1 . Virtual reality is quickly becoming the new technological frontier. Tech companies everywhere seem to be racing to get their foot in the VR door. However, virtual reality has a set of challenges and hurdles that it must overcome in order to work well. It should be noted that VR is heavily dependent on being very fast, very accurate and very good-looking. If it isn’t, the viewer will feel motion sick or disconnected from the world that VR is trying to create.
Now that we can actually build VR headsets that begin to meet these requirements, we are seeing a rising interest in VR. As it rises, so does the interest in creating new media to be experienced in using virtual reality. Journalism is a medium built on relevance. Journalists should always be finding new ways to tell stories and deliver content. It is a goldmine for storytelling. What better ways to tell a story to someone than to put them right in the center of it?
Virtual reality is a powerful tool for journalists. The consumer isn’t just reading or watching something play out; they’re experiencing it. The immersive nature of VR allows for people to connect with the subject matter on a much deeper level than just reading about it. The experience is emotional, speaking more to our instinct than our intellect. The possibilities for storytelling here are legion, and any storyteller wanting to do something more interesting than their peers should surely be considering the sheer power of VR.
The question of virtual reality, though, is not how powerful it is. That is immediately apparent. The question of VR is one of viability and availability. Telling stories must be easy to do, and access to those stories must be readily available. This is the biggest challenge that VR faces. If the tools to tell a story with VR aren’t easy to pick up and learn, VR will fail. If VR technology isn’t both top-of-the-line and affordable, VR will fail.
Accessibility was one concern for Thomas Hallaq, assistant professor of journalism and mass communications, who said that current VR technology, is pretty exclusive right now. Despite that, he said he doesn’t think the exclusivity of this technology will be a problem in the long run.
“I think it’s very promising,” Hallaq said. “We’re seeing more technology become accessible, and more people having access to that technology. Just look at smartphones.” Like radio, TV and the Internet before it, virtual reality will change the way we tell stories.
1. Why is VR considered a powerful tool for journalism?| A．Because it is an exclusively new tool. |
| B．Because it is very powerful and popular. |
| C．Because people can experience the story in person. |
| D．Because it is very fast, accurate and good-looking. |
| A．How powerful and interesting it can be. |
| B．Whether people will have easy access to it. |
| C．Whether qualified VR headsets can be built. |
| D．What new ways people will find to deliver content. |
| A．Optimistic. | B．Neutral. | C．Pessimistic. | D．Concerned. |
| A．The Wide Popularity of Virtual Reality |
| B．The Future Development of Virtual Reality |
| C．Challenges and Hurdles of Virtual Reality |
| D．Virtual Reality is the Future of Storytelling |
2 . Some immigrants (外来移民) in the northeastern part of the US, Maine, are learning to lose their accents. They speak English fluently but have a difficult time being understood because they have heavy accents.
Nyirabahizi said she left her home and job in Rwanda two years ago, coming to America in hopes of a brighter future. She has a master’s degree in computer science and speaks English fluently. She said all of her classes in Rwanda were taught in English, but here she had to learn again because of her accent.
She attended a free class to reduce her accent with seven other students. The city of Portland conducted the class and Greenlaw was the teacher. She said immigrants who had reduced their accents had greater success at work. And they could communicate more easily with store workers, teachers, doctors and neighbors. “It’s a basic need to be understood,” Greenlaw told the newspaper, “It affects every part of their lives.”
Greenlaw began the class by telling students the 44 sounds of the English language. She told the students how the lips and jaws worked to form the sound. She told the students that some American English pronunciation rules didn’t make a lot of sense. But she said it was important to learn them if immigrants wanted to be understood by Americans.
Losing one’s accent is especially important for immigrants who live in Maine. More than 90 percent of the population of Maine are whites. Many people who live in Maine have not heard foreign accents except in movies or on televisions.
Greenlaw said some Mainers were impatient with people who spoke English with heavy accents. Her students said some Mainers ignored them or were unfriendly toward them because of their accents. They said this made them less likely to speak.
1. Why do some immigrants have difficulty making themselves understood?| A．Their classes aren’t taught in English. | B．They don’t master English at school. |
| C．They speak English with heavy accents. | D．They don’t speak English fluently. |
| A．To change their low social positions. | B．To hide their identities of immigrants. |
| C．To forget their native languages. | D．To help them better work and communicate. |
| A．Grateful. | B．Cold. | C．Doubtful. | D．Supportive. |
| A．Immigrants Learn to Change Their Accents | B．Immigrants Are Required to Speak Well |
| C．Heavy Accents Cause Failures | D．Good English Makes Success |
3 . “My goal is that the City of Atlanta becomes the best place in the United States to raise a family,” says Mayor (市长) Andre Dickens about the capital of Georgia.
Dickens grew up in Atlanta. Recently, he was asked about his main goals for this city of nearly 500,000 people. His focus, he said, is on the youth. For that reason, he told the public officially 2023 is the Year of the Youth.
“Whatever we do, we have to think about young people,” Dickens said. “Atlanta’s young people are our future. Continuing to invest (投资) in future generations puts them on pathways to success that will help us move Atlanta forward together.”
Dickens said that after he put forward the idea of the Year of the Youth, businesses, nonprofits, and other community members all said, “I want to be in on that.”
Businesses offer summer internship (实习) programs. They allow students in Atlanta to get valuable experience in the workplace. Dickens explained that several businesses in the city even made their working environments suitable for young people to join in internships.
Improving education is another key goal. Schools and city leaders have been working together to make their partnership in the service of young people stronger. Toward this end, the city is working to improve educational opportunities, create safe ways to school, and offer after-school activities for free or at little cost.
Dickens also believes that it’s important to invest in early education. Investing in early education, he explained, means that more young people will be able to develop basic skills, stopping them from falling behind later in life.
Dickens is looking forward to positive results. “Everyone’s getting ready to serve the young people over the summer,” he said.
1. Why does Dickens invest in future generations?| A．To encourage the development of the city. |
| B．To draw more attention to young people. |
| C．To attract more youths to Atlanta. |
| D．To make Atlanta more famous. |
| A．Worried. | B．Supportive. | C．Doubtful. | D．Uncaring. |
| A．The importance of internship for the youth. |
| B．Dickens’ suggestions to businesses. |
| C．How businesses help the youth. |
| D．Why businesses offer help. |
| A．It builds more schools for early education. |
| B．It cooperates with schools and businesses. |
| C．It asks more young people for their support. |
| D．It helps young people with personal problems. |
On Xiaohongshu, a lifestyle-focused social media platform in China, a search for “new Chinese style” could produce over 4 million results,
Whether it is fashion, home furniture, architecture, coffee
If you have learnt some maths at school, you can quite
6 . Every festival has its own meaning. Labor Day, for example, celebrates the value of hard work. Thanksgiving is about showing thanks to people around you. And Valentines’ Day is a time when you express love to your loved ones. But somehow it now seems that all festivals we just care about one thing — shopping. And that can be a big problem.
“In a way, over-consumption (过度消费) is the mother of all our environmental problems,” Kalle Lasn once told CNN. Lasn is the organizer of Buy Nothing Day, a day set up in Canada in 1992 to fight against unhealthy spending habits, and has now become an international event. It’s held on the day, which is known as Black Friday — a famous shopping day in the US and Canada.
You can see the irony (讽刺) here.
Even though the idea of Buy Nothing Day was brought up 26 years ago, we seem to need it now more than ever. It’s just as Lasn said, all the different kinds of pollution in our lives today — bad air quality, the reduction of forest area, endangered animal species, and plastic bags found in the ocean — seem to be the same cause: over-consumption.
The latest example is the Singles’ Day shopping craze of Nov 11, which saw a new sales record. But as Nie Li, a campaigner at Greenpeace, told Reuters, “Record-setting over-consumption means record-setting waste.” And it was reported that last year the Singles’ Day packages left more than 160,000 tons of waste, including plastic and cardboard. The Collins Dictionary has also just named “single-use” its Word of the Year, pointing out the problem that there’re too many things we tow out after only using them once.
So, Buy Nothing Day might only be here for one day a year, but it’s not just to remind us to the a break from shopping on that day, but to change our lifestyle completely, focusing on fun “with people we care about” rather than wasting money on useless things.
1. What’s the authors purpose of writing the first paragraph?| A．To express the people’s love for all festivals. |
| B．To talk about the meaning of the festivals. |
| C．To appreciate the value of the festivals. |
| D．To bring out the topic of the passage. |
| A．To help people save money. | B．To cut the cost for daily life. |
| C．To prevent over-consumption. | D．To set up a new sales record. |
| A．Opposed (反对的). | B．Supportive. |
| C．Unknown. | D．Neutral (中立的). |
| A．Creating a New Lifestyle | B．Buy Nothing Day |
| C．Festivals Around the World | D．A Change in People’s Life |
7 . Teenagers who travel around the world alone have been making headlines quite often. A young person alone in a dangerous situation attracts attention and supporters. Young sailors also attract various views. For example, Jessica Watson was asked by the government to call off her solo trip across the ocean, yet the Prime Minister (总理) called her “a hero for young Australians” when she returned. It seems views are poles apart on the ability and independence of young people.
Some experts tell us that teenage brains are likely to make wrong judgments. But such ideas often do not apply to specific individuals (个体) . Between the ages of 14 and 18, teenagers differ greatly in their abilities. The amount of independence that each is allowed should be determined not simply by their ages but by discussion with the related, responsible adults. Some teens are certainly inexperienced and make childish mistakes, but the ones who attempt dangerous journeys normally do so by winning the confidence of hard-headed and experienced adult supporters.
But it’s also wrong to think that any 16-year-old can make a hit as Jessica Watson. Watson calls herself “a common girl who had a dream”. Her purpose is to encourage teenagers but this idea can have the opposite effect of making them feel not good enough because great achievements are beyond them. Should all teens have such wild dreams? Actually, individuals face different conditions that limit their dreams.
Teenagers who travel around the world alone should not be judged by preconceived (先入为主的) views about young people. Nor should young “common” teenagers feel pressure to long for extraordinary personal goals. In fact, I believe the example of solo sailing overstresses what an individual can do. The teenage years are when most of us “common” people learn that we can achieve great things in cooperation with others.
1. Why is Jessica Watson mentioned in the first paragraph?| A．To set a heroic example for teenagers. |
| B．To point out the public’s interest in young people. |
| C．To introduce different opinions on teenagers’ adventures. |
| D．To show the Prime Minister disagreed with the government. |
| A．Different journeys. | B．Brain development. |
| C．Communication with adults. | D．Confidence in themselves. |
| A．She likes dangerous journeys. | B．Teenagers can make success. |
| C．She can accept she is common. | D．Teenagers should go travelling. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Supportive. | C．Uncaring. | D．Uncertain. |
8 . Every year around August, millions of teens take their parents to stores to buy new clothes for the start of the school year. Not every parent can afford this, and some teens are forced to go to school in the same clothes they wore last year. The obvious differences in clothes cause differences among students. There is a simple solution to this problem; school uniforms (校服).
I know from personal experience and surveys that wearing uniforms creates a sense of equality among peers (同龄人).
From sixth grade until I graduated from senior high school, I attended a school that required students to wear uniforms. The uniform was very simple: dark brown shoes, green-brown pants, and a white shirt. The uniform left little room for any kind of self-expression, especially through clothes.
However, I learned how to stand out by expressing myself through my personality, art, and sports. I did not know I could draw until the sixth grade. I also would never have learned of my musical abilities if it hadn’t been for my desire to find ways to express myself. Uniforms taught me that I was myself, except what I wore.
Uniforms also contribute to a much safer learning environment. I remember a particular event that happened in my junior high school. A man ran away from prison and wanted to hide in the gym of our school. Luckily, cameras all over the school quickly found the stranger before any danger could ever happen as he was out of place. School officials kept the man locked inside our gym until the police came to take him back to prison.
Uniforms help provide a better educational experience for all students no matter what race, culture, or economic class (经济阶层). In closing, wearing uniforms is good for both schools and students.
1. How does the author introduce the topic?| A．By explaining a basic rule. |
| B．By challenging others’ views. |
| C．By describing a common problem. |
| D．By sharing his parents’ experience. |
| A．Uniforms should be more modern. |
| B．Uniforms can help shape better students. |
| C．Uniforms are popular with students. |
| D．Uniforms are bad for self-development. |
| A．Dressing differently. | B．Standing straight. |
| C．Running fast. | D．Breathing heavily. |
| A．To record his high school life. |
| B．To show his supportive view towards uniforms. |
| C．To ask students to like what they wear. |
| D．To introduce high school uniforms. |
9 . While I was jumping rope, my smartphone took a fall to the floor which created cracks (裂缝) on my screen. However, the music kept playing. 30 minutes later, I could see only one-tenth of my screen while the rest was black. The next morning, I decided not to use it for 24 hours. I felt a sense of calm that day, which led to my not using it for one week. One week ended up becoming 60 days in total without my smartphone.
Here are some advantages I noticed in this challenge.
You’ll become “bored”
Without my phone, I became bored, but my mind went through all kinds of topics, Boredom (无聊) is a perfect way to create new ideas on a business or project. When you are bored, you allow your mind to relax to reach all possibilities.
You’ll be able to reduce your “work” hours
A survey found that adults checked their smartphones 85 times a day, or once every 10 minutes. As I learned in my challenge, by not having my smartphone, I fell into deep work more easily, so I completed my tasks in a shorter time.
You’ll improve your mental health
Without my phone, I avoided reading negative news and comments. While that helped make a big improvement in my mental health, the biggest reason for it was truly communicating with people. It brought me more connections with humans in the real world. I went to more dinners with friends and asked more questions to strangers.
1. Boredom is a good way for the writer ________ .| A．to create new ideas | B．to start a business |
| C．to set up a project | D．to relax the body |
| A．more terribly | B．more quickly |
| C．more carelessly | D．more comfortably |
| A．Chatting on the phone. | B．Reading negative news. |
| C．Communicating in the real world. | D．Avoiding meeting friends and strangers. |
10 . The artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT can offer everything from answers to basic general knowledge questions, to writing essays and poems. Ask ChatGPT to write about the history of the French Revolution or Battles of Hastings, and it will provide a perfect essay in less than a second. It's such a powerful tool openly accessible to any student for free. However, AI-based plagiarism (抄 袭) or so called “AIgiarism” is fast taking off across student populations internationally, ringing alarm bells in schools and universities around the world
The developers OpenAI have since decided to prevent the misuse of its technology. The company is developing a system, water marks, for identifying those who cheat by submitting essays written by ChatGPT. By using the system which changes certain works into a recognizable pattern, the machine written text could be identified by anyone looking for the signs. These changes would not be noticeable to the reader. The researchers say that by setting up this kind of security system, it could prevent the technology from being misused for whatever reason. Such measures will also prevent an overdependence on the tool, which still has a long way to go before improving its accuracy, due to the fact that it collects the information from all over the internet. The CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, said in a statement that it would be a mistake to depend on it for anything important at this stage.
Schools also in turn have tried to take matters into their own hands, with many across Europe and the US updating their policies to warn of punishments for those who are caught using the program improperly.
Other schools have limited internet network access to ChatGPT on campus. Examiners have the sense to identify essays written by ChatGPT by a lack of emotion or personal experiences in them. This ability is a human advantage—AI will struggle to copy.
1. Why does the author mention French Revolution and Battles of Hastings?| A．To explain what they are. | B．To introduce the history of France. |
| C．To show the power of ChatGPT. | D．To make a comparison between them. |
| A．It will make ChatGPT helpless for people. |
| B．It will probably prevent an overdependence on ChatGPT. |
| C．The readers are worried about the system's future. |
| D．It has successfully recognized essays written by ChatGPT. |
| A．AI is able to match humans. |
| B．AI has no ability. |
| C．AI has an advantage over humans. |
| D．There is something that AI can't copy from humans. |
| A．Actions Against the Misuse of ChatGPT |
| B．ChatGPT Is Forbidden |
| C．All the Systems of OpenAI |
| D．ChatGPT—A Powerful Tool |
