1 . Years ago it was popular to speak of a generation gap, a disagreement between young people and their elders. Parents said that children did not show them proper respect and obedience (服从), while children complained that their parents did not understand them at all. What had gone wrong? Why had the generation gap suddenly appeared? Actually the generation gap has been around for a long time. Many people argue that a gap is built into the fabric (结构) of our society.
One important cause of the generation gap is the chance that young people have to choose their own ways of life. In more traditional societies, when children grow up, they are expected to live in the same area as their parents, to marry people that their parents know and agree to, and to continue the family occupation. In our society, young people often travel great distances for their education, move out of the family home at an early age, marry or live with people whom their parents have never met, and choose occupations different from those of their parents.
In our easily changing society, parents often expect their children to do better than they did: to find better jobs, to make more money, and to do all the things that they were unable to do. Often, however, the strong wish that parents have for their children is another cause of the disagreement between them. Often, they discover that they have very little in common with each other.
Finally, the speed at which changes take place in our society is another cause of the gap between the generations. In a traditional culture, elderly people are valued for their wisdom, but in our society the knowledge of a lifetime may become out of date overnight. The young and the old seem to live in two very different worlds, separated by different skills and abilities. No doubt, the generation gap will continue to be a feature of American life for some time to come. Its causes are rooted in the freedom and changes of our society, and in the rapid speed at which society changes.
1. What is the text mainly about?| A．The concept of generation gap. |
| B．The reasons for generation gap. |
| C．Ways to reduce generation gap. |
| D．Attitudes towards generation gap. |
| A．depend on their parents to make a life |
| B．live with their parents in the same area |
| C．ask their parents for the best advice |
| D．have very little in common with their parents |
| A．Parents should be strict with their children. |
| B．The generation gap is partly caused by the older generation. |
| C．Parents couldn’t do things well themselves. |
| D．The young never want to satisfy their parents. |
| A．Parents are not strict enough with their children. |
| B．The young value the old too much for their wisdom. |
| C．Young people don’t have the knowledge of a lifetime. |
| D．The society develops too fast. |
2 . Haley Curfman, 25, of Blackwell, Oklahoma, is a teacher at Blackwell Public School and last year she bought a plain(朴素的) white dress, which she set up a station in her classroom for her students to decorate, encouraging them to go and draw on the dress whenever they had free time. Haley set up a station at a table with the dress and some colored markers so that her students could draw on it, having first seen the idea on Pinterest.
After the kids had finished the design, she then surprised them all by wearing the dress to class, sharing pictures of herself in it on Facebook in a post that has since been shared over 200, 000 times.
For teachers looking to do something similar for their own students, Haley said that she bought the dress off Amazon for less than $ 20 about six months ago and pre-washed the dress before she started the project. She used markers from Walmart. But she said these things can be bought in other places. She said, “To do the project, I set up a station at a table with the dress and markers. It takes anywhere from two weeks to a month to complete as we just work on it here and there when time allows. You'd better give the students enough time so they don't have to hurry.”
“Teachers have been sharing their dresses, T-shirts, etc. with me that they've been creating since the 1950s with the same idea. It is amazing, and I love the fact that you are sharing them with me! Thank you all so much for your kindness and support,” she wrote on Facebook.
Asked why she came up with the idea, Haley told Scary Mommy. “We don't have art in our school, so, I always try to do little creative projects when possible.”
1. What did Haley use the plain white dress to do?| A．To teach her students painting. |
| B．To prepare for her presentation. |
| C．To ask her students to draw on it. |
| D．To help her students with their homework. |
| A．It took Haley by surprise. | B．It is kept by Haley at home. |
| C．It is the product of a new idea. | D．It has enjoyed popularity online. |
| A．Buy the same dress online. | B．Give the kids enough time. |
| C．Buy the same markers in Walmart. | D．Leave the finished work untouched. |
| A．To teach art to her students. | B．To show her idea on Pinterest. |
| C．To share it with other teachers. | D．To excite her students' creativity. |
3 . Why do you check social media? Is it to keep up with everything that your friends and family are doing? Is it to find new trendy spots to eat? Regardless of the reason, you may find yourself with different degrees of envy or discomfort after a quick look at your phone. Then you might be suffering from a phenomenon known as “Fear of Missing Out (FOMO). ”
While the phenomenon of FOMO can be traced back for centuries, it had never been the issue as it is today, causing widespread discussion and research. This rise in checking social media is naturally connected to the increasing leading position that social media holds over our lives. Every time someone opens their WeChat Moments, Facebook, Twitter... etc. , they are bombarded with the highlight reels of other peoples' lives. A sunny beach, delicious-looking food, a super cute kitten-they are all uplifting photos, yet they're very likely to bring about more unhappiness than joy. You see, the first thought to come out of your mind may be “Wow, that's so cool/delicious/cute”, but then it takes a hard U-turn. You're thinking: “I wish I were there” or “my life is so boring compared to his/hers.” The more you see, the more likely you are to have these negative feelings.
What's worse is the habit many people have of turning to social media in search of happiness when they are feeling down, not realizing that they are just going to end up in a negative cycle of endless disappointment. Montesquieu once said: “If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier than other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are.”
FOMO will go hand in hand with dissatisfaction and envy. Appreciate what you already have, because someone else out there in the world would gladly give everything to be you.
1. What is the purpose of the questions in paragraph 1?| A．To introduce the topic of the passage. | B．To explain the function of FOMO. |
| C．To describe the features of FOMO. | D．To give the reasons for checking social media. |
| A．Joyful. | B．Admiring. | C．Comfortable. | D．Envious. |
| A．We could turn to social media for happiness. |
| B．We couldn't realise our dream without hard work. |
| C．We couldn't harvest happiness through comparison. |
| D．We could live better than others by showing ourselves online. |
| A．Indifferent. | B．Objective. | C．Doubtful. | D．Hopeful. |
4 . People from all walks of life tend to become more personal and hide less of themselves when using email. Researchers from Open University in Britain have found in a recent study that there are good reasons for this.
The team of researchers asked 83 pairs of students, all strangers to each other, to solve a problem. They had to discuss this question: If only five people in the world could be saved from a world disaster, who should they be? The pairs of students had to talk over the problem either face to face or by computers. Dr. Johnson said, "They told their partners four times as much about themselves when they talked over the Internet as when they talked face to face. When the computers were fitted with cameras so that students could see each other, this limited the personal side of the conversation."
Generally the information was not extremely personal. It was mainly about things such as where they went to school, or where they used to live. But some students discussed their love stories, and personal childhood experiences.
Dr. Johnson believes that emailing encourages people to focus on themselves. And when they do this, they become more open, especially if there are no cameras. "If you cannot see the other person, it becomes easier to talk about yourself. This is because you are not thinking what the other person is thinking of you. So emailing has become the modern way of talking," said Dr. Johnson. However, this style of talking is not completely new. "In the 19th century people started to use the ‘telegraph’ to communicate. Now the same kind of thing has happened and people ended up speaking more freely."
Dr. Johnson thinks that emailers need to know about these effects of emailing, especially when they start work in a company. " If you don’t know about it, you could find yourself saying more about yourself than you wanted to."
1. What is the subject discussed in this passage?| A．How to communicate using email. |
| B．How to solve a problem using email. |
| C．How people open up when emailing. |
| D．How people do research studies when emailing. |
| A．They couldn’t see each other |
| B．They didn’t talk about very personal things |
| C．The cameras on the computers were turned on |
| D．They had to discuss a question |
| A．The telegraph. | B．Emailing. |
| C．The computer. | D．Face-to-face talk. |
| A．We should focus on ourselves when emailing. |
| B．We should talk more freely in emails than usual. |
| C．We should discuss any subject when emailing. |
| D．We should consider how to use email at work. |
5 . If you visit Rwanda’s capital city of Kigali, you’ll see how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the city. There are dozens of hand-washing basins at the city’s bus stations that allow passengers to wash their hands before getting on the bus. Layla Mc Cay, director of the Centre for Urban Design and Mental Health in the AUAS? told the BBC, “If everyone was washing their hands actively, we would see a reduction in all types of infection.”
In fact, every time there is a serious disease outbreak somewhere in the world, city planners come up with new ideas to fight it. Pandemics have been shaping our cities for a long time.
In 1854, for example, a cholera (霍乱) outbreak in London, UK led to the design of modern sewers (下水道).At that time, Londoners’ drinking water came from groundwater. It was heavily polluted by wastewater. The sewer system separated the wastewater from the groundwater. This stopped the spread of cholera.“By sewering certain towns in England, the death rate from lung diseases alone was reduced by 50 percent,” George Pierson wrote in his book The Separate System of Sewerage.
In New York,US,tuberculosis(肺结核)killed many people in the early 1900s. One reason was the overcrowded conditions in apartment buildings. Eventually the New York government made laws that required all apartments to have air shafts, windows, running water and indoor toilets.
During this year’s pandemic, Mayor of Paris Anne Hidaogo introduced the idea of decentralizing the city——every neighborhood should have a mix of stores, homes, offices, and other important buildings. Every basic need should be just a 15-minute walk away. This would reduce crowding on public transportation and prevent the spread of disease.
1. What can we know about Kigali, according to the paragraph 1?| A．Layla Me Cay takes charge of the city. |
| B．Passengers can’t board the bus without washing hands. |
| C．You can only find dozens of hand-washing basins in public places. |
| D．The government provides facilities to reduce the risk of infection. |
| A．Allowing the city more focused. | B．Making the city more attractive. |
| C．Dividing the city into several parts. | D．Having the city less central. |
| A．By listing examples. | B．By giving comments. |
| C．By making comparison. | D．By following the order of time. |
| A．Keeping our cities beautiful. | B．Pandemic changes city design. |
| C．Several severe diseases in history. | D．How COVID-19 changed our life. |
6 . My wife has watched me write, blog and make speeches for a few years now. I’ve encouraged her to do her own video blog (vlog), too, because she is always watching them, but she hasn’t been interested in the spotlight.
Now that enough time has passed, she is ready to go for it! Angelika is a great cook, so she is going to do a cooking show. I am just thrilled that she has found a passion to pursue in a way that works for her.
I’m smart enough to step back and let her go at her own pace. I know that being there for emotional support or however she needs me is important. Now that my wife will have a studio worthy of her talents and personality, she will only make the kitchen look better.
Part of me hopes that I will spend the rest of my life watching and tasting her creations. When you start to express your creative drive, it can be a wonderful ride. When the love of your life takes the ride with you, and starts to drive, it’s pretty cool way to travel through life.
I am at my best when being creative, whether in front of a keyboard or a live audience. I have always encouraged creative answers to life. There is always more than one right way to do something.
Yes, public attention in our social media world has become a marker of success, but it means more when you are sending a positive message. Helping people enjoy their lives a little more is a big deal.
This project will not just make her happy but make us closer. I am aware that this is her project, not mine. I will answer any questions she asks but be careful about offering unwanted advice. What she doesn't know she will learn. You never want to take that process away from anyone.
1. Why didn’t Angelika try vlogging before?| A．She was too busy to do it. | B．She had no such talent or skill. |
| C．She lacked self-confidence. | D．She didn’t enjoy being on camera. |
| A．Worried. | B．Doubtful. | C．Supportive. | D．Unconcerned. |
| A．Delivering positive messages with creativity. |
| B．Showing how successful you are. |
| C．Experiencing the ups and downs it brings. |
| D．Interacting with a live audience. |
| A．He will prepare ingredients. | B．He will provide emotional support. |
| C．He will offer comments. | D．He will guide her every step. |
