1 . To get a sense of how spending in my generation is different from that of my parents’, just consider one simple transaction: a utility bill. When my parents paid their utility bill, they had to take out their checkbook, put pen to paper, write a check, and then record it in their checkbook. If they did not know how much their utility bill was, they had to be purposefully ignorant.
My utility bill is paid automatically from my banking app. For me to know how much my utility bill is, I have to be purposefully diligent. And the truth is, I’m not in most cases.
Of course, I’m not just talking about utility bills here. As with most millennials (千禧一代), technology has made the payment of bills so simple that we tend to take it for granted and hardly have to think about it anymore. And that is the problem: By streamlining our personal finances, technology has also made it so much easier to ignore the costs. However, in doing so, it has broken the connection between the things we buy and the cost of having them. And it is precisely that connection that keeps our financial lives on track—making sure that we save enough and spend our money on the things that really matter.
The question now is: How do we get that connection back, without giving up the convenience that technology has brought us?
The good news is that whatever is given can be taken back. Much of the battle is simply to recognize what we have lost. The first thing is thus to be aware of how much we are spending by using personal-finance apps. These apps can categorize purchases and send you a spending report. They can detect—and warn you—if a repeated payment is going to get you in trouble. And they can send you a notification when each automatic payment is being made. These real-time tools, used together, are probably better practice than balancing a checkbook on a Saturday morning.
The fact, however, is that all of these tools require the user to make a conscious effort to sign up for these services, and to actually use them. And that is where the ”stop me before I do something foolish“ process must begin. If we millennials want to be smart about our money, it seems that we have no choice: We need to bridge that gap between what we spend and how we pay. We need to feel the connection between the value of our purchases and the effort it takes to make them.
1. The example mentioned in the first two paragraphs was meant to suggest that__________.| A．spending habits vary from generation to generation |
| B．banking apps have quickly developed in recent years |
| C．the younger generations are much lazier than their parents |
| D．the payment process has greatly changed over the past decades |
| A．handling | B．stretching |
| C．improving | D．simplifying |
| A．Out of sight, out of mind. | B．The devil is in the details. |
| C．Rome wasn’t built in a day. | D．You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. |
| A．stopping the use of automatic paying apps |
| B．setting aside a regular time to pay their bills |
| C．making the best use of personal-finance apps |
| D．thinking twice before making expensive purchases |
2 . The time a person spends on different smartphone apps is enough to identify them from a larger group in more than one in three cases, say researchers.
Researchers analyzed smartphone data from 780 people. They fed 4,680 days of app usage data into statistical models. Each of these days was paired with one of the 780 users so that the models learned people’s daily app use patterns.
The researchers then tested whether models could identify an individual when provided with only a single day of smartphone activity that was anonymous (匿名的). The models, which were trained on only six days of app usage data per person, could identify the correct person from a day of anonymous data one third of the time.
That might not sound like much, but when the models predict who the data belonged to, it could also provide a list of the most to the least likely candidates. It was possible to view the top 10 most likely individuals that a specific day of data belonged to. Around 75% of the time, the correct user would be among the top 10 most likely individuals.
In practical terms, a law enforcement (执法机构) investigation seeking to identify a criminal’s new phone with these models could reduce a candidate pool of approximately 1,000 phones to 10 phones, with a 25% risk of missing them.
Consequently, the researchers warn that software given access to a smartphone’s standard activity logging could make a reasonable prediction about a user’s identity even when they were logged-out of their account. An identification is possible without monitoring conversations or behaviors within apps themselves.
Therefore, it is important to acknowledge that app usage data alone, which is often collected by a smartphone automatically, can potentially reveal a person’s identity. While providing new opportunities for law enforcement, it also poses risks to privacy if this type of data is misused.
1. What is the purpose of the passage?| A．To explain an development. |
| B．To present a research finding. |
| C．To show a research process. |
| D．To confirm an assumption. |
| A．By recording app use time. |
| B．By comparing different apps. |
| C．By studying app usage data. |
| D．By changing app use patterns. |
| A．Locating criminals. |
| B．Tracking usage of apps. |
| C．Predicting trends of apps. |
| D．Recognizing phone users. |
| A．Supportive | B．Cautious. | C．Doubtful. | D．Uninterested. |
3 . Six months before she died, my grandmother moved into an old people’s home and I visited her there. The room was clean and warm, and the care assistants were kind and cheerful. A general knowledge quiz show was on the television, and the only other sound was snoring. People moved only when they needed to be helped to the bathroom. It was disappointing. Grandmother talked a lot about how much she missed seeing her grandchildren, but I knew from my sister that they hated going to visit her there.
So I was interested to read a newspaper article about a new concept in old people’s homes in France. The idea is simple, but revolutionary — combining a residential home for the elderly with a nursery school in the same building. The children and the residents eat lunch together and share activities. In the afternoons, the residents enjoy reading or telling stories to the children, and if a child is feeling sad or tired, there is always a kind lap to sit on.
The advantages are huge for everyone concerned. The children are happy, because they get a lot more individual attention. The residents are happy because they feel useful and needed. And the staff are happy because they see an improvement in the physical and psychological health of the residents and have an army of assistants to help with the children.
Nowadays there is less and less contact between the old and the young in an increasing number of countries. There are many reasons for this, including the breakdown of the extended family, working parents with no time to care for ageing relations, families that have moved away, and smaller flats with no room for grandparents. But the result is the same-increasing numbers of children without grandparents and old people who have no contact with children, and more old people who are lonely and feel useless, along with more and more families with young children who desperately need more support. Ifs a major problem in many societies.
That’s why intergenerational programs, designed to bring the old and the young together, are growing in popularity all over the world.
1. What does the underlined word “residents” in paragraph 2 probably refer to?| A．Old people. | B．School teachers. | C．Assistants. | D．Staff. |
| A．They felt lonely and useless. | B．They weren’t allowed to be visited. |
| C．They weren’t looked after properly. | D．They lived in a dirty and uncomfortable room. |
| A．The extended family is broken down. |
| B．There isn’t much room for grandparents. |
| C．Working parents have no time to care for their children. |
| D．There isn’t much contact between the old and the young. |
| A．Advice on how to communicate with children. |
| B．Plans for setting up more homes for old people. |
| C．Examples of successful intergenerational programs. |
| D．Ways of teaching entertainment skills to old people. |
4 . As one of the biggest topics of the last decade, sustainability has become the beacon (灯塔) of hope to protect the planet. From supermarkets taking action on plastic packaging to the zero waste movement that can be practised from your kitchen, changes made by individuals and organizations across the globe have had an impact on the way we think, shop and live.
So what does that mean for the world of technology? You’d be forgiven for thinking that the words “sustainable” and “technology” don’t usually go hand in hand. E-waste is, after all, one of the planet’s biggest contributing waste streams. Not only that, but the materials that go into technology products are also part of the problem.
But with a challenge comes an opportunity, and there’s already some brilliant progress happening — great news for those of us wanting to be more sustainable with our technology. Firstly renewed products are having its moment. While consumers would previously turn their noses up at the idea of a second-hand device, there’s been a huge surge in demand for renewed technology products. The second major step in tackling the problem of e-waste is a change in attitudes from owning a product to subscribing for one. A subscription for a smartphone might sound like a foreign concept, but it’s already gaining momentum. At the forefront of this movement is a London-based technology startup, which offers a subscription service for the latest smartphones. As customers aren’t paying to own the phone at the end of their contract, the monthly price is significantly lower than average.
Studies show that extending a phone’s lifespan from one to four years can decrease its environmental impact by about 40%. So the next time it comes to refreshing your device — whether a smartphone, a laptop, a tablet or something else — consider the more environmentally friendly options that are at your fingertips.
1. What’s the purpose of paragraph 1?| A．To change the way we think, shop and live. |
| B．To introduce the topic of sustainability in technology. |
| C．To tell us what people have done to protect the planet. |
| D．To call on people to do something for the environment. |
| A．High-tech products are in short supply. |
| B．E-waste contributes to the biggest waste streams. |
| C．The two sustainability problems in technology. |
| D．Ignoring sustainable technology is unforgivable. |
| A．Supportive. | B．Unacceptable. |
| C．Sympathy | D．Doubtful. |
| A．By upgrading the old one. |
| B．By subscribing for a smartphone. |
| C．By spending less money on a smartphone. |
| D．By replacing the old one with the latest one |
5 . Have you gotten price shock lately when you looked at the cost of a new car? It’s not your imagination .The average price of a new car is the highest ever for the first quarter, according to CNBC. At $33, 319, the price is about $1,000 more than in 2018. Because of that, new car sales dropped by as many as 2.5 million units compared to the same quarter last year.
You’d think the drop might concern car makers, but as it turns out, the increase of the price reflects a choice. Many carmakers are stopping producing less expensive cars in favor of SUVS and pickup trucks, which bring in bigger profits(利润).
“Carmakers always say they build what people want.” The Wall Street Journal reporter Dan Neil said. “But they never mention the fact that they spend billions telling people what they want. It wasn’t that consumers wanted to have a truck that was as big as a house. No, that was a gradual process. And it has been mainly pushed by carmakers because bigger equals more profits.”
In late 2018, Ford announced it was gradually stopping producing its Fiesta, Focus, and C-max models in the United States while continuing to make the Mustang and Focus Active. Other big carmakers did the same, with General Motors ending production of the Chevy Volt, Cruz, Impala, Buick Lacrosse. Cadillac XTS, and Cadillac CT6 in the United States. And Fiat Chrysler is putting the Dodge Dart and Chrysler 200 to an end. “I can tell you right now that both the Chrysler 200 and the Dodge Dart, as great products as they were, are the least financially rewarding business that we’ve carried out in the last eight years,” said Fiat Chrysler CEO.
So where does that leave consumers? Well, if you’re in the market for an SUV or a top-of-the-line pickup truck, you can expect better features. But if you’re looking for a smaller, less expensive car you might be squeezed (挤)out of the market. More and more buyers are likely to look to used cars instead. But before car shopping, make sure you know the secrets car dealers don’t want to tell you.
1. What caused the drop in new car sales this year?| A．The decline of cars quality | B．The rising price of new cars |
| C．The change of market demand | D．The decrease of carmakers’ number |
| A．Carmakers always know the true need of consumers |
| B．Carmakers produce bigger cars because of the social trend |
| C．Consumers really depend less on carmakers in buying cars |
| D．Consumers’ shopping decisions are influenced by carmakers |
| A．are driven by profits | B．can be unwise sometimes |
| C．may influence the quality of cars | D．fail to meet some people’s demands |
| A．Most people don’t prefer small cars any more. |
| B．Producing small cars brings less profit to carmakers. |
| C．Small cars can’t provide better features for consumers. |
| D．Buying second-hand cars is a good choice for some people. |
6 . There are at least 80,000 registered charities in Canada, ranging from churches to nursing homes to community centres. The latest report from the Canadian Philanthropy Survey (CIC) listed the top 10 charities in the country, and the following are among them.
Fresh Start Recovery Centre
freshstartrecovery.ca
Aimed at people in Alberta struggling against addiction and homelessness, Fresh Start Recovery Centre provides a four-month live-in program that includes fitness training and nutritional support. The group also provides short-term housing and employment information for those who are recovering from alcoholism. Other programs include a food truck that’s fully staffed by people in recovery; in 2020, it centered on bringing necessary supplies to those in need.
CUPS
www.cupscalgary.com
CUPS is the combination of a Calgary community center, health-care system and social-service agency. Many programs are specially aimed at families, including several parenting workshops. In 2020 alone, CUPS saw 2, 336 people use its services for the first time. During the COVID-19, it created “assisted self-isolation (隔离) sites” at a hotel for people with no fixed address who had been exposed to COVID-19.
Educational Program Innovations Charity (EPIC)
epiccharity.com
Youth living in poverty or in at-risk situations, as well as members of Black communities, get support from this Sydney, N.S. organization, including one-on-one mentoring (辅导), and scholarships for high-school graduates for higher education. The program also helps kids from poor families who struggle to get access to tech devices and Internet services.
Elimin8Hate
elimin8hate.org
This Vancouver group aims to fight anti-Asian racism using creative methods that range from interactive social-media activities to designs for educational campaigns. The organization also serves as a key platform: members of Asian communities who experience racial violence can report what happened, contributing to a database that’s sadly ever-expanding.
If you’re interested in learning more about which charities are most in need, check out canadahelps. org and charityintelligence.ca.
1. What do Fresh Start Recovery Centre and CUPS provide in common?| A．Food supplies. | B．Training for parents. |
| C．Job opportunities. | D．Temporary accommodation. |
| A．Accepting them as members of the organization. |
| B．Keeping them far from risks and dangers. |
| C．Offering them scholarships to university. |
| D．Teaching them how to surf the Internet. |
| A．Organize certain social-media activities. |
| B．Answer racial violence with violence. |
| C．Report his experience to the organization. |
| D．Stay in Asian communities all the time. |
7 . If you picnic in a Texas park, chances are you’ll encounter fire ants — a kind of pest that can deliver painful bites. This invasive (入侵的) species, like many others, is not only annoying but also destructive.
An invasive species is any kind of living thing that isn’t native to an ecosystem and causes harm. Sometimes non-native species are imported by accident, like in the 1930s when ships from South America inadvertently took fire ants to North America. Other times non-native species are imported deliberately. Some types of Asian fish that were originally imported to the U.S. from China to clean fish farms escaped and entered rivers. Green iguanas were brought to China, as pets, but irresponsible owners released them.
Non-native species have even been imported for emotional reasons. A man once released dozens of European starlings (八哥) in New York in an effort to bring all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare’s writings to America. Today, millions of starlings cause over $800 million in damage to U.S. agriculture every year. Invasive species’ global economic influence is also enormous. The U.S. government assesses that invasive species cost the American economy over $120 billion every year.
Invasive species can damage their host habitats by unbalancing local ecosystems. They often lack natural enemies in their new environment and out-compete native species for food and other resources. They also might feed on local species. Invasive species can also carry diseases for which local species have no immunity (免疫力). This can result in the loss of an entire native species.
Invasive species are among the leading threats to native wildlife. About 42% of threatened or endangered species are at risk due to invasive species. Unless people take serious action, the economic and environmental costs of invasive species will become disastrous.
1. What does the underlined word “inadvertently” mean in paragraph 2?| A．Separately. | B．Regularly. |
| C．Temporarily. | D．Unexpectedly. |
| A．To satisfy his wish. |
| B．To raise them as pets. |
| C．To copy Shakespeare’s behavior. |
| D．To do agricultural experiments. |
| A．Food shortage for native people. |
| B．Serious economic imbalance. |
| C．Economic and environmental problems. |
| D．Dangerous diseases for humans. |
| A．Wildlife Conservation |
| B．Protecting Native Species |
| C．Environmental Protection Measures |
| D．Our Unwelcome Guests |
8 . There is something to be said for being a generalist, even if you are a specialist. Knowing a little about a lot of things that interest you can add to the richness of a whole, well-lived life.
Society pushes us to specialize, to become experts. This requires commitment to a particular occupation, branch of study or research. The drawback to being specialists is we often come to know more and more about less and less. There is a great deal of pressure to master one’s field. You may pursue training, degrees, or increasing levels of responsibility at work. Then you discover the pressure of having to keep up.
Some people seem willing to work around the clock in their narrow specialty. But such commitment can also weaken a sense of freedom. These specialists could work at the office until ten each night, then look back and realize they would have loved to have gone home and enjoyed the sweetness of their family and friends, or traveled to exciting places, meeting interesting people. Mastering one thing to the exclusion of others can hold back your true spirit.
Generalists on the other hand, know a lot about a wide range of subjects and view the whole with all its connections. They are people of ability, talent, and enthusiasm who can bring their broad perspective into specific fields of expertise. The doctor who is also a poet and philosopher is a superior doctor, one who can give so much more to his patients than just good medical skills.
Things are connected. Let your expertise in one field fuel your passions in all related areas. Some of your interests may not appear to be connected but, once you explore their depths, you discover that they are. My editor Toni, who is also a writer, has edited several history books. She has decided to study Chinese history. Fascinated by the structural beauty of the Forbidden City as a painter, she is equally interested to learn more about Chinese philosophy. “I don’t know where it will lead, but I’m excited I’m on this pursuit.”
These expansions into new worlds help us by giving us new perspectives. We begin to see the interconnectedness of one thing to another in all aspects of our life, of ourselves and the universe. Develop broad, general knowledge and experience. The universe is all yours to explore and enjoy.
1. To become a specialist, one may have to ______ .| A．narrow his range of knowledge | B．avoid responsibilities at work |
| C．know more about the society | D．broaden his perspective on life |
| A．treasure their freedom | B．travel around the world |
| C．spend most time working | D．enjoy meeting funny people |
| A．is fully aware of his talent and ability | B．is a pure specialist in medicine |
| C．should love poetry and philosophy | D．brings knowledge of other fields to work |
| A．Passion alone does not ensure a person’s success. |
| B．In-depth exploration makes discoveries possible. |
| C．Everyone has a chance to succeed in their pursuit. |
| D．Seemingly unrelated interests are in a way connected. |
9 . There is a popular saying in the English language: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Well, that is not true. Unkind words, name-calling or even the so-called “the silent treatment” can hurt children as much as being physically hit, sometimes even more so. A recent study of middle school children showed that verbal (言语的) abuse by other children can harm, the development in the brain. The study was a project of researchers at Harvard Medical School in Massachusetts. Researcher Martin Teicher and his team studied young adults, aged 18 to 25. These young men and women had not ever been treated in a cruel or violent way by their parents. The researchers asked the young people to rate their childhood exposure to verbal abuse from both parents and other children. Then the researchers performed imaging tests on the brains of the subjects.
The images showed that the people who reported suffering verbal abuse from peers in middle school had underdeveloped connections between the left and right side of the brain. The two sides of the brain are connected by a large bundle of connecting fibers called the corpus callosum. This was the area that was underdeveloped.
The middle school years are a time when these brain connections are developing. So, unkind, hurtful comments from children or adults during this period have the greatest effect. The researchers tested the mental and emotional condition of all the young people in the study. The tests showed that this same group of people had higher levels of fear, depression, anger and drug abuse than others in the study.
The researchers published their findings online on the American Journal of Psychiatry's website.
Parents cannot control what other people say to their children, but they can prepare their children.
1. Why does the author use the popular saying at the beginning?| A．To show the power of words. |
| B．To introduce an opposite view. |
| C．To prove the author's argument. |
| D．To show ancient people's wisdom. |
| A．They were hurt by unkind words. |
| B．They performed poorly in imaging tests. |
| C．They had their brain slightly damaged. |
| D．They experienced no physical abuse at home. |
| A．Comments on the findings. |
| B．Approaches to further studies. |
| C．Suggestions to parents. |
| D．Different opinions on the matter. |
| A．Unkind words hurt the brain. |
| B．Verbal violence should be stopped. |
| C．The way we speak matters. |
| D．Words are worse than sticks and stones. |
10 . As prices and house costs keep rising, the “do-it-yourself” (DIY) is popular in the U.S. “We needed furniture for our living room,” says John Ross, “and we just didn’t have enough money to buy it. So we decided to make a few table s and chairs by ourselves.” John got married six months ago, and the same as many young people these days, they are competing to make a home when the cost of living is very high. So he and his wife took a 2-week class for $280 at a night school. Now they build all their furniture and make repairs around the house.
Jim has three boys and his wife died. So he has a full-time job at home. He also has a full-time in a shoe making factory. Last month, he received a car repair bill for $420. “I was deeply upset about it. Now I’ve finished a car repair course, I should be able to fix the car by myself.”
John and Jim are usual people. Most families in the country are doing everything they can to save money so that they can fight the high cost of living. If you want to become a “do-it-yourselfer”, you can go to DIY classes. And for those who don’t have time to take a course, there are books that tell you how you can do things yourself.
1. We can learn from the text that many newly married people ______.| A．find it hard to pay for what they need | B．have to learn to make their own furniture |
| C．take DIY courses run by the government | D．seldom go to a department store to buy things |
| A．makes shoes in his home | B．does his own car and home repairs |
| C．does extra work at night | D．keeps house and looks after his children |
| A．his car repairs cost too much | B．the car repair class was not helpful |
| C．he could no possible do two jobs | D．he had to raise the children |
| A．The Joy of DIY | B．You Can Do It Too! |
| C．Welcome to Our DIY Course! | D．Ross and Jim:Believers in DIY. |
