1 . It was a quiet morning in the library, and we librarians were enjoying a rather loud chat. Suddenly, a patron (常客) marched up to us, gave us an annoyed “Shush!” and went back to her seat. How strange for a group of librarians to be shushed by a patron! Shouldn’t it be the other way around?
Well, it’s complicated. If you’re like me, a middle-aged woman, you probably remember libraries as places of silent reading. These days, however, libraries are more like active community centers.
In the past, most libraries didn’t focus much on programs for kids whose age made it impossible for them to be quiet on demand. But growing knowledge about the importance of kids and teens learning through hands-on experiences has since caused a sea change in how libraries connect with young readers. Now libraries begin offering interactive programs for kids, including crafts, board games, and story times. These types of programs certainly aren’t designed to be silent.
Along with more programs for ever-younger children, technology today has played a part in the transformation of libraries into places where both kids and adults can use computers, make something on a 3D printer and more. In addition, many libraries now offer programs for adults, who can participate in in book discussion, learn calligraphy, and even take college classes.
Of course, libraries still need peaceful phones. These days, many libraries have glassed-off study rooms or quiet areas. They are also less noisy in the early afternoons, after morning children’s programs and before the after-school kid crowd arrive.
It’s clear to me now that on the day my colleagues and I were shushed by a patron, we should have been using our “library voices” as we talked. Still, it’s unlikely that libraries will ever return to the days when they were places of silence. There’s just too much fun and learning happening.
1. How did the author respond to the patron’s behavior?| A．She approved of it. | B．She was disappointed at it. |
| C．She hesitated about it. | D．She was astonished at it. |
| A．The past and the present of libraries. | B．The reason for the change of libraries. |
| C．The activities for young children in libraries. | D．The connection between libraries and readers. |
| A．They heavily depend on technology. | B．They offer online programs for adults. |
| C．They still provide silent reading places. | D．They care much about time arrangement. |
| A．Libraries Should be Loud | B．Reading Can be Fun in Libraries |
| C．Libraries Make Learning Happen | D．Library Programs Target Children |
注意：
1.观点明确，逻辑清楚，表达充分连贯，语言准确；
2.写作词数应为80左右；
3.开头已为你写好，不计入总词数。
Dear editor,
Recently there have been lots of discussions about whether it is necessary for primary school to learn English.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Yours,
Li Hua
3 . Laurie Santos, the psychology professor behind Yale University’s most popular course, recently launched a free six-week class aimed at teenagers, called “The Science of Well-Being for Teens”. It was developed to address rising rates of anxiety and depression and suicide (自杀) rates for kids between 9th and 12th grades, Santos says.
In the first lesson, she mentions one of the course’s pre-recorded lectures: Our brains lie to us about what makes us happy. “For adults, this may mean pursuing money or success at work, and for teens this might mean focusing on the perfect grades and getting into the best colleges,” Santos says. “The problem isn’t that we’re not putting work into feeling better—it’s that we’re doing the wrong things, prioritizing the wrong behaviors.”
Instead of focusing on reaching a financial milestone or perfect grades, aim to program your brain with thoughts and behaviors that make you feel better, Santos recommends. Regularly connecting with friends, taking care of your health and learning how to accept negative emotions all contribute more significantly to your well-being than having the right job, car or relationships, she adds in a course lecture.
The timing of the teen-specific course, which already has at least 17,000 members, is good, More than a third of teens self-report experiencing poor mental health, and nearly half feel constant sadness or hopelessness during the pandemic, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey that surveyed participants through mid-2021. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, those numbers had already increased by 40% from 2009 to 2019, the CDC noted. The agency’s survey also found that 20% of teens had seriously considered and 9% had attempted suicide.
Santos says she wants to help change those numbers by making the science of happiness accessible. “Happiness isn’t just about enjoying our day-to-day lives,” she adds. “It helps you land jobs and live longer, contributing to your success when you’re not really chasing it.”
1. Why did Laurie Santos start a free class?| A．To assist college students in finding good jobs. |
| B．To encourage young children to get perfect grades. |
| C．To attract more students to apply to Yale University. |
| D．To help teenagers deal with mental health problems. |
| A．People today know well how to be happier. | B．Today’s people don’t pursue happiness properly. |
| C．Adults do better in pursuing happiness than teens. | D．Rich people know how to accept negative emotions. |
| A．Teenagers were happier before mid-2021. | B．Few teenagers know their health problems. |
| C．Teenagers’ mental health issues are serious. | D．The teen-specific course has gained popularity. |
| A．To explore the factors for teenagers’ unhappiness. |
| B．To introduce an effective way to live a successful life. |
| C．To recommend a free course about happiness for teens. |
| D．To warn teenagers to pay more attention to their health. |
4 . A major emergency can create hundreds of thousands of refugees (难民) overnight. The most immediate way in which organizations like UNHCR and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) can help these refugees is by setting up refugee camps. Refugee camps are designed to be temporary, but they often remain in place for decades. In some parts of the world, children have grown up and had children of their own without ever leaving their camp.
Critics argue that they force refugees to be entirely dependent on donations. One journalist who visited the Nyadeou camp in the south of the Republic of Guinea A (Africa) in 2001, described how normally peaceful people were reduced to fighting with each other when the food truck arrived.
Refugees camps can easily become dirty, overcrowded and are overrun with disease or crime. In many camps, drug dealers hide themselves among the majority of innocent refugees.
One alternative for refugees is to settle in a town or village, making them become part of the local population. This is known as the “self-settlement”. Several aid agencies argue that the self-settlement is a better option in many cases than refugee camps. They say that self-settled refugees can start to rebuild their lives straight away, and are freer and safer than refugees in camps. Oxfam, the ICRC and many other international aid agencies support programs in which refugees are helped to self-settle.
Representatives of UNHCR argue that refugee camps are the best way of saving the greatest possible numbers of lives. They point out that it is much easier to help people if they are all gathered in one place. This is certainly true of emergency relief, for example the distribution of food, water, shelters and medical supplies. It is also true that long-term aid programs, such as family tracing, orphan support and, perhaps most importantly, education, can all be carried out much more easily when refugees are all living together in one place.
1. Who are responsible for the refugees’ dependence on donations?| A．Critics. | B．Children. | C．Refugee camps. | D．UNHCR and the ICRC. |
| A．More personal aid. | B．More living space. |
| C．Better training programs. | D．A better sense of security. |
| A．It can help save much land. | B．It’s easier for them to get schooling. |
| C．It can reduce the number of orphans. | D．It allows families to better help each other. |
| A．The advantages of refugee camps. | B．The disadvantages of refugee camps. |
| C．The advantages of the self-settlement. | D．The disadvantages of the self-settlement. |
5 . In 2020, Pink launched the world Regret Survey, the largest survey on the topic ever undertaken. With his research team, Pink asked more than 15, 000 people in 105 countries, “How often do you look back on your life and wish you had done things differently?” Most of them said regret was at least an occasional part of their life. Roughly 21 percent said they felt regretful all the time. Only 1 percent said they never felt regretful.
If you are of the “no regrets” school of life, you may think that all this regret is a recipe for unhappiness. But that isn’t the case. Letting yourself be overwhelmed by regret is indeed bad for you. But going to the other extreme maybe even worse. To extinguish your regrets doesn’t free you from shame or sadness but causes you to make the same mistakes again and again. To truly get over our guilt requires that we put regret in its proper place.
Uncomfortable as it is, regret is an amazing cognitive (认知的) feat. It requires that you go back to a past scene. Imagine that you acted differently to change it, and with that new scene in mind, arrive at a different present — and then, compare that fictional present with the one you are experiencing in reality. Not all regrets are the same, of course. Pink says they come in four basic varieties, and an instance of regret may involve just one combination.
Many connection regrets overlap (重叠) with moral regrets, which can come about after you go against your own values. For example, you may pride yourself on being a loving person, and thus regret not living up to this image in the relationship you harmed. Moral regrets can also involve (涉及) just yourself. Maybe you regret not living up to your commitment (承诺、保证) to your health when you ate a whole pizza or skipped the gym.
If not analyzed and managed, any variety of regret can be harmful to your health. Regret is linked to depression and anxiety, and excessive regret can have a bad effect on your immune system. But regret doesn’t have to be put aside and ignored.
1. What could be concluded from Pink’s research ?| A．Half of the people felt regretful. |
| B．Most people lived without regrets. |
| C．None could live a life without regrets. |
| D．The majority of the people had regrets. |
| A．Admit. | B．Destroy. | C．Treasure. | D．Advance. |
| A．The harm of moral regrets. |
| B．The importance of commitment. |
| C．The relationship between regrets and values. |
| D．The connection between reality and imagination. |
| A．Types of regrets. | B．Causes of regrets. |
| C．Benefits of experiencing regrets. | D．Ways of dealing with regrets. |
6 . It’s good to be smart. After all, intelligent people earn more money, accumulate more wealth, and even live longer. But there’s another side to the story. The brightest people and strongest leaders sometimes make errors others don’t, especially in situations that require common sense.
Travis Bradberry, president at TalentSmart, explained in his post Why Smart People Act So Stupid that “Rational thinking (理性思维) and intelligence don’t tend to go hand in hand. Intelligent people are more likely to make silly mistakes because of blind spots in how they use logic. These blind spots exist because smart people tend to be overconfident in their reasoning abilities.” They are so used to being right and having quick answers that they don’t even realize when they’re making a mess by answering without thinking things through.
A lifetime of praise leads smart people to develop too much faith in their intelligence and abilities. They often fail to recognize when they need help, and when they do recognize it, they tend to believe that no one else is capable of providing it.
“It’s hard for anyone to graciously accept the fact that they’re wrong. It’s even harder for smart people because they grow so used to being right all the time that it becomes a part of their identity,” Bradberry wrote. “For smart people, being wrong can feel like a personal attack, and being right, a necessity.”
Smart people also have a hard time accepting feedback. They tend to undervalue the opinions of others, which means they have trouble believing that anyone is qualified to give them useful feedback. Not only does this tendency slow their growth and performance, it can lead to harmful relationships, both personally and professionally.
Smart people develop overachieving personalities because things come so easily to them. They simply don’t understand how hard some people have to work to accomplish the same things, and because of that, they push people too hard. They set the bar too high, and when people take too long or don’t get things quite right, they assume it’s due to a lack of effort. So they push even harder.
1. What do we learn from the passage about the brightest people?| A．They can differ in their personalities. |
| B．They are admired by people around them. |
| C．They usually face their own weaknesses calmly. |
| D．They can make silly mistakes in straightforward situations. |
| A．Their irrational way of thinking. | B．Too much concern about their work. |
| C．Too much faith in their ability to think. | D．Their ignorance of behavioral science. |
| A．They may experience a lot of emotional stress. |
| B．They may commit more errors than ever before. |
| C．They may lose faith in their administrative abilities. |
| D．They may suffer in their professional and private life. |
| A．They are under increasing pressure. | B．They set higher goals for themselves. |
| C．They put a lot of effort into their work. | D．They take less time to get things done. |
7 . These days, it’s not unusual to see middle-aged men collecting Star Wars action figures, office workers wearing Hello Kitty accessories, or celebrities like David Beckham playing with Lego bricks. It’s becoming more and more common to see adults taking an interest in toys, comic books and the activities that are traditionally associated with children. This phenomenon has given rise to a new word: kidult.
What lies behind the phenomenon? One is about adults’ nostalgia(怀旧之情) for the carefree days of childhood, and this is especially true with today’s fast-paced, stressful lifestyles. Another is about a societal change in recent decades where people are starting families later. As a result, they have more time and money to spend on themselves. Some adults could only window-shop for their dream toys when they were kids, but now they can afford that radio-controlled car or high-priced doll they have always wanted.
Businesses have been quick to exploit the kidult trend, and the number of toy stores that target adults has risen. Companies are repackaging products from past decades and also bringing out new ones for adults. Lego, for example, has brought out an architectural series featuring landmarks from around the world.
Society traditionally disapproves of adults who refuse to put aside childhood interests, viewing the refusal as a sign of social immaturity and irresponsibility. Those who agree with this view sometimes claim that kidults are suffering from the pop-psychology concept known as Peter Pan Syndrome, an anomaly(异常) that people remain emotionally at the level of teenagers. On a grander scale, these kidult opponents argue that such delayed adulthood causes couples to marry later and have fewer children. This in turn can lead to shrinking national economies, for there needs to be a generational replenishment(补充) of the workforce.
From the standpoint of kidults, though, this phenomenon is seen as nothing but harmless fun. Kidults insist that having youthful interests keeps them young, happy and creative, and their refusal to conform to society’s acceptable tastes shows independent thinking. Besides, they argue that being part of the social trend of delayed adulthood is not purely a personal choice. The real causes include expensive housing, increased educational requirements for employment and poor work opportunities.
Whether the kidult phenomenon will continue to grow or prove to be a passing trend is anyone’s guess. As the debate about it continues, remember that there is nothing wrong with being young at heart.
1. What does the kidult phenomenon refer to?| A．Adults act like children. | B．Adults like playing with children. |
| C．Adults go in for collecting toys. | D．Adults have child-like tastes. |
| A．High pressure of modern life. | B．More choices about toys. |
| C．Different living conditions. | D．Good memories of childhood. |
| A．Get used to. | B．Look forward to. |
| C．Make way for. | D．Take advantage of. |
| A．By strongly opposing kidult opponents. |
| B．By refusing to take a stand on the issue. |
| C．By presenting both sides of the argument. |
| D．By convincing readers to accept kidults. |
8 . As athletes get stronger and faster, the pace of play continues to increase. The burden of making sure games are played according to the rules and that the officiating (裁判) is accurate is now being taken out of human hands and falling more and more into the lap of technology. It’s called the video replay.
The National Football League is expanding its replay system this upcoming season to include pass interference (传球干扰). Major League Baseball now relies on it for safe-or-out and home run calls. If you’ve been watching the FIFA World Cup, you may have noticed that the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) played a key role in almost every game. And in the Kentucky Derby, a horse was disqualified for knocking another horse. No one knew why until a video replay confirmed the call and controversy was avoided.
However, many purists—those who want people to follow rules carefully and do things in the traditional way—especially in soccer, argue it’s not the way the game was invented, and that the video replay is tainting the sport. But don’t you want to see the proper application of the rules throughout the games? I know I do. Yes, it can slow the game down, but I feel it is worth it. If technological advancements allow fans watching from home to spot mistakes instantly, those same views need to be available to the officiating crews. Another example occurred in the most recent National Football Conference (NFC) Championship Game between the Los Angeles Rams and the New Orleans Saints. When obvious pass interference was committed by the Los Angeles Rams player Nickell Robey-Coleman, with just 109 seconds to play, no flag was raised on the field. It weakened the New Orleans Saints spirits. The Los Angeles Rams won a 26-23 overtime victory. The no-call deeply angered the public. The video replay showed the referees had just missed one of the most apparent pass interference calls.
There are no easy answers regarding replay technology and whether it is a curse (魔咒). But for me, keeping the officiating honest and on task is the right step in limiting controversy.
1. What trend in sports can be observed in paragraph 2?| A．The video replay has been widely used. |
| B．League games have become competitive. |
| C．Rules of professional games are becoming stricter. |
| D．People are showing more interest in sports than before. |
| A．Tricking. | B．Promoting. | C．Damaging. | D．Restoring. |
| A．They relied a lot on the video replay. |
| B．They cared too much about details. |
| C．They were definitely stressed out. |
| D．They were terribly disqualified. |
| A．Video replays: high-end technology in sports |
| B．Is technology like VAR a blessing in sports? |
| C．Officiating: a duty that requires honesty |
| D．What do qualified referees really mean? |
9 . A new study suggests that science role-playing may help tighten the gender gap in science, technology, engineering, and math(STEM)education and careers for women simply by improving their identity as scientists.
Frustrated by the gender gap in STEM, in which some fields employ at least three times more men than women, Cornell graduate student Reut Shachnai wanted to do something about it. Reut said the idea to help foster young girls’ interest in science came to her during a lecture in a class she was taking on Psychology of Imagination.
Reut designed an experiment to test if assuming the role of a successful scientist would improve girls’ persistence in a “sink or float” science game. The game itself was simple yet challenging: a computer screen projected a slide with an object in the center above a pool of water. Kids then had to predict whether the object would sink or float.
She studied 240 four -to -seven -year -olds, because this is around the time kids first develop their sense of identity and capabilities. They were divided into two groups. Children in the “story” group learned about the successes and struggles of a gender -matched scientist before playing the game. Boys heard about Isaac Newton and girls were told about Marie Curie. Children in the “pretend” group were told to assume the identity of the scientist they just learned about.
All kids played at least one round of the game. No matter what group they were in, girls got the answers right just as often as boys -nearly 70% of the time. Boys, however, didn’t really benefit from the stories or make-believe. Besides, girls pretending to be Dr. Marie persisted twice as long at the sink-or-float game, playing just as much as the boys did.
Reut’s teacher Tamar Kushnir said, “Rather than merely hearing about role models, children may benefit from actively performing the type of actions they see role models perform. In other words, taking a few steps in the role model’s shoes, instead of merely observing her walk.”
1. Why did Reut design a “sink or float” science game?| A．To handle the gender gap in STEM. | B．To attach importance to STEM. |
| C．To draw kids’ attention to STEM. | D．To compare boys’ and girls’ persistence. |
| A．Kids enjoyed listening to scientists’ stories. | B．Boys avoided playing make-believe games. |
| C．Girls performed as well as boys in science. | D．Children followed Dr. Marie to explore science. |
| A．Supportive. | B．Doubtful. | C．Indifferent. | D．Negative. |
| A．Girls should get recognition like boys | B．A fine example has boundless power for kids |
| C．Girls can work on more science games | D．Make-believe exercises benefit girls in STEM |
10 . The rise of social media has revolutionized human connectivity, but its overuse can make people feel increasingly unhappy and isolated.
One significant problem with frequent social media use is comparing ourselves to others. Many individuals experience “Facebook envy”.
Social media can also make it hard to form real friendships. Constant online interaction may make us feel lonely and left out when we see others having fun online. Stina Sanders, a former model, explained “When I see my friend’s photos of a party I didn’t go to, it can make me feel quite lonely and anxious”.
Quality sleep is essential for mental health, but excessive phone use before bedtime can severely disturb it. The anxiety and envy induced by social media content can keep our brains alert, making it challenging to fall asleep.
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If you feel like social media is beginning to affect you, why not consider allocating less social media time? The slight change can do you a lot of good.
| A．Regular use of Facebook can keep good relationships. |
| B．Social media offers a convenient way to record memories. |
| C．This can lead to feelings of dissatisfaction with themselves. |
| D．Plus, the blue light that is given off by screens affects our sleep. |
| E．Therefore, it’s important to develop genuine offline relationships. |
| F．Social media can lead to serious physical and mental health issues. |
| G．The reliance on it can negatively impact people’s mental health in the long run. |
