the need for human expertise. |
| D．By enabling them to specialize in some key fields. |
| A．AI has few benefits for employment. |
| B．AI is bound to take the place of mankind in the future. |
| C．AI can’t be completely independent of human wisdom. |
| D．AI can’t create genuinely new ideas or simpler content. |
| A．They should be further perfected. |
| B．They should be accepted despite their risks. |
| C．They should be avoided to protect white-collar jobs. |
| D．They should be controlled to prevent mass job loss. |
10 . Looking for some fun activities to do as a family? Why not play games together with your relatives!
Next to learning life skills, playing family games aids future academic performance.
Playing family games together can prevent antisocial behavior.
Last but not least, playing games together is a fantastic way of spending time together! It helps to bond emotionally with your kids, parents, or siblings and strengthens the overall health of the family. People tend to build respect between each other when getting to know them better, adding to the family’s unity.
| A．Games need energy and teamwork. |
| B．Playing games together is helpful to academic success. |
| C．Playing games together is not only fun, but also beneficial. |
| D．Playing games together allows parents to model essential life skills. |
| E．When playing, kids learn how to control their emotions by waiting for their turn. |
| F．It’s great to create some family traditions that your kids hopefully recreate later on. |
| G．Some games help kids grow the skills they need in school, like memory and logic. |
