1 . If you ask children the question, “Where does your food come from?” Their answer probably is “the kitchen” or “the grocery store”. Mahan Chandra Borah, a 41-year-old rice farmer, was concerned about this and aimed to educate young people about the importance of agriculture in his country.
“Hundreds of varieties of rice and other crops went extinct in India because of people’s unawareness and I wanted to do something about it,” Mahan says. The result was the formation of the Annapurna Rice Library — a center preserving native seeds and all things ‘rice’.
As a boy, Mahan was a curious reader. “I always had curiosity about things and wanted to get a PhD,” he recalls. Most of Mahan’s days were spent reading and helping his father out in the fields. “Working with him in the fields is how I learnt all I know about farming,” he says.
“Our family was humble. While I wanted to study more, the money was an issue,” he adds. Things became even harder when Mahan’s father passed away. “I was completing my graduation and was heartbroken. However, I also had to look after my family. Studying further was out of the question, so I decided to do agriculture like my father for a living,” he says.
Mahan could have decided to go for traditional farming, but instead, he decided to research alongside. “I went online to look for papers on farming and seed saving. For the library, I have 500 types of seeds preserved there,” he says. Mahan says his favorite rice variety is Bhao Dhan. It is very tough in nature and can adapt easily to the flood-prone (易发洪水的) nature of Assam. However, the lower yield (产量) per hectare has been the reason why the farmers do not prefer to grow the rice.
For the last 15 years, Mahan has operated his library on his own funds. “I run my household and maintain the library. Lack of funds has become an issue, but I am managing somehow and I am sure I will overcome the difficulties and keep it alive,” he says.
1. What inspired Mahan to set up the Annapurna Rice Library?| A．The expectation from his father. |
| B．The lack of grain varieties in India. |
| C．The great demand for more native seeds. |
| D．The public ignorance of rice seed protection. |
| A．He came from a family rich enough. |
| B．He graduated from college with a PhD. |
| C．He dreamed to be an agricultural expert. |
| D．He learned about farming from his father. |
| A．Its delicious taste. |
| B．Its high production. |
| C．Its growing popularity. |
| D．Its good adaptive ability. |
| A．Devoted and determined. | B．Generous and easygoing. |
| C．Courageous and humorous. | D．Sensitive and open-minded. |
2 . Psychologists have long been in disagreement as to whether competition is a learned or a genetic component of human behavior. Whatever it is, you cannot but recognize the effect competition has on academics and many other areas of contemporary life.
Psychologically speaking, competition has been seen as an unavoidable consequence of human drives. According to Sigmund Freud, humans are born screaming for attention and full of organic drives for fulfillment in various areas. Initially, we compete for the attention of our parents.
Current work in anthropology (人类学) has suggested, however, that this view of the role of competition in human behavior may be a fallacy. Thomas Hobbes, one of the great philosophers of the seventeenth century, is perhaps best remembered for his characterization of the “natural world”, that is, the world before the introduction of the will of humanity, as being unpleasant and short. This opinion is still widely held, reinforced by Charles Darwin’s highly influential work, The Origin of Species, which established the doctrine (学说) of natural selection. Darwin’s theory has even been summarized as “survival of the fittest”-a phrase Darwin himself never used-further highlighting competition’s role in success. As it has often been pointed out, however, there is nothing in the concept of natural selection that suggests that competition is the most successful strategy for “survival of the fittest”. Darwin said in The Origin of Species that the struggles he was describing should be viewed as metaphors and couldn’t be separated from dependence and cooperation.
Many studies have been conducted to test the importance placed on competition rather than other values, such as cooperation, and generally conclude that Americans uniquely praise competition as natural, unavoidable, and desirable. In 1937, the world-renowned anthropologist Margaret Mead published Cooperation and Competition among Primitive Peoples, based on her studies of several societies that did not prize competition, and, in fact, seemed at times to place a negative value on it. One such society was the Zuni Indians of Arizona, and they, Mead found, valued cooperation far more than competition. After studying dozens of such cultures, Mead’s final conclusion was that competitiveness is a culturally created aspect of human behavior, and that its popularity in a particular society is relative to how that society values it.
1. What does the author think is commonly seen in many areas of contemporary life?| A．The origin of human drives. |
| B．The influence of competition. |
| C．The reasons for human behaviour. |
| D．The disagreement on competition. |
| A．A false idea. |
| B．A hard nut. |
| C．A losing battle. |
| D．A mixed blessing. |
| A．All species depend on others for survival. |
| B．The strongest species proves to be the fittest. |
| C．Struggles for survival include support of each other. |
| D．Competition is looked on as the best survival strategy. |
| A．It is characteristic of humans to be competitive. |
| B．Americans are uniquely opposed to cooperation. |
| C．Competition is relatively more popular in Western societies. |
| D．People’s attitude towards competition is actually culture-bound. |
3 . In early 2023, OpenAI’s ChatGPT brought a new age—one in which artificial intelligence (AI) went from a dream to an issue for workers. Many workers may have believed that burger-flipping (翻汉堡包的) robots in fast food restaurants would be the first to be replaced by AI tools. Yet the light-speed use of AI tools may now mean knowledge-work jobs that were long considered “safe” could be endangered even faster than workers expected.
Robots that act like AI coworkers are on the way—and in some cases, they’re already here. In early December 2023, Artisan AI—a startup founded by Jaspar Carmichae-Jack—showed its first “Artisan”, an AI-powered digital worker called “Ava” who will work as a saleswoman. “She can make suggestions, edit campaigns, join meetings and take notes,” Carmichael-Jack says. “Our goal is to have Artisans working alongside humans directly and have cohesion (凝聚力), and we want the boring work to be moved onto the Artisan, which doesn’t have feelings about whether something is boring or difficult.”
Although AI technology is already shaking the workforce, “we’re still at the beginning” when it comes to AI fully combined into the workplace, says Erik Brynjolfsson, a Stanford University professor. He says as AI plays a more important role in economical fields, it should increase output and money for businesses. The question, however, is what the human toll of that growth will be, particularly in terms of job losses.
Whether the workers are reduced by AI technologies will be a choice. Workers will need to have the right to decide how AI is introduced and used in some industries. One example of this is the agreement between the Screen Actors Guild and Hollywood studios that sets limits on the use of AI in film and television production. The question is whether other industries will follow the example to protect their workers’ living.
1. What can be learned about knowledge workers?| A．They have experienced greater creativity. | B．They have used the AI at the speed of light. |
| C．They may be at the risk of replacement by AI. | D．They may have a safer working environment. |
| A．They will assist salesmen in their daily work. | B．They will become members of a human team. |
| C．They will assess the difficulty level of a task. | D．They will make boring work more interesting. |
| A．Interest. | B．Contribution. | C．Action. | D．Suffering. |
| A．AI should be forbidden in movies and television production. |
| B．Workers should have a say when using AI in some industries. |
| C．Industries should work hard to protect their workers’ living. |
| D．AI-related agreements should be reached as soon as possible. |
4 . Recently, after I gave a virtual presentation on my book Indistractable, a listener wrote something in the Zoom chat that drove me crazy, “This is great but wouldn’t work for me. I’m a Gemini (双子星座的人).”
Ironically, the Zoom listener is right. If she thinks she’s incapable, she’ll prove it correct — whether it has anything to do with the stars and moon or not. Her inflexible self-identification denies her the chance to improve her life. It’s incredibly self-limiting.
That’s why we should stop defining ourselves as fixed identities and nouns, and instead start describing ourselves using verbs.
Words are powerful. Linguistic research shows that language shapes people and culture; it can also give us insight into ourselves and our behavior. In a well-known study, researchers Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobsen had all students in the same elementary school take a standard IQ test. Then they randomly selected a group of students, regardless of their test results, and told teachers the group would show “dramatic intellectual growth”. Eight months later, those students scored significantly higher on an IQ test. The study concluded that teachers’ positive perception of students correlated to those students’ high performance on intellectual and academic tests. The labels the children received became a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy (预言).
That’s because language shapes expectations, which shape our reality. If we have experiences that lead us to label ourselves with specific nouns during our life, then we are likely to stick with those labels and the behaviors that go with them.
Using verbs to identify ourselves is an effective method for releasing “trapped priors”—a term in psychology for a perception of reality that’s affected or trapped by past experiences. Verbs are action words well suited to describing short-lived behaviors that can and do change. They don’t lay claim to our entire identity, but they acknowledge that we are people first and foremost, not whatever a singular noun may say we are. So, instead of saying, “I am a procrastinator (拖拉者)”, you should say, “I am a person who often procrastinates.”
By focusing on our behaviors, not fixed characteristics, we can release harmful perceptions of ourselves that hold us back from trying methods that might improve our lives — like those that can help us achieve the critical skill of being indistractable.
1. What does the author want to show through the example of the Zoom listener?| A．The concept of flexible self-identification. |
| B．His confusion about the way to self-identify. |
| C．His understanding of proper self-identification. |
| D．The negative effects of using nouns to define oneself. |
| A．Self-fulfilling prophecies change over time. |
| B．Encouragement promotes students’ improvement. |
| C．Language usage will have an impact on teaching. |
| D．IQ has little to do with students’ academic performance. |
| A．By highlighting their behaviors. |
| B．By focusing on their advantages. |
| C．By analyzing their typical characteristics. |
| D．By assessing their academic performance. |
| A．Nouns are more powerful than verbs |
| B．Your words can determine your future |
| C．How we define ourselves really counts |
| D．Our option of words reflects our identity |
5 . In recent years, much of my life as a consumer has shifted to what I like to call background. As I’ve subscribed to more apps and streaming platforms, significant sums of my money tend to slip away each month without my ever thinking about it.
Think of it as an automated trade. Spending without the trouble of spending. Acquaint ion without action. Or thought.
But while this flood of subscriptions was sold to me on the condition that it would make my life more trouble-free, there was a certain shock I felt upon discovering how much I was spending without realizing each month ($179.45).
You see, the thing about background spending is that it tends to happen, well, in the background without your full attention. And there lies the point.
“Hand over your credit card details and let us take care of the rest,” these companies promote. But by again sing their name, we’ve become lazy, positive consumers. And this laziness breeds (导致) more laziness because most of us can’t be bothered with conducting regular reviews of our subscription spending. We’re too lazy to even notice or cancel it!
I know it’s not just me who is suddenly living life as a smart-braised subscriber. The average consumer spends $273 per month on subscriptions, according to a 2021 study of 2,500 by digital services firm West Morose. Not a single person surveyed knew what his actually monthly spending was.
It’s understandable why this model is so attractive to businesses. As companies questioned traditional advertising models, subscription offered the promise of “selling once and earning forever.” And while subscription services have been around for decades (think Wine of the Month Club), more customers have been willing to sign up thanks to the widespread availability of smartphones and the increasing ease of home delivery.
While these subscription promise ease and happiness, not all of us are satisfied. Last year, the Kameny Institute found 40 percent of consumer believe they have too many subscriptions. Almost half of us also think we pay too much for streaming video-on-demand subscriptions.
1. What can we know about background spending in paragraph 2?| A．Its purpose. | B．Its feature. | C．Its procedure. | D．Its requirement. |
| A．Its attractive price. | B．Some people’s poor habit. |
| C．Its secure service. | D．Some people’s addiction to it. |
| A．It offers good home delivery services. |
| B．It is like traditional advertising models. |
| C．It is popular among smartphone producers. |
| D．It brings repeated profits through a single sale. |
| A．Supportive. | B．Doubtful. | C．Critical. | D．Unclear. |
6 . Josefa Marin went to New York from Mexico in 1987, supporting her daughter back home with the $140 a week she earned at a sweater factory. With that small income, she had to collect recyclables, trading in cans for five cents each.
When the clothing factory closed down in the late 2000s, she became a full-time recycler, picking up cans and bottles to make ends meet.
Marin’s story is not unique. Millions around the world make a living from picking through waste and reselling it — a vital role that keeps waste manageable. In New York City, the administrative department collects only about 28 percent of the cans that could be recycled. Rubbish collectors, however, keep millions of additional recyclables out of landfills every year.
Yet collectors are ruled out by government policies. The United States Supreme Court in 1988 stated that household garbage is public property once it’s on the street. That enables police to search rubbish for evidence, but that protection hasn’t always been extended to recyclers. And in places like New York City, which is testing city-owned locked containers to hide garbage from rats, containers are made clearly inaccessible for collectors.
“There’s value in the waste, and we feel that value should belong to the people, not the city or the corporations”, says Ryan Castalia, director of a nonprofit recycling and community center in Brooklyn.
Recognized or not, waste pickers have long been treated with disrespect. Marin recalls an occasion when someone living next to a building where she was collecting cans threw water at her. “Because I recycle doesn’t mean I am less of a person than anyone else,” she says. It’s a pity to see that the government doesn’t stand by the garbage collector’s side, either.
Fortunately, some governments are starting to realize that protecting the environment and humanity go hand in hand. Brazil classified waste picking as an official occupation in 2001. In 2009, Colombia’s government granted the right to collect valuable garbage. The U.S. is slowly catching on too. After all, to the government, the garbage is garbage, but to the collectors, it’s something they make a living on.
1. What is the author’s purpose of telling about Marin?| A．To highlight waste collectors’ role. |
| B．To reflect the unemployed’s hardship. |
| C．To praise her devotion to her daughter. |
| D．To show the seriousness of unemployment. |
| A．By citing reference. | B．By contrasting. |
| C．By giving definitions. | D．By cause-effect analysis. |
| A．No job is noble or humble. | B．Business is business. |
| C．The early birds catches worms. | D．One good turn deserves another. |
| A．Who owns our garbage? | B．How can we end poverty? |
| C．Who takes blame for waste? | D．How should we recycle rubbish? |
In today’s world, technology has become a necessary part of our lives. However, with the increasing
One of the concerns that technology poses (造成)
Another concern comes from balancing our virtual and real relationships. We can
Navigating responsible technology use is
8 . Some educators are trying to draw students’ attention with technology, such as educational videos, computer gaming and AI, just to name a few. However, teachers using these tools often struggle to keep students focusing on the materials, competing with the latest social media phenomenon, and can feel limited by using them to get some knowledge across.
Graphic novels (图画小说) offering graphic information married with text provide a means of attracting students in the classroom. Educators have used this method in their teaching. For example, instead of filling out problem sheets, students in a math class were asked to read a story called Who Killed Professor X?. In this story, all of the suspects (嫌疑人) are famous mathematicians. As they tried to figure out the connections between the suspects, students often forgot that they were doing math — focusing instead on finding secret details to solve the problem. Although this is just one experience for these students, it improves their confidence and shows them how math can be fun.
Jason Ho, a professor at Marian University, uses Max the Demon Vs Entropy of Doom to teach his physics students about a topic. This topic can be particularly difficult for some students because they can’t physically touch something. Ho said graphic novels can create an attractive learning environment. Most of his students now understand the subject by getting clear explanations for some ideas.
Although the Internet offers a lot of math and physics resources (资源), it can be tiring to search through many hours of videos to find the perfect one to get the “aha!” moment in learning. Graphic novels provide a starting point with different specific topics. Want to learn about programming? Try the Secret Coders series. Need more female role models in science? Astronauts: Women on the Final Frontier could be just what you’re looking for.
With all that graphic novels offer, we believe that the right set of graphic novels can inspire future scientists as much as any single person can.
1. What problem are some teachers faced with?| A．Teaching students to learn self-control. |
| B．Helping students master high-tech knowledge. |
| C．Ensuring the teaching effectiveness of using technology. |
| D．Making all the students take an active part in learning. |
| A．They can make learning more enjoyable. |
| B．They serve the field of math the best. |
| C．They require students to learn through performance. |
| D．They lead students to work hard on problem sheets. |
| A．Surprised. | B．Doubtful. | C．Supportive. | D．Concerned. |
| A．Graphic novels suitable for students |
| B．The great popularity of graphic novels |
| C．How technology influences students’ learning |
| D．Why we should use graphic novels in teaching |
9 . Gina Kiroff was a very creative child. “I loved helping my mom create dishes and the process of cooking with her, seasoning, changing the form of ingredients (原料) and using different skills. All ended up with a finished dish,” says Kiroff.
Kiroff took that creation into her job. She joined Unilever leading marketing of many different foods and other products. Now, her focus is to help to take steps towards carrying out regenerative (再生的) practices for the ingredients used in their products.
The importance of creating and keeping healthy soil has taken a leading position. In 2013 the United Nations General Assembly recognized World Soil Day, which is celebrated yearly on December 5th. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 95% of our food comes from soil. However, 33% of soils’ quality has been reduced. And over the last 70 years, the quantity of nutrients (营养物的量) in food has greatly dropped off.
In honor of World Soil Day and to know about what the food industry can do to help keep healthy agricultural practices to improve food safety, Kiroff was joined by former White House cook Sam Kass at a special dinner to show the power of regenerative agriculture. “The dinner you are about to eat costs $72 tonight. In 2050, this exact same meal will cost $566 as there will not be enough of the ingredients that we can depend on, which makes me worried,” said Kass.
Kass and Kiroff explained how rice and other key ingredients would likely become rarities (稀缺品), if we continued to carry out today’s traditional agricultural practices. “If we stay on our existing path, our kids and grandkids won’t be able to enjoy what we’re eating here,” said Kass. “Our duty is to make nutritious food accessible to everyone, everywhere.”
1. What do we know about Gina Kiroff?| A．She had to help her mother cook. | B．She showed a strong love of food. |
| C．She was very particular about dishes. | D．She used regenerative practices as a child. |
| A．How World Soil Day came into being. |
| B．Humans face serious food shortage issues. |
| C．How soil plays a key role in food quality. |
| D．Healthy agricultural practices are necessary. |
| A．Food safety doesn’t get attention. | B．Dinners will taste worse than now. |
| C．Food ingredients will be in short supply. | D．The food industry is slow to change. |
| A．Rice will disappear in the coming future. |
| B．Present agricultural practices should be changed. |
| C．Many kids will have no access to nutritious food. |
| D．Next generations dislike what we are eating now |
10 . Even before Molly Johnson-Jones graduated from Oxford University in 2015, she felt professional pressure to land a “prestigious (享有声望的)” job in a high-powered industry. She says she and her university friends felt there were professions that carried prestige—particularly the fields of finance, medicine and law. That’s why Johnson-Jones ended up in investment banking for two years once she graduated, even though it didn’t feel like quite the right fit.
These kinds of “very traditional industries” have indeed carried prestige, says Jonah Stillman, co-founder of GenGuru, a firm that focuses on different generations in the workplace. As Gen Z joins the workforce, however, experts and younger workers say what’s considered a “prestigious” job may be expanding. Some younger workers do still report making money is prestigious, especially as cost of living shoots up; and working for certain firms or in specific industries can make a career. But many also place equal stress on other elements, such as values of the company, flexibility, and freedom from long, intense work hours.
And some data indicates that Gen Z are indeed turning to more meaningful work. April 2023 data from LinkedIn of more than 7,000 global workers shows 64% of Gen Zers in the UK, Germany and Ireland now consider it important to work for companies that share their values. The data also shows these young workers highlight work-life balance and career growth as top draws for potential workplaces.
This change in Gen Z’s attitude towards work may be in part because mechanisms (机制) behind finding jobs and seeing other possible career paths are changing, says Josh Graff, managing director of EMEA and LATAM at LinkedIn. With a greater number of jobs being posted online, “people have so much more access to information today than we did when we were applying for a job 20-plus years ago … This allows you to have much better visibility into a wealth of roles,” he says. “That change in the workplace, in the workforce … is leading people to understand there’s a wider range of options out there.”
1. Why did Johnson-Jones end up in investment banking?| A．She had a passion for finance. | B．She wanted to make a lot of money. |
| C．She found herself well suited for the career. | D．She felt pressure to take up a highly-regarded job. |
| A．Making money is still the main concern of younger workers. |
| B．Gen Zers are not interested in traditional “prestigious” jobs. |
| C．The definition of a “prestigious” job is changing for younger workers. |
| D．Short-time work is still considered prestigious for younger workers. |
| A．Whether they can have a good job title. |
| B．Whether they can receive a good salary. |
| C．Whether companies’ values are in line with theirs. |
| D．Whether they have enough opportunities to socialize. |
| A．The changing job search methods. |
| B．A lack of high-paying jobs in traditional industries. |
| C．A growing stress on companies’ social responsibility. |
| D．Increased access to information about potential career paths. |
