1 . “If you buy things you do not need, soon you will have to sell things you need.” This is a piece of wise advice from Warren Buffet, arguably one of the greatest financial minds of the 21th century.
While the idea of being frugal(节俭的) has long been a part of Eastern culture, the relatively recent growth of wealth in China as well as the ease of purchasing has led to increased consumerism for many across the country. Yet this increased consumption of goods has been pushing up the prices of certain bare essentials such as housing, transportation and food, which is forcing people to reevaluate their priorities while spending money.
The internet is flooded with advice on where one can save money as well as good opinions about how they should spend their money. For example, clothes can be bought second-hand, but you should never skip a visit to the dentist.
Hopefully, we all fully understand at this point that the resources on the earth are indeed limited.
| A．A continuous growth model on this planet is by no means sustainable. |
| B．These words have always not been taken seriously by young people. |
| C．They are meant to encourage people to buy more stuff than they need. |
| D．It makes sense to prioritize goods and services that directly affect your health. |
| E．It is no wonder then that being frugal is once again becoming a dominant trend. |
| F．Many young people today appear to be taking these words very much to heart. |
| G．If so, it is high time you started making changes for yourself and for all humanity. |
2 . Many public museums have complex climate control systems to preserve the works in their care. Those technologies, including climate monitors and air conditioning, normally work unnoticed 24 hours a day. But now, as the rising prices of gas and electricity in Europe pose an immediate danger to museum finances, and with a growing awareness of their impact on the climate, some of the world’s biggest museums are beginning to act.
Over the past year, major museums have relaxed their standards and allowed a wider range of temperatures and humidity levels in some galleries, saving them thousands of dollars a month. They have conducted months of trials to prove the changes don’t endanger the items.
Yet in the rooms where borrowed items are on show, the old strict standards still apply. Loan agreements with other museums and private collectors mean those galleries must remain tightly climate-controlled, hampering institutions’ effort to lower energy bills and emissions.
The idea that art must be displayed in a climate-controlled environment is relatively new, said Southwick at the Vatican Museums. Masterpieces used to hang in unheated churches or palaces, she said. Some of the first museums to adopt climate-control technologies were in the U.S., with the Yale University Art Gallery fixing a steam-powered heating system in 1874.
Temperature and humidity controls became commonplace after World War II, especially after conservators at the British Museum and the National Gallery, in London, published a series of influential books prescribing(规定)the conditions to protect masterpieces in that chilly, damp city. Soon those ideas were applied everywhere, eventually becoming the standard for museum loans.
In December, the British government cancelled minimum temperature requirements for works covered by its art insurance program, to help museums save money during a cold winter. It’s hopeful that museums will change their tight climate standards for the sake of the planet as well as themselves.
1. What action do the world’s biggest museums begin to adopt?| A．Seeking active cooperation with other museums. |
| B．Turning to more energy-efficient reserving means. |
| C．Loosening their standards for keeping the works. |
| D．Lending their works to other museums for display. |
| A．The borrowed items. |
| B．Private museums. |
| C．Climate-controlled technologies. |
| D．Loan agreements. |
| A．When the first museums came into being. |
| B．When the standard was published in London. |
| C．When Britain cancelled the standard for loans. |
| D．When Yale University Art Gallery fixed a heating system. |
| A．Museums are taking action to cut costs. |
| B．Loose conditions preserve works better. |
| C．Museums are designed to save energy. |
| D．Old rules come to life for protection. |
3 . When it comes to home decoration, one of the first opportunities we get to express ourselves is by choosing which posters to tear out of magazines and stick on our teenage bedroom walls. So why was the humble poster so popular? The simplest argument is that it allows children and teens to match their bedroom to their personality. Adolescence is a time when we long for independence and a voice, and posters allow that freedom. This is particularly important at a time when the bedroom is an important space away from the pressures of school, annoying brothers or sisters and parents who seem to go out of their way to cause embarrassment.
Another advantage of posters as a first attempt into decoration is their transience. Buying magazines with pin-ups of your favourite celebrities is a more affordable and less time-consuming alternative to decorating a bedroom and, once a fashion passes, posters can easily be taken down.
My own walls were covered with posters from a young age. At the risk of sounding strange, swapping my posters around was a hobby during my teenage years. I’d commit hours to rearranging them on my wall, ensuring every inch was covered.
Research conducted by George Home /Asda in 2017 showed just 7 percent of teens had posters on their walls compared to 78 percent in the 1990s, largely due to the“plain walls and fairy lights aesthetic (美学)” favoured by You Tubers and influencers. The experimental teenage bedrooms of Gen X and Millennials are gone, now bypassing the stage entirely and transforming straight into a more adult space.
It’s sad to think young people are missing something that played such a big part of youth culture, but times have moved on. And if the love of all things old-fashioned continues to be influenced by shows such as Stranger Things, perhaps the poster will enjoy are birth in popularity, who knows? As someone who found so much joy in the posters that decorated their walls, I really do hope so.
1. Why do teenagers prefer posters according to the author?| A．They causeless embarrassment to teenagers. | B．They are topics to share with others. |
| C．They help reduce the pressures of school. | D．They are symbols of freedom and personality. |
| A．Being necessary. | B．Being temporary. |
| C．Being contradictory. | D．Being voluntary. |
| A．Aesthetic is unpopular among adolescents. |
| B．Some social media is to blame for strange aesthetic. |
| C．The love for posters has dropped dramatically recently. |
| D．The experimental model in teenage bedrooms are unreliable. |
| A．The poster will be popular again. | B．The poster will be updated constantly. |
| C．The poster will not decorate walls anymore. | D．The poster will not be influenced by popular shows. |
4 . The idea of low material desire, low consumption and refusing to work, marry and have children, concluded as a “lying down” lifestyle, recently struck a chord with many young Chinese who are eager to take pause to breathe in this fast-paced and highly-competitive society.
Many millennials (千禧一代) and generation Zs complained to the Global Times that burdens, including work stress, family disputes and financial strains, have pushed them “against the wall”. They said they hate the “involution(内卷),” joking that they would rather give up some of what they have than get trapped in an endless competition against peers.
“Instead of always following the ‘virtues’ of struggle, endure and sacrifice to bear the stresses, they prefer a temporary lying down as catharsis (宣泄) and adjustment,” said a scholar. “It is no wonder that some young people, under the growing pressures from child-raising to paying the mortgage (按揭) today, would try to live in a simple way and leave the worries behind.”
Interestingly, the majority of millennials and Gen Zs reached by the Global Times, who claim to be big fans of the lying down philosophy, acknowledged that they only accept a temporary lying down as a short rest. It is true that with the great improvement of living conditions, some Chinese youth have partially lost the spirit of hardship and are not willing to bear too much hard work. But in fact, lying down is not entirely comfortable. Young people who lie down always feel guilty about their constant loss of morale (士气) far beyond their reach.
“Young people on campus have both aspirations and confusion about their future, but most of us have rejected setting ourselves up in chains to waste opportunities and challenges,” a postgraduate student told the Global Times. “It’s no use running away. I have to ‘stand up’ and face the reality sooner or later.”
1. What does the underlined phrase in paragraph 1 mean?| A．Warned. | B．Punished. | C．Amused. | D．Touched. |
| A．Improvements in living conditions. |
| B．Growing pressure from family and social life. |
| C．Increasing material possessions from families. |
| D．Temporary adjustment to failure in competitions. |
| A．Understanding. | B．Intolerant. | C．Supportive. | D．Unclear. |
| A．They never really drop their responsibilities. |
| B．They really enjoy the “lying down” lifestyle. |
| C．They find their dreams far beyond their reach. |
| D．They would rather escape than take challenges. |
Ever since February, the public concern over the giant panda Ya Ya in the US has grown into a “campaign” among Chinese people all around the world to check how our cute and
Enthusiastic Chinese netizens (网民) around the world
In a video, a panda was showed
Among all the overseas zoos “surprisingly
“They are real kungfu pandas.” Chinese commented
The life of these energetic
6 . In modern society there is a great deal of argument about competition. Some value it highly, believing that it is responsible for social progress and prosperity. Others say that competition is bad; that it sets one person against another; that it leads to unfriendly relationship between people.
I have taught many children who held the belief that their self-worth relied on how well they performed at tennis and other skills. For them, playing well and winning are often life-and-death affairs. In their single-minded pursuit of success, the development of many other human qualities is sadly forgotten.
However, while some seem to be lost in the desire to succeed, others take an opposite attitude. In a culture which values only the winner and pays no attention to the ordinary players, they strongly blame competition. Among the most vocal are youngsters who have suffered under competitive pressure from their parents or society. Teaching these young people, I often observe in them a desire to fail. They seem to seek failure by not trying to win or achieve success. By not trying, they always have an excuse: “I may have lost, but it doesn’t matter, because I didn’t try.” What is not usually admitted by themselves is the belief that if they had really tried and lost, that would mean a lot. Such a loss would be a measure of their worth. Clearly, this belief is the same as that of the true competitors who try to prove themselves. Both are based on the mistaken belief that one’s self-respect relies on how well one performs in comparison with others. Both are afraid of not being valued. Only as this basic and often troublesome fear begins to dissolve can we discover a new meaning in competition.
1. What does this passage mainly talk about?| A．Competition helps to set up self-respect. |
| B．Competition is harmful to personal quality development. |
| C．Failures are necessary experiences in competition. |
| D．Opinions about competition are different among people. |
| A．Those who are against competition most strongly. |
| B．Those who try their best to win. |
| C．Those who value competition most highly. |
| D．Those who rely on others most for success. |
| A．One’s success in competition needs great efforts. |
| B．One’s worth lies in his performance compared with others’. |
| C．One’s success is based on how hard he has tried. |
| D．One’s achievement is determined by his particular skills. |
| A．Every effort should be paid back. |
| B．Winning should be a life-and-death matter. |
| C．Fear of failure should be removed in competition. |
| D．Competition should be encouraged. |
7 . Jeffrey Boakye, a writer and teacher from London, is right to think that the stories we tell our children shape their future values. Recent research from the End Sexism in Schools campaign also established that children in the UK are still living off a worryingly limited diet of male authors and male main characters.
Our research confirms that the novels Boakye mentions in his recent article are in the top five most taught in years 7 to 9. But boys need to be taught to listen to and respect female voices as powerful, and to be empathetic to the viewpoints of women and girls. This is essential in tackling one of the root causes of male violence against women and girls. And girls need to be taught that our expectations of them are not tied to life-denying gender stereotypes (性别刻板印象).
English literature could be taught by allowing teachers and students to decide together, exploring relevant and important themes, including those Boakye identifies.The techniques of reading, analyzing and understanding can be taught with examples, but all students need not answer the same questions on the same books, in class or in exams. The current system is more convenient for teachers and graders, but it’s also deeply repetitive. Let the kids choose their own texts: It’ll be less boring and we might just learn something in the end.
Parents-challenge your schools to change. Teachers-you have the ability to make these changes. It is our duty as their parents, educators and carers to teach children more books by women, and more books with female main characters and if this means leaving out some of the so-called classics, then so be it.
1. What does the underlined word “empathetic” most probably mean in Paragraph 2?| A．Approving. | B．Enthusiastic. |
| C．Indifferent. | D．Understanding. |
| A．Teachers and students could do literature research together. |
| B．More say should be given to students about what to read. |
| C．The current system benefits students more than teachers. |
| D．The novels Boakye mentions are boring. |
| A．Ask more open-ended questions. |
| B．Select more materials by females. |
| C．Focus more on reading techniques. |
| D．Reduce the use of classic literature. |
| A．Challenging gender stereotypes |
| B．Reading literature for pleasure |
| C．Enriching the literary diet of children |
| D．Understanding children’s literature |
8 . Carlos Slim’s proposal that we work a three - day week sounds crazy. But many, in 1922, thought Henry Ford crazy when he announced that his staff would work a five - day week.
Our working week seems normal to us because it is what we all always do. He certainly could be for those he was most concerned about when he made his three - day - week statement at a business conference in Paraguay: the workers who are not ready to retire. As Mr. Slim said, it no longer makes sense for people to stop working in their fifties or sixties when they may still have up to a third of their lives ahead of them. “People are going to have to work for more years, until they are 70 or 75, and just work three days a week - perhaps 11 hours a day.” he said.
Keeping older employees at work makes sense for societies, especially those with a diminishing number of young people who are expected to support long - living retirees.
He appeared to be suggesting that these short - week workers earn the same as they did full - time. That is what happens at Telmex, his Mexican fixed - line phone company, where those qualified for retirement can choose to work four - day weeks on full pay.
Older workers elsewhere might prefer shorter weeks on reduced pay - and eight or nine - hour days rather than 11. Their companies might value keeping their experience while saving money on their salaries. What about everyone else? There are those who are unemployed, or in unstable jobs, who would be delighted to have three secure, well - paid days of work a week.
Shorter weeks don’t work in every job, but they work in more jobs than most tradition - bound managers think. Agreeing to them requires two shifts in management thinking. The first is the realization that much of the time spent in offices is wasted anyway. Second, senior executives need ro understand that the best way to measure people is by the work they produce - not by how much time they spend at their desks.
People living longer, in better health, are changing working life too. Mr. Slim’s idea is in tune with the times.
1. According to paragraph 2 why did Mr. Slim think it unwise for people in their fifties or sixties to retire ?| A．Because they have longer life to live in their future. |
| B．Because they have children and old parents to support |
| C．Because they have much interest in their present work. |
| D．Because they have more experience than young workers. |
| A．The decision of working five days a week by Ford was considered normal in the past. |
| B．Old people continuing working can reduce young people’s pressure to support their old parents |
| C．Some companies don’t want their old workers to go on working because they can save money. |
| D．Much time spent at work is wasted if managers don’t agree to reduce old employees’working time. |
| A．Different from. | B．Superior to. |
| C．Far from. | D．Consistent with. |
| A．Retire Or Not, This Is A Question! |
| B．Shorter Weeks Is Welcome By All |
| C．Working Three Days A Week: A Great Idea |
| D．Carlos Slim - Crazy For More Resting Time |
9 . Many people have been making fun of Paris Hilton online recently. The 36-year-old US actress and model said on social media that she “invented” the selfie (自拍) in 2006, posting a photo of her and Britney Spears as “proof”.
In one example, a user posted a selfie that Buzz Aldrin, the famous astronaut, took of himself in space in 1966. But perhaps the funniest example was a black-and-white selfie that was taken by American photographer Robert Cornelius in 1839.
Why do people love to take selfies so much? Is it because we’re naturally vain (虚荣的) and proud?
There are even people who have died while taking selfies. According to Forbes magazine, 127 people around the world died while taking selfies from 2014 to 2016. It can be very dangerous to take selfies while standing near high places, like roofs and cliffs. Taking selfies underwater or on train tracks is also quite dangerous.
| A．So be careful out there |
| B．It is quite possibly the first ever selfie |
| C．Taking selfies can be dangerous, though |
| D．Internet users immediately proved her wrong |
| E．Posting selfies also allows you to control your image online |
| F．Maybe it’s actually the opposite – perhaps we feel insecure or shy |
| G．But taking a selfie is much more than just holding your smartphone in the air |
10 . We all try to spend our days doing engaging things, but the reality is that there’s a lot of boring work which also must be done. Whether it’s washing the dishes, filing papers, entering data, or any of the countless dull yet critical tasks that keep our homes, organizations, and communities running, we all have less-than-exciting tasks we have to do. Of course it’s not always easy to get ourselves to stick to these tasks, even if we know we should. What does it take to persist (坚持) when work is boring?
Researchers have explored this question from many angles and studies have shown that people may persist longer when they monitor their progress, receive rewards, or when a task is made more fun. These findings have direct effects on how we design products and policies. For instance, companies are increasingly offering incentives to encourage employees to get more exercise, and managers are carrying out various game strategies to make employees’ work more fun.
Recent research by Harvard University, however, suggests that for tasks that don’t require a lot of attention, there may be a better approach. Researchers conducted a series of studies with over 2,000 participants and found that in many cases, people stop working on tasks earlier than expected not because they aren’t motivated enough, but because the tasks do not need enough attention.
Often, strategies designed to increase persistence will involve changing something about the work itself — but you can only make washing the dishes so exciting or mentally stimulating (振奋人心的). Rather than endlessly attempting to make boring tasks less boring, it can sometimes be more effective instead to pair these activities with other tasks that require more attention. This concept is called tangential immersion (切入式专注法).
Basically, the mind seeks to be engaged. We experience boredom when doing tasks that require less attention than we have available, and this leads us to quit those tasks too early. But if there is a second activity in which we can involve ourselves at the same time with the low-attention task, it can occupy that extra attention, reducing boredom and thus increasing persistence.
1. In what circumstance may people continue with a boring task?| A．When they feel motivated. | B．When they want to kill time. |
| C．When they are full of energy. | D．When they lack attention. |
| A．Instructions. | B．Rewards. | C．Programmes. | D．Positions. |
| A．The tasks were beyond them. | B．The studies took too much time. |
| C．The tasks demanded less attention. | D．The participants were not devoted. |
| A．By making it more challenging. | B．By checking the progress repeatedly. |
| C．By refreshing the mind regularly. | D．By pairing it with a demanding one. |
