1 . French parenting isn’t perfect, but there’s a lot we can learn from this kind but no-nonsense style of parenting.

French children are allowed to handle difficult things themselves.     1     The early years are when they discover all the cool ways their new body works and how to use it. To encourage this autonomy, French parents treat children more like adults-in-training than helpless babies. They believe kids feel confident when they’re able to deal with things on their own.

Fearful of hurting feelings, American parents tend to praise every child for everything.     2     However, all that praise eventually turns out to be pointless. By contrast, French adults give children appropriate praise, thus allowing them to feel a true sense of achievement and take pride in what they learn.

Painful experiences are the best learning opportunities and sheltering children from this fact of life will merely delay their emotional development. French doctors never say “sorry” when giving kids shots. The French believe undergoing hurts, is part of life and that there’s no reason to apologize for that.     3    

Plus, the expectation of eye contact and a polite hello starts from the minute French children can say hello. They know saying “hello” and good manners are non-negotiable. Teaching them about that will benefit them for a lifetime.     4     Be patient with little ones as they learn.

All the above feels easier said than done, especially as a tired parent facing an intolerable child.     5     Your efforts will end up with children’s better behaviour overall.

A．They mean what they say.

B．This isn’t to say it’ll come easily.

C．It might save tears in the short term.

D．They wish children to suffer sometimes.

E．Bearing a few blow-ups is worthwhile, though.

F．Parents have to spare them such psychological discomfort.

G．“Me do it!” is little kids’ favorite phrase and for good reason.

2 . 阅读下面短文，根据题目要求用英文回答问题。

It’s 5 p.m., and you’ve just realized that report you’ve been putting off is due tomorrow. It’s time to buckle down and open your computer. Actually, you should probably make dinner first. You usually like cooking, though it’s hard to enjoy with this work hanging over your head, and oh—it’s actually pretty late! Maybe you should just try again in the morning. This is the cycle of procrastination, and I promise you, we have all been there.

Procrastination is when we avoid a task we said we would do, for no good reason, despite expecting our behavior to bring negative consequences. Obviously, it’s irrational to do something you expect to harm you. But ironically, procrastination is the result of our bodies trying to protect us, specifically by avoiding a task we see as threatening.

We’re most likely to procrastinate tasks that evoke negative feelings, such as dread, incompetence, and insecurity. Because procrastination is motivated by our negative feelings, some individuals are more susceptible (易受影响的) to it than others. People who have difficulty regulating their emotions and those who struggle with low self-esteem are much more likely to procrastinate. However, it’s a common misconception that all procrastinators are lazy. When you’re feeling lazy, you’re more likely to sit around doing nothing than distract yourself with unimportant tasks. In fact, many people procrastinate because they care too much. Procrastinators often report a high fear of failure, putting things off because they’re afraid their work won’t live up to their high standards.

Whatever the reason for procrastination, the results are often the same. Procrastinators are likely to suffer from anxiety and depression, ongoing feelings of shame and physical ailments (轻病) associated with high stress.

So, how can we break the cycle of procrastination?

Traditionally, people thought procrastinators needed to cultivate discipline and practice strict time management. But today, many researchers feel the exact opposite. Being too hard on yourself can layer additional bad emotions onto a task. What we really need to do is to address and reduce these negative emotions.

1. What is procrastination?
_____________________________________________
2. What kinds of people are more likely to procrastinate?
_____________________________________________
3. Please decide which part is false in the following statement, then underline it and explain why.
Ø Procrastinators are affected by negative emotions, are all lazy and are likely to suffer from physical ailments associated with high stress.
_____________________________________________
4. What strategies can you use to break the cycle of procrastination in your daily life? (In about 40 words)
_____________________________________________

4 . I am one of the many city people who are always saying that given the choice we would prefer to live in the country away from the dirt and noise of a large city. I have managed to convince myself that if it weren’t for my job I would immediately head out for the open spaces and go back to nature in some sleepy village buried in the country. But how realistic (现实的) is the dream?

Cities can be frightening places. The majority of the population live in huge tower blocks, noisy, dirty and unfriendly. The sense of belonging to a group tends to disappear when you live fifteen floors up. Strangely enough, nowadays people on the same floor don’t even say hello to each other.

Country life, on the other hand, differs in that a sense of group generally unites the people of small villages together. People have the advantage of knowing that there is always someone to turn to when they need help. But it is also true that you are cut off from the exciting and important events that take place in cities. Shopping becomes a major problem, and for anything slightly out of the ordinary you have to go on a trip to the nearest large town. The city people are often worried by a sense of unbearable stillness and quiet.

What, then, is the answer? The country has the advantage of peace and quiet, but suffers from the disadvantage of being cut off. The city raises a feeling of loneliness, and constant noise beats the senses. But you are at the centre of things, and that life doesn’t come to an end at half-past nine at night. Some people have found or rather bought a solution between the two: they have expressed their preference for the “quiet life” by leaving the cities and moving to villages within commuting (通勤) distance of large cities.

What then of my dream? I’m eager for the idea, but you see there’s my cat, Toby. I’m not at all sure that he would take to all that fresh air and exercise in the long grass. I mean, can you see him mixing with all those energetic males down the farm? No, he would rather have the electric fire any evening.

1. Which of the following makes city people unhappy?

A．Colorful life.

B．A sense of group.

C．Close neighborhood.

D．A feeling of loneliness.

2. What is difficult to buy in the country?

A．Designer clothes.

B．Farming tools.

C．Daily supplies.

D．Fresh vegetables.

3. We can infer from the passage the author ________.

A．enjoys living in huge tower blocks	B．is in two minds
C．will continue his life in the city	D．will move to the country

5 . 阅读下面短文，根据题目要求回答问题。

Crowd control could soon become an important skill for climbers on Mount Everest, as important as physical strength or watching the weather. In a single day last week, nearly 40 people reached the top of the world — a record. Reports from base camp spoke of queues at dangerous ridges and crowds as people passed each other in the final dash for the 8,848 meters top.

More traditional mountaineers have been concerned about the circus atmosphere surrounding Everest in recent years, and there are warnings that the crowds are making the mountain more dangerous. In 1996, 14 died on the mountain when the members of several groups were trapped at high altitudes by sudden snowstorms. Bad weather in early May led to this year’s jam on the summit ridge, but the loss, luckily, was light. Just four climbers died, including a Nepali Sherpa who had made 11 previous successful climbing.

Traditionalists are also worried about the growing tendency of climbers to set records and achieve “firsts”, rather than simply climb the mountain. This year’s crop of mountaineers included the oldest man, 64-year-old Sherman Bull from Connecticut, and the youngest, 16-year-old Temba Tsheri Sherpa of Nepal. An American with only one arm was on the mountain this year; an Indian with no legs also tried but failed. Erik Weihennieyer, an American, became the first blind person to reach the top of the world. His fellow climbers stayed in front of him on the way up, describing the type of land and ringing bells.

Nepal views Mount Everest as something of a cash cow. The government charges journeys a minimum of $70,000. That is probably why officials in Katmandu are ignoring concerns about overcrowding and talking about even more climbers coming next year. But a celebration of the 48th anniversary of the first conquest of Everest, by Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, was cancelled after violent strikes. Tumultuous (动乱的) Nepali politics, it seems, could be just the crowd-control measure that Everest needs.

1. According to the author, what skills are important for climbers on Mount Everest?
_____________________________________________________
2. What are traditional mountaineers worried about?
_____________________________________________________
3. Please decide which part is false in the following statement, then underline it and explain why.
●The Nepal government cares little about the overcrowding problem because of its internal tumultuous politics.
_____________________________________________________
4. Do you think it is a good idea to limit the number of visitors to a tourist attraction? Why?
_____________________________________________________

6 . A question has increasingly bothered me since I began studying our relationship with technology two decades ago: Will we ever pay attention again? The concern arose from measuring the shrinking attention spans in various work roles. Whether we’re talking about a Gen Z or a baby boomer, a CEO or an administrative assistant, attention spans on our computers and phones are short and declining.

We tend to blame this trend on growing digital alerts and notifications, or on algorithms aimed at capturing our focus. These do play measurable roles. But it turns out that people are nearly as likely to switch their attention of their own volition. We are determined to be interrupted, if not by others, then by ourselves. Simply choosing to check our email is a major reason for interruptions. Our research found that, on average, people check their inboxes 77 times a day. More than 40% of the time, they do it willingly, without being spurred by any alert.

Are we doomed to see our attention spans nosedive? Completely unplugging from technology might help us recover, but few of us are ready to give up the benefits of online connections. There are possible remedies, however, if not real solutions.

First, we can become more intentional in our actions by examining the reasons behind: Am I distracting myself because I am bored? Are there other options? Taking proper breaks is also important; research shows that even a 20-minute walk in nature can lead us to increase our generation of ideas. Finally, people can plan to concentrate on important tasks when their mental resources are at their peak for avoiding distraction.

Institutional decisions can also help us to preserve attention. It’s not realistic to cut off email completely, but the volume can be reduced. We found that cutting email off in an organization for one workweek helped people focus longer on screens and reduced stress. Companies with an email-free day a week have reported positive results.

The German companies Volkswagen and Allianz have gone a step further and adopted a policy called “Right to Disconnect”. Actually, this policy of not punishing workers for failing to answer e-communications after work hours has been instituted in Ireland and France. How does this help? A 2017 study found afterhours work communications created emotional exhaustion, and a 2014 study showed detaching from work can improve sleep. The study found when sleep deficits increase, attention spans decrease.

Our online behavior is greatly influenced by the wider culture and the ever more sophisticated tools of digital technology, but we can’t just blame our short attention spans on algorithms and notifications that flood in. We still own our attention, and we can take change into our own hands.

1. In paragraph 2, the author mentions the result of the research to show that________.

A．we are likely to interrupt ourselves in most cases

B．people will sometimes voluntarily seek distraction

C．people are constantly interrupted by email from others

D．digital alerts are not to blame for the reduced concentration

2. What can be inferred about the two German companies before the introduction of the “Right to Disconnect” policy?

A．The companies used to punish workers for not staying connected after work.

B．The employees of these companies were generally not satisfied with their job.

C．Their employees had lower sleep quality compared to those in France and Ireland.

D．The companies refused to adopt the policy because they wanted to make more profits.

3. What can we conclude about digital technology from the passage?

A．It’s up to us human beings to decide how much we want to be distracted by it.

B．We can adjust our online behavior by making some changes to digital culture.

C．Standards must be set to ensure that we do not fall victim to its negative effects.

D．The impact of digital technology on our lives can be extended by cultural behavior.

7 . A video circulated on social media earlier this year, showing a tourist opening the door of a vehicle, reaching out an arm and attempting to stroke a passing lioness. The lioness shrugged him off, but it could have easily gone horribly wrong.

Reckless behaviour around wildlife risks the safety of both people and animals. People risk being attacked, mauled (撕咬) and possibly killed, while animals can be harmed, removed or put down, irrespective of whether they were only defending themselves. Animal attacks can also cast a destination in a negative light, causing temporary closures or scaring off visitors. All just so someone could boast that they had stroked a lion or captured a moment on a camera phone.

“Tourists are getting more and more reckless around wildlife and the source of the problem is social media.” says wildlife photographer Anette Mosshachers. “People risking their lives or doing stupid things with wildlife are after ‘likes’ and followers, something to show off on social media,” says Mossbacher. “The greater the risk, the more ‘likes’ they get. With some clients, it seems like a sickness or addiction.”

Yet social media is not entirely to blame. People have always taken risks for an experience. Foolish behavior and a tendency to get cocky around dangerous animals must have been around since the dawn of humanity. A hunger for attention online might drive some of the current madness, but some individuals might be trying to recreate a piece of the action they have seen on television. Perhaps the adrenaline (肾上腺激素) rush when close to wild animals causes an evaporation of common sense.

“There’s a worrying lack of awareness that animals several times our size, weight, speed and strength can easily hurt us,”says wildlife photographer David Lloyd. “I don’t think parks are doing enough to raise awareness. Tourists need to know how their presence can affect wildlife. A good example is cheetahs (猎豹) on vehicle rooftops. It may be a thrill for the bystanders, but the consequences if a mother cheetah falls off would be severe. She would no longer be able to hunt, so her cubs could easily starve.”

“People aren’t getting the education about why they need to stay away from wildlife, including avoiding diseases, keeping people secure and letting wildlife be wild,” says Philip Muruthi, vice president of species conservation and science for the African Wildlife Foundation. “We need to educate tourists through signs, pamphlets and frontline drivers. We should stick to guidelines, and there needs to be enforcement through the law.”

1. What can we learn about reckless behaviour around wildlife?

A．It harms tourists more than animals.

B．It enables tourists to get intimate with animals.

C．It may bring more profits to a tourist destination.

D．It may get animals killed for defending themselves.

2. As for Mossbacher’s opinion on what drives people’s reckless behavior, the author is______.

A．sympathetic	B．disapproving
C．doubtful	D．indifferent

3. What does the underlined word “cocky” in Paragraph 4 probably mean?

A．Selfish.	B．Frightened.
C．Arrogant.	D．Shocked.

4. What can we conclude from the passage?

A．Parks are expected to take more responsibilities for educating tourists.

B．Raising tourists’ awareness means stressing the danger of animals to them.

C．More regulation of the tourist industry is the key to raising tourists’ awareness.

D．Penalties rather than education can stop people taking silly risks around wildlife.

8 . 阅读下面的短文，并根据短文内容回答后面的问题。

The Weight of White Lies

A man taking his mother to a surprise party tells her they’re going to the mall. A woman fibs that the store was out of her overweight boyfriend’s favorite junk food. A tutor assures his student that her spotty resumé looks fine.

Even benevolent forms of deception come in shades of acceptability, and people who learn that they have been misled don’t always see it the way deceivers do. A lie that’s meant to inflate   someone’s confidence or discourage a bad habit, for example, often involves making a judgment about what’s best for that person. That presumption can backfire.

In recent experiments, participants playing an economic game on a computer received a tip that led them to one of two possible payoffs. Some learned that the sender of the tip had lied to them to secure them a particular option. If the best option had been debatable rather than obvious—such as receiving $10 right away rather than $30 after three months—participants judged that person as less moral for lying and were less satisfied with the outcome, on average, even if it was the one they had previously said they preferred. “People seem to feel they have a right to the truth, and that by taking that away, you diminish their ability to act freely,” says study co-author Matthew Lupoli, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, San Diego.

Making up falsehoods isn’t the only way to kindly deceive, though: You might also simply leave out unpleasant facts. Recent studies by University of Chicago researcher Emma Levine and colleagues examined both types of lie in hypothetical patient-doctor talks and other contexts.

People in the role of deceiver tended to view the omission of potentially harmful details (such as a poor prognosis) as comparable to or more acceptable than offering a comforting fiction (that a patient’s outlook was favorable). But those in the role of the deceived often considered false-but-supportive statements more tolerable than lies of omission. For deceivers, actively committing a lie feels more intentional and might provoke more guilt than omission, Levine says. But the targets of deception “aren’t likely to be sensitive to these differences because they just experience the consequences.”

In general, honesty is probably still the best policy. A lie that provides some emotional benefits and has little downside could be the closest second.

1. What is the presumption people make when telling a white lie (a lie that’s meant to be good)?
________________
2. What are the ways to kindly deceive others?
________________
3. Please decide which part is false in the following statement, then underline it and explain why.
Those in the role of the deceived often considered lies of omission more tolerable than false-but-supportive statements.
________________
4. Do you prefer to be honest or tell a white lie when informing your friend of something unpleasant? Why? (In about 40 words)
________________

9 . Every day, thousands of rangers patrol national parks and other protected areas in Africa. Their job is fraught with danger, both from hostile humans armed with automatic weapons and from the unappreciative and potentially aggressive wildlife, armed with tusks, teeth and claws, which they are helping to preserve.    1    

That is particularly true of data on poaching (偷猎), which remains, in both senses of the word, an elephantine problem. Since 2006 African elephant populations have declined by around 30%. In 2021, according to Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE), a conservation programme, around 40% of elephant deaths were a result of poaching.

    2     The MIKE data show a welcome fall in rates throughout the 2010s, but according to research published in 2020 by Scott Schlossberg of Elephants Without Borders, a charity, this can be attributed entirely to a decline in eastern Africa.

Elsewhere, there is great variation in the pressure on animals like elephants. Some parks, like Garamba in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), are badly hit — with more than 90% of the bodies found by rangers being victims of poachers.     3    To untangle the factors influencing poaching, Timothy Kuiper of the University of Cape Town, Eleanor Milner-Gulland at Oxford, and a team of collaborators have analysed data collected for MIKE by rangers from 64 sites in 30 African countries over the course of 19 years. They correlated these with potentially relevant factors, both natural and human, and have published their findings in the Proceedings of the Royal Society.

Natural variables such as habitat type, they discovered, make little difference.     4     Unsurprisingly, low household wealth, poor health, poor law enforcement and poor national governance all contributed to higher rates of poaching. So did the price of ivory.

    5     For there did not seem to be much. The impact was a consequence of a few special cases in DRC, the Central African Republic and Ethiopia, rather than a general rule about young men with guns behaving badly.

One factor that was unquantifiable, and therefore untestable, according to Dr Kuiper, was local political will to preserve wildlife. But this study does nevertheless confirm observations made elsewhere, that the best form of conservation is a prosperous population.

A．Human ones predominate.

B．The severity of elephant poaching varies from place to place.

C．Humans are the biggest factor defining elephant ranges across Africa.

D．There was one unexpected result, though — the impact of armed conflict.

E．But their work is important, not least because the data they collect are crucial to conservation planning.

F．In others, like Chobe, in Botswana, less than 10% of dead elephants discovered have been killed illegally.

G．Current discussion of how to reduce poaching focuses on two areas: reducing demand and reducing supply.

10 . The question of how trucking capacity is growing or declining is common in industry, but the reality is that demand fluctuations are far more important to monitor as they swing much more violently.

Since December of 2018, the total tractor count from for-hire fleets (non-private) has grown 18%, according to the FMCSA, but has never shown a monthly change of over 2%. By contrast, the Outbound Tender Volume Index (OTVI), a measure of total truckload demand, has grown 12% over the same period, but monthly fluctuations topped 20% at times.

Even before the pandemic, the OTVI had 5-7% monthly swings in demand. Given the OTVI measures total tenders and is not a pure proxy (指标) for shipments, it is reflective of how fast demand-side conditions change in trucking.

The point is that capacity shifts are slow and stable, while demand changes much more rapidly and is very unpredictable over time. This is the consummate struggle of supply chains and transportation companies across the globe — how much infrastructure (capacity) is needed to be able to flex up but not have too much overhead when demand softens?

The process of ordering and seating a truck takes close to a year. That truck can haul roughly seven 500-mile loads per week, or 360 loads per year. This only occurs if shipping patterns are consistent and drivers are readily available, and neither are true. So it isn’t a pure question of how much capacity is available in aggregate, but are those trucks available in the right places at the right times in general? This metric is extremely difficult to attain.

Since demand is uneven and spread unevenly throughout the country, trucks and drivers need to exceed the number of shipments available. So even if capacity grows by 1%, it just increases the chances that loads will be covered marginally.

Probably more important than any of the previous points is that there are already measures of the relationship between supply and demand in trucking. Tender rejection rates (OTRI) and spot rates (NTI) measure when capacity is meeting demand in the contract and spot markets, respectively.   

There is little use for knowing how much capacity is available in the for-hire freight market other than being interesting. But there is exceptional value in knowing how well capacity and demand are lining up and in what direction they are trending. Since December 2021 tender rejection rates have fallen from over 20% to under 4%, while spot rates are down 27%.

Demand-side indicators are probably the most crucial to getting the earliest signs of market shifts, while rejection rates and spot rates answer the two most important questions that companies want answered: Can I get a truck and how much will it cost me?

1. The Outbound Tender Volume Index ________.

A．is a proxy for shipments only

B．is a measure to track truckload demand

C．can tell the current trucking capacity in the US

D．can tell the relationship between supply and demand in trucking

2. What problem do supply chains and transportation companies face commonly?

A．How capacity can meet the changing demand.

B．How capacity and demand can be predicted.

C．What facilities are needed to ship the goods.

D．What trucks can function the best.

3. What can we tell about OTRI and NTI?

A．They are both measures in the contract and spot markets.

B．They are of little use to know the capacity and demand.

C．They can change the uneven demand situation in the US.

D．They can help to tell the companies how market might change.

4. Where can we probably find this passage?

A．In a school newspaper.

B．In a book.

C．In a biography.

D．In a magazine.