1 . “Pop” stands for popular, and a pop singer has to work very hard to stay popular. He must either give the public what they want, or he must find a new way of singing that will attract their attention. Even when he has succeeded, and his records are sold everywhere, he cannot relax. Then he must work harder than ever to remain popular, because there are always younger singers trying to become famous and to steal some of the popularity.
The life of a successful pop singer isn’t easy at all. He can only relax when he is alone, because everything he does is watched and reported in the special newspaper written for the fans. The fans are the most important people in the world for the singer. They buy his records, they go to his concerts, and they make him rich and famous. But they can be very annoying, too. Sometimes their enthusiasm (热情) is so hysterical (歇斯底里的) that they do anything to get a souvenir (纪念品). They steal handkerchief, they tear off buttons, and they even cut off pieces of unfortunate singer’s hair. Many singers have been forced to hide, and some who have not been so lucky as to escape have been stripped (剥) practically naked by their fans. A pop singer has to spend a lot of money on clothes because he must always look smart, or at any rate, different. He must have a luxurious (豪华的) car. And most importantly, he must always keep smiling for the benefit of his public.
1. Pop singer works very hard ___________.| A．to get attention |
| B．to stay popular |
| C．to get more money |
| D．to sell more records |
| A．lovely | B．friendly | C．boring | D．angry |
| A．smart and the same |
| B．smart and different |
| C．healthy and young |
| D．rich and strong |
| A．The Way to Become a Pop Singer |
| B．The Fans of the Pop Singer |
| C．The Pop Singers |
| D．The Success of Pop Singers |
2 . In the rich countries of the West, the electric vehicle revolution is well underway. Climate-conscious consumers drive Teslas or Polestars for reasons of morality and fashion. Poorer countries are also experiencing a wave of electrified trend. In Bangladesh, electric three-wheeler taxis, known as tuk-tuks, are rapidly replacing gas-powered ones on the streets. Such electric vehicles are climate friendly, cost effective, and help reduce air pollution.
Yet a glance under the hood (引擎盖) of these vehicles reveals a poisonous secret: each tuk-tuk runs on five massive lead-acid batteries, containing almost 300 pounds of lead in total. Every year and a half or so, when those batteries need to be replaced and recycled, about 60 pounds of lead leak into the environment. Battery recycling, often at small-scale unregulated factories, is a highly profitable but deadly business.
Lead is dangerous, and any exposure to it is harmful to human health. Lead that has entered the environment hurts people on an extraordinary scale. The numerous ways lead enters air, water, soil, and homes across the developing world — and the enormous damage it does to human health, wealth, and welfare — causes one of the biggest environmental crises in the world yet receives little attention.
The World Bank estimates that lead kills 5. 5 million people per year, which would make it a bigger global killer than AIDS, malaria, diabetes, and road traffic deaths combined. On top of the shocking deaths, the social burden of lead poisoning is extraordinary, as is its contribution to global inequality — our research on the cognitive effects of lead poisoning suggests that it may explain about one-fifth of the educational achievement gap between rich and poor countries.
But unlike many challenges faced by developing countries, lead poisoning is a problem that is fixable with some attention and a relatively modest financial investment. Better monitoring, research, and rules can help protect children all over the world from the dreadful effects of lead poisoning and reduce the massive global costs it brings.
1. How does the author describe the lead problem in paragraph 2?| A．By making a comparison. | B．By analyzing hidden causes. |
| C．By listing convincing numbers. | D．By explaining its working principle. |
| A．Lead enters rich countries in various ways. |
| B．Lead poisoning may make poor societies poorer. |
| C．Exposure to lead doesn’t necessarily harm someone. |
| D．Lead leaking has caused great panic in both countries. |
| A．Fixing these used batteries. | B．Putting certain effort and money. |
| C．Prohibiting the illegal use of lead. | D．Reducing the cost of recycling lead. |
| A．The Impacts of Lead Poisoning on Human Health |
| B．The Outcomes of Using Electric Vehicles |
| C．The Ways to Solve Lead Problem |
| D．The Global Lead Poisoning Crisis |
3 . ChatGPT has quickly become popular around the world because of its advanced conversational abilities. It can answer questions, do translations, give the main idea of articles and even write codes (代码) for a computer program. It is as good as a human inside a computer.
ChatGPT is making life very convenient. A time might come when people hand it some articles and it makes a well-made report. That could, however, mean job losses. After all, if a computer program can write codes, then it would make a programmer lose his job.
That may be a worry, but it is still too early to worry about that. ChatGPT has more advanced learning features, but it still follows the same technological way. Its biggest advantage lies in the ability to turn words into a language from an ocean of data, but it's still not that creative. AI can quickly draw a picture, but that picture will be based on pictures that it has seen. It can also write books about the future, but the books will be based on articles about the future that it has read.
In comparison, a human brain imagines the future and then tries hard to realize it. AI can imagine a future with faster spaceships, but it can't imagine a world of space as humans can.
So there is no need to worry too much. By being creative there will be plenty of chances for humans to win over AI.
1. What does the underlined word “It” in Paragraph 1 refer to?| A．The world. | B．ChatGPT. | C．A computer. | D．A program. |
| A．By telling stories. | B．By giving examples. |
| C．By listing numbers. | D．By making comparisons. |
| A．It has its own creativity. |
| B．It has conversational abilities. |
| C．It has more advanced learning features. |
| D．It has the ability to turn words into a language. |
| A．Sports. | B．Science. | C．Education. | D．Business. |
4 . Mark Bertram lost the tips of two fingers at work in 2018 when his hand became trapped in a fan belt. “It’s life-changing but it’s not life-ending,” he says. “Doing work is harder now. Everything is just a little different.”
After two surgeries and occupational therapy, Bertram decided to make light of his condition by asking Eric Catalano, a tattoo (纹身) artist, to create fingernail (手指甲) tattoos. The idea made everyone in the studio laugh — until they saw the final result. “The mood changed,” Catalano recalls from his Eternal Ink Tattoo Studio in Hecker, Illinois. “Everything turned from ridiculous to wow.”
When Catalano posted a photo of the tattoos, a pair of fingernails looking so real that no one could believe their eyes, he had no idea the image would eventually be viewed by millions of people around the world.
The photo pushed Catalano, 40, further into the world of paramedical tattooing. Now people with life-altering scars come from as far away as Ireland to visit his shop. Using flesh-toned inks and a needle, Catalano transforms his clients’ view of themselves.
Leslie Pollan, 32, a dog breeder in Oxford, Mississippi, was bitten on the face by a puppy in 2014. After undergoing countless surgeries to correct a scar on her lip but in vain, she ultimately turned to Catalano, who covered her lip scar, giving her back a piece of her confidence. Pollan says, “It made me have a different outlook on life.”
“Every time I see that emotion from my customers, I’m 100 percent sure this is something that I can’t stop doing.”
1. At first, what did people think of the idea of creating the first fingernail tattoos?| A．Inspiring. | B．Life-changing. | C．Funny. | D．Amazing. |
| A．No one believed it was real. |
| B．It enjoyed great popularity. |
| C．It brought Catalano fame and money overnight. |
| D．It discouraged Catalano from furthering on in that field. |
| A．To warn people to stay away from puppies. |
| B．To prove that plastic surgeries are not so effective. |
| C．To show Catalano helps change clients’ view of themselves. |
| D．To highlight that tattooing is very important in our daily life. |
| A．Magical Tattoos | B．A Tattoo Artist | C．Popularity of Tattoos | D．Development of Tattoos |
5 . Search online “work too much” and you’ll get screenfuls of information about the harmful medical, mental and social consequences of spending too much time on the job. However, under current circumstances, the old saying “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” should be “makes Jack a dead boy.”
A latest study by W.H.O. says that working 55 or more hours a week is a “serious health risk”. It estimates that long working hours led to 745,000 deaths worldwide in 2016, a 29 percent increase over 2000. Men accounted for 72 percent of the deaths; the worst concentrations were in the Western Pacific and Southeast Asia, and particularly among 60 to 79-year-olds who had worked long hours after the age of 45.
These figures make long working hours the biggest work-related health risk of all. Risk of a stroke rises by 35 percent and of deadly heart disease by 17 percent for those who can’t or won’t stop working, compared with people who work 35 to 40 hours a week. The pandemic, and especially remote work, has created new opportunities to work too hard.
The W.H.O. director-general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, noted that teleworking has blurred the line between work and home and that people who have survived layoffs (裁员) at struggling businesses have ended up working longer hours. One survey found an overwhelming majority of American employees have shortened, postponed or canceled vacations during the pandemic.
The red flags about overwork have been waving for years all around the world. Exhaustion has been identified as a factor in industrial disasters like the BP oil refinery explosion in Texas City in 2005 and the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island. In Japan, long working hours are so common that “karoshi,” translated as “death by overwork”, is a legally recognized cause of death.
So, working less is a matter of life and death, isn’t it?
1. How does the writer illustrate the risk of overwork in para.3?| A．By giving examples. | B．By listing opinions. |
| C．By analyzing causes. | D．By describing actions. |
| A．The inconvenience in traveling. |
| B．The loss of work-home boundaries. |
| C．The increased enthusiasm for work. |
| D．The lack of interest in entertainment. |
| A．Working less is a matter of life and death. |
| B．Japan is known for its culture of overworking. |
| C．The harm of overwork has long been acknowledged. |
| D．Overwork is a major reason behind industrial disasters. |
| A．In a college textbook of medicine. |
| B．In a guidebook for workplace newcomers. |
| C．In the “opinion” column of a newspaper. |
| D．In the brochure of a Japanese company. |
| A．人物 | B．数字 | C．形象 | D．特征 |
6 . Young children are significantly more likely than adults to have their opinions influenced by robots, according to a new research. The study, conducted at the University of Plymouth, compared how adults and children respond to an identical task when in the presence of both their peers (同龄人) and robots.
It showed that while adults regularly have their opinions influenced by peers, something also demonstrated in previous studies, they are largely able to resist(抵制) being persuaded by robots. However, children aged between seven and nine were more likely to give the same responses as the robots, even if they were obviously incorrect.
The study asks people to look at a screen showing four lines and say which two match in length. When alone, people almost never make a mistake but when doing the experiment with others, they tend to follow what others are saying.
When children were alone in the room in this research, they scored 87% on the test, but when the robots join in their score drops to 75%. And of the wrong answers, 74% matched those of the robot.
Professor Belpaeme said, “People often follow the opinions of others and we’ve known for a long time that it is hard to resist taking over views and opinions of people around us. But as robots will soon be found in the home and the workplace, we were wondering if people would follow robots.”
“What our results show is that adults do not follow what the robots are saying. But when we did the experiment with children, they did. It shows children can perhaps have more of an affinity (亲和力) with robots than adults, which does pose the question: What if robots were to suggest, for example, what products to buy or what to think?”
1. What did the adults do when staying with robots?| A．They totally accepted the robots’ suggestions. |
| B．They tried to persuade robots to resist them. |
| C．They generally refused the robots’ effects. |
| D．They usually compared robots with their children. |
| A．Because robots in the presence made mistakes. |
| B．Because children were not as clever as the adults. |
| C．Because robots reflected better than human beings. |
| D．Because children wanted to affect the robots on purpose. |
| A．He is optimistic about the result. | B．He doubts the result of the research. |
| C．He doesn’t care about the result. | D．He is worried about the future. |
| A．What is the meaning of the research? |
| B．What will be done to solve the problem? |
| C．What should adults do to avoid the problem? |
| D．Why are children more likely to be influenced? |
7 . Want to help fight global warming? Take off your tie, says the Italian health ministry. It has urged employers to let their staff dress casually at work in the summer so that the air conditioning can be turned down.
“Taking your tie off immediately lowers the body temperature by 2 or 3 degrees centigrade,” the ministry said in a statement. “Allowing a more sensible use of air conditioning brings about electricity savings and protects the environment.”
It called on all public and private offices to let employees wear no tie during heatwaves like the one that has brought Africa-like temperatures to many parts of Italy this week.
The move reacts to a similar action from Italy’s biggest oil group, ENI, which told its staff earlier this month they need not wear a tie at work. The tie makers, however, were left hot under the collar.
“Italy confirms (证实) that it is a strange country,” Flavio Cima said angrily in a letter to financial daily IL Sole~24ORE under the headline: “I, tie maker, am responsible for global warming.”
“We can now happily continue with our lifestyle, using cars, consuming fuel, heating and cooling our homes at leisure. On one condition: we should not wear a tie while we do so,” he wrote.
“I should have listened to my friends and become an oil producer instead.”
Italy is one of the European Union’s worst performers on the pollution front and is among the EU countries expected to exceed (超出) their greenhouse gas emission (排放) targets.
1. What’s the purpose of the move of taking off ties?| A．To dress casually. | B．To fight global warming. |
| C．To keep the body temperature. | D．To improve working conditions. |
| A．ENI. | B．Flavio Cima. |
| C．A financial daily. | D．The Italian health ministry. |
| A．Angry. | B．Speechless. |
| C．Delighted. | D．Puzzled. |
| A．He stands by the oil group. | B．He agrees with the ministry. |
| C．He admits his responsibility. | D．He argues against taking off ties. |
8 . We have all been in situations where we have had to talk to people that we didn’t know before. This could be because we are in a lift with them or standing next to them in a line. Generally the situation is more uncomfortable if no conversation is made, so to avoid this we make what is called small talk. Today we will look at when to use small talk and what kind of things are proper to say and what we should avoid at all costs.
The most common situations where we use small talk are when we are forced to be close to people we don’t know. This could be waiting in a long line at the supermarket or sitting in a hospital waiting room. Again it is not unheard of to create small talk with someone who is sitting next to you on a plane if you are both travelling together.
There are several topics of conversation that we can touch on with someone that we do not know and are making small talk with. By far the most common topic the world over is the weather. It is so popular because it is such a simple topic to talk about that everyone notices and has an opinion to express. There are other topics for example if you are at a party and don’t know anyone, it’s likely that you could end up in a conversation with someone talking about sport or where they work.
There are some people who don’t mind talking about anything, but it is important to bear in mind that not everyone likes this. We should be careful when choosing which topics to base our small talk around. The key topics to avoid are religion(宗教)，politics and money.
1. Why do we make small talk waiting in a line?| A．To avoid uncomfortable feeling. | B．To improve communication skills. |
| C．To make as many friends as possible. | D．To change people’s idea and attention. |
| A．we are checking our change |
| B．we have to stay close to strangers |
| C．we are asking doctors about our illness |
| D．we are showing our passports on flights |
| A．Family. | B．Sport. | C．Education. | D．Weather. |
| A．The religion that you choose. | B．Your favourite sports. |
| C．Plans on this weekend. | D．Going out for a picnic. |
9 . Sending a thumbs-up can be seen as passive aggressive(冒犯的), according to Gen Z (those born between 1995 and 2009) who say they feel attacked whenever it is used. Whether the chat is informal, between friends or at work the symbol appears to have a very different, ‘rude’ meaning for the younger generation.
A 24-year-old on Reddit summed up the Gen Z argument, saying it is best ‘never used in any situation’ as it is ‘hurtful’. “No one of my age in the office does it, but the Gen X (those born between 1966 and 1980) people always do it. Take me a bit to adjust and get it out of my head that it means they’re mad-at me,” he added. Other young people agreed it is bad form, especially at work where it can make the team appear unfriendly and not easygoing.
“My last workplace had a WhatsApp chat for our team to send information to each other on, and most of the people on there just replied with a thumbs up. I don’t know why but it seemed a little bit hostile to me,” one woman said. One Reddit user also said the thumbs up actually means that “I’ve read your message and have nothing to add and I hope and pray...all the people in this group chat have nothing to say on it too.”
Older workers appear confused by the reaction, saying they use the thumbs up in work-related chats to show “I agree” or “I understood and will follow.”
Part of the issue is that young people tend to use the thumbs-up in jokes. Barry Kennedy, 24, he said he only used it to communicate with older people like his parents or older colleagues. A survey of 2, 000 people conducted by Perspectus Global showed that a majority of people between the ages of 16 and 29 believe that you are “officially old” if you use thumbs-up or heart emoji.
1. Which of the following point is not the Gen Z’s understanding of the emoji thumbs-up?| A．Being rude. | B．Being agreeable. |
| C．Being hurtful. | D．Being unfriendly. |
| A．Unfriendly and aggressive. | B．Tough and difficult. |
| C．Unwanted and unacceptable. | D．Strange and unusual. |
| A．Because of their poor communications kill. |
| B．Because of their being old with worse memory. |
| C．Because of their less communicating with the young. |
| D．Because of their different understanding of the emoji. |
| A．The Thumbs-up Emoji: Rejected by the younger generation |
| B．The Thumbs-up Emoji: Highly Welcomed by Old People |
| C．The Thumbs-up Emoji: A Sign of Generation Gap |
| D．The Thumbs-up Emoji: A Sign of Being Aggressive |
10 . Every March, the country celebrates the achievements of women in American history. Even though these achievements go back a long way, most schools didn’t start focusing on women pioneers and their achievements until recently. Today, most schools teach kids about the contributions women have made to our country. How did this change come about?
On March 19, 1911, a German woman named Clara Zetkin organized the very first International Women’s Day. Inspired by American working women, the event took on the causes of peace in an effort to end World War I as well as women’s rights. However, people’s interest in International Women’s Day still dwindled over the years. It gained momentum (势头) again in the 1960’s when the women’s movement caused women to wonder why they weren’t included in the history books.
By the 1970s, more female historians began to look back at women’s contributions in history. In 1978, a California school district started Women’s History Week to promote the teaching of women’s history. School officials picked the week of March 8 to include International Women’s Day. It was so popular that, in 1981, Congress passed a resolution, making the week a celebration for the entire country. The concept of studying women’s history continued to grow in popularity. In 1987, a group of women asked Congress to expand the celebration. That same year. Congress declared the entire month of March National Women’s History Month.
Today, schools and communities across the country celebrate the month with special lessons and activities designed to teach the ways women have helped shape the US. The women who have worked hard to make Women’s History Month a reality would like to see women’s history studied all year, not just every March. In 1996, the National Women’s History Museum was founded. It is a commonweal (公益) organization dedicated to preserving and celebrating the various historic contributions of women. The organization is working with Congress to open a permanent (永久的) museum site in Washington D. C.
1. What was ignored in school education in the past according to the text?| A．Popularizing American history. |
| B．Introducing the history of WWI. |
| C．Sharing Americans global contributions. |
| D．Teaching about American women’s achievements. |
| A．Started. | B．Survived. | C．Decreased. | D．Completed. |
| A．How women were included in the history books. |
| B．How Women’s History Month became a reality. |
| C．Why women’s history should be taught at school. |
| D．Why women’s contributions should be honored in history. |
| A．It is a non-profit organization. | B．It was founded by Clara Zetkin. |
| C．It was confirmed by Congress. | D．It is a museum in Washington D.C. |
