1 . Teens interested in losing weight, for instance, got advertisements for unhealthy tips on how to become anorexic (厌食者). Such advertisements targeted these kids in hopes of persuading them to try things that were either dangerous or illegal at their age.
Advertisements are just one example of persuasion — trying to change another’s mind. Advertisements may try to convince us to buy something or do something new and different. Marketing is a field of persuasion designed to sell things, notes Jacob Teeny. Persuasion can be used to sell things. At its worst, it can be used to control people. Clearly, persuasion can be used for good and bad.
People open to new experiences tend to be more easily persuaded, Teeny says. But open-minded people can resist some persuasive arguments — such as the idea that eating junk food is cool. And closed-minded people can sometimes be persuaded. “If you haven’t really thought about the arguments” ahead of time, Teeny says, you’re going to be “much more persuadable.”
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What is the main idea of Paragraph 2?
| A．Marketing is designed to sell things. |
| B．Persuasion is used to control people. |
| C．Persuasion has advantages and disadvantages. |
| D．We should follow advertisements to buy things. |
2 . Over the last seven years, most states have banned texting by drivers, and public service campaigns have tried a wide range of methods to persuade people to put down their phones when they are behind the wheel.
Yet the problem, by just about any measure, appears to be getting worse. Americans are still texting while driving, as well as using social networks and taking photos. Road accidents, which had fallen for years, are now rising sharply.
That is partly because people are driving more, but Mark Rosekind, the chief of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said distracted(分心)driving was “only increasing, unfortunately.”
“Big change requires big ideas.” he said in a speech last month, referring broadly to the need to improve road safety. So to try to change a distinctly modern behavior, lawmakers and public health experts are reaching back to an old approach: They want to treat distracted driving like drunk driving.
An idea from lawmakers in New York is to give police officers a new device called the Textalyzer. It would work like this: An officer arriving at the scene of a crash could ask for the phones of the drivers and use the Textalyzer to check in the operating system for recent activity. The technology could determine whether a driver had just texted, emailed or done anything else that is not allowed under New York’s hands-free driving laws.
“We need something on the books that can change people’s behavior,” said Félix W. Ortiz, who pushed for the state’s 2001 ban on hand-held devices by drivers. If the Textalyzer bill becomes law, he said, ”people are going to be more afraid to put their hands on the cell phone."
Which of the following best describes the ban on drivers’ texting in the US?
| A．Ineffective. | B．Unnecessary. |
| C．Inconsistent. | D．Unfair. |
3 . Like most of us, I try to be mindful of food that goes to waste. The arugula (芝麻菜)was to make a nice green salad, rounding out a roast chicken dinner. But I ended up working late. Then friends called with a dinner invitation. I stuck the chicken in the freezer. But as days passed, the arugula went bad. Even worse, I had unthinkingly bought way too much; I could have made six salads with what I threw out.
In a world where nearly 800 million people a year go hungry, “food waste goes against the moral grain,” as Elizabeth Royte writes in this month’s cover story. It’s jaw-dropping how much perfectly good food is thrown away — from “ugly” (but quite eatable) vegetables rejected by grocers to large amounts of uneaten dishes thrown into restaurant garbage cans.
Producing food that no one eats wastes the water, fuel, and other resources used to grow it. That makes food waste an environmental problem. In fact, Royte writes, “if food waste were a country, it would be the third largest producer of greenhouse gases in the world.”
If that’s hard to understand, let’s keep it as simple as the arugula at the back of my refrigerator. Mike Curtin sees my arugula story all the time — but for him, it’s more like 12 boxes of donated strawberries nearing their last days. Curtin is CEO of DC Central Kitchen in Washington, D.C., which recovers food and turns it into healthy meals. Last year it recovered more than 807,500 pounds of food by taking donations and collecting blemished (有瑕疵的) produce that otherwise would have rotted in fields. And the strawberries? Volunteers will wash, cut, and freeze or dry them for use in meals down the road.
Such methods seem obvious, yet so often we just don’t think. “Everyone can play a part in reducing waste, whether by not purchasing more food than necessary in your weekly shopping or by asking restaurants to not include the side dish you won’t eat,” Curtin says.
What does the author want to show by telling the arugula story?
| A．We pay little attention to food waste. |
| B．We waste food unintentionally at times. |
| C．We waste more vegetables than meat. |
| D．We have good reasons for wasting food. |
4 . In many cultures, it is considered unlucky to spill salt. Fortunately, many cultures also have a solution to the problem, which usually involves throwing a pinch of salt over your shoulder. It may seem confusing to modern humans, but knowing that salt was once incredibly valuable can change this perspective.
For thousands of years, salt was an extremely rare commodity. It was difficult to obtain so that the price was very high. Many trading routes were set up to carry salt, people were paid in salt, and salt was sometimes worth more than its weight in gold. Therefore, spilling salt was considered wasteful.
Because of its high value, salt was also associated with friendship and good fortune. Offerings of salt were included in many religious ceremonies, and people might bring salt to a new home for good luck. These associations would have suggested that it would be bad luck to spill salt, since it would seem to violate salt’s fortunate properties.
Salt is also an excellent preservative. It prevents food from going bad. As such, it came to be linked with health and longevity. In some cultures, spilling salt was thought to reduce one's well-being. In Britain, for example, each spilled grain was said to represent a tear, while in Germany spilled salt awakened the devil, bringing misfortune.
The fear of spilling salt was also adopted into the Christian faith. It is said that Judas spilled salt at the Last Supper, and since he later turned out to be the betrayer of Christ, spilled salt is considered unlucky by many Christians.
Should you be unfortunate enough to spill salt, you might throw a pinch over your left shoulder to blind the Devil.
What is the author's purpose in writing the text?| A．To introduce the history of salt. | B．To show ways to avoid misfortune. |
| C．To explain the beliefs about spilling salt. | D．To entertain readers with some anecdotes. |
5 . The call for public engagement with the unthinkable is especially germane in this moment of still-uncontrolled pandemic and economic crises in the world's most technologically advanced nations. Not very long ago, it was also unthinkable that a virus would shut down nations and that safety nets would be proven so disastrously lacking in flexibility.
The international scholars’ warning letter doesn't say exactly what collapse will look like or when it might happen. Collapseology, the study of collapse, is more concerned with identifying trends and with them the dangers of everyday civilization. Among the signatories (签署者) of the warning was Bob Johnson, the originator of the “ecological footprint” concept, which measures the total amount of environmental input needed to maintain a given lifestyle. With the current footprint of humanity, “it seems that global collapse is certain to happen in some form, possibly within a decade, certainly within this century,” Johnson said in an email.
What does the underlined word “germane” in Paragraph 1 probably mean?
| A．Scientific. | B．Credible. | C．Original. | D．Relevant. |
6 . During the rosy years of elementary school(小学), I enjoyed sharing my dolls and jokes, which allowed me to keep my high social status. I was the queen of the playground. Then came my tweens and teens, and mean girls and cool kids. They rose in the ranks not by being friendly but by smoking cigarettes, breaking rules and playing jokes on others,among whom I soon found myself.
Popularity is a well-explored subject in social psychology. Mitch Prinstein, a professor of clinical psychology sorts the popular into two categories: the likable and the status seekers. The likables’ plays-well-with-others qualities strengthen schoolyard friendships, jump-start interpersonal skills and, when tapped early, are employed ever after in life and work. Then there’s the kind of popularity that appears in adolescence: status born of power and even dishonorable behavior.
Enviableas the cool kids may have seemed, Dr. Prinstein’s studies show unpleasant consequences. Those who were highest in status in high school, as well as those least liked in elementary school, are “most likely to engage(从事) in dangerous and risky behavior.”
In one study, Dr. Prinstein examined the two types of popularity in 235 adolescents, scoring the least liked, the most liked and the highest in status based on student surveys(调查研究). “We found that the least well-liked teens had become more aggressive over time toward their classmates. But so had those who were high in status. It clearly showed that while likability can lead to healthy adjustment,high status has just the opposite effect on us."
1. What sort of girl was the author in her early years of elementary school?| A．Unkind. | B．Lonely. |
| C．Generous. | D．Cool. |
| A．They appeared to be aggressive. |
| B．They tended to be more adaptable. |
| C．They enjoyed the highest status. |
| D．They performed well academically. |
