1 . When John Todd was a child, he loved to explore the woods around his house, observing how nature solved problems. A dirty stream, for example, often became clear after flowing through plants and along rocks where tiny creatures lived. When he got older, John started to wonder if this process could be used to clean up the messes people were making.

After studying agriculture, medicine, and fisheries in college, John went back to observing nature and asking questions. Why can certain plants trap harmful bacteria (细菌)? Which kinds of fish can eat cancer-causing chemicals? With the right combination of animals and plants, he figured, maybe he could clean up waste the way nature did. He decided to build what he would later call an eco-machine.

The task John set for himself was to remove harmful substances from some sludge (污泥). First, he constructed a series of clear fiberglass tanks connected to each other. Then he went around to local ponds and streams and brought back some plants and animals. He placed them in the tanks and waited. Little by little, these different kinds of life got used to one another and formed their own ecosystem. After a few weeks, John added the sludge.

He was amazed at the results. The plants and animals in the eco-machine took the sludge as food and began to eat it! Within weeks, it had all been digested, and all that was left was pure water.

Over the years, John has taken on many big jobs. He developed a greenhouse — like facility that treated sewage (污水) from 1,600 homes in South Burlington. He also designed an eco-machine to clean canal water in Fuzhou, a city in southeast China.

“Ecological design” is the name John gives to what he does. “Life on Earth is kind of a box of spare parts for the inventor,” he says. “You put organisms in new relationships and observe what’s happening. Then you let these new systems develop their own ways to self-repair.”

1. What can we learn about John from the first two paragraphs?

A．He was fond of traveling.	B．He enjoyed being alone.
C．He had an inquiring mind.	D．He longed to be a doctor.

2. Why did John put the sludge into the tanks?

A．To feed the animals.	B．To build an ecosystem.
C．To protect the plants.	D．To test the eco-machine.

3. What is the author’s purpose in mentioning Fuzhou?

A．To review John’s research plans.	B．To show an application of John’s idea.
C．To compare John’s different jobs.	D．To erase doubts about John’s invention.

4. What is the basis for John’s work?

A．Nature can repair itself.	B．Organisms need water to survive.
C．Life on Earth is diverse.	D．Most tiny creatures live in groups.

2 . I was about 13 when an uncle gave me a copy of Jostein Gaarder’s Sophie’s World. It was full of ideas that were new to me, so I spent the summer with my head in and out of that book. It spoke to me and brought me into a world of philosophy (哲学).

That love for philosophy lasted until I got to college. Nothing kills the love for philosophy faster than people who think they understand Foucault, Baudrillard, or Confucius better than you — and then try to explain them.

Eric Weiner’s The Socrates Express: In Search of Life Lessons from Dead Philosophers reawakened my love for philosophy. It is not an explanation, but an invitation to think and experience philosophy.

Weiner starts each chapter with a scene on a train ride between cities and then frames each philosopher’s work in the context (背景) of one thing they can help us do better. The end result is a read in which we learn to wonder like Socrates, see like Thoreau, listen like Schopenhauer, and have no regrets like Nietzsche. This, more than a book about understanding philosophy, is a book about learning to use philosophy to improve a life.

He makes philosophical thought an appealing exercise that improves the quality of our experiences, and he does so with plenty of humor. Weiner enters into conversation with some of the most important philosophers in history, and he becomes part of that crowd in the process by decoding (解读) their messages and adding his own interpretation.

The Socrates Express is a fun, sharp book that draws readers in with its apparent simplicity and gradually pulls them in deeper thoughts on desire, loneliness, and aging. The invitation is clear: Weiner wants you to pick up a coffee or tea and sit down with this book. I encourage you to take his offer. It’s worth your time, even if time is something we don’t have a lot of.

1. Who opened the door to philosophy for the author?

A．Foucault.	B．Eric Weiner.
C．Jostein Gaarder.	D．A college teacher.

2. Why does the author list great philosophers in paragraph 4?

A．To compare Weiner with them.

B．To give examples of great works.

C．To praise their writing skills.

D．To help readers understand Weiner’s book.

3. What does the author like about The Socrates Express?

A．Its views on history are well-presented.

B．Its ideas can be applied to daily life.

C．It includes comments from readers.

D．It leaves an open ending.

4. What does the author think of Weiner’s book?

A．Objective and plain.

B．Daring and ambitious.

C．Serious and hard to follow.

D．Humorous and straightforward.

4 . Feeling fearful is healthy ________ it helps you slow down and evaluate risks properly.

A．because

B．until

C．before

D．although

5 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

Even Very Young Children Can Be Depressed

If you doubted it, I would introduce you to Susan, who came to my office and talked constantly about her “bad feeling”. Susan     1     (lose) interest in her favorite activities, stopped playing with her friends, and told her parents that she wanted to be dead. She’d spent more time in the school nurse’s office than in her classroom.

Susan was six years old and     2     (suffer) from depression. Proper treatment helped Susan recover. Without it, she might still be an unhappy child, alone and in pain.

The risk for depression does tend to increase as we grow older. Depression in young children is rare but real. Rene Spitz, a     3     (note) psychological researcher, found that infants who were in an institutional orphanage after World War II refused to eat and eventually died     4     they weren’t held by their caretakers. Children have an innate need     5     (hold) and comforted. If those needs aren’t met, then even very young children can fail to thrive and may become sick and die.

Approximately 1% of preschoolers experience depression; they often have great difficulty expressing their feelings, because not all of their language skills     6     (develop) sufficiently. Instead of expressing their feelings in language, the depressed preschool children are likely to show emotions by exhibiting significantly aggressive, fearful, or crying behavior.     7     most preschool children may get angry if they’re hungry, sleepy, afraid     8     their parents go away, or fail to get Daddy to buy them the latest toys, these behaviors are often carried to extremes of intensity and frequency in depressed children.

Although a diagnosis of clinical depression is rare in preschool children, there are times when it is appropriate. In most cases, the child who     9     (experience) significant frustrations resulting from the death or absence of a parent, has witnessed or been victims of violence, or has had a significant health problem     10     has interrupted normal emotional or physical development. I find preschool children to be more resilient (适应力强的) than older children in dealing with these events, as long as they have a supportive parent and receive timely treatment.

6 . Slowness has been a sweeping trend in sustainability. Slow food celebrates local produce and traditional cooking methods; slow fashion is made with a focus on people and the planet. You may have even heard of the slow city, a campaign to restore local cultures and turn cities back to their natural environments.

Slow design developed from the larger slow movement. Although the term was only recently introduced, the idea of thoughtful design looks back to a time when buildings and furniture were made with great craftsmanship (手艺) and by hand-before the mass-produced throwaway furniture took over. You can think of the term “slow” as a celebration of timelessness: both the timelessness of a piece and the timelessness of the relationship between that piece and its owner.

One example of slow design today is what’s been dubbed the brown furniture revival (复兴). Brown furniture refers to the heavy wooden furnishings that were popular in your grandparents’ day but suddenly fell out of style at the turn of the century. Brown furniture is often associated with dark woods, such as trees like mahogany, walnut, and teak, that take decades to reach maturity and true craftsmanship to transform into functional pieces.

Today’s furniture industry is dominated by the $13.1 billion-and-growing global ready-to-assemble(RTA) furniture market. RTA furniture is usually constructed from low-quality fiberboard, which lasts a small part of traditional furniture’s lifespan (寿命).The weight of furniture landfilled in 2018 was 9. 7 million tons, 4. 5 times what was landfilled in 1960.

In a less direct way, the idea of timelessness also lends itself to a lower environmental impact. Besides their demonstrated physical durability, slow materials and design are meant to outlive trends and never be thrown out simply because they’re out of style.

As second-hand shopping becomes more appealing to today’s young generation-because of its low environmental impact and affordability-the brown furniture of yesteryear is making a comeback.

1. Why is the first paragraph written?

A．To explain a new term.

B．To present the topic of the text.

C．To provide background information.

D．To highlight the importance of slowness.

2. What does the underlined word “dubbed” mean in paragraph 3?

A．Known as.

B．Mistaken for.

C．Compared to.

D．Connected with.

3. What can be inferred about RTA furniture?

A．It is out of date.

B．It has a long lifespan.

C．It is heavy and expensive.

D．It has bad effects on the environment.

4. What is good news for the brown furniture revival?

A．Grandparents are buying new furniture.

B．The brown furniture will soon be mass-produced.

C．The young generation favors second-hand shopping.

D．Materials for slow design furniture are more available.

7 . Back in 1964, in his book Games People Play, psychiatrist Eric Berne described a pattern of conversation he called “Why Don’t You — Yes But”, which remains one of the most annoying aspects of everyday social life. The person adopting the strategy is usually a chronic complainer. Something is terrible about their relationship, job, or other situation, and they complain about it endlessly, but find some excuse to dismiss any solution that’s proposed. The reason, of course, is that on some level they don’t want a solution; they want to be validated (认可) in their position that the world is out to get them. If they can “win” the game — dismissing every suggestion until interlocutor (对话者) gives up in annoyance — they get to feel pleasurably righteous (正当的) in their anger and excused from any obligation to change.

Part of the trouble here is the so-called responsibility/fault fallacy (谬误). When you’re feeling hard done by — taken for granted by your partner, say, or obliged to work for a stupid boss — it’s easy to become attached to the position that it’s not your job to address the matter, and that doing so would be an admission of fault. But there’s a confusion here. For example, if I were to discover a newborn at my front door, it wouldn’t be my fault, but it most certainly would be my responsibility. There would be choices to make, and no possibility of avoiding them, since trying to ignore the matter would be a choice. The point is that what goes for the baby on the doorstep is true in all cases: even if the other person is 100% in the wrong, there’s nothing to be gained, long-term, from using this as a justification to evade responsibility.

Should you find yourself on the receiving end of this kind of complaining, there’s a clever way to shut it down — which is to agree with it. Psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb describes this as “over-validation”. For one thing, you’ll be spared further complaining, since the other person’s motivation was to confirm her beliefs, and now you’re confirming them. But for another, as Gottlieb notes, people confronted with over-validation often hear their complaints afresh and start arguing back. The concept that they’re utterly powerless suddenly seems unrealistic, not to mention rather annoying — so they’re prompted instead to generate ideas about how they might change things.

“And then, sometimes, something magical might happen, ” Gotlieb writes. The other person “might realize she’s not as trapped as you are saying she is, or as she feels. ” Avoiding responsibility feels comfortable, but turns out to be a prison; whereas assuming responsibility feels unpleasant, but ends up being freeing.

1. What is the characteristic of a chronic complainer, according to Eric Berne?

A．They are angry about their ill treatment and feel bitter towards whoever tries to help.

B．They are habitually unhappy and endlessly find fault with people around them.

C．They constantly dismiss others’ proposals while taking no responsibility for dealing with the problem.

D．They lack the basic skills required for successful conversations with others.

2. What does the author try to illustrate with the example of the newborn on one’s doorstep?

A．People tend to think that one should not be held responsible for others’ mistakes.

B．It is easy to become attached to the position of overlooking one’s own fault.

C．People are often at a loss when confronted with a number of choices.

D．A distinction should be drawn between responsibility and fault.

3. What does the author advise people to do to chronic complainers?

A．Stop them from going further by agreeing with them.

B．Listen to their complaints attentively and sympathetically.

C．Ask them to validate their beliefs with further evidence.

D．Persuade them to clarify the confusion they caused.

4. Which of the following is the best title for the passage?

A．What is the responsibility/fault fallacy for chronic complainers?

B．How can you avoid dangerous traps in everyday social life?

C．Who are chronic complainers and how to deal with them?

D．Why should we stop being a chronic complainer and assume responsibility?

8 . ①A group of 41 states and the District of Columbia began a legal case against Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, insisting that the company knowingly used features on its platforms to cause children to overuse them. The accusations in the lawsuit raise a deeper question about behavior: Are young people becoming addicted to social media and the internet? Here’s what the research has found.

②David Greenfield, a psychologist and founder of the Center for Internet and Technology Addiction in West Hartford, Conn, said the devices tempt users with some powerful approaches. One is “intermittent reinforcement,” which creates the idea that a user could get a reward at any time. But when the reward comes is unpredictable. Adults are easily influenced, be noted, but young people are particularly at risk, because the brain regions that are involved in resisting temptation and reward are not nearly as developed in children and teenagers as in adults. Moreover, the adolescent brain is especially accustomed to social connections, and social media is all a perfect opportunity to connect with other people.

③For many years, the scientific community typically defined addiction in relation to substances, such as drugs, and not behaviors, such as gambling or internet use. That has gradually changed. In 2013, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the official reference for mental health conditions, introduced the idea of internet gaming addiction.

④A subsequent study explored broadening the definition to “internet addiction.” The author suggested further exploring diagnostic criteria and the language, for instance, noting that terms like “problematic use” and even the word “internet” were open to broad interpretation, given the many forms the information and its delivery can take.

⑤Dr. Michael Rich, the director of the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital, said he discouraged the use of the word “addiction” because the internet, if used effectively and with limits, was not merely useful but also essential to everyday life.

⑥Greenfield agreed that there clearly are valuable uses for the internet and that the definition of how much is too much can vary. But he said there also were obvious cases where immoderate use disturbs school, sleep and other vital aspects of a healthy life. “Too many young consumers can’t put it down, ” he said.“ The internet, including social media like Meta, are the drugs affecting the mind.”

1. What was Meta accused of?

A．It added problematic features to its platform.

B．It started a discussion to mislead young people.

C．It tempted children to use social media too much.

D．It conducted illegal research on its parent company.

2. According to David Greenfield, users tend to be addicted to social media and the internet due to         .

A．their under-developed brain

B．the random pattern of rewards

C．their desire to be socially connected

D．the possibility of escaping from reality

3. What can be concluded about the study introduced in Paragraph 4?

A．Addiction is something about behaviors instead of substances.

B．The online language can be interpreted from a broad perspective.

C．Current diagnostic criteria of “internet addiction” isn’t satisfactory.

D．There should be an agreement on the definition of the word “internet”.

4. Dr. Michael Rich and David Greenfield both agree that        .

A．proper use of the internet does good to children

B．the internet is to blame for disturbing healthy life

C．there are cases against immoderate use of the internet

D．the word “addiction” is improperly used on the internet

9 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

In recent years, China has been working hard to improve living conditions in rural areas through a program called the New Rural Development Initiative.    1     goal of this initiative is to improve infrastructure (基础设施), modernize farming practices, and enhance the overall quality of life for those     2     (live) in the countryside.

One important aspect of the initiative is the improvement of rural infrastructure    3       includes the construction of better roads, bridges, and watering systems     4     (improve) the efficiency of transportation and agricultural activities.

Another key focus is the promotion of modern agricultural    5     (technique). By introducing advanced farming methods and technologies, such as organic farming and the use of

machinery, farmers are able to increase their productivity and income     6       damaging the environment.

Furthermore, the initiative emphasizes the importance of preserving traditional culture and heritage in rural communities. Efforts    7     (make) to regenerate local traditions, which not only enriches the cultural     8     (diverse) of the countryside but also creates new opportunities for cultural tourism and sustainable development. The initiative also aims to enhance the living environment in rural areas through the restoration of traditional houses     9     the construction of public facilities.

Through the initiative, China is working hard to create a more prosperous (繁荣的) and     10     (harmony) countryside, providing its rural residents with better opportunities and an improved quality of life.

10 . History has not yet _______ what we will definitively call the postmillennial cohort (2000年后出生的人) that now _______ more than 60 million people in the U.S. These kids and _______ with no concept of life _______ the Internet have so far been called the App Generation and Generation Z. They’ve been referred to as Homelanders, having grown up under the ghost of terorism. They’ve also been _______ the Plurals, for their historic diversity, as well as the Founders, at least by MTV.

Whatever we _______ naming them, marketers and academies are turning their attention to this group, which has billions in _______ and is already shaping the culture. This generation is growing up “totally and utterly connected,” says California State University psychologist Larry Rosen. Experts like Rosen have concerns about these kids’ Google-inspired expectations that everything be _______. They worry about their inability to _______ even five seconds of boredom. And they worry about the demands that come with ________ several identities online, from Facebook to Twitter to Snapchat. “There’s so much pressure on young people, who are still ________ their identities, to present this crystallized, idealized identity online,” says the University of Washington’s Katie Davis.

Historian Neil Howe sees ________ with the Silent Generation, the spoilt, risk-avoiding, “nice” generation of kids who grew up during the Great Depression and World War II, although some marked differences are found. Today’s youths are also coming of age among geopolitical trouble and fears about the economy, he says, ________ schools emphasize an intense far-reaching sensitivity to other kids. He suspects this ________ will be known for being well behaved and perhaps boring the culture by playing it safe. “There are typical examples that occur repeatedly,” Howe says, “even if they go by different ________.”

1.

A．remarked

B．convinced

C．guaranteed

D．revealed

2.

A．numbers

B．houses

C．accommodates

D．contains

3.

A．peers

B．adolescents

C．folks

D．guys

4.

A．over

B．without

C．besides

D．beyond

5.

A．diagnosed

B．dismissed

C．labeled

D．coined

6.

A．end up

B．consider about

C．appeal for

D．approve of

7.

A．distribution force

B．purchasing power

C．global view

D．unique outlooks

8.

A．vivid

B．instructive

C．instant

D．profitable

9.

A．feed up with

B．put up with

C．make up for

D．identify with

10.

A．faking

B．revising

C．illustrating

D．maintaining

11.

A．supervising

B．forming

C．representing

D．promoting

12.

A．parallels

B．contrasts

C．comparisons

D．reservations

13.

A．because

B．although

C．while

D．when

14.

A．emphasis

B．generation

C．intensity

D．cultivation

15.

A．routes

B．schemes

C．names

D．definitions