1 . Camera flashes cut across the softly lighted downtown Los Angeles restaurant, as the crowd at Ludo Bites jostles (推挤) for the photo-of the Columbian River king salmon duck. “This is the game we all now play, ” chef and owner Ludo Lefebvre said. “We cook, we smile-and the people, they don’t eat. They get their cameras.”

Not so long ago, diners, hungry for special meals, would pull out a point-and-shoot at a restaurant for a quick picture of sliced birthday cake.

No more. Taking a cue from Twitter and Facebook cultures, serious foodies (美食家) and casual consumers alike are using digital technology to document each bite, then sharing the pictures online.

Flickr, the photo-sharing website, has seen the number of pictures tagged as “food” jump from about half a million in 2008 to more than 6 million today, according to company officials. In the group “I Ate This” on Flickr’s site, nearly 20,000 people have uploaded more than 307,000 images of their latest meals.

Camera manufacturers are joining the trend, selling cameras that offer “food” settings, which adjust to enhance colors and textures (质地) on close-ups.

“I am sharing my experiences with my friends,” said Hong Pham, 33, a Los Angeles radiologist who runs the food blog Ravenous Couple. “Why shouldn’t I share what inspires me?”

But what is documentary fun for people such as Pham is souring the gastronomic (烹饪的) set.

Managers regularly face diners demanding to be moved away from camera flashes and sounds. Waiters find themselves tongue-tied as customers take out voice recorders to capture a recitation of each course. Some chefs have had enough.

Chef Grant Achatz allows only no-flash photography in his restaurant. He, like many other chefs, finds himself torn between being flattered by the public’s enthusiasm and annoyed with the effect the picture-taking is having on the restaurant’s operation.

Some consumers now believe food should be consumed visually as well as physically. “What happened to the enjoyment of just eating the food?” said Andrew Knowlton, the restaurant editor for Bon Appetite magazine. “People are losing sight of why you go out.”

1. Who is the most supportive of taking pictures of food in restaurants?

A．Grant Achatz.	B．Andrew Knowlton.
C．Hong Pham.	D．Ludo Lefebvre.

2. People tend to take pictures in restaurants because ______.

A．delicately-made dishes are visually inviting

B．they will share with others their dining experience

C．cameras can be specially set for food photography

D．they can profit by selling pictures to famous websites

3. What can we infer from the passage?

A．More pictures will be uploaded at websites like Twitter and Facebook.

B．Consumers used to take pictures in restaurants only for their birthdays.

C．Rules should be set out that there is no food photography in restaurants.

D．Chefs are likely to accept picture-taking in their restaurants to a limited extent.

4. The passage is most probably a ______.

A．news story	B．feature article
C．commercial advertisement	D．survey report

2 . Road traffic accidents are caused by a number of factors which can be grouped into three categories: human factors, vehicle factors and road environment factors. Table 1 explains each factor and gives examples.

Table 1: Factors involved in road traffic accidents

Factor	Description	Example
Human	Things people do or don’t do	Speeding, not obeying traffic rules, using phone while driving
Vehicle	Things that are wrong with the vehicle	?
Road environment	Things outside the vehicle that affect driving	Condition of road, time of day, weather conditions, road repairs

One factor alone or several factors together can cause an accident. However, human actions are by far the greatest causes of car accidents. Diagram 1 shows that human factors are involved in 95% of all car accidents. Although other factors are also involved in 28% of these accidents, in 67% of cases, human factors alone are the cause of the accident.

Although behavior such as not paying attention to road, swerving to avoid an animal and eating while driving causes accidents, most road deaths are caused by speeding, driving after drinking alcohol, driving when tried and not wearing seat belts. As shown in Diagram 2, speeding is involved in more deaths than any other behavior in both city (50%) and country accidents (32%). Drivers and / or passengers not wearing seat belts is the second most common cause of road deaths.

1. Which of the following is best suited in the blank in table 1?

A．Vehicles of this type to be recalled at once.

B．Weak brakes, no seat belts in cars, old tyres.

C．250,000 people killed in car accidents in 2023.

D．Regular car maintenance, professional service.

2. What can be concluded from diagram 2?

A．Speeding kills more drivers in cities than in countries.

B．Two or more factors are combined to cause an accident.

C．Country drivers are more likely to get tired when driving.

D．Drunk driving cause more deaths than not wearing seat belts.

3. The passage is just one section of a larger report. What do you think the title of the larger report is?

A．The dangers of driving a car.	B．The effects of alcohol on driving.
C．Human factors in road traffic accidents.	D．How to prevent deaths on our roads.

3 . What can be done about mass unemployment? All the wise heads agree: there’re no quick or easy answers. There’s work to be done, but workers aren’t ready to do it — they’re in the wrong places, or they have the wrong skills. Our problems are structural, and will take many years to solve.

But don’t bother asking for evidence that justifies this bleak (暗淡的) view. There isn’t any. On the contrary, all the facts suggest that high unemployment in America is the result of inadequate demand. Saying that there’re no easy answers sounds wise, but it’s actually foolish: our unemployment crisis could be cured very quickly if we had the intellectual clarity and political will to act. In other words, structural unemployment is a fake problem, which mainly serves as an excuse for not pursuing real solutions.

The fact is job openings have plunged in every major sector, while the number of workers forced into part-time employment in almost all industries has soared. Unemployment has surged in every major occupational category. Only three states, with a combined population not much larger than that of Brooklyn, have unemployment rates below 5%. So the evidence contradicts the claim that we’re mainly suffering from structural unemployment. Why, then, has this claim become so popular?

Part of the answer is that this is what always happens during periods of high unemployment — in part because experts and analysts believe that declaring the problem deeply rooted, with no easy answers, makes them sound serious.

I’ve been looking at what self-proclaimed experts were saying about unemployment during the Great Depression; it was almost identical to what Very Serious People are saying now. Unemployment cannot be brought down rapidly, declared one 1935 analysis, because the workforce is “unadaptable and untrained. It cannot respond to the opportunities which industry may offer.” A few years later, a large defense buildup finally provided a financial stimulus adequate to the economy’s needs — and suddenly industry was eager to employ those “unadaptable and untrained” workers.

But now, as then, powerful forces are ideologically opposed to the whole idea of government action on a sufficient scale to jump-start the economy. And that, fundamentally, is why claims that we face huge structural problems have been multiplying: they offer a reason to do nothing about the mass unemployment that is crippling (损害) our economy and society.

So what you need to know is that there’s no evidence whatsoever to back these claims. We aren’t suffering from a shortage of needed skills; we’re suffering from a lack of policy resolve. As I said, structural unemployment isn’t a real problem, it’s an excuse — a reason not to act on America’s problems at a time when action is desperately needed.

1. What does the author think of the experts’ claim concerning unemployment?

A．Self-evident.

B．Thought-provoking.

C．Groundless.

D．Objective.

2. What does the author say helped bring down unemployment during the Great Depression?

A．The booming defense industry.	B．The wise heads’ benefit package.
C．Nationwide training of workers.	D．Thorough restructuring of industries.

3. What has caused claims of huge structural problems to multiply?

A．Economists, failure to detect the problems in time.

B．Very Serious People’s attempt to cripple the economy.

C．Evidence gathered from many sectors of the industries.

D．Powerful opposition to government’s stimulus efforts.

4. What is the author’s purpose in writing the passage?

A．To confirm the experts’ analysis of America’s problems.

B．To offer a feasible solution to the structural unemployment

C．To show the urgent need for the government to take action.

D．To alert American workers to the urgency for adaptation.

4 . As guochao 3.0, spearheaded by the New Chinese Style in fashion, continues to grow, we see many global brands trying to tap into the interest in traditional culture and aesthetics.     1    

McDonald’s has recently launched a partnership with the Sanxingdui Museum, a historical ruins-turned-museum in Sichuan, with a new flavour of burger and packaging.     2    At the end of March, McDonald’s teased that it would launch a collaboration with the Sanxingdui Museum in Guanghan, Sichuan. The collaboration is centred around the McSpicy chicken thigh burger (different from the UK chicken breast version), as Sichuan is known for its hot and spicy food. Not only is the regular McSpicy brought back with exclusive bronze-looking Sanxingdui-themed packaging, a Sichuan-style hot pot flavour has also been added to the menu to add authenticity to the collab. The iconic “Ba da ba ba ba” jingle was also modified to become “ba la ba ba ba” (“吧辣吧吧吧”, with “la” meaning hot and spicy).

Along with the Sanxingdui Museum, McDonald’s released a couple of microdrama commercials.     3     The microdrama ads show office workers wearing the mask while enjoying the McSpicy burger at work. One of the episodes gained over 42,000 likes on Douyin, TikTok’s Chinese sister app.

Sanxingdui (“三星堆”, lit. Three Star Mount) is the ruins of the ancient Shu civilization. It is known for its idiosyncratic bronze ware. The museum went through a creative rebranding in 2020, resulting in several collaborations over the years, most recently an online-to-offline collab with the popular video game Genshin Impact.

Museum collaborations, especially with historical museums, have been popular among brands but as part of the “guochao 3.0” trend, as it adds cultural credibility to their “guochao” efforts. It is still not common for international brands. The country of origin fit between partners in a co-branding campaign is a key element, however, sometimes other aspects of fit can make up for it.     4    Other international brands have already experimented with museum collaborations. Interestingly many of the latest examples involve the Palace Museum in Beijing as partners.

A．Sanxingdui, located in China and the source of nearly 13,000 artifacts which have been recovered to date, poses almost as many questions now as the day it was found.

B．The fast-food chain invited a makeup artist to create a wearable mask based on the iconic Sanxingdui gold foil mask.

C．Starbucks’ collaboration with rural artists in Yunnan successfully launched the coffee chain in the guochao sphere.

D．This can be seen as the international fast-food chain’s exploration of the guochao trend.

E．Like temples, museums, especially that of history or traditional Chinese culture, have been a key element for guochao marketing.

F．The exhibitions in this large-scale museum date back to the Bronze Age, covering a wide range of relics, such as bronze masks, jade articles, and some gold objects.

5 . The recent criticisms of Taylor Swift for her silence on the war in Gaza highlight a peculiar issue: the unrealistic expectations we place on celebrities to be know-alls. It’s a topic worth looking into.

While many are quick to urge figures like Taylor Swift to lend their voice s to critical global conversations, a concerning pattern emerges on the flip side: celebrities navigating the dark waters of complex debates with limited knowledge. Take, for instance, Billie Eilish’s fashion choice at the Oscars — a red hand pin. This wasn’t just any accessory (配饰); it’s rooted in the upset history of the 2000 cruel treatments of two Israelis. It begs the question: Was Eilish aware of the weighty story this symbol carries? This moment serves as a reminder of the nuanced (微妙的， 细节的) balance celebrities must strike between being supportive and the profound responsibility of using apublic platform.

The celebrity culture in the United States, where public figures are elevated to almost god-like status, plays a significant role in this phenomenon. They are seen as perfect, their opinions holy. This is not only unfair to the celebrities themselves, who are, after all, only human, but it also takes away from the voices of actual experts on these subjects. When we prioritize a celebrity’s opinion over those with lived experience or specialized knowledge, we do a disservice to the complexity of these issues.

As a society, we must reevaluate our obsession with celebrity culture and recognize the limitations of looking to entertainers for guidance on complex issues. This doesn’t mean celebrities can’t or shouldn’t speak out on matters that affect them personally or on which they’re well-informed. It’s entirely appropriate for Taylor Swift to publicly support political candidates in her home country. The action stems from personal values and people’s engagement, which are different from commenting on international conflicts without a deep understanding of the nuances involved.

In advocating for this nuanced approach, we’re not suggesting celebrities should remain silent on all matters of public concern. Instead, we’re calling for a shift in how we, as the public, perceive and react to their involvement in social and political issues. By adjusting our expectations, we can foster a healthier, more informed public discussion that prioritizes substance over the temptation of star power.

Ultimately, the goal should be to create a more empathetic, informed society that values expertise and genuine activism over celebrity support. By encouraging public figures to use their platforms responsibly and directing our attention to where they can make a real difference, we take a step toward a more nuanced understanding of global issues. This isn’t just about relieving celebrities of undue burdens; it’s about empowering all of us to seek out and elevate the voices that matter most.

1. Why is “a red hand pin” mentioned in Para.2?

A．To make fun of Billie’s limited knowledge on debating.

B．To show Billie’s unawareness of irresponsible advocacy.

C．To speak ill of Billie’s poor taste for fashion at the Oscars.

D．To criticize Billie for his abuse of the public platform.

2. What does “this phenomenon” in Para. 3 refer to?

A．Billie’s unreasonable selection of a red hand pin at the Oscars.

B．Celebrities’ irresponsible opinions on critical global conversations.

C．Public’s great desire for celebrities to comment on key global issues.

D．Taylor Swift’s golden silence about the crucial international concern.

3. According to the passage, it can be inferred that ______.

A．experts tend to increase the complexity of the issues

B．celebrities’ voices are as important as those of experts

C．celebrities should air views on matters at home and abroad

D．we should reassess the social and political roles of celebrities

4. Which of the following might be the best title of this passage?

A．Expect the Unexpected	B．Public Platforms, Powered Places
C．The Downside of Celebrity Advocacy	D．The Essence of Celebrity Responsibility

6 . ChatGPT, as a large language model, learned to generate human-like text based on a given context. It can do most of the text-generation tasks that involve natural language for communication. Examples of these tasks are text completion (e.g. email and report writing), paraphrasing, text summarization, machine translation, and question-answering. In addition, it can also be used for conversational AI applications, such as chatbots and virtual assistants.

While the ChatGPT platform has a wide range of applications related to text generation, outputs should be evaluated critically and used with caution, as they may contain false, biased, or outdated information.

The use of homework aids in higher education is not new. For years, students have used sites like Quizlet to cut comers as they complete homework assignments or take online quizzes. In response, teachers have had to adapt to these challenges and design assessments that can avoid the use of these tools.

I view ChatGPT in the same light. Essentially, ChatGPT collects information readily available online to form a response to a given prompt (提示). The AI has no capacity for critical thinking and often misses the mark whenever a prompt requires any critical or abstract thinking If university teachers want to avoid the threat of ChatGPT, then perhaps the strictness of their assignments needs to be increased.

While there are many concerns that ChatGPT harms academic assessment, it and better versions may force us to shift our curriculum to higher levels of critical thinking. Beyond this, we may discover ways it can be used to enhance the learning process. If students focus on advanced aspects of their schoolwork, chatbots could assist with more menial (微不足道的) educational tasks. For example, some instructors are experimenting with new forms of student engagement, including project-based learning. Perhaps a chatbot could be used to brainstorm on these projects. Learning effectiveness could be enhanced by customizing the learning process at an individual level to better match a diversified student body.

1. What’s the common point between ChatGPT and Quizlet according to the passage?

A．They should both be assessed objectively and used carefully.

B．They are both widely used by teachers, instructors and faculty.

C．They are both sites provided for students to take an online quiz.

D．They can both help students take a shortcut when doing homework.

2. What’s the main drawback of ChatGPT according to the passage?

A．It can only be used for traditional AI applications.

B．It’s not accurate or unbiased enough when generating text.

C．It cannot the level of critical thinking as high as that of humans.

D．It cannot be widely used in higher education or diversified learning.

3. What’s the new challenge that teachers are facing with the rise of ChatGPT?

A．They have to meet the diversified demands of students.

B．They have to deal with the cheating problem of students.

C．They have to design more strict and precise assignments.

D．They have to make the class more effective through advanced techs.

4. The author holds a(an) ________ attitude towards the emergence of ChatGPT.

A．indifferent

B．critical

C．objective

D．supportive

7 . Human Being or Human Doing?

During my seemingly-endless career as a high school teacher, not even once have I woken up in the morning, realizing that it’s the beginning of a new week, joyfully posted a Wechat Moment and said “Thank God! It’s Monday again!”

    1    . I learned this through a series of recent events where some people of my age whom I have known for years all bragged about their being super busy and took huge pride in working all the time. Although I can relate to their ambition to change the world, I am not quite sure whether that world in their mouth will change for the better or the worse.

Welcome to hustle culture (过劳文化). Now we all live in a society that encourages us to equate our work with our intrinsic value as human beings.     2    . Workers should love what they do and then promote that love on social media, thus taking the standard of a qualified employee to a whole new level.

It is not hard to view hustle culture as a swindle (欺诈行为).     3    . And the vast majority of people beating the drums of hustle-mania (狂热) are not the people who do the actual work. Sooner or later, employees will have to decide for themselves if they embrace or reject this culture of overwork.

    4    . It is no longer considered embarrassing to re-post whatever their companies have posted on Wechat. On some level, one has to respect the hustlers who see a dismal (令人沮丧的) system and understand that success in it requires total, shameless buy-in.

If we are doomed to overwork until we die, we may at least die with dignity. Stop pretending to love Mondays!

A．However, the gloomy employment prospect in recent years has significantly reduced the bargaining power of workers.

B．Apparently, that makes me slightly different from people of my generation.

C．After all, persuading a generation of workers to work their heads off is convenient for those at the top.

D．Hustle culture can negatively affect people’s personal relationships as they favor the hustle over the connections with others.

E．In this new work culture, enduring or even merely liking one’s job is no longer enough.

F．Furthermore, all that nonstop work will lead to exhaustion and burnout, which can have lasting harmful consequences.

8 . Addiction to Labeling

Maybe you’ve noticed it in the comments section of popular social media posts about anxiety. depression or things alike, with a number of people claiming to pick these labels for themselves.

These days, labeling is everywhere.     1     However, the negative part is that it’s easy for someone to identify with the characteristics without truly recognizing the context in which these characteristics would require diagnosis, according to Charlotte Armitage, a registered integrative psychotherapist and psychologist.

If you have done your research and genuinely feel that you have some form of mental health concern, then finally having a name for your behaviors can be great. But the risk is that many people will seek labels and intervention for any behavior, pattern or emotion that is outside of the permanent happy group that society has set as the norm. “    2     Then the saying ‘a little bit of knowledge is dangerous’ springs to my mind,” Armitage adds.

    3     “Children are still developing and evolving, and many childhood behavioral features may seem like those of a disorder when there’re other potential explanations for that behavior,” Armitage notes. Ideally, a diagnosis for a child should be carried out by a qualified mental health professional. So it is with an adult.

Nevertheless, the most important thing to bear in mind is that diagnosis doesn’t mean to indicate that you are broken or less capable.     4     And if you go deeper, it can alert you to the fact that you are not alone, and that many people experience life in the same way as you do.

A．Labeling poses even more of a problem when it comes to kids.

B．It can be helpful for those not quite able to understand why they feel the way they do.

C．There seems to be a desire to see negative emotions as something requiring intervention or diagnosis.

D．Labeling leads to children’s overcoming their addiction to what is posted online.

E．Someone has had only a certain experience and judges all behavior with that experience.

F．The basic function of a diagnosis is to give you a name for those behaviors once felt unusual.

9 . The young lead new trends in consumption market

With the post-1990 generation becoming a vibrant (充满活力的) force in society and the post-2000 generation gradually entering the workforce, the purchasing power of the new generation of consumers has been steadily growing.

    1     Growing up in the internet era, the young consumers generally have higher education levels and a broader global outlook, and come from a relatively strong economic background. As such, their consumption behavior is different from that of the earlier generations.

In terms of consumption pattern, online shopping has become the top choice for young people. Young people not only comprise a comparatively high percentage of internet users but also tend to shop online.     2     This makes them easily influenced by product promotions and influencers on social media.

And yet a trend toward rational consumption has been growing rapidly over the past few years.     3     Instead, they focus more on product quality and functionality. They tend to compare products and services, and do some research before making purchasing decisions, in order to get the best out of their purchase. According to a study conducted by the Social Survey Center of China Youth Daily, 90.1 percent of the 1,000 young respondents said their consumption decision is based on the “spending where necessary and saving where possible” principle. Besides, young consumers seek more personalized and diversified products, reflecting their emotional needs and increasing sense of self-worth.     4    

When it comes to brand cognition, young consumers seem to favor domestic products. Thanks to information online, young consumers no longer blindly pursue foreign brands and instead prefer local brands, highlighting their confidence in Chinese-made products. From Li-Ning, Anta to Warrior shoes, domestic brands in various fields are being warmly welcomed by young consumers.

A．Young consumers no longer blindly chase trendy or luxury items.

B．They excel in using mobile devices and social media for getting information.

C．Their tendency to pay much leads to the development of products and services.

D．Their changing behaviors in consumption have promoted high-quality products.

E．In fact, young people are slowly becoming the main force in the consumer market.

F．They are willing to pay for products with unique features and innovative services.

10 . Both my parents worked for 30-plus years for their employers — they had lifelong careers at a single company. Growing up, they taught me the importance of “loyalty” and “commitment”.

But in a rapidly changing world, the concept of a job for life has become as rare as a dial-up internet connection. This shift from stable, long-term employment and single-employer careers to a world where frequent job changes are the norm comes directly from globalisation, rapid technological advancements and the changing ideas about work.

Globalisation has turned the world economy into a giant, interconnected web. This has made job markets fiercely competitive and talent and opportunities in the labour market more diverse and digitally accessible.

Jobs can be widely publicised and explored online and are no longer tied to your city of birth. Add to this the rapid technological progress. We now live in a world where the skills you learned yesterday might not be enough for today’s job market.

The job market is transforming, with new careers emerging as automation and artificial intelligence (AI) advances. Risks and price policies can be efficiently assessed using AI, making insurance underwriters redundant while advanced software in banking and finance mean data analysis can be automated.

Online booking has reduced demand for travel agents and desktop publishers are being replaced by user-friendly software, which allows people to create their own materials. These changes highlight the need for professionals to update their skills and adapt to a technologically evolving job market.

As a result, career paths have become fluid and multi-directional. It’s no longer just about climbing the corporate ladder and getting a regular paycheck; it’s about exploring different paths, switching jobs and industries and sometimes even venturing into freelancing and the gig economy.

Loyalty is defined as an employee’s commitment to their organisation and its goals. It means a willingness to put in extra effort and to uphold the company’s values and objectives. Loyal workers often identify strongly with their workplace, are reliable and view the organisation positively, even during tough times.

When long-term employees change workplaces, it does not mean they are disloyal. It signifies a change in priorities and a redefined loyalty bond. Employees are loyal to their employer and its interests while working there. But they also seek mutual growth and expect to be recognised and rewarded.

Career paths are now a kaleidoscope (万花筒) of experiences and opportunities. Instead of a career identity being about a company brand, it is about skills, experiences and the meaningfulness of the work. This transformation means career decision-making is more intricate, considering personal aspirations, market trends and family considerations.

1. What factors have contributed to the shift in job market dynamics?

A．Increased reliance on desktop publishing software.

B．Changing ideas about loyalty and commitment.

C．The decreasing demand for travel agents due to online booking systems.

D．Globalization, rapid technological advancements, and evolving work concepts.

2. What skills are highlighted as essential for professionals in the evolving job market?

A．Skills related to desktop publishing.

B．Skills that were relevant yesterday.

C．Skills in data analysis and adaptability.

D．Skills in insurance underwriting.

3. How does the passage suggest employees should approach loyalty in the modern workplace?

A．By remaining with a single employer for their entire career.

B．By prioritizing personal growth and recognition.

C．By relying on traditional definitions of loyalty.

D．By avoiding job changes to maintain loyalty.

4. The best title for the passage is________.

A．Forget About a Job for Life

B．Learn More as Much as You Can

C．Benefit from Long-term Employment

D．The Impact of Globalization