1 . Today, the world celebrates the United Nations International Day of Older Persons (UNIDOP) under the theme “Resilience (复原力) of Older Persons in a Changing World”.
The number of older persons worldwide is projected to reach more than 1.5 billion in 2050. All regions will see an increase in the size of the older population between 2022 and 2050. Less developed countries excluding the least developed countries will be home to more than two-thirds of the world’s older population (1.1 billion) in 2050. Yet the fastest increase is projected to take place in the least developed countries, where the number of people aged 65 or over could rise from 37 million in 2019 to 120 million in 2050 (about 225%).
As to the “Silver Generation”, all countries have to bear increased pension (养老金) and healthcare costs as people live longer. But including the elderly in a productive way in the national economy has become a major problem for many countries. Many young families also struggle to care for their elderly parents or give it up altogether. Meanwhile, though older persons continue to meaningfully contribute to their political, economic, social and cultural lives, their contributions and experience are largely ignored.
The 2022 theme of UNIDOP serves as a fillip, something that jogs your memory and makes you think about the significant role older people play in taking up global challenges and contributing to their solutions. UNIDOP 2022 is also a call for action and opportunity to hear older persons’ voices and show their resilience and contributions in society.
Age is just a number and only a state of mind. Indeed, what matters is ageing elegantly, accompanied by good health. It is meaningless to live to 85 or 90 if one is limited to bed, unable to move around. But this could be a thing of the past in the light of rapid medical advances, which will give mobility and a new life to the elderly. I believe there will come a time when one’s actual age doesn’t really matter anymore in both a physical and mental sense.
1. Why are the figures used in paragraph 2?| A．To clarify the gap between rich and poor. |
| B．To show the growth in the older population. |
| C．To explain the correctness of the UN statistics. |
| D．To analyze the reasons for population ageing. |
| A．It is a double-edged sword. |
| B．It is a force to be treated seriously. |
| C．It is a huge burden to young families. |
| D．It is a by-product of the economic development. |
| A．Reference. | B．Guideline. | C．Reminder. | D．Platform. |
| A．Age affects both physical and mental health. |
| B．Age is not a number but a mental state. |
| C．Age does not matter in the medical field. |
| D．Age pales by comparison with health. |
2 . Being healthy is important. Often, we’re crazy about articles in health magazines talking about the latest popular diets, or advertisements that offer cures (疗法) for fatness that are often too good to be true. One of the latest crazy phenomena (现象) is intermittent fasting (间歇性禁食).
There are different ways of intermittent fasting.
Some people try intermittent fasting for weight management, and others use the method to deal with some conditions such as high cholesterol or arthritis.
As with many diets, it’s always wise to speak to your doctor or weight-loss professional before changing your eating habits. And, at the end of the day, it could just come down to what lifestyle choice suits you.
| A．But what is intermittent fasting? |
| B．However, this diet isn’t for everyone. |
| C．Intermittent fasting has two main origins. |
| D．Let’s look at some of the possible benefits. |
| E．The idea of this is to reduce calories over a period. |
| F．In a word, you should avoid turning to intermittent fasting blindly. |
| G．You can eat normally on five days of a week and reduce calorie intake on the other two. |
3 . China has set new rules limiting the amount of time children can play online games. The rules limit children to just three hours of online game playing a week. That is one hour between 8 p. m. and 9 p. m. on Friday, Saturday and Sunday most weeks.
Li Zhanguo has two children aged 4 and 8. Even though they do not have smartphones, they enjoy playing online games. Like many other parents. Li is happy with new government rules. But experts say it is unclear if such policies can help prevent addiction to online games. Children might just get addicted to social media instead. In the end, experts say, parents should be the ones to set limits and support good practice.
There has been a growing concern in China about gaming addiction among children. Government reports in 2018 found that about one in ten Chinese children were addicted to the Internet. The new rules are part of an effort to prevent young people from spending too much time on unhealthy entertainment. That includes what officials call the “irrational fan culture”
Under the new rules, the responsibility for making sure children play only three hours a day as largely on Chinese gaming companies like Net Ease and Ten cent. Companies have set up real-name registration systems to prevent young users from going past game time limits. They have used facial recognition technology to check their identities. And they have also set up a program that permits people to report what is against the law. It is unclear what punishments gaming companies may face if they do not carry out the policies. And even if such policies are performed, it is also unclear whether they can prevent online addiction.
A specialist treating Internet addiction expects about 20 percent of children will find ways to break the rules by borrowing accounts of their older relatives and find a way around facial recognition. In his opinion, short-video alps such as Douyin and Kuaishou are also very popular in China. They are not under the same restrictions as games.
1. When can children play games according to the new rules?| A．Between 8 p. m. and 9 p. m. On Friday. | B．Between 8 p. m. and 9 p. m. On Tuesday. |
| C．Between 10 p. m. and 11 p. m. On Saturday. | D．Between 10 p. m. and all p. m. On Thursday. |
| A．the new rules can stop children’s addiction to social media |
| B．companies are more responsible for kids ‘ obeying the rules |
| C．the new rules will help prevent children playing online games |
| D．parents play a greater part in limiting the time of online games |
| A．Design an advanced program. | B．Use facial recognition systems. |
| C．Set up real-name registration systems. | D．Borrow accounts of their older relatives. |
| A．Rules Limiting Short-video alps | B．Rules Limiting Video Game Time |
| C．Rules Banning Irrational Fan Culture | D．Rules Breaking Addition to Social Media |
4 . This question has fascinated behavioural scientists for decades: why do we give money to charity?
The explanations for charitable giving fall into three broad categories, from the purely altruisic (利他的)— I donate because I value the social good done by the charity. The “impurely” altruistic— I donate because I extract value from knowing I contribute to the social good for the charity. And the not-at-all altruistic— I donate because I want to show off to potential mates how rich I am.
But are these motives strong enough to enable people to donate as much as they would want to? Most people support charities in one way or another, but often we struggle to make donations as often as we think we should. Although many people would like to leave a gift to charity in their will, they forget about it when the time comes.
Many people are also aware that they should donate to the causes that have the highest impact, but facts and figures are less attractive than narratives. In a series of experiments, it was found that people are much more responsive to charitable pleas that feature a single, identifiable beneficiary(受益者), than they are to statistical information about the scale of the problem being faced. When it comes to charitable giving, we are often ruled by our hearts and not our heads.
The good news is that charitable giving is contagious—seeing others give makes an individual more likely to give and gentle encouragement from an important person in your life can also make a big difference to your donation decisions— more than quadrupling them in our recent study. Habit also plays a part— in three recent experiments those who volunteered before were more likely to do donate their time than those who had not volunteered before.
In summary, behavioural science identifies a range of factors that influence our donations, and can help us to keep giving in the longer term. This is great news not just for charities, but also for donors.
1. What can we learn about people who do charitable giving?| A．Most people support charity as often as they think they should. |
| B．Some people don’t want to leave a gift to charity until the time comes. |
| C．Those who donate because they can gain an advantage are purely altruistic. |
| D．Some people send money to charity simply to tell others they are wealthy. |
| A．Not revealing the names of the donors. |
| B．Showing figures about the seriousness of the problem. |
| C．Telling stories that feature a single, recognizable beneficiary. |
| D．Reminding people to write down what to donate in the will in advance. |
| A．People will learn from others and follow the suit. |
| B．Many people are familiar with charitable giving. |
| C．Charitable giving helps the beneficiary in all aspects. |
| D．Charitable giving can bring a lot of benefits to donors. |
| A．To persuade more people to donate. |
| B．To explain the science behind why people donate. |
| C．To criticize some false charitable giving behaviours. |
| D．To explore approaches to making people donate more. |
5 . The pandemic has affected nearly all aspects of modern life, from the clothes we wear to the food we eat. There is one thing, however, that has remained almost unchanged: the emojis we send.
According to data from the Unicode Consortium (统一码联盟), nine of the 10 most-used emojis from 2019 also ranked among the top 10 this year. The tears of joy emoji ranked No.1, despite members of Gen Z deeming it uncool.
“It speaks to how many people use emojis. If emojis were a purely Gen Z thing, then you wouldn’t see it so highly ranked,” said Alexander Robertson, an emoji researcher at Google. “Because of the large number of people using emojis, even if one group thinks something is lame, they have to be a really big group to affect these statistics.”
And it makes sense that Gen Z would think that certain emojis aren’t fashionable. It’s part of the “teenager experience of creating a sense of subculture where there’s a right way and a wrong way of behaving.” Plus, there is a range of laughter that can be expressed: There’s light chuckling. There’s acknowledgement laughter, which is just a marker of empathy. Using emojis, such as the skull face (“I’m dead”) or crying face ( uncontrollable tears of laughter), can help to illustrate that range.
“It basically indicates that we have what we need to communicate a broad range of expression, or even very specific concepts,” Mr Robertson said. “You don’t necessarily need a Covid emoji.”
“We did see a rise in the use of the virus emoji. But it wasn’t made remotely into the most-commonly used ones because we still had plenty to laugh about and plenty to cry about, whether it was because of the pandemic or not,” said Lauren Gawne, a senior lecturer in linguistic at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia.
“Even in the midst of this massive global pandemic that preoccupied so much of our time,” She added. “We still spent a lot of time wishing each other happy birthday or checking or laughing about some new and unexpected elements of this slow-burning weirdness.”
1. Why does the tears of joy emoji ranked No.1 despite the dislike from the Z generation?| A．The emoji is a purely Z generation thing. |
| B．The Z generation are too young to influence the rank. |
| C．Though they dislike it, the Z generation vote for it ultimately. |
| D．The Z generation take up a very small portion in emoji users. |
| A．the virus emoji | B．a Covid emoji |
| C．the use of the virus emoji | D．the rise in the use of the virus emoji |
| A．The massive global pandemic has come to an end. |
| B．The pandemic has little influence on people’s daily life. |
| C．We have a broad range of expression for communication. |
| D．Some new and useful emojis are created to replace the virus emoji. |
| A．The Pandemic and the Emoji. |
| B．Gen Z, the Emoji Generation. |
| C．The Emoji of the Year. |
| D．The Rise of Virus Emoji |
6 . About 1.4 billion people around the world do not get enough physical exercise. The world’s adult population is about 5.6 billion, so that is tantamount to about one-fourth of the world’s adult population.
Researchers looked at 358 population-based studies between 2001 and 2016. Those studies referred to nearly 2 million people in 168 countries.
Regina Guthold was the lead author of the report. She said the study also found a wide range of physical activity levels for countries around the world. “Inactivity ranges from as low as 6 per cent in Uganda and Mozambique to 67 per cent in Kuwait. Four countries have prevalence (普遍) of inactivity of over 50 per cent. That’s Kuwait, America Samoa, Saudi Arabia and Iraq,” she said.
The report shows the levels of physical inactivity are more than two times as high in wealthy countries as they are in countries where people have low incomes. In wealthier countries, people are more likely to spend time sitting in offices. They are also more likely to use computers and electronic devices for entertainment.
There are actually many things people can do for themselves. If you work in a high-rise office building, take the stairs instead of an elevator. Go for a walk during your lunch break. Take more breaks during the workday and move around. If your workplace offers a gym or exercise classes, make sure to use them. At home, take walks with your family or friends after dinner.
1. What does the underlined part “tantamount to” in Paragraph 1 mean?| A．Familiar to. | B．Harmful to. | C．Used to. | D．Equal to. |
| A．Uganda. | B．Kuwait. | C．Saudi Arabia. | D．Iraq. |
| A．To draw people’s attention to the problem. |
| B．To give some advice to non-exercisers. |
| C．To introduce a new topic for discussion. |
| D．To add some background information. |
7 . Are you happy with your appearance?
“Almost all the girls with single-fold eyelids (单眼皮) in our class have had double eyelid operations,” Zeng, a Senior 2 student from Chengdu, told Xinhua. Zeng had the same surgery done this summer.
From popular photo-editing apps to plastic surgery (整形手术), it seems that large eyes, pale skin and a skinny body are the only standard for beauty these days. But can following this standard really make us feel good about ourselves?
“Many teenagers are upset about their appearance because they believe in unrealistic standards of beauty,” experts say.
However, trying to live up to strict standards can make us feel anxious. What troubles us is not just our “imperfect” looks, but the fact that we criticize ourselves too much.
| A．Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. |
| B．Body image anxiety is common among teenagers. |
| C．Guys care just as much as girls do about their body image. |
| D．Some teenagers might feel negative about their appearance. |
| E．It’s common for teenagers to feel confident about their appearance. |
| F．She and many of her classmates believe bigger eyes look more beautiful. |
| G．Perfect faces and bodies are everywhere in advertising, TV shows and social media. |
8 . Greenhouse gas emissions would rise if all farms in England and Wales went organic. Though the emissions of each farm would go down, much more food would have to be imported, as the amount they would produce would decrease greatly.
“The key message from my perspective is that you can’t really have your cake and eat it,” says Laurence Smith, now at the Royal Agricultural University in the UK, who was part of the team that ran the numbers. Smith is a supporter of organic farming and says “there are a lot of merits of the organic approach”, but his analysis shows that organic farming has downsides too.
Farming and changes in land use, such as cutting down forests, are responsible for a third of all greenhouse gas emissions. That means reducing farming emissions and the land needed for farming is required to limit further global warming.
Smith and his colleagues found that emissions per unit of food are, on average, 20 per cent lower for organic crops and 4 per cent lower for organic animal products. However, organic harvests per hectare (公顷) are also lower on average. For wheat and barley, for instance, harvests are just half of those of conventional farms. This means 1.5 times as much land would be needed to grow the same amount of these foods.
The estimated increase in emissions varies greatly, depending on where the extra farmland comes from. If only half comes from turning grassland into farms, the increase could be as low as 20 per cent. If grassland that would otherwise have been reforested is turned into farmland, emissions could nearly double.
This doesn’t necessarily mean people should stop eating organic produce, says Smith. People might choose organic food for other reasons, such as to reduce their pesticide exposure (though contrary to popular belief, organic farmers do use pesticides) or for the sake of wildlife.
Going 100 per cent organic could also harm global biodiversity. The extra land used for farming would mean the land available for wildlife would be smaller and more fragmented (碎片化的).
Smith says the best option may be to use some organic and conventional farming methods at the same time.
1. What would be the result if England went organic farming EXCEPT?| A．Greenhouse gas emissions would go up quickly. |
| B．The emissions of each farm would decrease greatly. |
| C．The amount each farm produce would not change. |
| D．More food would depend on importation. |
| A．Objective. | B．Favorable. | C．Indifferent. | D．Pessimistic. |
| A．Through experts’ introduction. | B．Through the research in the lab. |
| C．Through listing a lot of examples. | D．Through data comparison. |
| A．Stopping Organic Farming | B．Mixing Organic and Traditional Farming |
| C．Turning Back to Traditional Farming | D．Forbidding Cutting Down Forests |
9 . What goes on in our brains when we decide to hit the share button, and what makes something go viral? Since the dawn of the Internet, businesses, media outlets and influencers alike have been trying to answer these questions. Now, researchers have come one step closer to cracking this mysterious model by shining a light on the neuroscience (神经科学) of viral content.
“Our study finds a way to obtain brain signals that would predict how much information gets shared.” said Emily Falk, professor of communication, psychology and marketing and Hang-Yee Chan, a lecturer of communication.
Their new study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on October 23, investigated both the U. S. and the Netherlands using a broader range of news categories—including health and climate change.
“When we see greater activation of regions that track self-relevance (Is it important to me) and social-relevance (Is it important to people I know), the news articles are more likely to be shared widely,” Falk and Chan said. By studying these brain responses, the team managed to build a value-based model to accurately predict how widely the articles would be shared online. This link between brain activity and sharing was seen in both the American and Dutch participants, suggesting that this model is accurate across cultures.
“Seeing how people’s brains react inside the scanner gives us insight into why people ultimately share information nowadays,” Chan said. “If we understand these signals, we might be able to use that knowledge to help important news get shared and stop misinformation from going viral.” It is also helpful for content creators to maximize their reach. “Our current study demonstrates how tapping into the brain would help content creators optimize their messages’ influence,” Falk and Chan said. “We are interested in building on these results to develop ways to counter harmful information and false news, in addition to spreading high-quality content.” “A lot of our most pressing problems in society are influenced by the decisions people make, and the decisions we make are influenced by the news. What you share matters, and so understanding why you share it matters, too.”
1. What do researchers intend to do in their study?| A．To find a way to get brain signals. |
| B．To work out a mysterious model. |
| C．To use a broad range of news categories. |
| D．To predict how much information get shared. |
| A．The basis and process of the study. |
| B．The way to predict brain activation. |
| C．The pattern of a value-based model. |
| D．The reason why certain news is shared. |
| A．To solve most urgent problems. |
| B．To understand why viral news matter. |
| C．To influence the decisions people will make. |
| D．To better the efficiency of positive publicity. |
| A．How to Share a Viral News |
| B．How to Obtain Brain Signals |
| C．How Certain Studies Get Shared |
| D．How Brain Identifies Viral Content |
10 . Many of the present generation of recent over-18s do not feel like adults, according to a survey by Nationwide Building Society, and those commenting online seem to agree. The study of 2,000 over-18s found more than one in 10 did not think of themselves as fully-fledged (成熟的) grown-ups until they reached the age of 27.
Lisa Daisy, 34, said: “Even after a career for 10 years, it still took being married to make me feel grown-up.”
But 42-year-old Carole Lutringer said she felt like an adult when she was very young. “I had to cook from an early age, because my mother worked as a headteacher,” she said. “My mother came back home late, and my father was pretty useless in the kitchen. I had to be independent from really early on, and that’s probably what made me feel grown-up earlier than most of my peers (同龄人).”
Sana Khalid Khan also had adulthood thrust upon her. She said it was the death of her father that made her grow up, at the age of 17. “Being the eldest child, a lot of responsibility fell on my shoulders,” she said.
Of those 2,000 people asked when they felt like adults, the transition (转变) happened for half in their 20s, while a fifth said it happened in their 30s. One in 20 felt they had not grown up until their 40s. Of those questioned, 55% said being an adult was dependent on major life events, for example having children, moving out of the parental home or getting married.
For others, such as Elaine Smith, in London, adulthood is only a state of mind. “I still don’t feel grown-up,” she said. “I can’t believe I am responsible for looking after a four-year-old. How did that happen? I’m 44 this year, so it may happen soon.” Commenting online, Sophie Caunter agreed. “I’m 42,” she said. “I have an 11-year-old, a seven-month-old, a husband, and I still don’t feel grown-up.” Melinda Wilmot said, “I’m 58 and still waiting to grow up.”
1. What does the survey focus on?| A．What people think aging means. |
| B．How people feel about their childhood. |
| C．Why people grow up earlier than before. |
| D．When people feel they have reached adulthood. |
| A．Losing her dad. | B．Raising her children. |
| C．Being married to her husband. | D．Taking care of herself from an early age. |
| A．Made adulthood encourage her. | B．Forced adulthood on her. |
| C．Was excited about adulthood. | D．Prepared for adulthood. |
| A．Adulthood means responsibility. |
| B．Few people feel grown-up in their 20s. |
| C．Some people don’t feel grown-up even in their 40s. |
| D．Adulthood begins earlier than most people think. |
