1 . With the development of our society, cellphones have become a common part in our lives. Have you ever run into a careless cellphone user in the street? Maybe they were busy talking, texting or checking updates on WeChat without looking at what was going on around them. As the number of this new "species" of human has kept rising, they have been given a new name—phubbers (低头族).
Recently a cartoon created by students from China Central Academy of Fine Arts put this group of people under the spotlight. In the short film, phubbers with various social identities bury themselves in their phones. A doctor plays with his cellphone while letting his patient die. A pretty woman takes a selfie (自拍) in front of a car accident site. And a father loses his child without knowing about it while using his mobile phone. A chain of similar events will finally lead to the destruction(毁灭) of the world.
Although the ending of the film sounds unrealistic, the damage phubbing can bring is real. Your health is the first to bear the effect and the result of it. "Always bending your head to check your cellphone could damage your neck," Guangming Daily quoted doctors' words. "The neck is like a rope that breaks after long-term stretching." Also, staring at cellphones for a long time will damage your eyesight gradually, according to the report.
But that's not all. Being a phubber could also damage your social skills and drive you away from your friends and family. When getting together with family or friends, many people prefer to play their cellphones while others are chatting happily with each other and this creates a strange atmosphere, Qilu Evening News reported.
It can also cost your life. There have been lots of reports on phubbers who fell to their death, suffered accidents, and were robbed of their cellphones in broad daylight.
1. Why does the author give the example of a cartoon in Paragraph 2?| A．To suggest phubbers will destroy the world. |
| B．To call for people to go walking without phones. |
| C．To tell people the bad effects of phubbing. |
| D．To advise students to create more cartoons like this. |
① Destructing the world.
② Affecting his social skills.
③ Damaging his neck and eyesight.
④ Getting separated from his friends and family.
| A．①②④ | B．②③④ | C．①③④ | D．①②③④ |
| A．Supportive. | B．Confident. | C．Disapproving. | D．Unconcerned. |
| A．Ways to avoid the risks of phubbing. | B．Bad effects of phubbing. |
| C．Daily life of phubbers. | D．Behaviours of phubbers. |
2 . Happiness is not a warm phone, according to a new study exploring the link between young life satisfaction and screen time. The study was led by professor of psychology Jean M. Twenge at San Diego State University (SDSU).
To research this link, Twenge, along with colleagues Gabrielle Martin at SDSU and W. Keith Campbell at the University of Georgia, dealt with data from the Monitoring the Future (MtF) study, a nationally representative survey of more than a million U. S. 8th-, 10th-, and 12th-graders. The survey asked students questions about how often they spent time on their Phones, tablets and computers, as well as questions about their face-to-face social interactions and their overall happiness.
On average found that teens who spent more time in front of screen devices — playing computer games, using social media, texting and video chatting — were less happy than those who invested more time in non-screen activities like sports, reading newspapers and magazines, and face-to-face social interactions.
"The key to digital media use and happiness is limited use," Twenge said. "Aim to spend no more than two hours a day on digital media, and try to increase the amount of time you spend seeing friends face-to-face and exercising — two activities reliably linked to greater happiness."
Looking at historical trends from the same age groups since the 1990s, it's easy to find that the increase of screen devices over time happened at the same time as a general drop-off in reported happiness in U. S. teens. Specifically, young peopled life satisfaction and happiness declined sharply after 2012. That's the year when the percentage of Americans who owned a smartphone rose above 50 percent. By far the largest change in teens' lives between 2012 and 2016 was the increase in the amount of time they spent on digital media, and the following decline in in-person social activities and sleep.
1. Which method did Twenge's team use for the study?| A．Calculating students' happiness. |
| B．Asking students certain questions. |
| C．Analyzing data from a survey. |
| D．Doing experiments on screen time. |
| A．By making a comparison. |
| B．By giving an example. |
| C．By making an argument. |
| D．By introducing a concept. |
| A．To draw a conclusion from the study. |
| B．To offer some advice to the readers. |
| C．To prove social activities' importance. |
| D．To support the researchers' finding. |
| A．Quitting Phones Equals Happiness |
| B．Screen Time Should Be Banned |
| C．Teens' Lives Have Changed Sharply |
| D．Screen-addicted Teens Are Unhappier |
3 . As fear exists in China and the world over the spreading COVID-19（新冠肺炎），business owners worldwide are all feeling the pain. Uncertainty and lack of confidence have always been among the big enemies of economies. And now the universal economy is still under great pressure.
As countries issue warnings and travel bans, the tourism and services are most affected. In 2018, around 140 million Chinese made outbound trips according to the China Tourism Academy.
According to a New York Times report, Chinatown in Manhattan has seen business drop of 50 to 70 percent. A hotel owner who relies on Chinese customers said that the loss could be well over 100,000 dollars and climbing. Federal Reserve Chairman, Jerome Powell, is also warning the outbreak could pose a “new risk” to the US economy.
The economic cost of the COVID-19 outbreak is growing and hard to estimate（估计）.
In this interconnected world, any pandemic（流行病）is worldwide. Various economists have pointed out that most economic costs are not related to the virus directly, but the panic over it. Lack of confidence can also worsen the fragile world economy.
| A．But one can always learn from history. |
| B．It's time to ban the wildlife trade for good. |
| C．The last thing the world needs is a virus outbreak. |
| D．China is a much bigger economy than it was in 2003. |
| E．The same thing also happened during the flu A ( H1N1) outbreak. |
| F．In recent years they have created about a quarter of tourism jobs worldwide. |
| G．So, it's very important for countries to work together to control its outbreak. |
4 . When Pope Francis recently told a reporter that he stopped watching television 25 years ago, it reminded me that several of my friends had gone TV-free as well. They had really quit TV? It seemed fairly unlikely.
And so it was. It turned out that most Americans who "cut the cord " are not getting rid of their TV sets. What they're doing, like my friends, is canceling their cable or satellite TV contracts. Not such a major move, but nice cost savings. You can still watch lots of TV programming these days on your computer or TV by subscribing to an online streaming service. Netflix is currently the most popular of those.
There is, however, a small group of the population that has adopted a true zero-tolerance policy when it comes to television. Listen to what was said about TV by none other than Randy Pausch, the Carnegie Mellon professor In 2010 following his terminal cancer diagnosis, he called out TV as the enemy of productivity. "If you really want to have time back in your life," he said, "unplug you TV and put it in a closet and put a blanket over it."
My friend Laura Schiff, a former journalist, appreciates that point all too well. "Television always felt like a waste of time," she told me the other day. When her old TV failed, she decided not to replace it. "No regrets. Without TV I get a much deeper understanding of the world and what's going on around us." The amazing irony (讽刺): Schiff's late father, Arthur Schiff was the genius behind such memorable TV marketing catchphrases (广告语) as "Act now and you'll also receive...and "But wait, there's more!"
For some Americans, there is no "more". There is already too, too much 一 too much stupid programming, too much commercials for products no one needs. Most of all, “TV robs us of our precious time," as author Joshua Fields Millbum said in his book, Everything That Remains.
1. We learn from paragraph 2 that most Americans who cut the cord ______.| A．stop watching TV completely |
| B．get rid of their TV sets |
| C．canceling their TV contracts to save money |
| D．still watch lots of programs through cable TV |
| A．a popular online streaming service |
| B．a satellite TV station |
| C．a new brand of TV sets |
| D．a most popular TV program currently |
| A．It was a waste of money. |
| B．He had little time to spare for it. |
| C．It was a waste of productive time. |
| D．He suffered from headaches because of it. |
| A．demand changes in television |
| B．will never believe TV catchphrases |
| C．spend more time watching TV |
| D．will never watch TV |
Two U. S.— based groups, the Council on Foreign Relations and the National Geographic, Society commissioned an online survey earlier this year. They wanted to know what young people educated in American colleges knew about geography, U. S. foreign policy, recent international events, and economics.
The survey was given to over 1,200 Americans between the ages of 18 and 26 years. All of them presently attending, or having previously graduated from, a 2- or 4-year college or university.
The average test score, out of 75 total possible answers, was 55 percent. The study identifies a few important problems. For example, only 30 percent knew that the only part of the U. S. government that can declare war is Congress. Only 60% of those taking the survey could identify Brazil on a world map.
Part of the problem, argue the organizers of the survey, is the internet. They say it is becoming harder to find high-quality information about world events amongst all the fake news and trivia which swamp the web. Forty-three percent of those questioned said they read about the news on Facebook.
Another problem is that most college courses do not require students to learn about international issues. If such information is not required, Richard Haass from the Council on Foreign Relations said, then the United States could have leaders like Gary Johnson. He was a recent presidential candidate who did not know about the Syrian city of Aleppo when a reporter asked him about it.
The survey results were not all bad. The young people also demonstrated a good understanding of climate change and renewable energy. And the majority of them said that international issues were becoming more important to them.
Haass says these findings suggest the need to find was to get good information to students, both in school and online. To help, the Council on Foreign Relations is creating a new program called CFR Campus, designed to help build knowledge about global issues.
1. What can we learn about the survey?| A．All the participants were recent university graduates. |
| B．It was an online survey conducted by two US universities. |
| C．Its aim is to figure out what the young people know about America. |
| D．It was given to over 1,200 American people aged from 18 to 26. |
| A．Young people are unwilling to travel abroad. |
| B．The sources from which they get their information. |
| C．The US university system is of poor quality. |
| D．Their lack of interest in knowing more about the world. |
| A．Environmental matters. | B．Geographic information. |
| C．Foreign relations. | D．Government organizations. |
| A．Economics. | B．Entertainment. |
| C．Politics. | D．Education. |
