1 . Yesterday, I was standing in line at a store and the song Please Come to Boston which was quite popular when I was in high school, came on in the background. I hadn’t heard it for years. Suddenly, I was overcome by flashbacks of people and places linked to that song from earlier stages of my life.

It seems people tend to be extremely nostalgic (怀旧的) about the music they listened to when they were young. Psychological research has shown that autobiographical memories (life experiences) from certain time periods are remembered better than others. One obvious phenomenon is the “reminiscence bump” (记忆隆起): the fact that people tend to recall memories from when they were 10 to 30 years old much better. That’s because this period contains many novel and self-defining life experiences such as graduation and marriage. Biological changes may also boost the effectiveness of our memories from this period.

In our experiment, we investigated the presence of the “musical reminiscence bump” in a group of 470 adults aged 18 to 82. Our aim was to examine how a person’s age when a song was popular affected three related but distinct concepts: the degree to which the song was associated with autobiographical memories, how familiar the song was and how much they liked the song. Participants were shown the titles and artists of 111 pop songs that had featured in the charts across a 65-year period (1950~2015). After a given time, they were asked to complete the measurement.

We discovered music during one’s adolescence was rated as more familiar. In addition, we found some songs were preferred regardless of a participant’s age. For instance, we saw a general increase in how much people liked songs from the late 1970s to early 1980s, even in participants who weren’t yet born during that time period. Examples of songs we used from this time period include Hotel California by the Eagles.

Music can undeniably cause nostalgia. For example, advertisers want to elicit (引出) a nostalgic reaction from a certain group of consumers. And they should notice doctors who aim to reconnect patients suffering from memory loss with self-defining memories from their pasts can also take advantage of nostalgia.

1. What does the author want to imply through his own experience at a store?

A．His taste for music in high school.

B．His way of killing the boring queuing time.

C．The link between sales and background music.

D．Music’s ability to waken memories from the past.

2. What can be concluded about the reminiscence bump?

A．It helps improve our childhood memories)

B．It still remains a mystery to modern science.

C．Events occurring during it are more memorable.

D．It explains why some have a better memory than others.

3. What were participants required to do in the study?

A．Make a list of their favorite songs and artists.

B．Provide ratings of three music-related questions.

C．Learn to sing some songs released in the past 65 years.

D．Compare the features of pop songs from different periods.

4. What did the researchers find in their experiment?

A．The Eagles were a representative band in the late 20th century.

B．Pop music stars’ adolescence had a great impact on their works.

C．The late 1970s and early 1980s were the peak of music creation.

D．Pop music from certain time periods was favored by different generations.

5. What can be inferred from the last paragraph?

A．Musical nostalgia has practical applications in life.

B．All doctors are responsible for treating nostalgia.

C．Too much nostalgia may lead to memory loss to a degree.

D．Advertisers are good at analyzing consumers’ musical tastes.

2 . Back in 1930, economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that with technological change and improvements in productivity, we’d be working only 15 hours a week in the near future. But while working hours have declined by 26%, most of us still work 42.5 hours a week on average, according to Eurostat figures.

One of the things Keynes underestimated is our desire to compete with our peers — a drive that makes us work more than we need to. “We don’t measure productivity by how many acres we’ve harvested, so the amount of working time becomes an indicator.” says Alex Soojung-Kim Pang.

Due to computerization and globalization in the 1980s, managers could demand more of employees under the threat that jobs could be given to someone else, so the pressure increased. And we took it, overwhelmed with the pressure while shouldering the burden all the same at the cost of our health. Psychologist Barbara Killinger writes such a phenomenon in Workaholics: The Respectable Addicts.

But far from delivering productivity, value, or personal fulfillment, overwork has been proven to lead to burnout, stress, poor health, etc. Nevertheless, we persisted — until the fourth Industrial Revolution came along.

The fourth Industrial Revolution has accelerated the move towards automation and AI, especially for jobs with high physical proximity (接近). Economist Dr. Carl Frey predicts that at least 40% of current jobs will be lost to automation by 2050.

There are exceptions. Jobs that involve complex social interactions are beyond current robot skills, such as teaching, cleaning jobs, and jobs that rely on creativity, according to Frey and Osborne.

According to McKinsey, those whose work falls outside the caring, cleaning and creative fields will still work in the future, just differently. In about 60% of occupations, it’s estimated that a third of the tasks can be automated, meaning substantial changes to the way we work. A large-scale study carried out by accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers predicted that over the next 20 years, although 7 million jobs will be lost to AI, 7.2 million new ones will be created as a result. So we will work in the future: we just don’t know what we’ll be doing yet.

1. What do the figures in Paragraph 1 mainly indicate?

A．Our working time failed to decrease as much as predicted.

B．Technology keeps changing with the development of society.

C．Keynes’ prediction mainly focused on productivity improvement.

D．Overwork will result in fierce competition between employees.

2. What might lead to the disagreement between the reality and Keynes estimation?

A．People’s false sense of time.

B．People’s awareness of peer competition.

C．People’s ignoring the quality of their jobs.

D．People’s pressure to increase productivity.

3. How did most employees respond to the managers’ pressure in the 1980s?

A．They argued for fairness.

B．They devoted more to their work.

C．They tried to escape shouldering the burden.

D．They emphasized the importance of their health.

4. Which of the following situations will appear under the influence of automation and AI?

A．Counseling service will be paid less attention to.

B．More and more cleaners become unemployed in cities.

C．A majority of teachers will be replaced by robots.

D．The types of jobs with high physical proximity will be transformed.

5. What is McKinsey’s attitude towards automation and AI?

A．Worried.

B．Hopeful.

C．Objective.

D．Indifferent.

3 . To save the environment, we must all join in — and nobody knows this better than 70-year-old grandmother Pat Smith who spent 2018 cleaning up litter from 52 beaches in Cornwall on the United Kingdom’s south coast.

Smith set out in January, 2018 to carry out her New Year’s resolution of making her community a better and cleaner place. The ambitious goal came to her after she watched a documentary on plastic pollution the previous year, and she knew she couldn’t just sit by.

Often, volunteers would join her in her efforts, including her grandchildren, or she would join hands with other campaigners such as Wayne Dixon, who is walking around the UK coast as an ambassador for Keep Britain Tidy.

During her beach cleans, Smith was sometimes mistaken for doing community service! She said, “People don’t understand I’ve been doing this voluntarily. We should all take responsibility for picking up the litter as well as ensuring we don’t drop litter in the first place.

Even before her beach cleanups, Smith had begun her first environmental campaign to eliminate plastic straws (吸管) in her city of Cornwall . To date, she has encouraged 600 local companies to stop using unnecessary plastic. In an effort to make her hometown an example for the plastic-free movement in the United Kingdom, she founded The Final Straw Cornwall in the summer of 2017. “I founded the Final Straw to try and raise awareness of the disastrous damage we are doing to our oceans from our casual consumption of single-use plastics. I feel I have a responsibility to my children and grandchildren to do something about it.” She said.

Her resolution year may be over but this environmentally conscious grandma continues her quest (追求). “A lot of the rubbish I’ve picked up consists of everyday items,” said Smith. “These things are used by all of us and it is shocking to find them polluting our beautiful beaches. Please let’s try to be more thoughtful in this coming year. I’m driven to try and protect our living planet for my children and grandchildren and I will continue to do everything in my power to achieve that.”

1. What led to Smith’s New Year’s resolution of cleaning her community?

A．Community service.

B．A film or television program.

C．Various ocean protection campaigns.

D．Serious pollution in her community.

2. What’s people’s misunderstanding about Smith’s action?

A．She was forced to do that.

B．She just pretended to be caring.

C．She actually did only a little work.

D．She wouldn’t stick to the work for long.

3. With her founding of The Final Straw Cornwall, Smith intended to ______.

A．set an example to other aged people

B．stop her local companies from producing plastic straws

C．keep her promise to her children and grandchildren

D．make people conscious of the plastic-related environmental problem

4. What opinion about environmental protection did Smith hold?

A．It’s everyone’s duty.

B．It’s as hard as people think.

C．Prevention is more important than protection.

D．The younger generation don’t care about it enough.

5. Which of the following best describes Smith as an environmental activist?

A．Proud.

B．Happy.

C．Stressed.

D．Determined.

4 . Nancy was a single mother with two kids and no savings. Desiring work but lacking work ________, Nancy had to answer an ad for a house cleaner. The house was a luxury apartment so she guessed it must be a(n) ________ job. The interview was simple: just clean the whole apartment. Hoping to ________ the house owner, Nancy decided to do the work ________, shining all the wood floors, wiping the hidden places with cleaners, turning over cushions, and washing all the windows. She didn’t even ________ a small corner. Then she found a handful of ________ on the couch and another handful under the bed. A few crumpled (皱的) dollar bills and some coins might not mean much to a man of ________ who could throw his money around ________. But to Nancy and her children, a few dollars would ________ them for a few days. Nancy remembered the ________ from her father: work hard, and be ________. She kept to those words all the time. Then she tried to ________ the paper money and put the coins in neat piles. It was many hours ________ she completed her duty.

The next day, Nancy got the job. It turned out that the scattered money was also a part of the ________. Anybody can clean houses but few can be ________. Nancy made enough money and could raise her family. And as time went by, she was promoted to more important positions. In every task there were the same ________ to be followed: don’t cut corners; check the details everybody else tends to ________. Nancy became a trusted personal assistant because she always ________ these rules.

Earning trust is not that difficult. You choose what is ________ over what is fun, fast, or easy. And you choose to practice your values rather than simply ________ them. They are the key.

1.

A．luck

B．finance

C．determination

D．experience

2.

A．well-paid

B．ill-advised

C．heart-warming

D．labor-saving

3.

A．benefit

B．approach

C．impress

D．assist

4.

A．hurriedly

B．thoroughly

C．gracefully

D．flexibly

5.

A．replace

B．reveal

C．skip

D．spare

6.

A．change

B．treasure

C．dust

D．waste

7.

A．compassion

B．enthusiasm

C．experience

D．wealth

8.

A．deliberately

B．aimlessly

C．randomly

D．occasionally

9.

A．rule

B．feed

C．upset

D．free

10.

A．lesson

B．theme

C．regulation

D．judgment

11.

A．capable

B．smart

C．thoughtful

D．truthful

12.

A．mark

B．steal

C．smooth

D．cover

13.

A．although

B．before

C．unless

D．since

14.

A．interview

B．reward

C．recognition

D．relaxation

15.

A．trusted

B．motivated

C．followed

D．persuaded

16.

A．improvements

B．assumptions

C．principles

D．advantages

17.

A．share

B．stress

C．balance

D．overlook

18.

A．missed out

B．stuck to

C．broke through

D．turned down

19.

A．potential

B．influential

C．independent

D．right

20.

A．distinguish

B．claim

C．update

D．collect

5 . —______, Li Ling? You look worried.
—I’m facing a difficult decision.

A．What’s up

B．Guess what

C．How is it going

D．Why bother

6 . Shops in Winsor Castle offer a wide range of souvenirs ______ for the Royal Collection, including books, postcards, china, jewellery, and children’s toys.

A．designing	B．to be designed
C．being designed	D．designed

7 . As a policeman, Robert Moody saw ______ there was violence, drugs were always behind it.

A．unless

B．where

C．as

D．whether

8 . By working in a famous school, Lily not only ______ much valuable experience but also had a clearer understanding of her career ahead.

A．guaranteed

B．accumulated

C．exchanged

D．scheduled

9 . Scholarships you can apply for from your phone

College is expensive. Luckily, increasing your odds of winning money for school doesn’t have to be difficult. So take out your smart phone and start earning more money towards your education.

1. The Redefine Black Scholarship

Deadline: August 5, 2024

Currently, words like “dirty” and “evil” are still used in dictionaries to define the word “black”. The words we choose matter, so it’s time to change them. It is a chance for you to learn how language affects perception (见解). Sign up for resources on www.dosomething.org for a chance to win $5,000.

2. The Law Offices Joel J. Kofsky Scholarship

Deadline: August 15, 2024

This firm is looking for a short video-just two to three minutes-on the topic of avoiding a car accident when driving, like texting while driving, or something more complex. Videos will be judged based on innovation, design and topic-related content. Sign up on www.phillyinjurylawyer.com. The first place winner will receive a scholarship of $1,500.

3. No Essay Scholarship

Deadline: September 30, 2024

The beauty of No Essay Scholarship is that it comes once a month and you can apply every single month. And the application is very easy. If you’re a high school senior or college student, you are bound to be qualified. Sign up on mdcriminalattorney.net. The first place winner will receive $500 towards their education.

4. VIP Voice Scholarship

Deadline: December 31, 2024

If you want a simple way to earn money for college, look no further than VIP Voice’s $5.000scholarship. To enter, all you have to do is to sign up on www.vipvoice.com and complete two short surveys. As you complete surveys, you’ll earn points. The more points you have, the better your chances of winning the contest.

1. What’s the purpose of the text?

A．To help students apply for colleges.

B．To describe requirements of four clubs.

C．To introduce four scholarship-winning programs.

D．To share the experience of winning scholarships.

2. If you are an English major, you are most likely to sign up for ______.

A．The Redefine Black Scholarship

B．The Law Offices Joel J. Kofsky Scholarship

C．No Essay Scholarship

D．VIP Voice Scholarship

3. Which of the following videos may win the scholarship offered by the law firm?

A．A 15-minute video about the causes of many accidents.

B．An eye-opening video about drunk driving.

C．A well-designed video about criminal law

D．A two-minute video about texting while walking.

4. About No Essay scholarship, we know that ______.

A．it chooses its winners in a strict way

B．it is only for high school students

C．it can be won several times a year

D．it takes a long time to apply for

5. What can we learn about VIP Voice Scholarship?

A．It is difficult for college students to win it.

B．It offers students more money than the other scholarships.

C．It asks students to complete three surveys before signing up.

D．It will be given to the applicant with the highest points.

10 . The high school student answered all the questions properly. In my view, he ______ have read many books.

A．must

B．should

C．need

D．could