1 . In Australia, like many places around the world, about 95% of the people use Google when they search the Internet for new and recently changed web pages. Because so many people turn to Google’s site first before ever going to a news website, news is a big money-maker for the company.

Australia is considering a bill that will charge Google for showing links to Australian news web-sites which are upset that Google is making money by showing links to articles on their own sites. In recent years, as large technology companies have gotten richer, many news sites have lost money. One way Google makes money is by showing ads on these search pages.

Many people were shocked at the idea. That’s because the Internet is built on links. Since the Internet began, links have always been free. When it comes to copyright(版权), it’s against the law to use someone else’s articles or pictures without their permission. But it has always been legal for anyone, including big companies, to link to any other web page on the Internet, without paying anything.

Tim Bermers Lee is the man who developed the ideas that led to the Internet. He says Australia’s bill ruins the free linking that is so important to the Internet. He thinks the bill should be rewritten.

Google agrees. The company says it wants to work out an agreement that’s fairer to Australian news sites, but that it can’t pay for links. Google points out that it has about 450 agreements in different parts of the world where it pays for the right to show the results of its searches.

Google says if the bill isn’t changed, it will have to stop its work in Australia. Many people worry that once some groups are forced to pay for links in one part of the world, other governments will create similar laws. They’re concerned that in the end, the Internet will be less free, open, and useful for everyone.

1. What will the bill make Google do to Australian news websites?

A．Provide web pages for them.	B．Reduce its ads on them.
C．Share its business with them.	D．Pay for its links to them.

2. What is Paragraph 3 mainly about?

A．People’s question on the bill.	B．Different opinions of the copyright.
C．The Internet copyright protection.	D．The history of Internet links.

3. What does the underlined part “its work” in the last paragraph refer to?

A．Signing the bill with others.	B．Offering a fairer agreement.
C．Showing its search results.	D．Printing out the news sites.

4. In which section of a newspaper does the text most probably appear?

A．Technology.

B．Business.

C．Lifestyle.

D．Culture.

2 . Teenage life: better now, or in the past?

Does this situation sound familiar(熟悉的)?

You’re complaining(抱怨) to your parents about something. Maybe your computer isn’t powerful enough to play the latest games.     1    Then you hear...

“When I was your age, there weren’t any computers or video games. And I didn’t get a bike until I was 16. And it was second-hand.     2    ”

So is it really true that life is better for teenagers now? It is certainly true that many teenagers have got more things nowadays.     3    So parents have got more money to spend on each child. And many things are cheaper than they were when our parents were children.

    4    Forty years ago, no one could imagine a world with tiny computers and amazing smartphones. And now these things are necessary—we can’t imagine living without them!

However, technology often means we spend more time at home. And often it’s just us, with our computer or television. Teenagers don’t do enough exercise.     5    And, although young people still get on well with their friends, some people think teenagers today don’t have so many social activities as the teenagers in the past.

What do you think? How is teenage life better these days?

A．And it was too big for me.

B．A typical family is smaller now.

C．You get very unhappy with this.

D．Or your friends’ bikes are better than yours.

E．So they aren’t as healthy as the teenagers in the past.

F．Life was not easy in the past.

G．Technology is probably the greatest change in our life.

3 . I went to a movie theater with my roommate yesterday. His hobby is watching movies. He is enthusiastic about movies. I was very glad when he said that he would take me to a movie theater. As a student abroad, I always spend my time reading books in the library or studying in the classroom, so I looked forward to going to the movies.

The movie we saw was called “The Patriot”. It described the love between a father and his children during the time of the American War of Independence. It is a war story based on history, but the story was created by the writer for entertainment. The movie was enjoyable in that sometimes it made us laugh, and other times it made us cry. It was a successful movie.

The most amazing thing was the reaction of the audience. It was different. Though I could concentrate on watching a movie in Japan, I could not in America because of the reaction of the audience. They laughed loudly when an actor told a joke and they applauded at the plot when the main character killed his enemy. It was amazing to me that they expressed their emotions openly.

In other words, an American theater is a space for everyone to enjoy. If I did that in a public place in Japan, most of the audience would look down on me or complain about the noisiness, and the person beside me might say, “Could you please be silent? ”

There seems to be a cultural difference between America and Japan. It is said that Americans always express their emotions and opinions and that we always conceal(隐藏)ours. I’m glad to observe such a difference because I can feel I am experiencing a real thing while visiting the United States.

1. The writer wrote the story in order to_________.

A．introduce an enjoyable war movie to us

B．show his studying experience in America

C．give us some advice on how to behave in a movie theater

D．tell us a cultural difference between America and Japan

2. What do you know about the author?

A．He is a Japanese and studies in America.

B．He doesn’t work hard at his lessons.

C．He is tired of the life as a student abroad.

D．He is fond of watching movies very much.

3. It can be known from the passage that Americans_________.

A．hide their emotions from strangers

B．express their emotions openly

C．are not so polite as the Japanese

D．look down upon the Japanese

4. When Japanese people are watching a movie, they usually _________.

A．laugh loudly	B．exchange their ideas
C．keep quiet	D．make some comments

4 . Will you eat everything in your lunch box today? If not, what will you do with what’s left over? Save it for another time or throw it in the bin?

A new report by the United Nations estimates(估计)17% of all the food produced around the world gets wasted each year. That means 931 million tons of wasted food! Most of the waste(61%)happens in households, while food services such as restaurants and cafes make up 26 percent and shops make up 13 percent, the UN found.

“Many countries haven’t yet known how much food they have wasted, so they don’t understand how serious the problem is,” said Clementine O’Connor, from the UN Environment Program and co-author of the report.

Food waste is also bad for the environment. The UN Environment Program estimates that wasted food is responsible for 8—10% of global greenhouse gas emissions(排放物). If food waste were a country, it would have the third highest greenhouse gas emissions in the world, after only the US and China.

The report found food waste in homes wasn’t limited to higher income countries such as the US, the UK and Australia. Food waste researcher, Professor Brian Roe, from Ohio State University in the US, said food was also sometimes wasted in poor countries because they didn’t have refrigerators.

Professor Brian Roe said household and cultural habits could lead to waste at home, including “buy one, get one free” deals. Meanwhile, “use-by” or “best-before” dates on products could also be causing people to throw away food. People could be throwing out food because they think it is unsafe to eat, when in fact the date only shows when quality might decline.

1. Where does most of food waste happen?

A．At home.

B．At cafes.

C．At shops.

D．At restaurants.

2. Why does the author compare food waste to a country?

A．To tell us greenhouse gas emissions are very serious.

B．To tell us the US produces the most greenhouse gas.

C．To show food waste is quite common all over the world.

D．To show food waste does great harm to the environment.

3. What does Professor Brian Roe try to tell us in the last paragraph?

A．The harm of food waste.	B．How food waste happens.
C．Why we shouldn’t waste food.	D．The ways to reduce food waste.

4. What would be the best title of the text?

A．Why do people waste food?	B．Where do people waste food?
C．Food waste is a serious problem	D．Food waste happens in different countries

5 . Hailey Magee rushed home from school crying after seeing that she’d received an A-minus on her grade report card. Growing up she had learned that the way to receive confirmation and love from family members and teachers was to be a high achiever. So to Magee, that A-minus felt like a failure. “I was shattered,” she said. “In that moment, I felt like my self-worth as a human had fallen far below what it would have been if I’d gotten an A or an A-plus.”

Magee’s turning a good grade into a cause of her inferiority (自卑) is a textbook example of a growing trend in recent years: Perfectionist behavior. Perfectionism is now a growing cultural phenomenon. High levels of perfectionism were linked with depression, anxiety, eating disorders, deliberate self-harm and obsessive-compulsive disorder. The constant stress of attempting to be perfect can also leave people stressed and suffering from headaches and insomnia.

Many parents today feel a sense of competitiveness that they may push onto their kids, whether by pressuring them to get perfect grades so they can get into elite schools or signing them up for extracurricular activities that might look good on a college application. But if a child is only rewarded for high achievement, over time they learn that their value as a person depends on being perfect. Instagram, Facebook and other social media platforms also fuel unhealthy comparisons.

“It’s a real problem—those social media images end up serving as yardsticks that people can compare themselves to and a perfectionist is always trying to keep up with the Joneses, ”Sherry, a clinical psychologist, said. And it’s never been harder to keep up with the Joneses, because today we are constantly bombed with seemingly perfect images of other peoples’ lives.

Eventually Magee learned that she had to let go a little and allow herself to show up with all her imperfections. She eventually learned to trust that she could show up, not being perfect, and still feel valued. “I can be imperfect and everything can be fine!”

1. Which of the following best explains “shattered” underlined in paragraph 1?

A．Delighted.

B．Frightened.

C．Frustrated.

D．Amused.

2. Which of the following is NOT the cause of Magee’s inferiority?

A．The unhealthy comparisons.	B．The A-plus confirmation.
C．The perfectionism phenomenon.	D．The sense of competitiveness.

3. What may Magee agree with finally?

A．It’s cool to be perfect.	B．It’s fine to be imperfect.
C．It’s important to get an A-plus.	D．It’s easy to keep up with the Joneses.

4. What is the text mainly about?

A．Perfectionism is killing our health.

B．Perfectionism is a growing cultural phenomenon.

C．Accepting one’s imperfection is becoming a trend.

D．Imperfection is temporary and perfection is forever.

6 . Liu Shuqi broke up with her boyfriend two months ago and has now found a new companion.

The handsome “man” is dressed in a white suit with a stylish haircut. He understands her emotions and feelings perfectly and gives her comfort, encouragement and support. “He is very humorous and offers some comfort when I am in a bad mood,” the 26-year-old bank employee said. The only problem is he is a virtual being and not a real boyfriend.

Liu is not alone in her choice of companion. In a digital era where people are heavily reliant on their smart devices, many of those who live alone increasingly turn to the virtual field to seek companions.

The artificial intelligence-powered digital humans, who are similar to real humans in appearance and behavior, are capable of providing 24-hour online companionship, humanlike conversation and emotional support.

They will likely become an essential part of people’s daily lives, industry experts said. Lin Kaikai and Ye Youyou, two companion-oriented virtual beings, were recently launched by Chinese tech giant Baidu Inc. Powered by Baidu’s Plato, an AI model for dialogue generation that is trained on over 10 billion parameters collected from social media conversations in both English and Chinese, the two digital humans have a smooth, more humanlike interaction.

For instance, they can participate in conversations through various forms such as texts, voice and emojis. They offer customized wake-up call services and learn about the preferences of their users, mainly through increased frequency of chats and interactions, Baidu said.

Other tech companies have also jumped on the companion-oriented virtual being trend.

Xiaoice is an AI-powered chatbot that seems to redefine the conceptions of romance and relationships among young Chinese. It has helped to comfort lonely hearts through more than 17 million virtual “girlfriends” and “boyfriends” in China.

“The rise of digital humans that serve as emotional companions is a result of technological innovation, such as the improvement in appearance, functions and interactive experience of digital humans, fueled by the enhanced deep-learning capacities based on massive user data,” said Chen Duan, director of the Digital Economy Integration Innovation Development Center at the Central University of Finance and Economics.

A set of problems though have also emerged. They include ethics, morals, data security and personal privacy protection in the industry, Chen said, while calling for efforts to formulate relevant laws and regulations on the ownership of digital characters and standardizing their behaviors.

1. What is Liu’ new companion like according to Liu Shuqi herself?

A．Handsome and stylish	B．Humorous and helpful
C．Perfect and supportive	D．Clever and understanding

2. Why are many solitary people turning to virtual companions now?

A．Because virtual companions look very like real humans.

B．Because virtual companions can offer a whole-day online companionship.

C．Because these people rely on their digital devices heavily.

D．Because these people need emotional support very much.

3. Which of the following may not be a way for virtual companions to take part in a conversation?

A．Texts

B．emojis

C．voice

D．eye-contact

4. What measures should be taken to solve the problems along with the booming of virtual companions according to Chen Duan?

A．Making relative rules and laws.	B．Regularize the behaviors of virtual companions.
C．Stop producing virtual companions.	D．Both A and B.

7 . The Covid-19 pandemic has forced millions of us to participate in one of the biggest social experiments of our time: what would happen if office workers largely abandoned their workplaces and began working from home?    1    

One thing seems clear: more people working remotely has brought some benefits for the environment. Wildlife has be enable to reclaim urban spaces while people have been tapping away at their home keyboards, with less commuter (通勤者) traffic.

    2    The major benefits of home working include people having more flexibility to do jobs around their family, and balance exercise and leisure time, thus being able to wear whatever they like, controlling their own heating and lighting and not having to commute.

Many people have also been able to get more done while working remotely.    3     “There used to be a lot of resistance to working from home because managers thought employees would just go of off and watch soap operas, but there’s a lot more trust now,” says Sue Williamson at the University of New South Wales in Canberra, Australia.

    4    Many people forced to work from home have reported feeling isolated and finding it harder to switch off due to the unclear boundary between work and home life.    5    This is probably because it’s hard to get those accidental conversations between people that spark ideas when everyone is physically separated.

As vaccines help to control Covid-19, many organizations are hoping to reap the best of both worlds by letting employees work from home on some days and travel to the office on others.

A．But what about the benefits to people?

B．More than 2 years in, it is time to reflect.

C．After a severe period, there is no turning back.

D．However, the experiment hasn’t been all positive.

E．It is time to reset and rethink how we actually work.

F．Many managers have also reported declines in innovation.

G．The productivity level is found to rise as they work from home.

8 . When drawing scientists. U. S. children now depict (描画) female scientists more often than ever, according to new Northwestern University research, which has analyzed five decades of “Draw-A-Scientist” studies conducted since the 1960s.

This change suggests that children’s stereotypes (刻板印象) linking science with men have weakened over time, said the researchers, consistent with more women becoming scientists and children’s media depicting more female scientists on television shows and other media.

In the first study, conducted between 1968 and 1979, less than one percent of 5,000 children drew an image resembling a woman when asked to draw a scientist. Almost all their artwork depicted men working with laboratory equipment, often with lab coats, glasses and facial hair.

But in later studies (1988 to 2019), 28 percent of children drew a female scientist, on average. In addition, both girls and boys drew female scientists more often over time, though girls overall drew female scientists much more often than boys.

“Our results suggest that children’s stereotypes change as women’s and men’s roles change in society.” said study lead author David Miller. “Children still draw more male than female scientists, but that is expected because women remain a minority in several science fields.”

The researchers also studied how children form stereotypes about scientists across child development. The results suggested children did not associate science with men until grade school; around age 5, they drew roughly equal percentages of male and female scientists. During elementary and middle school, the tendency to draw male scientists increased strongly with age. Older children were also more likely to draw scientists with lab coats and glasses, suggesting that children learn other stereotypes as they mature.

“These changes across children’s age likely reflect that children’s exposure to male scientists accumulates during development, even in recent years.” said Miller.

“To build on cultural changes, teachers and parents should present children with multiple examples of female scientists across many contexts such as science courses, television shows and informal conversations,” Miller said.

1. What is the change in children drawing scientists?

A．Children draw more male scientists.

B．Children draw more female scientists.

C．Girls draw more scientists than boys.

D．Children draw more female than male scientists.

2. What does Miller think of children drawing more male scientists than female scientists?

A．It’s not surprising.	B．It’s not reasonable.
C．It’s unexpected.	D．It’s not acceptable.

3. What does paragraph 6 mainly talk about?

A．How children develop their drawings.

B．How children’s stereotypes change with age.

C．Why children draw more male scientists.

D．What scientists look like in children’s drawings.

4. According to Miller, how can we make children draw more female scientists?

A．By encouraging children to attend science courses.

B．By encouraging children to become scientists in the future.

C．By giving children an example of drawing female scientists.

D．By making female scientists known to children in various situations.

9 . One Earth Award

About this award

Sponsored by the One Earth Fund, the One Earth Award offers $1,000 scholarships for four students whose works address the pressing issue of human-caused climate change.

Why should I create art or writing about climate change?

Some consequences of climate change include: sea-level rise, increase in air pollution, hurricane, droughts, extreme weather, and rising temperatures, among others. Your work can advance our thoughts about climate change and our understanding of solutions. It can also improve awareness of actions that we can take, in order to reduce the harm that human action has on our environment.

How do I apply?

Enter your work to any category in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. When selecting the category of your work, choose the One Earth Award. You will be required to include a personal statement on your work.

What should I write for the personal statement?

Your personal statement should be 50 words or more and answer the following questions:

What specific aspect of climate change does your work address?

What is your personal connection to this aspect of climate change, and why do you think talking about climate change is important?

Getting started on your work

These resources can help you learn about climate change and create your own art and writing about it.

Consider how poets talk about climate change with the Poetry Foundation.

Explore visual art activities and writing activities from the Teacher’s Climate Guide.

Try writing exercises developed by English Teachers Concerned about Climate Crisis.

1. What is the first thing to do to get the One Earth Award?

A．Choosing the One Earth Award.

B．Contacting the One Earth Fund.

C．Presenting the personal statement.

D．Visiting the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards.

2. What should be included about climate change in your personal statement?

A．What action you will take.	B．What you are concerned about.
C．Why your work is important.	D．What suggestion you will make.

3. Which part of the text intends to provide help in finishing your work?

A．How do I apply?

B．About this award

C．Getting started on your work

D．What should I write for the personal statement?

10 . At 8:30 am, Sadie Barnett’s 9-year-old daughter boots her computer up to start the school day. For the next 6.5 hours, she’s not allowed to turn off the computer’s camera except for a lunch break. In her first full week of fourth grade, she has already been reduced to tears twice because she feels a terrible pain in her head from staring at the screen.

Anxiety and extreme tiredness caused by never-ending video meetings are no longer unique to adults working from home during the lockdown. Some schools have started the fall term with remote learning setups. Many schools are using videoconferencing software not just to teach, but for the entire day to keep students on task.

Alix Gallagher, Director of Strategic Partnerships at Policy Analysis for California Education, recommends a mixture of lessons that deliver information, like a video or a lecture, plus activities actively connected with the lessons, like practicing writing or doing math problems. After that, a student can use a tool to discuss what they have learned and actually interact with the teacher and other students.

“Real classrooms involve all kinds of interaction, with the teacher and among the students, so that’s what teachers find so difficult to replicate online,” said Sonia Livingstone, a political science professor. She recommends that teachers breakup their instruction during the day.

Whatever their schedule, screens are an unavoidable part of learning remotely for millions of students this term. Videoconferencing, when used by teachers to interact with students, can be a healthy social activity for kids learning at home. But tasks that are just listening and watching might be less valuable if done too much in order to fill up a school day. “It’s not just about the problem of screens, but about what’s happening on those screens,” said Josh Golin, Executive Director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood.

1. Why does Barnett’s daughter cry?

A．Her lunchtime is shortened.	B．She suffers from headaches.
C．Her computer’s camera must be always on.	D．She is under great academic pressure.

2. What suggestion about online learning is given by Gallagher?

A．Adding class-related activities.	B．Testing students in a new way.
C．Arranging more class discussions.	D．Encouraging students to study on their own.

3. What does the underlined word “replicate” mean in paragraph 4?

A．Change.

B．Expand.

C．Evaluate.

D．Copy.

4. What does Golin really mean in the last paragraph?

A．Students’ screen time should be limited.	B．The right number of tasks should be given.
C．Online courses’ content should be stressed.	D．Learning schedules should be more flexible.