2 . I know what courage looks like. I saw it on a flight I took six years ago, and only now can I speak of it without tears filling eyes at the memory.

Our flight left the Orlando Airport one Friday morning. But immediately upon take-off, it was clear that something was wrong. The aircraft was bumping(颠簸) up and down. All the experienced travellers, including me, looked around with knowing smiles. If you fly much, you see these things and learn to act calmly about them. However, we did not remain calm for long.

Minutes after we were in the air, our plane began falling quickly. The pilot soon made a serious announcement. “We are having some difficulties,” he said. “Our indicators show that the control system has failed. We will be returning to the Orlando Airport. The flight attendants will prepare you for a bumpy landing. Also, if you look out of the windows, you will see that we are dumping fuel from the airplane. We want to have as little on board as possible in the event of a rough touchdown.” In other words, we were about to crash. Many travellers looked visibly frightened now. No one faces death without fear, I thought.

Then a couple of rows to my left, I heard a still calm voice, a woman’s voice, speaking in an absolutely normal conversational tone. I had to find the source of this voice. All around, people cried. Many screamed. Finally, I saw her. In this chaos, a mother was talking to her child. The woman, in her mid-30s, was staring full into the face of her daughter, who looked to be four years old. The child listened closely, sensing the importance of her mother’s words. The mother’s gaze held the child so fixed that she seemed untouched by the sounds of grief and fear around her.

Finally, I leaned over and by some miracle could hear this soft sure voice with the tone of comfort. Over and over again, the mother said, “I love you so much. Remember, no matter what happens, I love you always.” Fortunately, our landing gear held at last and our touchdown was not a tragedy.

However, the voice I heard that day never faded. That mom showed me what a real hero looks like.

1. What does the author imply by saying “some travellers’ knowing smiles” in Paragraph 2?

A．They were used to this kind of experience.

B．They were quite familiar with each other.

C．They were well-educated passengers.

D．They were pretending to be calm.

2. What happened shortly after take-off?

A．The plane met bad weather and had to return immediately.

B．The flight indicators showed the plane’s control system failed.

C．One of the passengers was badly ill and the plane had to turn back.

D．A flight attendant explained flight safety instructions to the passengers.

3. Hearing the pilot’s announcement, how did most travellers respond?

A．They asked for help.

B．They remained calm.

C．They cried and screamed.

D．They rejected the bumpy landing.

4. What is the best title for the passage?

A．The shape of love.

B．The voice of courage.

C．The wisdom of a pilot.

D．The danger of a journey.

3 . Humans’ overconsumption of resources is a leading contributor to global climate change, says University of Arizona researcher Sabrina Helm. Therefore, it’s increasingly important to understand the choices consumers make and how those decisions affect the health of a planet with limited resources. In a new study, published in the journal Young Consumers, Helm and her colleagues explore how materialistic values influence pro-environmental behaviors in millennials, who are now the nation’s most influential group of consumers.

The researchers focused on two main categories of pro-environmental behaviors: reduced consumption, which includes actions like repairing instead of replacing older items; and “green buying,” or purchasing products designed to limit environmental impacts. The researchers also looked at how engaging in pro-environmental behaviors affects consumer well-being.

More materialistic participants, the researchers found, were unlikely to engage in reduced consumption. However, materialism did not seem to have an effect on their likelihood of practicing “green buying.” That’s probably because “green buying,” unlike reduced consumption, still offers a way for materialists to fulfill their desire to get new items, Helm said.

Study participants who reported having fewer materialistic values were much more likely to engage in reduced consumption. Consuming less was, in turn, linked to higher personal well-being and lower psychological suffering. Green buying—which may have some positive environmental effects, although to a smaller degree than reduced consumption—was not found to improve consumer well-being, Helm said.

The take-home message for consumers: “The key is to reduce consumption and not just buy green stuff. Having less and buying less can actually make us more satisfied and happier,” Helm said. “If you have a lot of stuff, you have a lot on your mind,” she said. “For example, it requires maintenance and there’s a lot of burdens of ownership, and if you relieve yourself of that burden of ownership, most people report feeling a lot better and freer.”

Helm and her colleagues additionally looked at how materialism affects millennial consumers’ proactive financial behaviors, such as budgeting and saving. Examining financial behaviors alongside pro-environmental behaviors provides a picture of how young adults proactively deal with resource limitations in two contexts: environmental and financial, Helm said.

As expected, Helm and her colleagues found that those who reported having more materialistic values engaged in fewer proactive financial behaviors than their less materialistic counterparts (对应的人). The researchers also found that, consistent with previous studies, proactive financial behaviors were associated with better personal well-being, life satisfaction and financial satisfaction, as well as lower psychological suffering.

Understanding how materialistic values impact consumer behaviors, and how those behaviors in turn affect personal and environmental well-being, is important, Helm said. However, she acknowledges that for many consumers, shifting behaviors to be more financially proactive and consume less will be challenging.

1. What do we know about pro-environmental behaviors?

A．They are a cause of climate change.

B．They lead to a more satisfying life.

C．They vary in different age groups.

D．They are affected by materialism.

2. It can be learned from Helm’s study that ________.

A．ownership of green products brings a sense of happiness

B．materialists prefer practicing green buying to buying less

C．green buying helps control people’s desire to buy new items

D．buying less and green buying have similar effects on people

3. According to the study, which of the following can improve one’s well-being?

A．Replacing older items.	B．Developing new resources.
C．Buying greener products.	D．Being careful with expenses.

4. What is Helm probably going to explain in the next paragraph?

A．When people develop proactive financial behaviors.

B．Which financial behaviors lead to mental well-being.

C．Why it is hard to change people’s financial behaviors.

D．How materialistic values influence financial behaviors.

4 . 阅读下面短文，根据题目要求回答问题。

Most young people are accustomed to having online profiles on their mobile devices, such as smart phones, pads, and laptops. These devices contain a significant amount of information about them and their friends and family, including contact numbers, photos and locations. Since they are exposed to cyber more frequently, young people need to be aware of cyber threats and have a good understanding of cybersecurity, the measures taken to protect systems, networks, devices, and programs from digital attacks.

Cybersecurity experts continually identify the use of strong, unique passwords as one of their top recommendations. However, because young people have been using passwords online for most of their lives, they might not have stopped to think about how unsafe their passwords actually are. Indeed, strong passphrases, passcodes or other features such as touch identification to lock their devices can help protect their information if their devices are lost or stolen.

Public wireless networks are widely used nowadays, however, they are not safe. which means that anyone could possibly see what you are doing on your laptop or smart phone while you are connected to them. Young people should limit what they do on public WiFi, and avoid logging in to personal accounts like email and E-pay. If needing a safer connection, they should consider using a virtual private network (VPN) or a personal mobile hotspot.

Finally, information on how to act online is important for the safety of young people. They should be taught that they should add “friends” on social media only if they know who he or she is. They should also be made aware that posting pictures of other people without their permission might get themselves into trouble.

Starting to use these methods and raising the certain awareness of cybersecurity at an early age can dramatically improve the security of a young person’s online life.

1. What is cybersecurity?
2. What is the possible danger of connecting to public wireless networks?
3. Read the following statement, underline the false part of it and explain the reason. Experts continually recommend young people to use passwords frequently because they lack security awareness.
4. Please briefly present what you can do to improve your cybersecurity. (about 40 words)

5 . What Can We See in a Logo?

We see hundreds of logos on signs, vehicles, websites, and even on the clothes we wear. All of these logos are designed to attract our attention.     1     However, recently research supports the idea that remembering what a logo looks like is a very difficult task.

Researchers gave 85 students a simple assignment to draw the Apple logo purely from memory. Surprisingly, only one student in the study could accurately draw the logo from memory.     2     Researchers have developed a theory that they think might help to explain this blind spot in our memories.

Logos are typically designed to be simple and easy to recognize with a quick glance. Yet the frequent exposure to these logos can actually make our brains overlook them. This process is known as “attentional saturation (注意力饱和).”     3    

Even though the brain is accustomed to ignoring unnecessary details, it is also programmed for recognition. When we see images such as logos over and over again, we become familiar with them. This constant exposure leads to something scientists refer to as gist (梗概) memory.     4     This general sense of memory has its own benefits. In fact, familiarity with a popular logo can even make people feel more comfortable about purchasing or using certain products.

Logos are everywhere we look today. A fancy design or a thoughtful color combination may be a good start for a logo concept, but there are other factors to consider.     5     A clever design may be interesting, but most people will forget the details—especially if our brains have anything to say about it.

A．This may be inspiring to logo designers.

B．People will know the product behind the logo.

C．So why is it so difficult for people to recall the details of images?

D．They also help us remember a product or service connected to that image.

E．It means that our brain remembers the basic idea without all of the details.

F．Our brains actually signal us to ignore information we don’t think we will need to remember.

G．Logo designers need to know that people will only remember what they believe is worthwhile.

6 . At university, when I told people I was studying for a history degree, the response was almost always the same, “You want to be a teacher?” No, a journalist. “Oh. But you’re not majoring in communications?”

In the days when a university education was a privilege, perhaps there wasn’t the assumption that a degree had to be a springboard directly into a career. Those days are long gone. Today, a degree is all but a necessity for the job market, one that more than halves your chances of being unemployed. Still, that alone is no guarantee of a job—and yet we’re paying more and more for one.

Given those costs, most of us want to maximize that investment — and that can lead to a plug-and-play type of approach to higher education. Want to be a journalist? Study journalism, we’re told. A lawyer? Pursue pre-law. Not totally sure? Go into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineer and Maths) — you can become an engineer or an IT expert. And no matter what you do, forget the humanities, such as history, philosophy and languages.

It’s true that the humanities come with a higher risk of unemployment, but the risk is slighter than you would imagine. For young people in the U.S. , the unemployment rate of those with humanities degrees is four percent, just a little more than that of engineering degree holders. Lower salaries may not be caused by the degree itself either. The gender pay gap persists in the humanities, whose graduates are more likely to be female. Is it any wonder then that language teachers tend to make less than engineers?

According to LinkedIn’s research on the most sought-after job skills by employers for 2019, the ability to communicate and get along with people, to understand what’s on other people’s minds, and to do full-strength critical analysis were all valued and appreciated. It goes without saying that you can be an excellent communicator and critical thinker without a humanities degree. And any good university education, not just one in English or psychology, should sharpen these abilities further. But few courses of study are quite as heavy on reading, writing, speaking and critical thinking as the humanities — whether that’s by debating other students in a seminar, writing a thesis paper or analyzing poetry.

The whole question of whether a student should choose STEM versus the humanities might be misguided to begin with. The headlines most of us see don’t help. Whatever a student pursues in university, it must be something that they are not only good at, but interested in. Even if it means pursuing a “useless” degree — like one in humanities.

1. Why are people paying more and more for a degree?

A．Because people need a degree to further their career.

B．Because university education is considered a privilege.

C．Because a degree is viewed as a must for landing a job.

D．Because their interest can be developed in university.

2. The author mentioned a plug-and-play type of approach to show ________.

A．a tip for choosing a major

B．the importance of higher education

C．a problem that exists among STEM graduates

D．the reason why people overlook the humanities

3. According to the author, what is the benefit of majoring in humanities?

A．A comparatively high salary after graduation.

B．Better chances of getting rid of gender prejudice.

C．A better communicative skill than science students.

D．More exposure to the training of language and thinking.

4. What is the author's attitude towards the pursuit of humanities?

A．Doubtful.	B．Optimistic.
C．Objective.	D．Concerned.

7 . The way individuals collectively remember, forget, and recall event, people, places, etc, has been an important topic of research on collective memory.     1     He developed the concept of collective memory, arguing that individual memories are only understood within the context of a group through time and space. In all cases, most research on memory studies relies on long procedures     2     They include theoretical concepts, the study of historical sources, oral histories, case studies, interviews, and surveys. For example, one group of researchers carried out several interviews to investigate younger and older American adults for three wars, namely, the Civil War, World War Ⅱ, and the Iraq War.     3     Both younger and older adults recalled the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; however, they differed in how they rated the bombings.

More recently, memory study scholars tend to stress the significance of the media in shaping collective memories: “Culture and individuals’ memory are constantly produced through the technologies of memory.” Under this perspective, research often involves content analysis of news and the use of surveys or interviews for analyzing the public memory.     4    

However, developments in digital technologies in recent years have significantly influenced how we keep track of events both as individuals and as a collective. “The Internet doesn’t forget.” The Internet has had strong impacts on memory and the processes of remembering and forgetting.     5     Analyzing different Web documents, researchers have shown that more recent past events are remembered more vividly in the present.

A．Research on collective memory is often based on various aspects.

B．There are a few simple things a person can do to help improve their memory.

C．Maurice Halbwachs is recognized as the father of collective memory research.

D．Although all Americans recalled similar events,the interpretation changed over the generations.

E．Also,scholars have studied the role of journalists as collective memory agents by analyzing their stories.

F．Recently developed information technologies have affected how we create,store and recall information.

G．Meanwhile,it has transformed collective memory into an observable phenomenon that can be tracked and measured online.

8 . Shortage of Primary Care Threatens Health Care System

Increasing health care bills, long emergency-room waits and the inability to find a primary care physician just scratch the surface of the problems that patients face daily.

Primary care should be the support of any health care system. Countries with appropriate primary care resources score highly when it comes to health outcomes and cost. The U.S. takes the opposite approach by emphasizing the specialist rather than the primary care physician.

A recent study analyzed the providers who treat Medicare beneficiaries. The surprising finding was that the average Medicate patient saw a total of seven doctors - two primary care physicians and five specialists - in a given year.

Contrary to popular belief, the more physicians taking care of you doesn't guarantee better care. Actually, increasing fragmentation of care results in a corresponding rise in cost and medical errors.

How did we take little care of primary care? The key is how doctors are paid. Most physicians are paid whenever they perform a medical service. The more a physician does, regardless of quality or outcome, the better he's reimbursed. Moreover, the amount a physician receives leans heavily toward medical or surgical procedures.

A specialist who performs a procedure in a 30-minute visit can be paid three times more than a primary care physician using that same 30 minutes to discuss a patient's disease. Combine this fact with annual government threats to randomly cut reimbursements, physicians are faced with no choice but to increase quantity to boost income.

Primary care physicians who refuse to compromise quality are either driven out of business or to cash-only practices, further contributing to the decline of primary care.

Medical students aren't blind to this action. They know how heavily the reimbursement is against primary care. The recent numbers show that since 1997, newly graduated U.S. medical students who choose primary care as a career have declined by 50%. This trend results in emergency rooms being overwhelmed with patients without regular doctors.

How do we fix this problem?

It starts with reforming the physician reimbursement system. Remove the pressure for primary care physicians to squeeze in more patients per hour, and reward them for optimally managing their diseases and practicing evidence-based medicine. Make primary care more attractive to medical students by forgiving student loans for those who choose primary care as a career and reconciling the marked difference between specialist and primary care physician salaries.

We’re at a point where primary care is needed more than ever. Within a few years, the first wave of the 76 million Baby Boomers will become eligible for Medicare. Patients older than 85, who need chronic care most, will rise by 50% this decade.

Who will be there to treat them?

1. The author’s chief concern about the current U.S. health care system is _________.

A．the ever-rising health care costs	B．the declining number of doctors
C．the inadequate training of physicians	D．the shrinking primary care resources

2. We learn from the passage that people tend to believe that _________.

A．the more doctors taking care of a patient, the better

B．visiting doctors on a regular basis ensures good health

C．seeing more doctors may result in more diagnostic errors

D．the more costly the medicine, the more effective the cure.

3. Faced with the government threats to cut reimbursements randomly, primary care physicians have to __________.

A．make various deals with specialists	B．improve their expertise and service
C．see more patients at the expense of quality	D．increase their income by working overtime

4. What suggestion does the author give in order to provide better health care?

A．Extend primary care to patients with chronic diseases.

B．Recruit more medical students by offering them loans.

C．Reduce the tuition of students who choose primary care as their major.

D．Bridge the salary gap between specialists and primary care physicians.

9 . More than half the young children and teenagers in China are nearsighted, according to a survey by top government agencies, which called for intensified efforts to prevent and control the condition.

The survey, which was conducted last year, found that eight of 10 senior middle school students were nearsighted, compared with 71.6 percent in junior middle school, 36 percent in primary school and 14 percent of 6-year-olds in kindergarten. Overall, 53.6 percent were nearsighted. The prevalence (流行程度) of a high degree of myopia also became alarming as the percentage of senior students in high school, who wear glasses stronger than six diopters, has mounted to 21.9 percent. Up to 80 percent of the country’s young adults suffer from nearsightedness, according to a report in the medical journal Lancet. In contrast, the overall rate of myopia in the UK is about 20-30 percent. If you walk the streets of China today, you’ll quickly notice that most young people wear glasses. In Shanghai, for instance, 86 percent of high school students suffer from myopia, or nearsightedness, according to Xinhua News Agency.

The growing prevalence of myopia is not only a Chinese problem, but it is an especially East Asian one. According to a study published in The Lancet medical journal in 2012, by Ian Morgan, of the Australian National University, South Korea leads the pack, with 96 percent of young adults (below the age 20) having myopia; and the rate for Seoul is even higher. In Singapore, the figure is 82 percent. To say that Asia is having an eye problem is an understatement.

Several factors are associated with the high rate of nearsightedness in China's children and teenagers, including lack of outdoor physical activity, lack of adequate sleep due to heavy work and excessive use of electronics products. And some biologists compared Singaporeans living in Singapore to those living in Australia. They found that 29 percent of the Singaporean students had myopia compared with just 3 percent in Sydney. The main correlation was once again, time spent outside.

“The big difference was the Chinese children in Australia were outdoors a lot more than their matched peers in Singapore,” says Ian Morgan, a retired biologist at Australian National University, who coauthored the 2008 study. “This was the only thing that fit with the huge difference in prevalence.”

1. From paragraph 2, according to the survey we can know that ____________.

A．the rate of myopia in Shanghai is the highest

B．the rate of myopia in the UK is higher than that in China

C．the rate of junior middle school students who suffer from myopia is the highest

D．the rate of senior middle school students who suffer from myopia is the highest

2. Which of the following is not the reason associated with the high rate of myopia in China?

A．Time of reading books.	B．Lack of adequate sleep.
C．Lack of outdoor physical activity.	D．Excessive use of electronics products.

3. The author writes the passage to __________.

A．introduce some methods to protect our eyes

B．tell us why so many people have an eye problem

C．compare the myopia figures of different countries

D．call on everyone to pay attention to the myopia among the young people

4. Where is the passage most probably from?

A．A literary essay.	B．A historical novel.
C．A science report.	D．A travel magazine.

10 . Scientists often complain that people are not rational (理性的) in their opposition to technologies such as nuclear power and genetically modified (GM) crops. From a statistical perspective, these are very safe, and so peopled fear can be explained only by emotion, strengthened by ignorance. Electricity from nuclear power has led to far fewer direct deaths than has coalfired power, yet many people are afraid of it, and hardly anyone is afraid of coal plants. Similar arguments can be made about GM crops, which studies have shown are generally safe for most people to eat.

Scientific illiteracy (无知) may be part of the problem. Most of us are afraid of things we don’t understand, and studies have shown that scientists tend to be more accepting of potentially risky technologies than laypeople. This suggests that when people know a lot about such technologies, they are usually reassured.

But there’s more to the issue than meets the eye. It is true that many of us fear the unknown, but it is also true that we don’t care enough about routine risks. Part of the explanation is complacency: we tend not to fear the familiar, and thus familiarity can lead us to underestimate risk. The investigation into the Deepwater Horizon blowout and oil spill (原油泄漏) in 2010 showed that complacency—among executives, among engineers and among government officials-was a major cause of that disaster. So the fact that experts are unworried about a threat is not necessarily reassuring.

Scientists also make a mistake when they assume that public concerns are wholly or even mostly about safety. Some people object to GM crops because these crops facilitate the increased use of chemicals. Others have a problem with the social impacts that switching to GM organisms can have on traditional farming communities or with the political implications of leaving a large share of the food supply in the hands of a few corporations.

Geoengineering (地球工程学) to lessen the impacts of climate change is another example. Laypeople as well as scientists are more concerned about oversight (监管) than safety. Who will decide whether this is a good way to deal with climate change? If we undertake the project of setting the global temperature by controlling how much sunlight reaches Earth’s surface, who will be included in that “we” and by what process will the “right” global temperature be chosen?

Can we say which group’s view is closer to an accurate assessment?

1. The underlined word “complacency” in Paragraph 3 probably means ________.

A．overconfidence	B．prediction
C．underestimation	D．carelessness

2. The example of geoengineering is used to argue that ________.

A．safety is not the whole concern of the public

B．geoengineering is highly recognized by scientists

C．the public are unnecessarily troubled by climate change

D．lessening the impacts of climate change is a great challenge

3. What can we learn from the passage?

A．Scientific illiteracy is a major cause of disasters.

B．The safety of technologies can be accurately assessed.

C．Scientists misjudge people’s opposition to technologies.

D．People are unworried about risks with proper oversight.

4. Which of the following would be the best title for the passage?

A．Ignorance or Safety

B．Who Is Rational About Risk

C．Why Can’t People Trust Technology

D．Should Scientists Have a Say in Risk