1 . The maleo, a bird with black feathers and a pink chest, is native to Indonesia’s Sulawesi island and a few neighboring ones. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IU-CN), which identifies wildlife across the world currently facing threats, estimates only 800 to 1,400 adult maleos remain in the wild. Experts do not know how many maleos still live across West Sulawesi island. They were only able to record the presence of nesting grounds in 23 villages based on reports from locals in the area. But of those, only 18 are considered active nesting areas.
Recently, the birds have been faced with new threats, which accelerate their decline. The Indonesian government plans to move the nation’s capital from Jakarta to a new city on Borneo island, which is just a six-hour boat trip apart from Sulawesi island. The island takes on the building of new roads and seaports to be used to transport materials to the new capital. Activities also include tree clearing, digging, and removing stones. The process already has changed the forest environment on West Sulawesi and is harming maleo nesting areas near the beach. These changes have made the trip for maleos to lay their eggs increasingly difficult.
Another problem has been poachers. The Associated Press reports that, regardless of official ban, they steal maleo eggs that the males’ parents have hidden in the sand, and sell the eggs for about $1 to people as food. The eggs are a traditional gift for many people in Mamu-ju and other parts of Sulawesi.
“As far as I know, maleo birds are in decline,” said Andi Aco Takdir, chief of the West Sulawesi Forestry Agency. He pointed to several reasons for the decline, including destruction of beach areas, and expanding human development activities. He added that government officials there are prepared to take steps to protect the maleos even with the new capital development. Andi said, “Nature must be used as an achievement and must not be built leaving be-hind problems.”
1. What do the numbers in the first paragraph suggest?| A．The maleos are popular with locals. | B．The maleos are in need of protection. |
| C．The maleos are adaptable to the climate. | D．The maleos are neglected by natives. |
| A．The shortage of food. | B．The damage of wildlife. |
| C．The development of Sulawesi island. | D．The supporting work for the new capital. |
| A．To earn money. | B．To make gifts. | C．To have fun. | D．To follow blindly. |
| A．The new capital development might be stopped at once. |
| B．The government will balance conservation and development. |
| C．There seems to be a tough way for the new capital to develop. |
| D．The government will concentrate on solving urban problems. |
2 . Peru is prepared to approve new laws that would make it easier to investigate and punish researchers who engage in academic cheating, including paying to have their names added to a paper.
The move comes as Peru’s national science agency seeks to crack down on authorship buying and other dishonest practices. It recently removed two scientists accused of dishonest publications from a national registry that is key to receiving government sponsor, job promotions, and salary bonuses. And officials are investigating more than 170 other researchers at a Peruvian media report claimed were involved in academic misconduct, including 72 listed in the national registry who work at 14 universities in Peru.
The new laws will empower universities and government officials to punish such behavior. Dishonest publishing practices “ transcend mere moral misbehavior” because they enable researchers to obtain government and private funding without telling the truth, says Edward Málaga Trillo, a member of Congress who is the driving force, behind the bills, which lawmakers are expected to finalize early this year. “These individuals are operating academic cheating.” Peru’s academic community has been struggling with a rising tide of false authorship and related problems. One cause, some researchers say, is a 2014 law that aimed to stimulate research by rewarding researchers who boost their publishing output. For example, under a scoring system used by universities,researchers can earn five points for authorship in a high-impact journal, and two points when the journal is lower impact. A massing points can bring bonus payments and career promotion.
Signs of dishonest publishing can be obvious, notes Nahuel onteblanco,president of Cientificospe, a Peruvian group that investigates misconduct. Many of the papers cited by Punto Final have numerous co-authors from different nations with few prior publications on the same subject. “If your colleague consistently publishes 20 articles a year with co-authors from other countries, that’s highly suspect.” Monteblanco says.
1. What action did Peru take recently to address academic cheating?| A．Disqualifying 2 scientists from a national registry. |
| B．Fining 72 offenders for academic dishonesty. |
| C．Punishing 170 researchers for academic misconduct. |
| D．Withdrawing government fund from 14 universities. |
| A．Opposed. | B．Concerned. | C．Approving. | D．Neutral. |
| A．It advocated a fair scoring system. |
| B．It applied to high-impact journals. |
| C．It aimed to punish dishonest publishing. |
| D．It led to an increase in false authorship. |
| A．Career promotion. |
| B．Consistent research focus. |
| C．Co-authors from various countries. |
| D．Few citations by Punto Final. |
3 . Every bookstore in Beijing used to have a massive fiction room piled to the ceiling with great books. These days, you’re as likely as not to find that those rooms have been shrunk down to the size of a solitary (单独的) table thickly covered with the latest releases and best-selling novels. This, however, begs the question: Is fiction dying out, or is print media finally succumbing to (屈服于) its electronic and audio copy rivals (对手)?
Now that Kindle is leaving China, some say that maybe people will get back to traditional reading. I doubt it, however. This downward reading trend has been evident for a long time now. When Jeff Bezos first launched Kindle, Steve Jobs from Apple said it would fail because “people don’t read anymore. It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is.”
But I don’t think reading itself is dying. It is merely becoming more functional — in other words, something you have to do in order to get some tangible (实际的) benefit. Gone are the days when people just read for fun. Why lumber (迫使担负) through a musty old book when you can watch an action movie or play a video game? Of course, people know that these are poor substitutes (替代品) for a good book.
In fact, there is nothing better than getting lost in a great book. I remember reading Shackleton, the British polar explorer, when I was a boy. After turning over the last leaf of this extraordinary adventure, I felt as if I, too, had just been to the South Pole and back. This imaginary achievement translated into a sense of confidence which must have been infectious, as soon afterwards all of my friends were themselves picking up books to read for fun. Psychologists say that you are the average of the five friends you surround yourself with. We can learn from them and they can also come to have a profound effect on our own habits and mindset. In this way, a book, too, can be a mentor (导师). The ideas, advice, mindset, and experiences of other people living in other times can get transmitted to us down through the pages of a good book.
In the age of fragmented (碎片化的) information, the winners will be those who can stay focused. However, in a world that easily gets distracted, deep reading seems to be getting further away from us. Our biggest problem is not Kindle’s departure from China, but our own departure from reality. Great books transmit universal truths; get them read. How exactly you do so is up to you.
1. The author mentioned Kindle in the text to _______.| A．praise its convenience and popularity in reading |
| B．explore the reason for the decline of print media |
| C．highlight the decreasing trend of traditional reading |
| D．show our regret for its departure from China’s market |
| A．He is famous for imaginary writing. | B．He finds nothing better than an old book. |
| C．He visited the South Pole many times himself. | D．His adventure story influenced the author a lot. |
| A．we can be influenced by positive ideas | B．we’d surround ourselves with good friends |
| C．we can learn from other people’s experiences | D．we can develop good habits and ways of thinking |
| A．great books are more popular than action movies |
| B．we should avoid being distracted by modern technology |
| C．reading great books can help us stay focused |
| D．traditional reading will eventually disappear |
| A．It’s necessary to find a better substitutes for books like Kindle. |
| B．We should read more in order to escape from reality. |
| C．We need to face the reality that reading is becoming less popular. |
| D．We have to accept the fact that Kindle is leaving China. |
| A．To discuss the future trend of reading. | B．To advocate the benefits of reading. |
| C．To analyze the reasons for the decline of reading. | D．To compare different forms of reading. |
Liam, a fifth-grader, moved with his mum for a new apartment in a relatively cheaper area of the city after his father’s unexpected death, and began attending a neighbourhood school.
Since he was an introvert (内向的人), the thought of making friends always made him feel nervous, and moving into a new neighbourhood meant he had to face his fears. On his first day, he didn’t talk to anyone or try to make friends, and during the mealtime, he sat at the corner table in the cafeteria and ate his lunch alone. No one in the class stepped forward to welcome him. Instead, they ignored him and refused to sit next to him in class.
The next day, he was sitting alone in the classroom when a boy approached him and asked, “Can I sit next to you?”
“Sure,” Liam smiled.
“I’m Joel. And you? ”
“Liam.”
“Is it your first day today?”
“No, it’s my second day. I recently moved into this neighbourhood.”
“Oh, I didn’t know that. I skipped (逃避) school yesterday, so I thought it was your first day today.”
As days passed, Liam and Joel discovered that they lived on the same street. After school, they often played catch in the nearby park, a game they both loved playing. It only took Liam a few weeks to become best friends with Joel.
One day, Joel skipped school, and Liam had to sit alone in class, wondering why. Feeling worried, he went to ask his class teacher.
“Liam, I’m so sorry, but your best friend got into an accident last night,” the teacher put her hand on Liam’s shoulder. “He lost his parents in the car crash.”
“Oh no!” Liam covered his face with his hands.
Two months later, Joel was allowed to go home after a spinal (脊柱的) surgery. However, he couldn’t walk and was restricted to a wheelchair. The day he arrived home with his grandmother, Liam rushed to Joel's house with a candy bar and the ball they used to play catch with Joel’s eyes lit upon seeing Liam. The boys talked to each other for hours before Liam’s mother came to pick him up at night.
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2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
While he was happy to see his friend after months, he felt terrible knowing Joel could never walk again.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Ten days later, Liam asked Joel to play catch with him outside and he agreed.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________5 . “Oh, but it’s okay for you, you’re really confident”, a friend says. As a journalist, I’ve been to war zones, interviewed politicians, and delivered after-dinner speeches. But deep down, these occasions are a struggle. While I can make up a game face when needed, the common day-to-day situation can leave me uncomfortable. I’ll do anything to avoid making phone calls by booking online or ordering takeaways via apps. I’ve spent years longing for the day when those feelings disappear.
That day may have come, thanks to a new book. When Viv Groskop decided on a career change from journalist to stand-up comedian, she knew she’d have to master confidence, so made it her business to understand it. Since then she’s analysed research, interviewed people, and is sharing everything she’s discovered in a new book, Happy High Status, which is published this month.
So what is Happy High Status? The way you feel when everything’s great — the calm, easy confidence that comes with low pressure situations and happy moments. The opposite is how we feel in stressful situations, when? imposter syndrome, doubt about one’s own abilities despite achievements, is at an all-time high. “It’s how you are when you’re not questioning who you are. It’s just trying to bring that more relaxed, calm version of yourself,” explains Groskop.
“You don’t need to think that when you have a physical reaction in a pressured situation, there is something wrong with you. The trick is to take away the emotional stories you tell yourself,” she explains. “Yet you have no training as to how to feel confident when you’re doing those things.” Her advice is to take a moment — put your phone down, empty your mind of its inner worry and try to get to the low pressure version of you.
Perhaps everything I’ve worried about for so long is just part of being human, and being me, rather than some strange suffering. I’m not going to sweat it quite so much. I’m going to take a deep breath, channel the calmest, most relaxed version of me, and embrace my own Happy High Status.?
1. Which is the author’s true self in daily life?| A．A confident person. | B．A pessimistic person. | C．A shy person. | D．A sociable person. |
| A．The way to get confidence. | B．The importance of being brave. |
| C．The way to pursue a happy life. | D．The importance of changing jobs. |
| A．They are in high spirits. | B．They believe in themselves. |
| C．They question people around. | D．They seem in difficult situations. |
| A．Trying to stay eased. | B．Avoiding physical reaction. |
| C．Expecting less of ourselves. | D．Listening to emotional stories. |
6 . Research has shown that playing music to keep your mind busy while showering, taking a walk or travelling to school could affect your ability to think outside the box and come up with artistic or inventive things to do. By comparison, experts say being bored can lead to daydreaming plus the birth of new ideas.
Listening to music while taking a shower or going for a walk takes away from time that could be spent thinking about yourself and your life — the perfect time to let your creative juices flow, happiness expert Gretchen Rubin said. “You need this open-searching time for new ideas to bubble up,” she said. “This is why people get ideas in the shower or in the middle of the night — it’s a downtime (休息) where then the brain creates its own fun,” Ms Rubin added.
A recent study by psychologists showed the same process at work. In the research, groups of people were given a dull writing or reading task. They were then asked to complete a creative task. Researchers found the boring writing and reading activities led to increased creativity — meaning being bored made the mind entertain itself with something creative and fun.
So, is it best to get rid of the bath-time playlist? A lot of people said the research was a real mood killer. One said, “Sometimes I need the music to drown (淹没) out all the thoughts I don’t want to think.” Another commented, “Many people have too much going on in their heads. That’s why they listen to music in the shower, so they can actually relax. What do we have to have ideas about? Why can’t we just enjoy the things we love?” But other listeners said they liked having quiet time while travelling home at the end of the day.
1. What negative effect might listening to music during routine activities have?| A．Limiting creativity. | B．Causing forgetfulness. |
| C．Decreasing happiness. | D．Reducing awareness. |
| A．give up | B．come out | C．get up | D．cheer up |
| A．They can destroy interest. | B．They can lead to more pressure. |
| C．They can delay action. | D．They can promote new ideas. |
| A．The Benefits of Music for Relaxation | B．The Role of Boredom in Boosting Creativity |
| C．The Debate over Music’s Role in Relaxation | D．Finding Creativity While Showering |
7 . In recent studies, doctors are employing feature films to motivate their patients to open up about their issues. Supporters of “film therapy (疗法)” say that discussing characters and plotlines from a proper film can help people to understand their feelings better.
One of those using the method is Dr. Zhang, a doctor from Shanghai, who charges ¥250 for a one-hour “film therapy” session. He said, “I was treating a woman who had been badly heartbroken in a relationship, and who was experiencing such strong feelings that it was difficult for her to speak about them. I told her that her situation reminded me of On the Waterfront, where the hero realizes his brother is dishonest and he feels a great sense of betrayal (背叛). My patient identified so easily with him that she started to cry. Watching and discussing the film unlocked all the feelings she had buried. Each time she watched and cried, she felt better.”
Dr. Zhang admits that film therapy isn’t effective for everyone, but he has successfully used it with around a third of his patients. He believes that through the characters, plots, and even the music of films, people can face their problems. For instance, he mentioned the movie Falling Down, in which Michael Douglas plays the part of an unemployed man who is so depressed that he uses violence, was an example of the dangerous results of not letting anger go. “I used this film with a patient who was very upset because he was holding back a lot of the anger he felt towards people who had hurt him,” said Dr. Zhang. “We talked about Michael Douglas’s character and the violent path he takes, and my patient then realized that he needed to let go of his feelings more regularly so as not to burst out like a time bomb.”
1. What is the main purpose of film therapy according to Dr. Zhang?| A．To promote specific movies to patients. |
| B．To entertain patients during therapy sessions. |
| C．To analyze the technical aspects of filmmaking. |
| D．To help patients understand their feelings better. |
| A．Because she wanted to release her sorrow. |
| B．Because she brought her sufferings to mind. |
| C．Because she realized she had been cheated. |
| D．Because she thought of her lover suddenly. |
| A．The film therapy can be applied to all patients. |
| B．Film stars can help people solve their problems. |
| C．Films can contribute to unlocking hidden feelings. |
| D．This therapy should be popularized all over the world. |
| A．They may turn to violence. | B．They may criticize films a lot. |
| C．They may stop enjoying movies. | D．They may depend on film therapy. |
8 . Humans are driving climate change. That means we can change our path.
Extend product lifespan (寿命).
Switch to electric cooking. Not only is gas-powered cooking releasing harmful chemicals into the environment, but it could be contributing to health problems for you if you’re cooking indoors.
Plant trees where you can. Trees can help control temperatures and improve air quality.
| A．Eat more sustainably |
| B．Fix what you have instead of replacing it |
| C．The time it gives you back this fall is an added bonus |
| D．As climate change causes temperatures in many areas to rise |
| E．Just make sure the plants you’re adding are approved for your area |
| F．Plus, research has shown some gas stoves can leak pollutants even when they’re off |
| G．While governments and businesses have a key role to play in addressing climate change |
Due to my unhealthy eating habits, I became fatter and fatter after college. My good friend Anoush was a running enthusiast. So he advised me to lose weight by running. I didn’t agree at first until he promised to accompany me to run although he was busy with his work.
Seven years later, I got more serious about running. And I dreamed to participate in Boston Marathon. Anoush encouraged me to realize my dream. He also said he enjoyed running too and wanted to attend the same marathon with me. Every day we spared our time to practise hard and did about 2 marathons a year, during which time Anoush gave me much professional guidance and encouragement. And then one day, both of us qualified for the 2017 Boston Marathon. We were excited but unfortunately, several weeks before the marathon, we had a serious quarrel. Even I swore never to talk with him in the future.
The day came. Anoush and I stood at the starting line. He said, “Good luck! You will certainly finish the marathon.” Hearing his words, I looked at him, saying, “It’s none of your business.”
Then we started running. I had strong mental confidence by using positive self-talk when running distances, which has helped me finish 18 marathons. Soon, I passed Anoush.
But I struggled in the heat starting at mile 16. I felt most of my oxygen went to the muscle in my legs and less in my brain, which made me feel a bit lightheaded and fuzzy (迷迷糊糊的). I continually encouraged myself. “Just get to the finish, run bold, and you will win,” all phrases that I say to myself didn’t work any more.
Gradually I felt out of breath and had to slow down my pace. As I ran down the famous last stretch of the Boston Marathon on Boylston Street, I fell down on the ground with my legs moving like jello (果冻).
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2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Just then, I felt that someone picked me up.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________When Anoush and I crossed the finish line, the audience at present applauded.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________I am not a gamer. I’ll be honest: video games and I don’t really see eye to eye, and I have no ambitions to become better. I never have the experience playing against my kids and winning. And that’s okay. Board games, on the other hand, are a different story. At least there, I stand a chance of victory.
One day, my 12-year-old son begged me to play a game with him. He held out a game controller and begged, “Just one game with me? You can use it to control the game through your movements.” His eyes were full of anticipation and I could see the excitement welling up within him. How could I possibly resist such a sincere and heartfelt request? “Just one game.” My son’s face lit up. In a matter of minutes, we were standing in our living room, virtually bowling away.
My son’s amusement at my lack of gaming skills was evident. I could see the struggle on his face as he fought to hold back his laughter. The game controller felt awkward and unfamiliar in my hand, but I did my best to copy my son’s movements and follow his lead. At one point, my son said, “No, Mom. You really have to put some force into it. Like this.” With that, he threw his arm back, stepped forward, and with plenty of force extended out his arm that was holding the controller. Instead of sending the virtual bowling ball flying, the controller went off his hand and broke the TV screen. The impact was immediate and destructive. The screen cracked, sending a crazy mosaic (马赛克) of colors dancing across its surface. It looked like something straight out of a dream.
The air stood still at that moment. The look on my son’s face was a funny mixture of horror, disbelief and guilt. He stayed absolutely frozen for a long moment. Then, slowly, he turned to me. “Mom...” with a weak smile, “Did I just... break the TV?”
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2. 请按如下格式在答题卡上的相应位置作答。
Surprisingly, I wasn’t angry at all.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________But my son insisted on keeping the broken TV.
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