1 . Addiction and recovery are the two sides of the same coin. In many cases, addiction starts off at a relatively low level — misuse.     1     From this, a stage of addiction known as dependency may come about. However, addiction and recovery go together at each of these stages. In other words, it is never too late on the road down an addictive route to seek help.     2     Addicted people can be anything from a substance (物质) user to someone who has become fully dependent on an activity to be able to function normally. Consequently, addiction and recovery programmes tend to be tailored to individual needs and circumstances, often based on theoretical models of behaviour. Some addicted people find that a recovery programme they have tried is not for them. This does not mean they cannot recover, however.     3    

One of the most dramatic recovery pathways available to substance users is called “cold turkey” (突然戒毒方法).     4     Although this sometimes works for smokers and alcoholics, it is not suited to everyone. It is worth remembering that recovery pathways are not just for people who have become addicted to substances like drugs and alcohol. Other common behavioural problems can also cause great disruption (扰乱).

Nearly all forms of addiction have a negative impact on the loved ones of addicted people.     5     It is particularly hard on families when only very slow progress is made.

A．Addiction is not a single state of being.

B．If left unchecked, it may then progress to abuse.

C．What recovery pathways are there for behavioural issues?

D．There are many others they might try if they do not succeed the first time.

E．This will take a lifelong commitment, but the results often speak for themselves.

F．This means that they completely stop their usage and avoid such behaviour in the future.

G．Supporting someone who is overcoming an addiction often requires a long-term commitment.

2 . Marilu Arce loves her job, but for a time she considered leaving. The traffic-plagued commute from her home to her office, nearly two hours each way, meant her daughters couldn’t enroll in after school activities because she couldn’t get home in time to take them.

Then her employer adopted a policy permitting her to work from home two days a week, and “I feel like it changed my life,” she said. Her stress level has dropped. Her daughters are thrilled. She likes her job more. That’s the type of reaction Arce’s boss likes to hear as the company measures the success of the work-from-home policy which was instituted three years ago in hopes of improving employee retention. So far, it seems to be working: turnover was less than five percent last year—its lowest ever.

Flexible work policies top employee wish lists when they look for a job, and employers increasingly have been offering them. Studies have shown working remotely increases employee engagement, but in moderation because there is still value in the relationships nurtured when colleagues are face to face. The key, advocates of flexible work policies say, is to match the environment with the type of work that needs to be done.

The flexibility hasn’t hurt productivity, which is up 50 percent. There is “something lost” when colleagues don’t gather at the water cooler, but it’s outweighed by the retention and happiness gains, he said. As jobs that require physical work decline, thanks to technological advances, life superficially appears to get better. Consumers benefit in the form of cheaper prices. Labor-saving appliances all make things easier and suggest that even more and better benefits are on the horizon. But is something lost?

Talk long enough to the most accomplished academics, they will brag about a long-ago college summer job waiting tables or repairing hiking trails. They might praise the installer who redid their kitchen. There seems to be a human instinct to want to do physical work. The proliferation of hard-work reality-television programming reflects this apparent need. Indeed, the more we have become immobile and urbanized, the more we tune in to watch reality television’s truckers, loggers, farmers, drillers and rail engineers. In a society that supposedly despises menial jobs, the television ratings for such programmes suggest that lots of Americans enjoy watching people of action, who work with their hands.

Physical work, in its eleventh hour within a rapidly changing Western culture, still intrigues us in part because it remains the foundation for 21st century complexity. Before any of us can teach, write or speculate, we must first have food, shelter and safety. And for a bit longer, that will require some people to cut grapes and nail two-by-sixes. No apps or 3D printers exist to produce brown rice. Physical labour also promotes human versatility: Those who do not do it, or who do not know how to do it, become divorced from—and, at the same time, dependent on—labourers. Lawyers, accountants and journalists living in houses with yards and driving cars to work thus count on a supporting infrastructure of electricians, landscapers and mechanics. In that context, physical labour can provide independence, at least in a limited sense of not being entirely reliant on a host of hired workers.

1. The author mentions the example of Arce to show that________.

A．she dislikes the present job for the long commuting time

B．she is having trouble balancing work and school life

C．people usually don’t work hard outside office

D．employers are facing the problem of staff drain

2. The practice of flexible working time is based on the belief that________.

A．it helps to increase job satisfaction for the employees

B．it improves harmonious relationship among colleagues

C．the decline in physical work gives employees more mobility

D．employees are entitled to request it according to their work

3. What is the possible reason for the popularity of hard-work reality-television programmes?

A．They entertain those employees burned out with overwork.

B．People can learn some basic labour skills from these programmes.

C．There’s an ongoing need for physical labour skills that technology doesn’t possess.

D．They offer instructive information for both employers and employees.

4. Which of the following can be the best title for the passage?

A．The Emergence of Alternative Work Arrangements

B．The Rise of Automation, the Decline in Need for Labour

C．Time to Rethink in the Face of the Evolution of Work

D．New Challenges for Today’s Employers and Academics

4 . You’ve heard that plastic is polluting the oceans — between 4.8 and 12.7 million tonnes enter ocean ecosystems every year. But does one plastic straw or cup really make a difference? Artist Benjamin Von Wong wants you to know that it does. He builds massive sculptures out of plastic garbage, forcing viewers to re-examine their relationship to single-use plastic products.

At the beginning of the year, the artist built a piece called “Strawpocalypse,” a pair of 10-foot-tall plastic waves, frozen mid-crash. Made of 168,000 plastic straws collected from several volunteer beach cleanups, the sculpture made its first appearance at the Estella Place shopping center in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Just 9% of global plastic waste is recycled. Plastic straws are by no means the biggest source (来源) of plastic pollution, but they’ve recently come under fire because most people don’t need them to drink with and, because of their small size and weight, they cannot be recycled. Every straw that’s part of Von Wong’s artwork likely came from a drink that someone used for only a few minutes. Once the drink is gone, the straw will take centuries to disappear.

In a piece from 2018, Von Wong wanted to illustrate (说明) a specific statistic: Every 60 seconds, a truckload’s worth of plastic enters the ocean. For this work, titled “Truckload of Plastic,” Von Wong and a group of volunteers collected more than 10,000 pieces of plastic, which were then tied together to look like they’d been dumped (倾倒) from a truck all at once.

Von Wong hopes that his work will also help pressure big companies to reduce their plastic footprint.

1. What are Von Wong’s artworks intended for?

A．Beautifying the city he lives in.	B．Introducing eco-friendly products.
C．Drawing public attention to plastic waste.	D．Reducing garbage on the beach.

2. Why does the author discuss plastic straws in paragraph 3?

A．To show the difficulty of their recycling.

B．To explain why they are useful.

C．To voice his views on modern art.

D．To find a substitute for them.

3. What effect would “Truckload of Plastic” have on viewers?

A．Calming.	B．Disturbing.
C．Refreshing.	D．Challenging.

4. Which of the following can be the best title for the text?

A．Artists’ Opinions on Plastic Safety

B．Media Interest in Contemporary Art

C．Responsibility Demanded of Big Companies

D．Ocean Plastics Transformed into Sculptures