1 . 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. |
2 . Obese people experience discrimination (歧视) in many parts of their lives, and the workplace is no exception. Studies have long shown that obese workers, defined as those with a body-mass index (BMI) of 30 or more, earn significantly less than their slimmer co-workers.
Yet the costs of weight discrimination may be even greater than previously thought. “The overwhelming evidence,” wrote the Institute for employment Studies, “is that it is only women living with obesity who experience the obesity wage penalty (薪资损失).” They were expressing a view that is widely aired in academic papers. To test it, The Economist has analyzed data concerning 23,000 workers from the American Time Use Survey, conducted by the Bureau of Labour Statistics. Our number-processing suggests that, in fact, being obese hurts the earnings of both women and men.
The data we analyzed cover men and women aged between 25 and 54 and in full-time employment. At a general level, it is true that men’s BMIs are unrelated to their wages. But that changes for men with university degrees. For them, obesity is associated with a wage penalty of nearly 8%, even after accounting for the separate effects of age, race, graduate education and marital status.
The conclusion — that well-educated workers in particular are penalized for their weight — holds for both sexes. Moreover, the higher your level of education, the greater the penalty. We found that obese men with a Bachelor’s degree (学士学位) earn 5% less than their thinner colleagues, while those with a Master’s degree earn 14% less. Obese women, it is true, still have it worse: for them, the equivalent figures are 12% and 19%, respectively (分别地).
Your line of work makes a difference, too. When we dealt with the numbers for individual occupations and industries, we found the greatest differences in high-skilled jobs. Obese workers in health care, for example, make 11% less than their slimmer colleagues; those in management roles make roughly 9% less, on average. In sectors such as construction and agriculture, meanwhile, obesity is actually associated with higher wages.
These results suggest that the total costs of wage discrimination borne by overweight workers in America are greater than expected. Now, it’s time for our governments to take it seriously.
1. What does the underlined word “it” refer to in paragraph 2?| A．Obese men earn less salary. |
| B．Only obese women earn less salary. |
| C．Both obese men and women earn less salary. |
| D．Weight discrimination may be greater than previously thought. |
| A．A fat woman office director. |
| B．An obese construction worker. |
| C．An obese man with a bachelor’s degree. |
| D．A heavier female doctor with a Doctor’s degree. |
| A．Supportive | B．Objective | C．Subjective | D．indifferent |
| A．Overweight discrimination in other countries. |
| B．The reason of discriminating obese people in their lives. |
| C．American people’s attitude towards overweight discrimination. |
| D．Actions taken against overweight discrimination in workplaces. |
3 . What’s your baby doing right now? I hope he or she is not rolling on the floor. Such behaviour might seem natural and age-appropriate but this laid-back environment could come back to haunt you at a later date.
Eventually you may be forced to reflect upon those wasted opportunities. In allowing your baby to unproductively behave just like, well, a baby, you may be failing to foster his or her personal growth. Are you denying your child the chance to achieve his or her full potential as a well-rounded baby?
You see, some parents are hot-housing their infants as we speak. While your baby’s programme revolves around the traditional routines of sleeping, eating and playing, other people’s offspring are on the fast-track to certain giftedness. And Baby Einstein DVDs, which were all the rage when I was a new mother, are really the least of your problems.
Ever eager to exploit our perceived inadequacies, smart marketers have found something else for parents to feel guilty about. There’s a manufactured fear that we’re squandering those valuable moments when a baby’s brain is said to be like a sponge, ready and willing to soak up new information at an alarming rate.
I’ve never seen the point of deliberately setting up your little one to be more advanced than his or her peers. I like the idea of babies just being babies and children just being children. Anyway, if they can read at the age of three then what will they learn in their first year of school?
One thing’s for sure: for some people parenting has taken on the proportions of a competitive sport. Some children wrestle with after-school activities every day of the week. Others are enrolled in extra tuition — sometimes simply to reach an acceptable standard and other times in order to be top of the class. There are tennis camps, swim academies and dancing schools. Some households even speak English downstairs and French upstairs. What? That’s not how you run your home? Oh dear. I see bilingualism passing your child by, for sure.
1. What does the author imply in paragraph 2?| A．The author likes raising baby at home. |
| B．Many parents don’t realize their babies’ potentials. |
| C．We don’t have enough time or money to raise babies. |
| D．Many parents foster their children’s personal growth by any chance. |
| A．They were good enough for mothers. |
| B．They were effective in teaching babies. |
| C．They were cheaper than other products. |
| D．They were popular with many mothers. |
| A．It’s a good way to build up potentials. |
| B．It’s not helpful to baby’s development. |
| C．It’s vital to develop baby’s brain. |
| D．It’s not so cheap to be invested by all parents. |
| A．Give children more sports. |
| B．Develop children more. |
| C．Let babies grow as they are. |
| D．Develop children’s bilingualism. |
4 . Any parent knows how challenging it can be to separate kids from social media, messaging apps, or online games and videos.
Be a good role model. Children have a strong impulse (冲动) to imitate, so it’s important you manage your own smartphone and Internet use. Don’t let your own smartphone use distract from parent-child interactions.
Encourage other interests and social activities. Get your child away from screens by exposing them to other hobbies and activities, such as team sports and after-school clubs.
Talk to your child about underlying issues. Compulsive smartphone use can be the sign of deeper problems.
Get help. Teenagers often rebel against their parents, but if they hear the same information from a different authority figure, they may tend to listen.
| A．Is your child having problems fitting in? |
| B．Spend time as a family away from screens. |
| C．Is your child having trouble working harder? |
| D．Try a sports coach, doctor, or respected family friend. |
| E．Use apps to monitor and limit your child’s smartphone use. |
| F．Turn devices off and leave them in another room overnight to charge. |
| G．Youngsters lack the maturity to control their smartphone use on their own. |
5 . Reading poems is not exactly an everyday activity for most people. In fact, many people never read a poem once they get out of high school.
It is worth reminding ourselves that this has not always been the case in America. In the nineteenth century, a usual American activity was to sit around the fireside in the evening and read poems aloud. It is true that there was no television at that time, nor movie theatres, nor World Wide Web, to provide diversion. However, poems were a source of pleasure, of self-education, of connection to other people or to the world beyond one’s own community. Reading them was a social act as well as an individual one, and perhaps even more social than individual. Writing poems to share with friends and relations was, like reading poems by the fireside, another way in which poetry has a place in everyday life.
How did things change? Why are most Americans no longer comfortable with poetry, and why do most people today think that a poem has nothing to tell them and that they can do well without poems?
There are, I believe, three factors: poets, teachers, and we ourselves. Of these, the least important is the third: the world surrounding the poem has betrayed us more than we have betrayed the poem. Early in the twentieth century, poetry in English headed into directions unfavourable to the reading of poetry. Readers decided that poems were not for the fireside or the easy chair at night, and that they belonged where other difficult-to-read things belonged.
Poets failed the reader, so did teachers. They want their students to know something about the skills of a poem; they want their students to see that poems mean something. Yet what usually occurs when teachers push these concerns on their high school students is that young people decide poems are unpleasant crossword puzzles.
1. Why is reading poems thought to be a social act in the nineteenth century?| A．Because it built a link among people. |
| B．Because it helped unite a community. |
| C．Because it was a source of self-education. |
| D．Because it was a source of pleasure. |
| A．Stories. | B．Changes. | C．Amusements. | D．Concentrations. |
| A．Students are poorly educated in high school. |
| B．Poems have become difficult to understand. |
| C．Students are becoming less interested in poetry. |
| D．TV and the Internet are more attractive than poetry. |
| A．The history and changes of poetry. |
| B．The correct way for teachers to teach poetry. |
| C．The failure of poetry in people’s life nowadays. |
| D．The reason why people aren’t keen on poetry today. |
6 . California has been using recycled wastewater for many years. A team has used it to make ice surfaces for the game of hockey(冰球运动). It has been used to make snow for the sport of skiing. And farmers use it to water their crops. But it has not been used directly for drinking water.
Recently, California officials approved new rules to let water agencies recycle wastewater and put it right back into the pipes that carry drinking water to homes, schools, and businesses. It is a big step for California.
California’s new rules would let—but not require—water agencies to take wastewater, treat it, and then put it right back into the drinking water system. That means proving to people that recycled water is not only safe to drink but also not dirty. California would be just the second US state to permit this, following Colorado. It has taken officials more than 10 years to develop these rules, a process that included several studies by independent groups of scientists.
A project in San Diego is aiming to produce nearly half of the city’s water through recycling wastewater by 2035. And the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California aims to produce up to nearly 570 million liters(升)a day for its 19 million people. Adel Hagekhalil is with Metropolitan Water. He said the new rules will permit new projects that have not yet been considered.
California’s new rules require the wastewater be treated for all bacteria and viruses, even if they are not present in the wastewater. In fact, the treatment is so intense that it removes all of the minerals that make fresh drinking water taste good. That means the minerals need to be added back at the end of the process. Polhemus is a director of the drinking water group for the California Water Resources Control Board. “It’s at the same drinking water quality, and probably better in many instances,” he said, adding that it takes time and money to build these treatment centers. So, they will only be available for bigger cities at first.
1. What does paragraph 1 mainly tell us about the recycled wastewater?| A．Its qualities. | B．Its functions. |
| C．Its target users. | D．Its disadvantages. |
| A．They made some new rules on pollution. |
| B．They spent ten years recycling wastewater. |
| C．They tried to make wastewater safe to drink. |
| D．They requested water agencies to speed up treating water. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Favorable. | C．Pessimistic. | D．Indifferent. |
| A．The Process of Recycling Wastewater Is Complicated |
| B．California Tries to Reduce the Wastewater Generation |
| C．California Permits Turning Wastewater to Drinking Water |
| D．New Wastewater Treatment Projects Have Been Approved |
7 . ByteDance’s Douyin has been trialing a food delivery service since December as it looks to expand its business beyond advertising. It potentially competes itself against major e-commerce companies like Alibaba and Meituan. And the company is now considering extending the service beyond the trial.
A Douyin spokesperson says that the company has been “testing a feature in Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu that enables merchants (商人) to promote and sell ‘group-buying’ packages to Douyin users in these select cities and have them delivered”. Restaurant owners often livestream on Douyin to market their business. While doing this, they can offer discounts and coupons (优惠券) for their food to users watching the videos. Multiple users can then purchase that offer mainly and choose a time within two days for the food to arrive. The model is very different from Meituan and Alibaba’s Ele.me which are both on-demand food delivery services.
The digital giant has approached restaurant owners and food enterprises in the three cities to promote their dishes on the app. Douyin states that the success of the trial run will determine whether the in-app meal delivery service will be expanded to other cities. “We would consider expanding the feature to more cities in the future depending on the testing results. There is no detailed timeline yet,” a Douyin spokesperson says.
China’s food delivery industry is dominated by Meituan and Ele.me. Douyin has fewer food buying options than Meituan and Ele.me. But ByteDance’s tentative (暂定的) steps into the market suggest it wants a slice of the market. Major e-commerce platforms are getting into the food delivery business.
One Weibo post reads, “More platforms could be advantageous for both food business owners and regular consumers.” Users think the competition will help registered vendors (销售商) and users because customers will have more options and food business owners can use the platform that charges the lowest service fee.
1. What does Douyin want to do?| A．Expand its market in tested cities. | B．Get into the food delivery industry. |
| C．Gain control over Meituan and Ele.me. | D．Livestream to sell group-buying packages. |
| A．Fast and on-demand delivery time. | B．Excellent after-sales service |
| C．Wonderful and effective live stream. | D．Shop owners’ discounts and coupons. |
| A．Ele.me has less food choices than Douyin. |
| B．Douyin is expecting to occupy its share in the market. |
| C．Detailed timeline has been made by the digital company. |
| D．Ordered food can be delivered by Meituan within a week. |
| A．Supportive. | B．Demanding. | C．Intolerant. | D．Concerned. |
8 . One of the biggest concerns about today’s tech giants is their market power. In many countries, Google, Facebook, and Amazon dominate online search, social media, and online retail respectively. And yet economists have largely failed to address these concerns in a proper way. To help regulators as they struggle to address this market concentration, we must make economics itself more relevant to the digital age.
Digital markets often become highly concentrated, with one dominant firm, because larger players enjoy significant returns. For example, data generation plays a self reinforcing (自我强化的) rule; more data improves the service, which brings more users, and then generates more data.
As several recent reports have pointed out, the digital economy poses a problem for competition policy. Competition is vital for boosting productivity and long term growth, because it drives out inefficient producers and encourages innovation. Yet how can this happen when there are such dominant players?
Today’s digital giants provide services that people want: one recent study estimated that consumers value online search alone at a level which is equal to about half of media income. Rather than assessing likely short-term trends in specific digital markets, they need to be able to estimate the potential long-term costs.
This is no easy task, because there is no standard methodology (方法) for estimating uncertain futures. Economists ever disagree on how to measure static consumer valuations of free digital goods such as online search and social media. And although the idea that competition operates dynamically through firms entering and exiting the market dates back at least to Joseph Schumpeter, the standard approach is still to look at competition among similar companies producing similar goods at a point in time.
The characteristics of digital technology pose a great challenge to the entire discipline. As I pointed out more than 20 years ago, the digital economy is “weightless”. Moreover, many digital goods are non-rival “public goods”. You can use software code without stopping others from doing so, whereas only one person can wear the same pair of shoes.
1. What makes the regulators worry about the tech giants?| A．Market dominance. | B．Market profits. | C．Digital high-tech. | D．Economic stability. |
| A．By enlarging the platform. | B．By collecting more data. |
| C．By avoiding network effects. | D．By encouraging innovation. |
①Lack of standard methodology. ②Disagreements among economists.
③Innovation from producers. ④Use of digital products at the same time.
| A．①②③ | B．②③④ | C．①③④ | D．①②④ |
| A．A business magazine. | B．A science report. |
| C．A marketing guide. | D．An IT textbook. |
9 . The big French pet care company AgroBiothers Laboratoire will no longer sell very small containers for raising fish.
The company has a 27 percent share of the French market for products used by people who raise animals at home. But it said it would no longer sell any fishbowls that hold less than 15 liters of water. They will only offer four-sided ones.
The company said it was animal abuse (虐待) to put fish in small bowls without added oxygen and filtration. Filtration is the process of removing small waste from the water with a device.
AgroBiothers chief Matthieu Lambeaux recently used the term “impulse”—meaning a sudden strong desire to do something—to describe why many adults buy goldfish. “People buy a goldfish for their kids on impulse, but if they knew what torture it is, they would not do it. Turning round and round in a small bowl drives fish crazy and kills them quickly,” Lambeaux added.
Goldfish can live up to 30 years and grow to about 25 cm in large aquariums (养鱼缸) or outdoor ponds. But in very small bowls they often die within weeks or months. Lambeaux said goldfish are social animals that need other fish, lots of space and clean water. He added that having an aquarium requires some special equipment and knowledge.
Germany and several other European countries have long banned (禁止) fishbowls, but France has no laws on the problem.
Lambeaux explained the company’s decision further by saying, “We cannot educate all our customers by explaining that keeping fish in a bowl is terrible. We consider that it is our responsibility to no longer give customers that choice.”
“There is demand for fishbowls,” he said, “but the reality is that what we offer children is the possibility of seeing goldfish die slowly.”
1. What makes the French company stop selling certain fishbowls?| A．Their size. | B．Their price. |
| C．Their weight. | D．Their popularity. |
| A．Progress. | B．Pleasure. |
| C．Difficulty. | D．Suffering. |
| A．The age goldfish can reach. | B．Costs of keeping goldfish. |
| C．Proper living conditions for goldfish. | D．The advice on how to choose fishbowls. |
| A．Raise the price of the fishbowls. | B．Remove the chances of harming goldfish. |
| C．Keep goldfish outside in the wild. | D．Educate parents to care for goldfish. |
10 . Greece has criticized the United Kingdom for canceling (取消) a planned meeting between Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, apparently so that Sunak could avoid talking about ancient artefacts (历史文物) that Greece says were taken illegally. Mitsotakis and Sunak were set to meet on Tuesday, but Sunak canceled it on Monday, reportedly after learning that Mitsotakis planned to talk about the Parthenon sculptures.
The UK government initially believed Mitsotakis would not talk about the sculptures, which are now in the British Museum. The sculptures were once part of the Parthenon in the Greek capital Athens. The row (纠纷) became more serious after Mitsotakis told the BBC on Sunday the UK’s offer to store some of the sculptures in London and some in Athens was akin to cutting the Mona Lisa in two. He also said the sculptures had been essentially stolen.
Mitsotakis said he was deeply disappointed by the abrupt cancellation of the meeting. “Those who firmly believe in the correctness and justice of their positions are never hesitant to engage in constructive argument and debate,” he was quoted by The Associated Press as saying. The BBC reported that sources in the Greek government were puzzled and annoyed by the meeting cancellation.
Greece has long criticized the way in which the Parthenon sculptures ended up in London, after they were bought by British diplomat Lord Elgin and shipped to the UK between 1801 and 1804. Because the two nations disagree on the legality of the deal and have firm positions, they have tended to avoid talking about the issue during high-level diplomatic meetings.
The UK’s Transport Secretary Mark Harper said on the BBC’s Breakfast program on Tuesday that it was regretful that the prime ministers would not meet during Mitsotakis’UK visit. He said Mitsotakis had been offered the chance to meet instead the UK’s deputy prime minister, Oliver Dowden, but he had refused the meeting. “The views of Greece on the Parthenon sculptures are well known,” Mitsotakis was quoted by The Guardian as saying. “I had hoped to have the opportunity to discuss them with UK Prime Minister along with other international challenges. ” The UK’s opposition Labour Party criticized Sunak for canceling the meeting and said his behavior appeared disrespectful.
1. Which can replace the underlined phrase “akin to” in paragraph 2?| A．Contrary to. | B．Similar to. | C．Relevant to. | D．Adapted to |
| A．An Englishman purchased them and sent them there. |
| B．Some stole them and sold them to a British diplomat. |
| C．The then Greek government presented them to the UK as a gift. |
| D．The then British army took them by force and transported them there. |
| A．He was too occupied with other affairs. |
| B．He was supposed to meet UK Prime Minister. |
| C．He didn’t approve of his words and behaviors. |
| D．He had arranged for another official to meet him. |
| A．Sunak and Mitsotakis set to meet on Tuesday |
| B．Mitsotakis thinks highly of Greece artefacts stored in UK |
| C．Mitsotakis plans to take back Parthenon sculptures from UK |
| D．Greece’s arguing with UK about artefacts sparks diplomatic row |
