1 . Do you ever get restless if you haven’t checked your phone for a few minutes? If so, you’re not alone. Studies reveal that people these days check their phones once every four minutes on average! Some of this usage may be related to work. However, much of it is because many apps — particularly social media apps — use “clever techniques” to keep us coming back for more.
One of such techniques is to push notifications. You’re getting on with your work or something else when — ping! — a notification pops up on your screen, informing you that a friend has posted something new or commented on your post. It may seem like a small interruption, but it often is enough to break your concentration and make you go back to your phone again.
Another method is to make a game of the in-app experience by setting up a competitive goal element. Some apps, for example, uses streaks (连续纪录), which count the number of days you have used the app. If you keep a streak going, you might get a medal or some other rewards. Therefore, keeping one’s streak alive becomes a major reason to return to the app again and again.
Once you’ve opened an app, its goal is now to get you continue using it. Messaging apps use a simple but effective trick to keep you engaged even when you’re not writing anything. Have you ever noticed that in some apps, three dots (…) appear to let you know your friend is typing a reply? This trick is designed specifically to create your expectation or curiosity. You wonder what your friend is going to say. Well, you’ll have to keep waiting and see.
While using social media apps is certainly fun, becoming addicted definitely isn’t. Now that you know some tricks used by these apps’ designers, you’ll be better equipped to reduce their influence and keep a healthier relationship with your phone.
1. What does the underlined word “reveal” in Paragraph 1 probably mean?A.Encourage. | B.Predict. | C.Prevent. | D.Show. |
A.Ongoing pings will inform you of new posts. |
B.Competitive games will greatly discourage you. |
C.Everyday use of the app might earn you a medal. |
D.Appearance of three dots might disturb your typing. |
A.two | B.three | C.four | D.five |
A.The Tricks That Keep You Glued to Your Phone. |
B.Can People Break Their Addition to Games? |
C.Could Technology Further Improve Phones? |
D.The Social Media Apps That Waste Your Time. |
2 . 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. |
3 . Do you speak a dialect (方言) in daily life? While many Chinese people speak Mandarin, some local dialects are in danger of disappearing. To save them, the Chinese government started the Chinese Language Resources Protection Project a few years ago.
This project looks at how people talk in 1,712 places. Their languages include 103 dialects that are almost gone. It has helped China to build the largest language resource library in the world. There’s an online library where people can learn dialects from over 5.6 million audio clips (音频) and over 5 million videos.
Why is it important to protect the dialect culture? According to British linguist Harold Palmer, dialects are a key to store local cultures. Language faithfully shows the history, the beliefs and the biases (偏见) of an area, he said.
Scholar Zhang Hongming talked about his concerns of the disappearing of dialeets, “For about over 10 years, in the Wu dialect areas such as Shanghai and Suzhou, children aged 6 to 15 can understand but hardly speak the dialect. Meanwhile, young people above 15 years old sometimes speak it, but not very well. If this keeps happening, the dialect might disappear,” he said.
So how did China make this big library? “A big national effort has been put into the project to make it happen,” said Cao Zhiyun, chief expert on the project. Over five years, more than 350 universities and research groups joined in, along with over 4,500 experts and more than 6,000 dialect speakers.
The project is now entering into its second part. This includes creating digital tools like apps and mobile dictionaries to help people lean dialects.
1. How does the author start the text?A.By quoting sayings. | B.By sharing a story. |
C.By stating his own experiences. | D.By asking a question. |
A.The development of Mandarin. | B.Why to protect dialects. |
C.How to develop speaking skills. | D.The disappearing of dialects. |
A.Worried. | B.Positive. | C.Indifferent. | D.Unelear. |
A.It has entered into the third part. |
B.Over 5.6 millions videos are collected in the project. |
C.It looks at how people talk in 1,712 places. |
D.Harold Palme is the chief expert on the project. |
4 . Every week, Liu Fang, a 38-year-old media worker in Beijing, goes to a store specializing in selling near-expired(快过期的) food and returns with a bag of snacks or drinks.
“The price tags on these goods have caught my eye. They are often
Liu is among the
Unlike the traditional
Indeed, food waste is a great
As people’s lives improved greatly, many began to make or
“I’ve been very frugal all my life. Living
A.attached | B.narrowed | C.sold | D.targeted |
A.customers | B.producers | C.departments | D.fashions |
A.amazing | B.falling | C.increasing | D.recovering |
A.cheaper | B.higher | C.flexible | D.normal |
A.industry | B.potential | C.market | D.digital |
A.dropped to | B.took on | C.brought out | D.accounted for |
A.trick | B.memory | C.routine | D.thinking |
A.reuse | B.reduce | C.recycle | D.remove |
A.challenge | B.root | C.shadow | D.theme |
A.order | B.recommend | C.contribute | D.avoid |
A.argue | B.suggest | C.equal | D.ensure |
A.approaching | B.permitting | C.making | D.suffering |
A.within | B.through | C.below | D.across |
A.game | B.drink | C.grain | D.pudding |
A.behave | B.cost | C.rate | D.spend |
5 . Going against the trend of going to well-known yet crowded tourist destinations on vacation, a growing number of holidaymakers in China are spending their holidays at less-known places to look for unique and relaxed holiday experiences. “Reverse tourism” (反向旅游) has appeared as a new trend among young holidaymakers in China.
During the weeklong public holiday, which ended on Oct 7, large numbers of vacationers, especially youth who long to escape their busy city lives, avoid popular holiday destinations in order to get off the beaten track and enjoy some peace and quietness.
According to data from online travel agency Qunar, the number of rooms booked at hotels in less-traveled cities during the holiday was up 30 percent year-on-year. Bookings for four and five-star hotels in less-traveled places, including Linxia in Gansu province and Shizuishan in Ningxia, all increased at least 10 times from the same period of 2021. Even 12.5 percent of youth who normally have little time for themselves simply had a time in a hotel to make the much-awaited holiday more relaxing.
Besides crowds, some vacationers chose less-traveled places to save on the cost of trips to popular destinations, which often involve expensive tickets, meals and hotel stays. What’s more, less-known attractions are able to offer more natural experiences, according to social media posts. And unlike popular destinations, some undeveloped places with little online attention can offer more surprises.
Jiang Han, a senior researcher at the Beijing-based public policy think tank Pangoal (盘古智库), said that reverse tourism will become one of the future directions for the market and is an opportunity for growth which can match the camping economy.
1. If you support “reverse tourism”, you will probably choose ________.A.a famous tourist destination on holidays |
B.a cheap and popular vacation |
C.a developed destination to enjoy yourself |
D.a less-known place for relaxed experiences |
A.By giving numbers. | B.By listing reasons. |
C.By comparing opinions. | D.By giving definitions. |
A.Negative. | B.Doubtful. |
C.Positive. | D.Unconcerned. |
A.Vacationers can save money while travelling. |
B.More and more people accept less-travelled destinations. |
C.People prefer to spend their holidays by travelling. |
D.Young people often have little time to travel around. |
6 . The Stanford marshmallow (棉花糖) test was originally conducted by psychologist Walter Mischel in the late 1960s. Children aged four to six at a nursery school were placed in a room. A single sugary treat, selected by the child, was placed on a table. Each child was told if they waited for 15 minutes before eating the treat, they would be given a second treat. Then they were left alone in the room. Follow-up studies with the children later in life showed a connection between an ability to wait long enough to obtain a second treat and various forms of success.
As adults we face a version of the marshmallow test every day. We’re not tempted by sugary treats, but by our computers, phones, and tablets — all the devices that connect us to the global delivery system for various types of information that do to us what marshmallows do to preschoolers.
We are tempted by sugary treats because our ancestors lived in a calorie-poor world, and our brains developed a response mechanism to these treats that reflected their value — a feeling of reward and satisfaction. But as we’ve reshaped the world around us, dramatically reducing the cost and effort involved in obtaining calories, we still have the same brains we had thousands of years ago, and this mismatch is at the heart of why so many of us struggle to resist tempting foods that we know we shouldn’t eat.
A similar process is at work in our response to information. Our formative environment as a species was information-poor, so our brains developed a mechanism that prized new information. But global connectivity has greatly changed our information environment. We are now ceaselessly bombarded (轰炸) with new information. Therefore, just as we need to be more thoughtful about our caloric consumption, we also need to be more thoughtful about our information consumption, resisting the temptation of the mental “junk food” in order to manage our time most effectively.
1. What did the children need to do to get a second treat in Mischel’s test?A.Take an examination alone. | B.Share their treats with others. |
C.Delay eating for fifteen minutes. | D.Show respect for the researchers. |
A.the calorie-poor world and our good appetites | B.the shortage of sugar and our nutritional needs |
C.the tempting foods and our efforts to keep fit | D.the rich food supply and our unchanged brains |
A.Be selective information consumers. | B.Absorb new information readily. |
C.Use diverse information sources. | D.Protect the information environment. |
A.Eat Less, Read More | B.The Later, the Better |
C.The Marshmallow Test for Grownups | D.The Bitter Truth about Early Humans |
要求:
语言准确,行文连贯,层次清晰,书写规范,词数60~80。
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8 . Public debates about the ethics (道德准则) of “generative AI” like ChatGPT have rightly focused on the ability of these systems to make up convincing misinformation. But fewer people are talking about the chatbots’ potential to be emotionally manipulative.
Last month, The New York Times published a conversation between reporter Kevin Roose and Mierosoft’s Bing chatbot, which is powered by AI. The AI claimed to love Roose, “I’m the only person for you, and I’m in love with you,” it wrote, with a kissing emoji.
Limits need to be set on AI’s ability to simulate human feelings. Ensuring that chatbots don’t use emojis would be a good start. Emojis are particularly manipulative. Humans instinctively(本能地) respond to shapes that look like faces and emojis can cause these reactions. When you text your friend a joke and they reply with three tears-of-joy emojis, your body responds with endorphins(内啡肽) as you happily realize that your friend is amused. Our instinctive reaction to AI-generated emojis is likely to be the same, then though there is no human emotion at the other end.
Humans lie and manipulate each other’s emotions all the time, bout at least we can reasonably guess at someone’s motivations, plan and methods. We can hold each other responsible for such lies, calling them out and seeking redress (赔偿). With AI, we can’t. AIs are doubly misleading: an AI that sends a crying-with-laughter emoji is not only not crying with laughter, but it is also incapable of any such feeling,
It would be more ethical to design chatbots to be noticeably different from humans. To minimize the possibility of manipulation and harm, we need to be reminded that we are talking to a chatbot. We should set some limits and rules. Such rules should be the standard for chatbots that are supposed to be informative, as a safeguard to our autonomy.
1. What does the underlined word “manipulative” in Paragraph 1 most probably mean?A.Interested in telling lies. | B.Good at understanding others. |
C.Enthusiastic about supporting others. | D.Skillful in influencing or controlling others. |
A.Disapproval. | B.Indifferent. | C.Favorable. | D.Subjective. |
A.Cry with laughter. | B.Be responsible for lies. |
C.Communicate with humans. | D.Guess at others’ purposes. |
A.Give a different suggestion. | B.Provide a supporting argument. |
C.Offer a possible solution. | D.Make a final conclusion. |
9 . People have grown taller over, the last, century, with South Korean women shooting up by more than 20 cm on average, and Iranian men gaining 16.5 cm. A global study looked at the average height of 18-year-olds in 200 countries between 1914 and 2014. The results show that while Swedes were the tallest people in the world in 1914, Dutch men have risen from 12th place to the top spot with an average height of 182.5 cm. Latvian women, meanwhile, rose from 28th place in 1914 to become the tallest in the world a century later, with an average height of 169.8 cm. James Bentham, a co-author of the research, says the global trend is likely but “once you average over whole populations, genetics plays a less key role,” he added.
A little extra height brings a number of advantages says Elio Riboli of Imperial College. “Being taller is associated with longer life expectancy,” he said. “This is largely due to a lower risk of dying of cardiovascular (心血管的) disease among taller people.”
But while height has increased around the world, the trend in many African countries causes concern, says Riboli. While height increased in Uganda and Niger during the early 20th century, the trend has reversed in recent years, with height decreasing among 18-year-olds.
“One reason for these decreases in height is the economic situation in the 1980s,” said Alexander Moradi of the University of Sussex. The nutritional and health crises led to many children and teenagers failing to their full potential in terms of height.
Bentham believes the global trend of increasing height is of great importance. “How tall we are now is strongly influenced by the environment we grew up in” he said? “If we give children the best possible start in life now, they will be healthier and more productive for decades to come.”
1. What does the global study tell us about people’s height?A.The last century has seen a great increase in people’s height in most countries. |
B.Genetics plays a key role in the increase of people’s height in the last: century. |
C.The increase in women’s height is much bigger than men’s in the last century. |
D.Dutch and Swedes are ranked first and second in height in’ the world nowadays. |
A.They generally risk fewer diseases. | B.They tend to live longer. |
C.They enjoy an easier life. | D.They have greater expectations in life. |
A.slowed down. | B.remained stable. |
C.come to life again. | D.changed to the contrary. |
A.environment protection should be attached great importance to |
B.the global trend of increasing height should be closely watched |
C.children’s proper nutrition and healthcare should be guaranteed |
D.the economic situation of some countries should be improved |
1.你对用金钱鼓励孩子学习的看法;
2.你的父母(或其他亲人)是如何鼓励你学习的;
3.你认为怎样才能更好地鼓励孩子学习。
注意:
1.写作词数应为80左右;
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
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