1 . Thirteen-year-old Kaylee has a lot of friends — 532, actually, if you count up her online friends. And she spends a lot of time with them.
But is it possible that Kaylee’s online friendships could be making her lonely? That’s what some experts believe. Connecting online is a great way to stay in touch, they say. However, some experts worry that many kids are so busy connecting online that they might be missing out on true friendships.
Could this be true? During your parents’ childhoods, connecting with friends usually meant spending time with them in the flesh. Kids played Scrabble around a table, not Words With Friends on their phones. When friends missed each other, they picked up the telephone. Friends might even write letters to each other.
Today, most communication takes place online. A typical teen sends 2,000 texts a month and spends more than 44 hours per week in front of a screen. Much of this time is spent on social media platforms (平台).
In fact, in many ways, online communication can make friendships stronger, “There’s definitely a positive influence. Kids can stay in constant contact, which means they can share more of their feelings with each other,” says Katie Davis, co-author of The App Generation.
Other experts, however, warn that too much online communication can get in the way of forming deep friendships. “If we are constantly checking in with our virtual words, we will have little time for our real-world friendships.” says Larry Rosen, a professor at California State University. Rosen also worries that today’s kids might mistake the “friends” on the social media for true friends in life. However, in tough times, you don’t need someone to like your picture or share your blogs. You need someone who will keep your secrets and hold your hand. You would like to talk face to face.
1. What is the purpose of the first paragraph?| A．To summarize the text. | B．To tell about true friends. |
| C．To bring up a discussion. | D．To encourage online friendship. |
| A．In person. | B．In advance. | C．In any case. | D．In full measure. |
| A．Worried. | B．Positive. | C．Confused. | D．Unconcerned. |
| A．It’s wise to turn to friends online. |
| B．It’s easier to develop friendships in reality. |
| C．Social media help people stay closely connected. |
| D．Teenagers need focus on real-world friendships. |
2 . In today’s world of fast-paced games and short videos, people are spending less and less time on things. For example, research has shown that the average visitor spends just 15 seconds on a website before moving on to other things. But the Internet is a huge and busy place, with millions of sites to choose from. You might expect people to slow down a bit more when they’re in museums full of great works of art. But you’d be wrong.
Several studies have shown that the amount of time for people to spend looking at a piece of art is ten seconds. Many people may spend more time, but not much more — the average is about 28 seconds. At the Tate Modern Museum in London, it’s even worse. People there spend an average of just eight seconds on each artwork. And in that short period of time, the visitors are also managing to do another important thing — take selfies !
In recent years museums have been working to change this behavior. Today, over 170 museums around the world are celebrating “Slow Art Day”. They are asking their visitors to spend at least 5-10 minutes looking at just one work of art. Slow Art supporters believe that when visitors spend more time looking at and studying the work of art, they admire it more. Studying a work of art for more time can also help people get a better understanding of the artist’s ideas and what the artist went through to create the work.
Most of the museums taking part in Slow Art Day are choosing just a few works for their visitors to see. Some of the museums are offering chances for visitors to talk about the artworks and share their ideas.
1. Generally speaking, people spend ______ on each piece of art in a museum.| A．8 seconds | B．10 seconds | C．15 seconds | D．28 seconds |
| A．Admiring each artwork thoroughly. | B．Taking selfies in museums busily. |
| C．Celebrating “Slow Art Day” widely. | D．Looking at each artwork hurriedly. |
| A．To attract more people to visit the museums |
| B．To stop visitors from taking selfies inside |
| C．To make people spend more time on each artwork |
| D．To give visitors an opportunity to relax themselves |
| A．Museums on the Rocks: Please Advise! |
| B．Museums: Slow down to Admire more! |
| C．Slow Art Day: a Fruit of Museums! |
| D．Museums: an Escape from the Fast-paced Life! |
3 . There is a popular saying in the English language: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Well, that is not true. Unkind words, name-calling or even the so-called “the silent treatment” can hurt children as much as being physically hit, sometimes even more so. A recent study of middle school children showed that verbal (言语的) abuse by other children can harm, the development in the brain. The study was a project of researchers at Harvard Medical School in Massachusetts. Researcher Martin Teicher and his team studied young adults, aged 18 to 25. These young men and women had not ever been treated in a cruel or violent way by their parents. The researchers asked the young people to rate their childhood exposure to verbal abuse from both parents and other children. Then the researchers performed imaging tests on the brains of the subjects.
The images showed that the people who reported suffering verbal abuse from peers in middle school had underdeveloped connections between the left and right side of the brain. The two sides of the brain are connected by a large bundle of connecting fibers called the corpus callosum. This was the area that was underdeveloped.
The middle school years are a time when these brain connections are developing. So, unkind, hurtful comments from children or adults during this period have the greatest effect. The researchers tested the mental and emotional condition of all the young people in the study. The tests showed that this same group of people had higher levels of fear, depression, anger and drug abuse than others in the study.
The researchers published their findings online on the American Journal of Psychiatry's website.
Parents cannot control what other people say to their children, but they can prepare their children.
1. Why does the author use the popular saying at the beginning?| A．To show the power of words. |
| B．To introduce an opposite view. |
| C．To prove the author's argument. |
| D．To show ancient people's wisdom. |
| A．They were hurt by unkind words. |
| B．They performed poorly in imaging tests. |
| C．They had their brain slightly damaged. |
| D．They experienced no physical abuse at home. |
| A．Comments on the findings. |
| B．Approaches to further studies. |
| C．Suggestions to parents. |
| D．Different opinions on the matter. |
| A．Unkind words hurt the brain. |
| B．Verbal violence should be stopped. |
| C．The way we speak matters. |
| D．Words are worse than sticks and stones. |
4 . Disneyland’s opening day, July 17, 1955, was a nightmare. Rides broke down. Restaurants ran out of food and drink. Long lines formed at bathrooms. All in front of a national audience of 90 million, Disney’s opening day would be known in Disney history as Black Sunday. But Disneyland’s story actually twenty years earlier with what Walt Disney called “Daddy’s Day”.
On Saturdays in the 1930s and 1940s, Disney would take his two daughters to ride the Griffith Park merry-go-round. Disney saw the amusement parks they often visited as dirty and unimaginative places run by unfriendly employees. He thought he could do better.
In 1939, he asked two employees to work on a plan for an amusement park. The pair spent six weeks visiting parks around the country and came up with a proposal （提议）.
In 1948, Disney laid out his plans for a Mickey Mouse Park, which included a town square, a city hall, a fire station and a movie theater.
By 1952 the idea had grown into a 16-acre park proposal that he presented to Burbank, California official. However, the City Council didn’t accept the proposal.
Disney counted the refusal as a fortunate setback. By now, his dreams for a theme park had gone far beyond the space available in Burbank. He examined locations throughout Southern California. 160-acre land, 22 miles south of Los Angeles, was soon chosen.
Groundbreaking took place in July 1954, and Disney walked the site daily to offer direction and encouragement.
Disneyland wasn’t ready on opening day, but Disney decided to open the gates anyway to the media and invited guests. After the madness of opening day, newspaper headlines wrote: “Walt’s Nightmare”. The media foresaw a quick and early end.
However, the public didn’t listen. Visitors arrived in droves, and within weeks Disneyland was a success. Within two months, the park had welcomed its millionth visitor. Sixty years later, Disneyland’s popularity continues to grow, and shows no signs of slowing down with total overall attendance topping 700 million.
1. What made Disney come up with the idea of building a park?| A．His six-week visit to all the national parks. |
| B．The good business opportunities in this industry. |
| C．His unpleasant experience in other amusement parks. |
| D．The unfriendly attitudes of employees in Griffith Park. |
| A．The refusal gave Disney a bigger chance. | B．Disney felt very lucky with his proposal. |
| C．The refusal made Disney feel frustrated. | D．Disney was ready to accept the refusal. |
| A．grew very quickly | B．had a hopeless future |
| C．would be a great success one day | D．should be responsible for the public |
| A．By discussing important events. | B．By explaining reasons. |
| C．By making comparisons. | D．By following time order. |
5 . A new study shows that fat people in the United States suffer direct economic and social effects because of their size. The findings are from an 8-year study of about 100,000 people. The people studied were between the ages of 16 and 24 when the research began.
The researchers who carried out the study say they consider the people fat if they are in the top of 5% of the measurement. In this measurement, weight is connected with height. For example, fat women in the study were about 160 centimetres tall and weighed about 90 kilograms. Fat men in the study were about 175 centimetres tall and weighed 100 kilograms. The researchers say that more than 1, 000,000 Americans are that big. The researchers found that fat young women were more likely to lose social and economic power even if they were from wealthy families. The fat women were also 20% less likely to get married and they earned an average of about S 6,700 a year less than other women. The study showed less severe effect on fat men. They earned an average of about $ 3,000 a year less than other men. Fat men were also 11% less likely to get married.
1. From this passage we know fat people in America were ______.| A．admired | B．respected | C．unhealthy | D．unpopular |
| A．The reason why fat people suffered. |
| B．The cause that caused people to be fat. |
| C．The standard of fat people. |
| D．The number of fat people. |
| A．economic | B．social | C．serious | D．favorable |
| A．brain, human rights and payment |
| B．income, marriage and human rights |
| C．brain, education and marriage |
| D．marriage, getting jobs and income |
1. 分析其原因；2. 造成的影响：3, 提倡劳逸结合。
注意：
1. 词数100左右；2. 可适当增加细节, 以使行文连贯。
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
7 . Teens who have good, supportive relationships with their teachers enjoy better health as adults, according to research published by an American research center.
“This research suggests that improving students’ relationships with teachers could have positive and long-lasting effects beyond just academic success,” said Jinho Kim, a professor at Korea University and author of the study. “It could also bring about health implications in the long run.” Previous research has suggested that teens’ social relationships might be linked to health outcomes in adulthood. However, it is not clear whether the link between teen relationships and lifetime health is causal (因果的) — it could be that other factors, such as different family backgrounds, might contribute to both relationship problems in adolescence and to poor health in adulthood. Also, most research has focused on teens’ relationships with their peers (同龄人), rather than on their relationships with teachers.
To explore those questions further, Kim analyzed data on nearly 20, 000 participants from the Add Health study, a national study in the U. S. that followed participants from seventh grade into early adulthood. The participant pool included more than 3, 400 pairs of siblings (兄弟姐妹). As teens, participants answered questions, like “How often have you had trouble getting along with other students and your teachers?” As adults, participants were asked about their physical and mental health.
Kim found that participants who had reported better relationships with both their peers and teachers in middle and high school also reported better physical and mental health in their mid-20s. However, when he controlled for family background by looking at pairs of siblings together, only the link between good teacher relationships and adult health remained significant.
The results suggest teacher relationships are more important than previously realized and that schools should invest in training teachers on how to build warm and supportive relationships with their students. “This is not something that most teachers receive much training in,” Kim said, “but it should be.”
1. What does the underlined word “implications” in Paragraph 2 refer to?| A．Recipes. | B．Habits. | C．Risks. | D．Benefits. |
| A．Poor health in adolescence. | B．Teens’ relationships with their peers. |
| C．Limitations of the previous research. | D．Factors affecting health in adulthood. |
| A．Positive student-teacher relationship helps students’ adult health. |
| B．Good family background promises long-term adult health. |
| C．Healthy peer relationships leads to students’ academic success. |
| D．Good adult health depends on teens’ good teachers. |
| A．A medical report. | B．A health magazine. | C．A term paper. | D．A family survey. |
8 . Every morning, many girls in Zimbabwe rise with the sun and follow their daily routine to fetch water for their families. They have to walk many miles and carry the water home on their heads. Where they live, there is no running water at all.
“You have to relax your neck and head and make it follow the load,” one girl told me. “It’s easy for you to do that if you have mastered some skills.” I have lived in Zimbabwe all my life. But I had never tried to balance a pot on my head. I have made efforts many times and I have also practiced it for a long time. But it was not easy at all. I managed to walk only a couple of yards before the pot fell off my head. The girls watching covered their mouths and giggled at my poor head-balancing skills.
In reality, water is not the only thing that requires head-balancing skills in their daily life. In most of these villages, there is no electricity for cooking, so fire wood is used instead. The girls must collect and carry the fire wood back to their villages. They insist the easiest way to do this is on their heads.
Even at school, head-balancing skills come in handy. At a school near the small town of Norton, I saw a group of girls fetching bags of sand that were to be used to build a new classroom. They carried these bags with ease. When I tried, I couldn’t bear the weight.
Girls in many countries worldwide prefer to carry things on their heads. They are taught this skill at a young age and grow up to have strong necks and great posture. For these girls, balance is simply a way of life.
1. The first paragraph mainly tells us that ________ .| A．girls are suffering a lot in Zimbabwe |
| B．girls are the main labor force in their family |
| C．girls gain their ability out of their poor living condition |
| D．girls' main responsibility is to fetch water for their families |
| A．graceful | B．rapid | C．gentle | D．skillful |
| A．They have used them since they were young. |
| B．They think it is the easiest way to carry things. |
| C．They are required to carry things on their heads. |
| D．Their necks are strong and their heads are square. |
| A．By analyzing some questions. | B．By making some comparisons. |
| C．By showing his appreciation. | D．By giving his own opinions. |
9 . A competition making up Versailles literature was launched on Sina Weibo recently. So what is Versailles literature?
Actually, the term has nothing to do with the French palace nor with literature. It came from The Rose of Versailles, a Japanese manga series about aristocratic life at the palace of Versailles in France in the late 18th century, and was coined by a Chinese influencer earlier this year. Known as humblebragging, it is a boast disguised as a complaint. “I have too many houses. How can I decide which one to decorate?” and “I thought I lost weight this morning. So disappointed when I realized it was because I took off the huge diamond ring my boyfriend gave me last night” are some examples of Versailles literature. The intention is to show off — usually things of materialistic values, yet one ought to pretend that’s not the point.
As the 19th century English author Jane Austen famously wrote, “Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility.” The psychology behind humblebragging is to be recognized for one’s successes and be liked by others at the same time, according to scholars. In her article titled Why do people hate humblebragging? published in Psychology Today, psychologist Dr. Susan Krauss Whitbourne at the University of Massachusetts Amherst noted that humblebragging is a “strategy in pursuit of respect” because it draws attention to one’s accomplishments in a circuitous way.
However, studies on social media users show that humblebragging as a self-promotion strategy does not work. In the essay Humblebragging: A distinct and ineffective self-presentation strategy, the University of North Carolina researcher Ovul Sezer and Harvard University scholars Francesca Gino and Michael Norton concluded from their research that humblebraggers are perceived more negatively than straight braggers due to the former’s insincerity. “The critical factor differentiating the two groups of people is sincerity. People don’t like braggers, but they at least see them as more sincere than humblebraggers,” said Francesca Gino.
So, how can we annoy humblebraggers back? “Just pretend you don’t get whatever it is they try to show off,” a netizen advised. “And respond with genuine sympathy for their complaints.”
1. Which of the following statements is typical of “Versailles literature”?| A．You know who my father is? My father is Li Gang. |
| B．Got five offers to date. I’m at a loss which to choose. |
| C．It’s a headache how to make my son tidy up his room regularly. |
| D．I’m fed up with living in the countryside with no shopping malls around. |
| A．To win others’ sympathy. | B．To earn others’ admiration. |
| C．To show his/her sincerity. | D．To mask his / her complaint. |
| A．Indirect. | B．Straightforward. | C．Ambiguous. | D．Double-edged. |
| A．Braggers are relatively more sincere than humblebraggers. |
| B．Humblebragging is an artificial appearance of being humble. |
| C．To respond with real sympathy will discourage humblebraggers. |
| D．If you want to be perceived positively, try to use Versailles literature. |
10 . The Honors Program in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology (HPBMB) is offered to mature high school seniors with strong academic ability and achievement who seek careers in biological or biomedical science. Students can earn both a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) and a Doctor of Philosophy Degree (Ph.D.) in approximately 6 years.
Applicants to the Honors Program in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology must be in their last year of high school.
Undergraduates will have the opportunity to work with top-level research scientists in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and also in clinical laboratories with scientists that are associated with the department. They will conduct intensive laboratory work in the areas of biochemistry, molecular biology or nutritional biochemistry starting in the summer before their first fall semester starts. By spring of their junior year；students will prepare an undergraduate thesis as preparation for their entry into graduate school. At that time, they will start taking graduate courses and continue to do research with a graduate faculty member.
To be considered students must:
• have a combined SAT I score of 1400(combined Math and Critical Reading scores)
• meet the SAT II score requirement of at least 600 in Math, and one science (Biology, Chemistry or Physics)
• have completed eight semesters of English and mathematics and two semesters each of Biology and Chemistry by the time they graduate from high school
• complete all components of your Common Application for undergraduate admission by November 1 of your senior year
• complete a supplemental application form for the Honors Program in Bio chemistry & Molecular Biology
• include a counselor recommendation, three letters of recommendation from teachers in support, of your application to the Honors Program and a personal statement
Send all Dual Admission Honors Program application materials to:
Dual Admission Honors Programs
Office of Admission
University of Miami
P. O. Box 248025
Coral Gables, FL 33124-4616
Fax number: (513)529-7592 (513)529-1950
For more information on the HPBMB, contact:
Dr. Thomas K. Harris
Director, Undergraduate and Medical Education
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Office: Gautier Building， Room 111
Phone: 305-243-3358
•E-Mail: tkharris@miami．edu
1. We can learn from the passage that________．| A．First- year students in a high school can apply for the program |
| B．It’s possible for graduates to obtain both a bachelor's degree and a doctor's degree |
| C．Graduates are promised a chance to work with top biomedical scientists |
| D．A thesis is not necessary if an undergraduate want to go to graduate school |
| A．A combined SAT I score of 1400 |
| B．SAT II scores of at least 600 in Math and one science |
| C．Three letters of recommendation from his teachers． |
| D．A letter of recommendation from the principal． |
| A．To tell students how to learn well in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology． |
| B．To introduce a very famous university, the University of Miami． |
| C．To attract excellent high school graduates to apply for the Honors Program． |
| D．To give information on how to contact Director of the Honors Program． |
