1 . Waste not, Want not

Today, I live in Manhattan with my husband, Alex. I’m an IT specialist and Alex is a lawyer. Life’s good, but sometimes I look at the way we live it and think of Ellie, my grandmother. Her favorite saying was “Waste not, want not.”     1    . Ellie carefully folded the paper from parcels and washed glass jars to use again. Frank, my grandfather, used old socks and pullovers (套头毛衣) to protect the plants in winter. Nowadays, we go to a garden center to buy special felt for that purpose. Have we all gone mad?

Such economy seems strange, even ridiculous, in our modern throwaway society, where everything is sold in boxes.     2    , but as a selling feature to make us want to buy them. Ellie and Frank would have seen the very idea of a “gift pack” as a cheat.

    3    . The United States produces about 180 million metric tons of waste per year, 70% of which is packaging materials. The average American family uses up six trees’ worth of paper a year.     4    , they would reach to the moon and back twelve times. “We can’t go on like this,” I said to Alex. “Let’s start at home. If everybody starts at home, then this madness will stop.”

    5    . Of course, this meant that we produced a lot of waste, but I was shocked to find that this came to over six kilos per week. “Your grandma Ellie with her ‘Waste not, want not’ was really modern, wasn’t she?” “Not really,” I said. “Ellie and their neighbors were just ordinary, traditional New Englanders. We’ve all gone mad since then.”

A．Packaging is not only used to protect goods

B．My grandparents threw almost nothing away

C．In one week alone, we threw away five old magazines

D．We didn’t often go shopping and then cook meals at home

E．As young Manhattan professionals, we buy a lot of “convenience food”

F．But we pay a high financial and ecological price for our lovely packaging

G．If you placed all the cans used in the United States, in one year end to end

2 . 阅读下面短文，根据短文内容填空。在未给提示词的空白处仅填写1个适当的单词，在给出提示词的空白处用括号内所给词的正确形式填空。

Lydia gave all the money to some charities which help the children     1     parents are dead. She had worked there as a volunteer     2     the past three years. “I first visited the orphanage (孤儿院) when I was seven, and I felt very sad by what I saw.” However, some of her friends at university thought that maybe she     3     (make) the wrong decision. But she knew it was the right thing to do.

3 . Would you rather be an impressive employee in an ordinary firm, or land a role at the most well-known company in your industry?

The answer to that question might seem highly personal, based on factors like whether or not you are a competitive person and how much you enjoy a challenge. In fact, there’s another strong factor at play: People from different cultures react very differently to that question. The psychologists from the University of Michigan asked people theoretical questions about the decisions they take. Specifically, the researchers compared people with East Asian backgrounds and European American backgrounds. They found that Americans are much more likely to favor being a big fish in a small pond. East Asians, and specifically Chinese people, are much more likely than Americans to lean towards being a smaller fish in a bigger pond.

Researchers first asked 270 students at a large American university whether they would rather be a “big fish in a small pond” or the opposite. Of the students with East Asian American backgrounds, three quarters said they’d rather be a small fish, compared with just under 60% of students with European American backgrounds who said the same.

The researchers then compared American and Chinese adults. They asked the participants whether they would rather attend a top university but perform below average, and whether they would rather work for a top global company but do less well in comparison to their peers. Over half the Chinese adults chose the famous university, compared with just a third of Americans. In the case of the firms, well over half of people from both groups chose to do better at a less well-known firm, but Chinese people were still more likely to choose being a “small fish” than were Americans.

The final experiment sought to discover how American and Chinese people made judgments about whether they were succeeding. They found that Chinese people were more likely to compare their performance to the performance of people in other groups. Americans, meanwhile, were more likely to compare themselves to people within the same group, to judge whether or not they were doing well.

In East Asian cultures, it’s “not enough that you know you’re doing well in your school,” said Kaidi Wu, a PhD student in psychology who led the research. “It is much more important that other people — an outsider, a family relative, a future employer who has five seconds to glance through your resume — also recognize your academic excellence.”

America is the opposite: “Think about how many times themes like ‘You are your own person’ or ‘Stop worrying about what other people think’ course through song lyrics and self-help books,” Wu said, concluding: “The choices we make are the products of our culture.”

1. The psychologists from the University of Michigan find that ______.

A．Americans tend to achieve success in a big company

B．Chinese are likely to perform better in a big company

C．Americans prefer to shine in a relatively small company

D．Chinese are comfortable with working in a small company

2. The final experiment aims to ______.

A．compare different attitudes towards competition	B．find different views about personal success
C．judge performances of different groups	D．confirm which culture is better

3. A Chinese student will be more satisfied if he gains recognition from ______.

A．his neighbors

B．his classmates

C．his teachers

D．his parents

4. According to Kaidi Wu, culture ______.

A．plays a key role in people’s choice making	B．shows who we grow up to be in the future
C．is the most important factor behind success	D．determines students’ academic performance

4 . Beauty and Well-being Benefits of Handed Massage Guns

What are they?

Originally beloved by athletes, massage guns are gaining popularity as a stress or pain-relieving tool. A quick and convenient alternative to a traditional deep-tissue massage, many offer detachable heads to target calves, ankles or the top s of shoulders, available in a range of sizes and speeds.

What are the supposed benefits?

If you often find yourself aching after the gym or a long day of work, a massage gun may well be your new best friend. Sending pulses at a steady frequency that is difficult to achieve manually, they allow you to target a specific area of tightness, loosening lactic acid buildup muscle and allowing for greater mobility and muscle flexibility. Even if you’re not so physically active, a couple of minutes of regular massaging can do wonders for your complexion.

Through vibration frequency, the movement of a massage gun will encourage blood and lymphatic (淋巴的) circulation, giving a new vibrancy and comfort to skin as toxins (毒素) drain out and oxygen flows through. If you’ve been feeling heavy or struggling to unwind, massage guns are also thought to be a useful tool in the rehabilitation (康复) of depression, anxiety, digestive disorders and stress-related insomnia.

Do they actually work?

Once you get used to the quiet humming noise, the swift, targeted relief a gun can offer more than justifies the initial spend. Leading the market is the Lola, a lightweight handheld gun in a sleek matte finish with four speeds that tucks easily into the pocket of an overnight bag. The key is to operate within your own comfort-be sure to fit the adjustable heads firmly and work through the speed functions slowly, building up to higher pressures only if necessary. While concerns about suitability for specific conditions or injuries should always be discussed with a doctor, the massage gun is certainly proof that both internal and external beauty can be achieved by listening that little bit closer to our bodies.

1. What is not the supposed benefits of handed massage guns?

A．To target a specific area of tightness.

B．To allow for greater mobility and muscle flexibility.

C．To encourage blood and lymphatic circulation.

D．To help lactic acid build up in muscles.

2. What can we learn about handed massage guns?

A．Many offer fixed heads to target diverse muscles.

B．The initial spend is too high to be justified by their functions.

C．They can help rehabilitate people with depression and anxiety.

D．Their suitability for specific conditions and injuries is certain.

3. What is the purpose of this passage?

A．To show the beauty and well-being benefits of handed massage guns.

B．To inform us the availability of different sizes of handed massage guns.

C．To share with us the popularity of handed massage guns among athletes.

D．To compare handed massage guns with doctors on suitability for injuries.

5 . 阅读下列短文，根据短文内容填空。在未给提示词的空白处仅填写1个适当的单词，在给出提示词的空白处用括号内所给词的正确形式填空。

Talking is the most     1    (effect) and satisfying way of communication with others. There are many forms of communication,     2     include texting, cell phones, email, and social media. Using these alternative forms to communicate with others may be faster, but they lack many qualities that a face-to-face conversation has. Facial expression and body language can     3     (great) affect a conversation.

6 . 阅读下列短文，根据短文内容填空。在未给提示词的空白处仅填写1个适当的单词，在给出提示词的空白处用括号内所给词的正确形式填空。

A fire completely destroyed my mobile home last year, just four months after I had paid it off! I had to rebuild it with what little I had saved. Because     1     I had would not be enough , I began to rent out my RV (娱乐车) as a way to help ends meet. I was sure it was     2     (attract) to some people. One woman     3     had booked a week in the RV called and told me that her husband had just lost his job. He felt that they should cancel the trip as an amusement.

7 . 请选出与释义“鼓舞人心的”匹配的单词。

A．rewarding

B．limiting

C．inspiring

D．living

8 . 请选出与释义“令人钦佩的”匹配的单词。

A．authority

B．admirable

C．argument

D．accessible

9 . 阅读下面短文，根据题目要求用英文回答问题。请在答题卡指定区域作答。

Balancing Trees and CO₂

Tree planting used to be regarded as an effective means of reducing climate change. Perhaps it’s time for us to rethink this practice. Trees pull CO₂ from the air. This effectively removes CO₂ from the atmosphere. But trees only hold onto CO₂ as long as they’re alive. Once they die, trees decay (腐烂) and release that CO₂ back into the atmosphere.

Recent studies have found that trees around the world are growing faster than ever. The rise of CO₂, mainly due to burning fossil fuels, is probably driving that rapid growth, said Roel Brienen, a forest ecologist at the University of Leeds, UK. High levels of CO₂ are increasing temperatures, which in turn speeds tree growth in those areas, he added.

The faster trees grow, the faster they store carbon. It seems like good news. However, it is known that fast-growing tree species, in general, live shorter lives than their slow-growing relatives.

In order to see whether the growth-lifespan trade-off (生长与寿命之间的权衡) is a universal phenomenon, Brienen and his colleagues analyzed over 210,000 individual tree ring records of 110 tree species from more than 79,000 sites worldwide. They found that, in almost all habitats and all sites, faster-growing tree species died younger than slow-growing species, and even within a species, the trade-off between growth and life span held strong.

The team also created a computer program that modeled a forest and tweaked (微量调整) the growth of the trees in this model. Early on, it showed that “the forest could hold more carbon as the trees grew faster”, Brienen reported. But after 20 years, these trees started dying and losing this extra carbon again. “We must understand that the only solution to bringing down CO₂ levels is to stop emitting (排放) it into the atmosphere,” said Brienen.

1. What does “this practice” in Para.1 refer to?
___________________________________________________________________________________________
2. Why are trees around the world growing faster than ever?
___________________________________________________________________________________________
3. Read the following statement, underline the false part of it and explain the reason. The team has found that the faster trees grow, the faster they store CO₂, and the longer lives they live.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
4. Please briefly present what you can do in daily life to reduce the emission of CO₂.（about 40 words）
____________________________________________________________________________________________

10 . 阅读下面短文，根据短文内容填空。在未给提示词的空白处仅填写1个恰当的单词，在给出提示词的空白处用括号内所给词的正确形式填空。

Chinese people have a strong need for cultural consumption, and the need pushes people who work in the field of cultural relics and museum to explore     1    (effect) ways to make cultural relics popular, said Ma Xiaolin, the head of Henan Museum.

In recent years, TV shows, performances and cultural products     2    (relate) to cultural relics have gone viral one by one.     3     inspired their creation was the combination of traditional Chinese culture and modern life. Moreover, innovative ideas and new technology come together to enable immersive experience of stories in the history, and social media helps the spread of new cultural products.