1 . That artificial food dyes (染料) are unhealthy is not news. Some are known to cause hyperactivity (多动症) in some children, affecting their ability to learn. But regulatory agencies (监管机构) around the world don’t necessarily agree on which food dyes are a problem, or why. That may soon change. A 2021 peer-reviewed report by California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment concluded that artificial food dyes “cause or worsen neurobehavioral (神经行为的) problems in some children” and that the current levels that are regarded safe for consumption by the federal government are too high.

California is now considering requiring warning labels on food products and dietary supplements containing the seven most commonly used artificial dyes. The warning label requirement would put California on par with the European Union, which since 2010 has required food products containing certain artificial food dyes to carry warning labels about their negative effect on activity and attention in children.

Artificial dyes are used in foods for one reason: to make products look prettier. Bright colors make candies appealing, especially to kids. But dyes are also in chocolate cake mixes, salad dressings and other products that don’t seem to cry out for a color boost.

In Europe, it was the 2010 label lawmaking that triggered (引发) companies’ decisions to reformulate. “If you’re a company, you do not want to put a warning label on your product.” says Lefferts, an environmental health consultant. Warning labels are why European Starburst Fruit Chews are now colored with natural products, not the artificial dyes that brighten their North American counterparts (同类商品).

Given that artificial food dyes are used far more than needed, we need to be more cautious. After all, we don’t dye fresh fruits and vegetables, but we do dye candy and sprinkles, points out Joe Schwarcz, a chemistry professor at McGill University in Montreal. “The foods in which you find food dyes are foods that are poor in nutrition,” he says. “If you limit foods that contain food dyes, you automatically make your diet better.”

1. What can we learn about artificial food dyes from paragraph 1?

A．A 2021 report confirmed their negative effects.

B．The fact that they are harmful is newly revealed.

C．Regulatory agencies consider them a serious problem.

D．The Federal government thinks their current standard too high.

2. What does the underlined part “on par with” in paragraph 2 mean?

A．In opposition to.

B．In line with.

C．Ahead of.

D．Behind.

3. Which might be a possible result of the new rule according to the article?

A．Food companies will stop coloring their products.

B．More fresh fruits and vegetables will appear in the market.

C．Food companies may replace artificial dyes with natural products.

D．It will be hard to find packaged foods without warning labels of dyes.

4. What’s Joe Schwarcz’s attitude towards artificial food dyes?

A．Approving.

B．Neutral.

C．Tolerant.

D．Concerned.

2 . Humans are born to compete with one another. People compare how many “likes” they have on social media. Billionaires envy multibillionaires. The legendary NASCAR champion Dale Earnhardt once stated, “Second place is just the first loser.”

Although the competitive spirit may be as natural as breathing air, it does not always lead to human prosperity (繁荣，成功). On the contrary, left unmanaged, it can create misery for ourselves and others. Fortunately, there is a formula to solve this problem without unrealistically suggesting that we entirely dispense with our competitive urge: Instead of always going for gold, shoot for the bronze.

To expand on the wisdom of Earnhardt, although second place may be the first loser, third place can be the real winner — at least when it comes to happiness and longevity (长寿). Recent research suggested that the bronze winners appeared consistently happier on average than the silver medalists. Regarding the life span of all three medalist categories, it was found that the athlete whose best performance was silver lived to 72. Gold medalists beat this by a solid four years, living to 76. But first prize in longevity went to the bronze medalists, who lived to 78.

The study had a handy explanation for this distinction: “Dissatisfactory competition outcomes may badly affect health.” In other words, silver medalists see themselves as the first loser because they only look up to the top step, whereas the bronze winners compare themselves favorably with all the others who never made it onto the podium (领奖台) at all.

One of the problems with most competitions against others is that it tends to lower one’s inner motivation, and thus enjoyment. Decades ago, researchers showed this by asking people to solve puzzles and then measuring the interest they reported. They found the puzzles less rewarding when competing against others rather than against the clock. Simply having a time limit means competing against themselves—which is often more fun. The principle at work here is that trying to improve your own past performance provides a sense not of “winning” but of progress. And the only person to whom you will have to compare yourself is you.

1. What does the underlined words “dispense with” in paragraph 2 probably mean?

A．Stick to.

B．Depend on.

C．Get rid of.

D．Take charge of.

2. In which situation will people be most likely to feel good about themselves?

A．Treat competitions as all or nothing.

B．Aim to outperform others in competitions.

C．Check out others’ victories on social media.

D．Compare themselves with those less fortunate.

3. What is the best title for the text?

A．Always Going for Gold	B．The Victory of Coming in Third
C．Finding Satisfaction in Comparison	D．Second Place is Just the First Loser

3 . We’ve all been there: in a lift, in line at the bank or on an airplane, surrounded by people who are, like us, deeply focused on their smartphones or, worse, struggling with the uncomfortable silence.

What’s the problem? It’s possible that along with the rapid development of society, we all focus on our phone and desktop, and therefore it results in our compromised conversational intelligence. However, it’s more likely that none of us start a conversation because it’s awkward and challenging, or we think it’s annoying and unnecessary. But the next time you find yourself among strangers, consider that small talk is worth the trouble. Experts say it’s an invaluable social practice that results in big benefits.

Dismissing small talk as unimportant is easy, but we can’t forget that deep relationships wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for small conversation. “Small talk is the grease (润滑剂) for social communication,” says Bernardo Carducci, director of the Shyness Research Institute at Indiana University Southeast. “Almost every great love story and each big business deal begins with small talk,” he explains. “The key to successful small talk is learning how to connect with others, not just communicate with them.”

In a 2014 study, Elizabeth Dunn, associate professor of psychology at UBC, invited people on their way into a coffee shop. One group was asked to seek out an interaction with its waiter; the other, to speak only when necessary. The results showed that those who chatted with their server reported significantly higher positive feelings and a better coffee shop experience. “It’s not that talking to the waiter is better than talking to your husband,” says Dunn. “But interactions with peripheral (边缘的) members of our social network matter for our well-being also.”

Dunn believes that people who reach out to strangers feel a significantly greater sense of belonging, a bond with others. Carducci believes developing such a sense of belonging starts with small talk. “Small talk is the basis of good manners,” he says.

1. What does the underlined word “compromised” in paragraph 2 mean?

A．Weakened.

B．Enhanced.

C．Secret.

D．Natural.

2. What is important for successful small talk according to Carducci?

A．Showing good manners.	B．Relating to other people.
C．Focusing on a topic.	D．Making business deals.

3. What can we learn about small talk from the coffee shop study?

A．It made the coffee taste better.	B．It reduced waiting time in line.
C．It improved people’s mood and experience.	D．It helped them bond with the server deeply.

4. What is the text mainly about?

A．Elevator manners.	B．The importance of small talk.
C．Smartphones and social media.	D．Developing deep relationships.

5 . Social media can lead to mental exhaustion (疲惫). And when mentally exhausted, you are more likely to be influenced by a high number of likes on posts - even to the point of clicking on ads for products you don’t need.

As a professor of advertising, I have studied social media behaviors for years. In late 2022, my colleague Eric Haley and I conducted three online studies on Americans aged 18-65 to test how people under various mental loads respond to ads differently.

The control group in each study were given no introductory task- we just had them look at an ad. A second group had to memorize a nine-digit number and then look at the ad. The third group looked through the Internet for 30 seconds and then looked at the ad. Participants randomly saw an ad with a few hundred likes or tens of thousands of likes. After viewing the ad, each participant rated how willing they would be to buy the product, and how much mental effort it took to think about the information.

The group that used the Internet first were the most likely to want to buy the featured product when there were lots of likes or comments, and they also reported using the most mental effort to assess the ad. Researchers refer to this mentally exhausted state as “cognitive (认知的) overload”. Using social media puts them in this state because they are constantly evaluating different types of texts, photos and video posts from so many different people. All of this evaluating leaves them feeling frazzled.

Imagine asking your roommate if they want to get pizza. Under normal conditions, the roommate might consider several factors such as cost, hunger, timing or their schedule. Now imagine asking your roommate the same question while they are on the phone with a sick relative. They no longer have the mental energy to logically consider whether pizza for dinner is a good idea. They might just yell “Yeah, sure!” while running inside to clean their shoes.

By understanding how social media influences them, consumers can be more thoughtful in regulating their use and hopefully will not buy yet another water bottle they don’t need.

1. How did the author conduct the studies?

A．By questionnaire.

B．By interview.

C．Through the Internet.

D．Through observation.

2. What does the underlined word “frazzled” in paragraph 4 mean?

A．Excited.

B．Depressed.

C．Annoyed.

D．Tired.

3. Why does the author mention “your roommate” in paragraph 5?

A．To further explain cognitive overload.

B．To stress the importance of relationships.

C．To strongly call on people to eat healthily.

D．To remind people not to rely on mobile phones.

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.

2. How does the author show the importance of waste pickers’ work in paragraph 3?

A．By citing reference.	B．By contrasting.
C．By giving definitions.	D．By cause-effect analysis.

3. What would Marin agree with?

A．No job is noble or humble.	B．Business is business.
C．The early birds catches worms.	D．One good turn deserves another.

4. Which of the following is the best title for the text?

A．Who owns our garbage?	B．How can we end poverty?
C．Who takes blame for waste?	D．How should we recycle rubbish?

7 . Most parents will remember their little ones grasping their leg or being unwilling to speak to someone new. But when does this stop being a natural part of a child’s growing up and become something to worry about?

Here, Heidi Gazelle, a senior lecturer in developmental psychology from the University of Melbourne, explains how shyness is of more concern if it is persistent (持续的) rather than temporary.

Shyness with other children is of more concern than shyness with adults. It is common for children to be on the alert for adults, particularly men, but less common for children around their own age.

Children who engage in very little social interaction in comparison to children of their age are missing out on these important cumulative (积累的) learning experiences. As a result, their social cognition (认知), social skills and sense of self may be less mature than those of other children around their age.

Being excluded and bullied is damaging children’s emotional health and sense of self, especially when these conditions persist over time. Children need help from adults to stop exclusion and being bullied by other children. When parents become aware that their child is being excluded or bullied by other children at a childcare center or a school, they should contact the childcare center or school on their child’s behalf.

Shyness is of concern if it interferes with your child’s or family’s routines or activities, or if your child often appears miserable or complains of being lonely. For instance, if shyness prevents your child from attending other children’s birthday parties or school, or prevents your family from visiting friends, then you should consider seeking help from a child psychologist.

If a child is upset about a problem with a friend, parents can encourage the child to try to resolve the problem in a way that preserves the friendship, instead of ending the friendship, as well as encourage the child to develop other friendships.

1. What view does Heidi Gazelle hold with regards to shy children?

A．Persistent shyness is more worrying than temporary shyness.

B．Children’s shyness basically results from a disharmonious family.

C．They tend to have less shyness when meeting with unknown people.

D．It is more common for them to be alert when being with other children than adults.

2. In which aspects will shy children be less mature than other children of their age?
①Social skills. ②Sense of self. ③Overall intelligence. ④Power of observation.
⑤Social cognition.

A．①③⑤

B．①②⑤

C．②③④

D．②④⑤

3. How should parents respond when their child is excluded or bullied?

A．Consider transferring their child to another school or childcare center.

B．Get in touch with the childcare center or school.

C．Warn the children who bully their child.

D．Try to find his or her own faults.

4. When do parents need to care about their child’s shyness?

A．Their child is willing to attend other children’s birthday parties.

B．Their child wants to change the family’s original plan.

C．Their child is always ready to visit their relatives.

D．Their child often complains about being lonely.

9 . The curb cut (下斜路缘) is a convenience that most of us rarely, if ever, notice. Yet, without it, daily life might be a lot harder — in more ways than one. Pushing a baby stroller (婴儿推车) onto the curb, skateboarding onto a sidewalk or taking a full grocery cart from the sidewalk to your car — all these tasks are easier because of the curb cut.

But it was created with a different purpose in mind.

It’s hard to imagine today, but back in the 1970s, most sidewalks in the United States ended with a sharp drop-off. That was a big deal for people in wheelchairs because there were no ramps (斜坡) to help them move along city blocks without assistance. According to one disability rights leader, a six-inch curb “might as well have been Mount Everest”. So, activists from Berkeley, California, who also needed wheelchairs, organized a campaign to create tiny ramps to help people dependent on wheels move up and down curbs independently.

I think about the “curb cut effect” a lot when working on issues around health equity (公平). The first time I even heard about the curb cut was in a 2017 Stanford Social Innovation Review piece by PolicyLink CEO Angela Blackwell. Blackwell rightly noted that many people see equity “as a zero-sum game.” Basically, there is “a prejudice that intentionally supporting one group hurts another.” What the curb cut effect shows, Blackwell said, is that “when society creates the circumstances that allow those who have been left behind to participate and contribute fully, everyone wins.”

There are multiple examples of this principle at work. For example, investing in policies that create more living-wage jobs or increase the availability of affordable housing certainly benefits people in communities that have limited options. But the action also provides those people with opportunities for better health and the moans to become contributing members of society — and those benefits everyone. Even the football huddle (围成一团以秘密商讨) was initially created to help deaf football players at Gallaudet College keep their game plans secret from opponents who could have read their sign language. Today, it’s used by every team to prevent the opponent from learning about game-winning strategies.

So, next time you cross the street, or roll your suitcase through a crosswalk or ride your bike directly onto a sidewalk, think about how much the curb cut, the design that benefits one group of people at a disadvantage, has helped not just that group, but all of us.

1. By “might as well have been Mount Everest” (paragraph 3), the disability rights leader implies that a six-inch curb may become ______.

A．as famous as the world’s highest mountain	B．an almost impassable barrier
C．a connection between people	D．a most unforgettable matter

2. According to Angela Blackwell, many people believe that ______.

A．it’s fair to give the disadvantaged more help than others

B．it’s impossible to have everyone be treated equally

C．it’s necessary to go all out to help the disabled

D．it’s not worthwhile to promote health equity

3. Which of the following examples best illustrates the “curb cut effect” principle?

A．Reading machines for blind people helped build the navigation system in the car.

B．The four great inventions of ancient China spread to the west.

C．Your reaching out to the disadvantaged contributes to more people doing it.

D．A butterfly flapping its wings in one country leads to a Tornado in another country.

4. What conclusion can be drawn from the passage?

A．Everyday items are originally invented for people with disabilities.

B．Everyone in a society should pursue what is in his or her interest.

C．A disability rights leader changed the life of his fellow men.

D．Caring for disadvantaged groups may finally benefit all.