1 . Voluntourism — a new trend (趋势) of volunteer tourism
Have you ever thought about going abroad to volunteer? Nowadays there’s a trend that more and more people are interested in volunteer tourism.
Making a difference in a country less lucky than your own is seen by most as a really good thing to do. More and more volunteers are seeking meaning and a sense of purpose in life. “They use their skills to help on projects abroad, such as building hospitals, teaching English in schools, looking after children in orphanages (孤儿院), etc.”
However, some people are against this so-called “voluntourism”. Volunteers take away jobs from locals who would have otherwise done that work. Yes, sometimes volunteers have specific knowledge which can benefit communities, such as IT skills or speaking English as a native language. But sometimes they are put to work on construction sites (建筑工地), for example, depriving (使失去) locals of a job on project.
Besides, many young travelers are untrained for the role. This could become a health and safety problem on construction sites or when caring for children. I volunteered myself last year in a library and school in Ghana. I helped to reshelve books, talked to the librarian about the running of the library and played games with the children. However, I’m not an experienced teacher or librarian, and I felt like the locals were far too trusting of my opinions and decisions, just because I come from a more developed country.
Furthermore, volunteer tourism is seen by some as just that-an industry, a way for companies to make money. About $2 billion was spent by volunteers in 2015.Surely it would be better if this money were directly given to places where it is needed the most. Instead, most of the money is going to tourism companies, while local communities only see a very small amount of it. I met some Danish girls who had paid €7,000 each to a company to volunteer at an orphanage, but very little was spent on the orphanage itself.
I think volunteering abroad helps us develop as a person, and is a shining addition to a CV. Volunteer projects are usually very valuable for communities, but often good for those who take part in voluntary work just as much, if not more, as those they are helping.
1. What do we learn about volunteers working abroad?| A．They have no safety problems. |
| B．They may cause the locals out of job. |
| C．They become less willing to be volunteers. |
| D．They would like to work in richer countries. |
| A．Volunteer tourism has become an industry. |
| B．Volunteers spend lots of money helping with the charity work. |
| C．Some volunteer travelers are very experienced and suitable for the role. |
| D．Volunteer tourism provides locals with more and more job opportunities. |
| A．Voluntourism offers volunteers good jobs. |
| B．Volunteering gives a lot to poor countries. |
| C．Voluntourism brings volunteers advantages. |
| D．The quality of volunteering needs improving. |
I：Introduction P：Point Sp：Sub-point (次要点) c：Conclusion
A． | B． | C． | D． |
2 . Sunday evening, October 30, 1938, was peaceful in New York City. Some people were returning home from a trip to the countryside, and others were sitting down to dinner. In those days, televisions were not very common. Most people listened to the radio for news and entertainment.
At eight o’clock that evening, there was a concert of dance music, but Suddenly, the programme was cut off by a news report: a large spaceship had landed in a field and an army of Martians (火星人) was moving towards New York City and then the radio went silent.
People felt worried. Some drove out of the city as quickly as possible, but soon the roads were crowded with cars. Some people put wet towels on their faces because they thought there was a gas attack. In New Jersey, some farmers went out with guns. Although it was dark, they found a large cylinder (圆柱体) standing in a field, and, thinking it was the Martian spaceship, the shot at it many times.
Many people were so frightened that they did not hear the next announcement on the radio: “Ladies and gentlemen, you are listening to a radio play called The War of the Worlds.”
A message was sent to police stations that there was no real Martian attack, and the police Offices soon returned calm to New York City.
Many people were very angry that they had been fooled by the play, and complained to the radio station. But what about the spaceship that the farmers found in the field? The next morning, they found that they had damaged a large water tank (罐)!
1. According to the news report, ___________.| A．a Martian spaceship had landed | B．a spaceship was found at the airport |
| C．there would be a concert that evening | D．there was a gas attack in New York City |
| A．many people wanted to see the Martians |
| B．the Martian army was standing in the way |
| C．people were trying to get home from work |
| D．many people were trying to leave New York City |
| A．Policemen. | B．Firemen. | C．Dancers. | D．Farmers. |
| A．it was fooled by a news reporter. |
| B．It played a joke on the listeners. |
| C．It called the police to catch the Martians. |
| D．It often announced the news about spaceships. |
3 . When you were at school, the last thing you probably wanted to do was to spend your weekends going to work. There was homework to do, sports to play and fun to have. But our parents probably persuaded us to find a job to earn some money and get some life experience. When I was a teenager I delivered newspapers to people’s homes. I then progressed to a Saturday job in a supermarket: stacking shelves and working at the checkout.
Today in the UK you are allowed to work from the age of 13, and many children do take up part-time jobs. It’s one of those things that are seen almost as a rite of passage(成人仪式). It’s a taste of independence and sometimes a useful thing to put on your CV(简历). Teenagers agree that it teaches valuable lessons about working with adults and also about managing their money.
Some research has shown that not taking up a Saturday or holiday job could be deleterious to a person later on. A 2015 study by the UK Commission on Employment and Skills found that not participating in part-time work at school age had been blamed by employer’s organizations for young adults being ill-prepared for full-time employment, but despite this, recent statistics have shown that the number of schoolchildren in the UK with a part-time job has fallen by a fifth in the past five years.
So, does this mean that British teenagers are now afraid of hard work? Probably not. Some experts feel that young people feel going out to work will affect their performance at school, and they are under more pressure now to study hard and get good exam results and a good job in the long term. However, Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, told BBC News that “Properly regulated part-time work is a good way of helping young people learn skills that they will need in their working lives.” In reality, it’s all about getting the right balance between doing part-time work and having enough time to study and rest.
1. How did the author feel about doing part-time jobs on weekends when he was a teenager?| A．Delighted. | B．Interested. | C．Unwilling. | D．Angry. |
| A．Learning to be independent. | B．Gaining some life experience. |
| C．Being prepared for future jobs. | D．Spending what they earn as they like. |
| A．Valuable. | B．Harmful. | C．Necessary. | D．Impossible. |
| A．Students should spend all their time on studies. |
| B．Students should have as many part-time jobs as possible. |
| C．Doing part-time jobs must affect students’ school results. |
| D．It’s important for students to balance part-time jobs and studies. |
4 . “Fire! Fire!” What terrible words to hear when one wakes up in a strange house in the middle of the night! It was a large, old, wooden house and my room was on the top floor. I jumped out of bed, opened the door and stepped outside the house. It was full of thick smoke.
I began to run, but as I was still only half-awake, instead of going towards the stairs I went in the opposite direction. The smoke grew thicker and I could see fire all around. The floor became hot under my bare feet. I found an open door and ran into a room to get to the window. But before I could reach it, one of my feet caught in something soft and I fell down. The thing I had fallen over felt like a bundle of clothes, and I picked it up to protect my face from the smoke and heat. Just then the floor gave way under me and I crashed to the floor below with pieces of burning wood all around me.
I saw a doorway in fire, then I put the bundle over my face and ran. My feet burned me terrible, but I got through. As I reached the cold air outside, my bundle of clothes gave a thin cry, I nearly dropped it in my surprise. Then I was in a crowd gathered in the street. A woman in a night-dress and a borrowed man’s coat screamed as she saw me and came running madly. She was the Mayor’s wife, and I had saved her baby.
1. When the fire arose in the middle of the night, the author was ________.| A．at home | B．sleeping | C．sitting in bed | D．both A and B |
| A．because he was very brave. | B．because he liked the baby very much. |
| C．but he just happened to save it. | D．because it was the Mayor’s baby. |
| A．was a stranger there | B．could see nothing |
| C．was not completely awake | D．Both A and C |
| A．save the baby | B．call for help | C．protect his face | D．run quickly |
5 . Back to School
I had always longed to get a degree, but raising a family had come first. Now with my last child in middle school, I thought, why not try to
When we asked the kids for advice, they had mixed
The next day we drove to the community college and after a careful research, I chose to
Days passed in excitement, enrolling (注册) in classes, shopping for
As I entered my classroom that first morning, I chose a seat in the back, hoping to
Studying and keeping up with my duties at home was
By the second year, Bob and the kids were all doing their
As I drove away on the last day of school, I thought about what a difference returning to school had made in my life. I looked much younger and I had more
| A．remember | B．create | C．achieve | D．improve |
| A．accept | B．take | C．offer | D．want |
| A．reaction | B．impressions | C．requests | D．choices |
| A．happy | B．horrified | C．grateful | D．relieved |
| A．complained | B．noticed | C．explained | D．argued |
| A．fill | B．join | C．lead | D．major |
| A．supplies | B．clothes | C．instruments | D．brochures |
| A．determined | B．confident | C．anxious | D．confused |
| A．opinion | B．decision | C．project | D．promise |
| A．avoid | B．draw | C．receive | D．pay |
| A．different | B．challenging | C．rewarding | D．simple |
| A．changed | B．started | C．ended | D．returned |
| A．dishes | B．deeds | C．homework | D．share |
| A．balance | B．save | C．continue | D．value |
| A．time | B．energy | C．money | D．chance |
6 . There are many international organizations which work to save and protect endangered species（物种）and natural environment. If you would like more information about any of the organizations listed below, you can write to the addresses given.
1. If you want to learn more about the organizations, you can ________.
| A．call them | B．write them a letter |
| C．visit them | D．send them an e-mail |
| A．reduce pollution | B．defend rainforests |
| C．protect ocean animals | D．save endangered birds |
| A．Friends of the Earth | B．World Wide Fund For Nature |
| C．Greenpeace | D．BirdLife International |
| A．Environmental Protection Organizations |
| B．Global Traffic Problems |
| C．Endangered Animals |
| D．Natural Beauty |
7 . Attracting Children to Museums
When you were young did your parents ever take you to a museum? Do you remember what it was like or if it was an exciting experience for you? Very often parents do things like going to museums with their young children because they think it is something they must do.
Museums understand that it is important to attract children and get them interested in going frequently to museums. They want them to start going as children and continue to go as adults.
The first thing to remember is that children are active and learn better by doing, not just by passively looking.
| A．They also learn by playing and discovering |
| B．Parents, too, are welcome to go into the Children's Discovery Centre. |
| C．If everything works right, the child will leave with wonderful memories. |
| D．But just as often the children get bored quickly and don't have a good time at all. |
| E．If you were the director of a museum, what would you do to attract more children? |
| F．And every group gets to do some sort of activity rather than just walking through the museum. |
| G．One other way the museum tries to attract children is through a school group visit program. |
Teenagers are learning new communication skills every day. It is important for them to have opportunities to network, or to meet and get to know new people. Online networking, which is very popular with teens today, makes short, superficial connections. But offline networking better encourages meaningful connections that will increase hope, develop skills, and open avenues to career opportunity. Teens need to practice more offline networking. It will prepare them to be confident face-to-face communicators in the real world.
A survey of almost 7,000 teens was conducted in 2019 by three Swiss researchers, and they found that teens were spending too much time on social networking sites. So, they suggested that teens should spend more time with others in real life. It not only contributes to a stronger sense of identity and a happier mood, but also gives us the chance to share happiness with other people. In other words, offline networking seems to actually benefit a teen’s emotional health.
Face-to-face communication also gives teens an opportunity to learn to read people. Everyone communicates in person differently than communicating over the phone, through texting, or in online posts. Being face-to-face requires a person to think and respond more quickly—without the safety net of a delete key.
And much of our communication is nonverbal anyway. Facial expressions, gestures, and vocal tones are just a few examples. Teens need to have face-to-face interactions so they can learn to read these nonverbal cues (暗示), which are sometimes even more important than the words a person is saying. A time will come when the teen will need to enter the job market, and this usually means a face-to-face interaction, including interacting naturally with customers, hearing and understanding their words as well as their nonverbal cues in many different kinds of businesses.
Offline networking is important because it can improve a teenager’s well-being and help prepare him for the future. That’s why every teen should spend time practicing real-world interactions.
1. What is the disadvantage of online networking?2. What was the researchers’ suggestion to teens?
3. Please decide which part is false in the following statement, then underline it and explain why.
Hearing and understanding what a person is saying is necessarily involved in communication, so people get less from nonverbal expressions.
4. In addition to the benefits mentioned in the passage, what do you think are some other benefits of face-to-face communication? (about 40 words)
9 . Mindfulness—in basic terms, the practice of being “present” in the moment and paying attention to one’s own thoughts and feelings—has seen something of a boom over the last few years. While it certainly has its benefits, some argue that it encourages blind acceptance of the status quo, taking us so far into ourselves that we forget the rest of the world. In a new preprint on PsyArxiv, Michael Poulin and colleagues from New York’s University at Buffalo also find that mindfulness can decrease prosocial behaviours (亲社会行为).
The first study was designed to look at the impact of mindfulness on prosocial activity, and in particular, whether this depends on a person’s “self-construal”. In short, if someone has an independent self-construal they see the self as separate from others, rather than thinking more collectively and conceptualizing themselves as part of a wider group.
Participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions, one oriented around mindfulness meditation, and the other focusing on a control meditation in the form of mind wandering. Those in the mindfulness condition listened to a tape designed to inspire mindfulness through mindful breathing, while those in the mind wandering condition were instructed to “let your mind wander and think freely”.
After listening to the tapes, participants read about a local poverty and homelessness charity, before being asked whether or not they wanted to stuff envelopes in support of the organisation. Participants who decided to take part were left to do so for as long as they wanted. The team also measured participants’ self-construal by asking them to indicate how much they identified with friends, family, and wider groups compared to how much they thought of themselves as independent.
Most participants (84%) stuffed at least some envelopes after the task. People who participated in the mindfulness meditation stuffed 15% more envelopes than those who did the control mediation—if they had an interdependent self-construal. But for those with independent self-construals, mindfulness decreased the number of envelopes stuffed by 15%.
As the second study took place online, participants were not asked to stuff envelopes, but instead to sign up (or not) to chat online with alumni donors to request financial support for the same charity. And similar to the results of the first study, those in the interdependent condition saw an increased likelihood of volunteering after the mindfulness task, while those with independent self-construal were less likely to volunteer after listening to the mindfulness exercise.
Mindfulness has often been positioned as a panacea (灵丹妙药), not only for anxiety or other mental health conditions but in other areas, too: productivity, creativity, personal relationships, and particular traits or habits. Rather than treating it as a wholesale good, however, it may be better to understand when mindfulness might be truly beneficial—and, importantly, for whom.
1. What does the underlined word “stuff envelopes” in Para. 4 mean?| A．To employ people. | B．To write letters. | C．To donate money. | D．To open envelopes. |
| A．people less value charity work |
| B．people more willing to volunteer |
| C．interdependent people more independent |
| D．independent-minded people less prosocial |
| A．closely related to charity | B．not as popular as it used to be |
| C．useful under certain circumstances | D．effective in solving social problems |
| A．Supportive. | B．Disapproving. | C．Neutral. | D．Critical. |
10 . A campaign (活动) is being launched to encourage children to surrender 30 minutes of screen time a day to head for the great outdoors.
The Wild Network — a collaboration (合作) of nearly 2,000 organisations — is attempting to attract youngsters away from the television and computer screen and to fields, woods and parks. Members of the network include the National Trust, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), Play England and the National Health Service (NHS) sustainable development unit. Organisers say it is the UK’s biggest ever campaign to reconnect children with nature and outdoor play, and claim it could help improve fitness, mental alertness (机敏) and general well being.
A documentary film, Project Wild Thing, which forecast the launch at more than 50 cinemas across the UK also looked at the increasingly fragile link between children and nature.
Andy Simpson, chairman of the Wild Network, said, "The tragic truth is that kids have lost touch with nature and the outdoors in just one generation. Time spent outdoors is down, roaming (漫步) ranges have fallen largely, activity levels are declining and the ability to identify common species has been lost."
Suggestions of how to get more time in nature include collecting conkers (七叶树果), camping or snail racing, and observing autumn colours on trees.
The network also aims to make suggestions to politicians on how government can do more to get children muddy and bright-eyed.
This is not the first time the message of “less screen, more play” has been brought up. Children in the 1980s were requested to do the same by the BBC TV series Why Don’t You, which somewhat confusingly called on its viewers to “switch off your TV set and go to do something less boring instead”.
1. What does the underlined word “surrender” in Paragraph 1 probably mean?| A．Give up. | B．Get around. | C．Take up. | D．Run away. |
| A．To make children read more books. |
| B．To help children tell the natural world. |
| C．To encourage children to take part in outdoor activities. |
| D．To get children out of too much homework from school. |
| A．Wild Network | B．the BBC | C．the National Trust | D．Play England |
| A．TV viewers will turn away from television. | B．Children have already been close to nature. |
| C．Politicians have controlled the campaign. | D．The government will play an important role |
