1. What are the speakers talking about?
| A．The jewelry. | B．A robbery. | C．A fact. |
| A．The computer. | B．The jewelry. | C．The fridge. |
| A．He has found some traces. |
| B．He is on the way back from Canada. |
| C．He has no idea what has happened. |
2 . We are all aware of the damaging pollution that’s created by driving petrol and diesel (柴油) vehicles. Many of the world’s cities are blocked with traffic, creating fumes containing gases such as nitrogen oxides. The solution for a cleaner, greener future could be electric vehicles. But how optimistic should we be? There was much excitement last year when the UK government announced it will ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030. But is that easier said than done?
The road to global traffic being totally electric is still a long way off. Currently, battery life is an issue — a fully charged battery won’t take you as far as a full tank of petrol. There are also limited numbers of charging points to plug an EV into. Of course, technology is always improving. Some of the biggest tech companies, like Google and Tesla, are spending huge amounts of money developing electric cars. And most of the big car manufacturers are now making them too.
Colin Herron, a consultant on low-carbon vehicle technology, told the BBC: “The big leap forward will come with solid state batteries, which will appear first in mobile phones and laptops before they progress to cars.” These will charge more quickly and give cars a bigger range. Cost is another issue that may discourage people from switching to electric power. But some countries offer incentive, such as cutting prices by reducing import taxes, and not charging for road tax and parking. Some also provide exclusive lanes for electric cars to be driven on, overtaking traditional cars which might be stuck in jams.
These kinds of measures have made Norway the country with the most electric cars per capita (人均) at more than thirty electric cars per 1000 inhabitants. But Colin Herron warns that “electric motoring” doesn’t mean a zero-carbon future. “It’s emission-free motoring, but the car has to be built, the battery has to be built, and the electricity does come from somewhere.” Maybe it’s time to think about making fewer journeys or using public transport.
1. Which statement can we infer from the question at the end of Paragraph 1?| A．Electric vehicles may not solve the traffic problems. |
| B．Probably it is hard to procure a greener future by means of electric vehicles. |
| C．We should not be too optimistic about the future. |
| D．It’s not a good idea to replace petrol vehicles with electric ones. |
| A．Improvements. | B．Drawbacks. | C．Communications. | D．Bonuses. |
| A．Putting solid-state batteries in electric cars first will be a “great leap forward”. |
| B．There are four obstacles on the road to global traffic being totally electric. |
| C．Electric cars might not get stuck in traffic jams in the future. |
| D．Electric motoring will create a zero-carbon future. |
| A．Total Electric Traffic: a Long Way to Go. |
| B．Electric Power or Petrol: a Tough Decision to Make. |
| C．Petrol and Diesel Vehicles: a Main Source of Gases. |
| D．Electric Vehicles: a Road to a Modern Society. |
3 . Flip-flops (人字拖) are the most popular type of shoe in the world. They’re comfortable, they’re easy to wear and they’re inexpensive. Unfortunately, most of them are also terrible for the environment. In Kenya, this is a huge problem, and around 90 tons of flip-flops wash up on its shores annually.
In the late 1990s, when Julie Church was working as a marine (海洋的) conservationist in Nairobi, she found an entire beach “just covered in flip-flops”. Around that time, Church also noticed children making toys out of the thousands of flip-flops that had made their way to the country’s beaches. She began working with the kids’ mothers to encourage them to not just collect the shoes, but also turn them into artworks. The families could then sell this art at local markets, providing another means of income.
The idea took off, and in 1998, Church founded Ocean Sole as a nonprofit. This year alone, the organization has upcycled more than 750,000 flip-flops and collected more than 47,000 kilos of waste. Additionally, Ocean Sole directly impacts more than 1,000 Kenyans, many of whom work as flip-flop collectors or artists, and contributes 10% to 15% of overall income to career and educational programs for residents, as well as beach cleanup and conservation efforts.
Ocean Sole is continuously growing and looking to keep waste off Kenya’s beaches and out of its water. When it comes to growing the Ocean Sole organization, Church has three “mantras (真言)”: trust to trade, trade to awareness, and awareness to protection. Church would like to put together toolkits and other resources to bring this concept to other places around the world that have similar problems. Ocean Sole is also encouraging companies to use more eco-friendly materials when making flip-flops. “I think it’s time for us to start looking for an alternative shoe, or an alternative material, to fit that kind of fashion need,” Church has said. “Our products need to develop.”
1. What was the main reason for founding the nonprofit?| A．To help Kenyans get healthy. |
| B．To develop children’s hands-on skills. |
| C．To protect Kenya’s marine environment. |
| D．To provide children with artistic flip-flops. |
| A．It is growing in a controlled way. |
| B．It has a smaller impact than expected. |
| C．It is running for profit since founded. |
| D．It has achieved many things with one move. |
| A．Lead the fashion trend. | B．Advance their products. |
| C．Practice her three “mantras”. | D．Develop global cooperation. |
| A．Environmental challenges in Kenya. |
| B．Flip-flops are out of date in Kenya. |
| C．Ocean Sole turns flip-flops into art. |
| D．Ocean Sole develops a new national art. |
4 . People, especially adults, have every reason to be concerned about the impact addictive screens make on social skills among youngsters. Recently, researchers compared teachers’ and parents’ evaluation of children who started kindergarten in 1998 — six years before Facebook was launched — with that of those who began school in 2010, when the first iPad was released.
The idea for the study was inspired several years ago when Downey, lead author of the study, had an argument at a pizza restaurant with his son, Nick, about whether social skills had been suffering among the new generation of youngsters. “Nick asked me how I knew that. And that was when I realized there really wasn’t any solid evidence,” Downey said. So Downey, with his colleagues, decided to investigate.
For their study, they used data from the Barly Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS), which is run by the National Center for Educational Statistics. The ECLS followed children from kindergarten to fifth grade. The researchers compared data on the children who began kindergarten in 1998 (19,150 students) with that on those beginning kindergarten in 2010 (13,400 students). Results showed that children’s social skills did not decline between the 1998 and 2010 groups. And similar patterns remained as the children progressed to fifth grade. Even children within the two groups who had the heaviest exposure to screens showed similar development in social skills compared to those little screen exposure.
While Downey was initially surprised to see that time spent on screens didn’t affect social skills, he really shouldn’t have been. “There is a tendency for every generation at my age to start to have concerns about the younger generation. It is an old story,” he said. These worries often involve “moral panic” over new technology. Adults are concerned when technological change starts to erode traditional relationships, particularly the parent-child relationship.
New generations are learning that having good social relationships means being able to communicate successfully both face to face and online. “You have to know how to communicate by email, on Facebook and Twitter, as well as face to face. We just looked at face-to-face social skills in this study, but future studies should look at digital social skills as well.” Downey said.
1. What drove Downey to conduct the study?| A．To argue his friend down. | B．To build kids’ social skills. |
| C．To liberate kids from addictive devices. | D．To seek definite proof for his viewpoint. |
| A．They confirmed his previous belief. |
| B．They showed the impact of social media. |
| C．They totally disagreed with his assumption. |
| D．They got him more worried about younger generations’ social skills. |
| A．Enhance. | B．Damage. | C．Boost. | D．Prohibit. |
| A．As for new generations’ social skills, it’s necessary to readjust assessments. |
| B．It’s urgent to minimize the use of digital devices among young people. |
| C．Face-to-face exchanges may give way to online communication someday. |
| D．Unlike the old, youngsters are better at communicating in the Digital Age. |
5 . Among rich countries, people in the United States work the longest hours. They work much longer than in Europe. This difference is quite surprising because productivity per hour worked is the same in the United States as it is in France, Spain and Germany, and it is growing at a similar speed.
In most countries and at most times in history, as people have become richer they have chosen to work less. In other words they have decided to “spend” a part of their extra income on a fuller personal life. Over the last fifty years Europeans have continued this pattern, and hours of work have fallen sharply. But not in the United States. We do not fully know why this is. One reason may be greatly lower taxes in America, which increase the rewards to work. Another may be more satisfying work, or less satisfying personal lives.
Longer hours do of course increase the GDP (国内生产总值). So the United States has produced more per worker than, say, France. The United States also has more of its people at work, while in France many more mothers and older workers have decided to stay at home. The overall result is that American GDP per head is 40% higher than in France, even though productivity per hour worked is the same.
It is not clear which of the two situations is better. As we have seen, work has to be compared with other values like family life, which often get lost in interest. It is too early to explain the different trends in happiness over time in different countries. But it is a disappointing idea that in the United States happiness has made no progress since 1975, while it has risen in Europe. Could this have anything to do with trends in the work-life balance ?
1. From the text we know that the author ________.| A．believes that longer working hours is better |
| B．prefers shorter working hours to longer ones |
| C．says nothing certain about which pattern is better |
| D．thinks neither of the patterns is good |
| A．family life | B．situations | C．other values | D．trends |
| A．The GDP of Europe is higher than that of America. |
| B．Two possible reasons are given for working longer hours in the US. |
| C．People all over the world choose to work less when they are richer. |
| D．Americans are happier than Europeans. |
| A．Americans and Europeans | B．Staying at Home |
| C．Work and Productivity | D．Work and Happiness |
6 . Humans have long known that being in nature is good for the mind and body. From indigenous (本土的) adolescents completing the adult ceremony in the wild to modern East Asian cultures taking “forest baths”, many have looked to nature as a place for healing and personal growth. But the question still remains. How can nature make it?
There is no doubt that being in nature reduces the physiological symptoms of stress in our bodies. What this means is that we are less likely to be anxious and fearful in nature, and therefore we can be more open to other people and creative patterns of thought. Also, nature often leads to awe, wonder and respect, all these emotions facilitating everything from physical to mental health. There is also some evidence that exposure to nature impacts the brain. Viewing natural beauty makes specific reward circuits in the brain associated with dopamine release, a chemical that gives us a sense of purpose, joy and energy to pursue our goals.
But, regrettably, people seem to be spending less time outdoors and less time in nature than before. It is also clear that, in the past 30 years, people’s levels of stress and sense of “busyness” have risen dramatically. These joint forces have led environmental writer Richard Louv to coin the term “Nature Deficit Disorder”—a form of suffering that comes from a sense of disconnection from nature and its powers.
Perhaps we should take note and try a course corrective. The 19th century philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote about nature, “There I feel that nothing can befall me in life—no disgrace, no calamity.” The science speaks to Emerson’s intuition. It’s time to realize that nature is more than just a material resource. It’s also a pathway to human health and happiness.
1. Why are “indigenous adolescents” and “modern East Asian cultures” mentioned in paragraph 1?| A．To clarify a viewpoint. | B．To answer the question below. |
| C．To present the natural scenery. | D．To show the cultural differences. |
| A．Restricting. | B．Exposing. | C．Promoting. | D．Covering. |
| A．Uneasy. | B．Indifferent. | C．Humorous. | D．Proud. |
| A．Is It Time to Challenge Yourself in Nature? |
| B．Do You Know Nature Is a Material Resource? |
| C．Why Do We Care about the Natural Environment? |
| D．What Can Happen When We Connect with Nature? |
7 . Around the world, girls do better than boys at school. These are the findings of a recent study that looked at the test results of 1.5 million 15-year-olds in 74 regions across the globe. The level of gender equality in those regions made no difference to the results. Other factors, such as the income level of the region also had little impact on the findings. In only three regions - Colombia, Costa Rica and the Indian state Hunches Pradesh- was the trend reversed with boys doing better.
So what are the causes of girls’ stronger performance? In the UK, girls outperform boys in exams that are taken at the age of 15 or 16, called GCSEs. According to education expert Ian Toone, this is down to the way girls and boys are brought up. “Boys are encouraged to be more active from an early age, while girls are encouraged to be quieter… Therefore, girls develop the skill of sitting still for longer periods of time, which is used for academic pursuits like studying for GCSEs.”
He goes on to say that boys often cluster together in larger groups than girls. Because of this they are more likely to be influenced by peer pressure and develop a gang mentality. He says that GCSEs require a lot of solo work and are not viewed as ‘cool’ in boys’ culture.
This is backed up by research in the UK that says girls are out-performing boys at the age of five. So, what is the answer: Should girls and boys be educated separately? Or do exams and school curricula need to be changed to better reflect boys’ skills? These are the questions facing educators in many countries.
1. What can we learn from the first paragraph?| A．Girls outperform boys in exams in most cases. |
| B．Boys do better in school in poorer areas. |
| C．Girls do better if they are socially equal to boys. |
| D．Boys are not working hard enough in exams. |
| A．Different characters and personalities. |
| B．Different attitudes to learning. |
| C．Different ways of raising children. |
| D．Different methods in exams. |
| A．To provide answer to a difficult question. |
| B．To raise awareness in gender differences. |
| C．To advocate separating boys and girls. |
| D．To change school curricula to benefit boys. |
| A．Education reforms in some Countries. |
| B．Examples of boys’ achievement. |
| C．New systems of examinations. |
| D．Advertisement of some schools. |
8 . In the rush of day-to-day life, we don’t always have the time to slow down and move at our own speed. Even on vacation, we always try to visit, do and taste as many things as possible in a new place or many places.
“I’ve heard countless times how tired people are when they come back from their vacation and feel like they ‘need a vacation from their vacation,’ and that’s because many times we pack so much into a very short time,” said travel blogger Esther Susag. “We want to see everything, do everything, and not waste a minute.
There is, however, another method that many experienced travelers suggest: slow travel. But what exactly is slow travel, and how do you take full advantage of this kind of trip? Below ,travel experts break it down.
As the name suggests, slow travel generally needs travelers to slow down and enjoy each moment, rather than rushing to check off the list items. “Slow travel may mean different things to different travelers, but I define (定义) it as staying in one place for longer and going deeper into the local culture,” said Paul Jacobs, general manager and vice president of Kayak North America. “It’s taking the time to make real connections with locals instead of packing a schedule full of tours.”
For travel expert and author La Carmina, slow travel allows people to stop and smell the roses-quite directly. “It’s about being fully present in the moment and experiencing the sights, sounds and sensations (感觉) around you completely “letting the experience develop at its own speed and without expectations,” she said. “To me, slow travel doesn’t have a strict definition or certain things to do, but rather focuses on the feeling of being a visitor to a place.”
Slow travel is becoming more and more popular now, because it can do good to us in many ways.
1. Why are people tired when they return from their vacation?| A．They have no place to rest. |
| B．They are on a busy schedule when traveling. |
| C．They travel to some places far away. |
| D．They feel quite excited and enjoy their trip fully. |
| A．It can let travelers experience the place deeply. |
| B．It can make travelers save a lot of money. |
| C．It can allow travelers to explore more places. |
| D．It can save travelers much more time. |
| A．Other ways of travel. |
| B．The definition of slow travel. |
| C．The proper places for slow travel. |
| D．The advantages of slow travel. |
| A．Life. | B．Society. | C．Sports. | D．Education. |
9 . Does the happiness of parents play a role in shaping the overall happiness of their children? Scientific studies have shed light on the far-reaching connection between parental happiness and the positive development of kids. It seems that parental happiness has an important influence on the emotional, social, and cognitive (认知的) development of children.
Another great idea is sharing experiences and creating many memories together. The idea is twofold.
One of the main aspects of being happy parents is feeling comfortable, confident and able to be themselves, despite their new status and huge responsibility. Honestly, when parents prioritize their own happiness, it has positive effects on the overall happiness of the family.
When parents put their own happiness first, they become role models for their kids. They see the importance of self-care, pursuing passions and maintaining healthy relationships.
| A．However, part of being responsible is being honest. |
| B．They are passing on some major life skills and attitudes. |
| C．They may lose a bit of their sense of self when caring for children. |
| D．Parents can adopt practical ways to enhance their own happiness. |
| E．A joyful and harmonious family environment benefits everyone involved. |
| F．This can happen when parents prioritize their own happiness according to Inc. |
| G．Firstly, the parents continue to be themselves and do something they love. |
10 . The topic “slash youth”, referring to those refusing to be defined or bound by just one personal identity and choosing to undertake multiple careers, has fueled heated debate on social media. On Douban, a Chinese social networking platform, the topic has attracted about 11,000posts and has been viewed over 400 million times. China’s young people are keen to share their slash youth stories online, presenting themselves as multiple and sometimes distinct identities, such as a nurse and model, a teacher and stand-up comedian, and an engineer and musician.
Xing Eryang, a 31-year-old female resident in Beijing, founded the Douban topic in 2021.While staying diligent about her daytime work, she is developing her hobbies, including stand-up comedy and vlogging, into secondary careers during her spare time. And she is amazed to find her “slash life” philosophy followed by so many of her peers.
Weiheng, a 26-year-old woman in Guangzhou, and Tang Yuhan, a 27-year-old man in Xuancheng city, Anhui province, are both participants in the topic, with their stories earning thousands of likes so far. The two are both musicians in their spare time, even though they are thousands of miles apart and have different jobs in media and finance. Their passion for music has grown since college and they didn’t abandon their enthusiasm, even after entering the workplace.
Their reaction showed the gap between the young and former generations. “My parents used to say, ‘music cannot earn you money’, so the band thing was regarded as a waste of time. However, we want to pursue whatever we love and are willing to pay for it.” says Weiheng.
“The ‘slash life’ mania(狂热)shows that, along with China’s economic development, our society is becoming more and more diversified and inclusive, and it welcomes everyone’s self-fulfillment,” says Shi Yanrong, an associate researcher from Tianjin Academy of Social Sciences. “Young people no longer have to rely on work and money for their sense of self-worth. They tend to practice a carpe diem(活在当下)philosophy and create their own identities.”
1. What are “slash youth” more likely to do?| A．Create a topic on Douban. |
| B．Take diverse occupations. |
| C．Become a stand-up comedian. |
| D．Share their own stories online. |
| A．Other young people’s positive response. |
| B．Hobbies developed while working. |
| C．The growing social networking platform. |
| D．Thousands of likes earned on Douban. |
| A．They sent their stories online to gain more funds. |
| B．They shared similar interests in both their hobbies and jobs. |
| C．They never lost passion for music even if they had to quit college. |
| D．They stuck with their dream despite the older generation’s opinion. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Supportive. |
| C．Unfavorable. | D．Indifferent. |
