1 . The evidence for harmony (和睦) may not be obvious in some families. But it seems that four out of five young people now get on with their parents.
An important new study into teenage attitudes shows that their family life is more harmonious than it has ever been in the past. “We were surprised by just how positive today’s young people seem to be about their families,” says one member of the research team. “They’re expected to be rebellious (叛逆的) but actually they have other things in their minds; they want a car and other material goods, and they worry whether school is serving them well. There’re more negotiations (协商) between parents and children, and children expect to take part in the family decisionmaking process.”
So it seems that this generation of parents is much more likely than parents of 30 years ago to treat their children as friends. “My parents are happy to discuss things with me and willing to listen to me,” says 17 year old Daniel Lazall. “I always tell them when I’m going out. As long as they know what I’m doing, they’re fine with it.” Susan Crome, who is now 21, agrees. “Looking back on the last 10 years, there was a lot of what you could call negotiations. For example, as long as I’d done all my homework, I could go out on a Saturday night. But I think my grandparents were a lot stricter with my parents than that.”
One of the researchers comments, “Our astonishment that teenagers say they get along well with their parents comes because of a brief period in our social history when teenagers were regarded as different beings. But that idea of rebelling and breaking away from their parents really only happened during that one time in the 1960s when everyone rebelled. Now, the situation has changed.”
1. What does the new study show?| A．Teenagers are more rebellious. |
| B．Teenagers worry more about studies. |
| C．Teenagers dislike making family decisions. |
| D．Teenagers have more negotiations with families. |
| A．They are stricter than before. |
| B．They are more independent. |
| C．They give their children more freedom. |
| D．They care less about their children’s life. |
| A．Surprise. | B．Aim. |
| C．Memory. | D．Option. |
| A．Discussion in family. |
| B．Harmony in family. |
| C．Teenage trouble in family. |
| D．Teenage education in family. |
2 . In recent years, the number of young adults returning to their parents’ homes after leaving has risen. This is the Boomerang Generation, becoming independent only to return to their parents’ homes like boomerangs. A boomerang is a curved(呈弯曲状的) stick that, when thrown in a particular way, comes back to the person who threw it.
One of our family members had a college roommate who dropped out(辍学) and went back to her parents because she was unable to wash her clothes. This is quite a funny example, but stories like these are plentiful. The dropout and many other young adults are often short of basic life skills, so they move out of the family home for a time and then boomerang right back.
We believe having more real-life learning in high school may solve young adults’ inability to become independent. This can be achieved through simply including extra Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills requirements for life skills. The TEKS would include learning about taxes(税), banking, health, voting(选举), job interviews, cooking, and many other important skills.
These areas of study happen to go with required courses. For learning how to do taxes, we would want to include a TEKS in math classes. In an economics class, we would require students to learn about banking and housing. In history class, students would have to learn about the importance of voting. In English class, students could learn about jobs. Cooking would be added to health class.
If in high school we can teach these skills, graduates going to college or trade school won’t need to worry about their living skills and can focus on their education. More students can finish their studies and get degrees. And once out of college or trade school, young people can focus on their jobs and responsibilities as adults. Thus jobs will be done better, people will better understand their role in society and be better rounded as both students and individuals(个人).
1. Which of the following best describes the Boomerang Generation?| A．They depend on their parents. | B．They show great interest in sports. |
| C．They like to take on new challenges. | D．They want to leave their parents’ homes. |
| A．To attract readers with a funny story. |
| B．To offer some advice for college dropouts. |
| C．To explain the cause of boomeranging back. |
| D．To show the Boomerang Generation’s influence. |
| A．It is easy for students to learn the TEKS. |
| B．They can be included in required courses. |
| C．More life skills should be added to the TEKS. |
| D．The TEKS proves to be important to students. |
| A．Teach students life skills. | B．Work together with parents. |
| C．Accept the Boomerang Generation. | D．Offer more support to trade schools. |
3 . If you have a hobby or idea that currently does not fit into an existing club in your school, starting one may be a great idea.
Think
The first step of starting anything is to think.
Judge interest
The next step of starting a club is judging interest of others. It is important to talk to friends and other students at school, because they will be the ones who finally will choose to join or stay away from your club. If they have no interest, you have no club.
Think about details
Make it official
Then you can head to the teacher’s office and tell this teacher what your club is about, along with all details. Once he or she agrees, you will likely have to fill out some paperwork to make the club official.
| A．In this case, brainstorming will be very helpful. |
| B．Then you may want to reconsider your idea for the club. |
| C．It’s a great way to practice leadership and organizational skills. |
| D．Now you can spread the word and attract others to join your club. |
| E．Next, it is important to think about the behind-the-scenes aspects of your club. |
4 . A small recording studio in Communication University of China (CUC) is a movie production center, which creates movie audio descriptions to serve the visually disabled. From the landscape in the background to the movements of the characters, and even emotional changes of the roles, these creators describe every detail in the movies, so visually disabled people can “watch” them like every other normal moviegoer.
However, as there are over 10 million people living with visual disability in China, the number of theaters providing the service falls short of demand. At the same time, challenges still exist. The first issue that movies are now facing is the varying levels of quality, which has resulted in the failure of some projects. Copyright can be another huge problem. To expand the range of movies that can add audio descriptions, China has applied for entry to the Marrakesh Treaty, an international treaty about copyright permission for specially adapted literature works for people with visual disability.
“Soon we can make more movies for the disabled. Our next goal is to make these audio descriptions of films available at the same time as their main cinemas release, so people with visual disability can walk into the cinemas with their families and friends to cry and laugh together. They also enjoy art, life and movies equally like the rest of the world,” Fu Haizheng, project dean from CUC, told Global Times on Wednesday.
1. How does the studio help the visually disabled watch the movies?| A．Introducing the main plot. | B．Offering background music. |
| C．Providing special languages. | D．Adding detailed descriptions. |
| A．To make Chinese movies go global. |
| B．To improve the quality of the films. |
| C．To have permission to adapt more movies. |
| D．To get sponsorship from an international organization. |
| A．A news report. | B．A research paper. |
| C．A movie review. | D．A theater poster. |
5 . Some of Hawaii’s most popular musical artists have appeared before an unlikely audience, who are from a small elementary school on Oahu’s coast.
They all come with a purpose: The headmaster dreamed up the virtual concerts, presenting artists like internationally famous ukulele player Jake Shimabukuro, as a way of bringing together a community struggling with the pandemic. “We have probably the best ukulele player — one of the best ukulele musicians in the entire world — come and play for you guys tonight,” said Headmaster Keoki Fraser as children and parents tuned in from home computers. Fraser is trying to organize concerts every several weeks as his school, like most public schools in Hawaii, continues to educate its students remotely.
Tabitha Persaud, mom of three students, remembers Fraser coming to the parent-teacher association with the idea of approaching big names. “Can we do that?” she wondered. “Will they do that for us?”
“They’re in the same situation as we are. So, I mean, they don’t have to go anywhere or leave their home. We just hit them up,” said Fraser, who graduated from the local high school. “We love to get people that are influential and the kids look up to.”
During a recent Friday concert, Fraser invited former student Dylan Kunz, now a seventh grader, to play ukulele as one of the student performers to open for Shimabukuro. Kunz, who likes Shimabukuro, was excited. “He’s the reason I started playing,” he said. “It keeps me motivated to keep playing.”
The concerts are open to all. For one performance, about 1,200 viewers tuned in. “I think it’s so much fun to see the smiling, happy faces of all the kids,” said Amy Kunz, Dylan’s mom. “I think Headmaster Fraser, in doing this, is really hitting home from social and emotional aspects. Even though we’re not in school, we can still make these connections and have fun.”
1. What’s Headmaster Fraser’s purpose in organizing the concerts?| A．To encourage his students to learn from the musicians. |
| B．To develop closer ties between educators and kids. |
| C．To get his community united in the pandemic. |
| D．To strengthen the parent-teacher relations. |
| A．Whether her family would be allowed to attend it. |
| B．Whether players like Shimabukuro would show up. |
| C．Whether Headmaster Fraser would agree with her idea. |
| D．Whether the parent-teacher association would break up. |
| A．Cheer them up. | B．Ask them for help. |
| C．Teach them a lesson. | D．Compete with them. |
| A．Grateful. | B．Curious. | C．Doubtful. | D．Worried |
6 . Jane, a 40-year-old mental health professional from Ireland, never worried too much about how she looked. However, when her job went fully virtual, she found herself anxious about Microsoft Teams meetings. Her face looked rounder, her nose looked bigger, and her top lip looked thinner than she had ever noticed it while looking in the mirror.
As the COVID-19 forced a lot of people into video meetings throughout 2020, researchers noticed a phenomenon they called “Zoom dysmorphia”. After months of remote meetings and seeing their own faces on screen, more and more people became focused on their weaknesses on their faces. Shadi Kourosh, a Masachusetts doctor studying skin diseases, coined the name in the summer of 2020, when she noticed more and more people asking about how to improve facial appearance. It is clear that the age of video meetings has opened up a Pandora’s box of physical and mental insecurities (不安全).
Psychological studies have long connected time spent in front of the mirror with one’s increasing feelings of insecurity. However, Kourosh says that looking at yourself on a screen is not like looking into a real mirror. Front-facing cameras, with their close focus, can distort (使…失真/变形) people’s appearance, making eyes look smaller and noses seem bigger.
Doctors are familiar with how the phenomenon of “Zoom dysmorphia” has become increasingly worsened in recent years by beautified photos of film stars or by social media filters (滤镜). Most people are smart enough to know a social media filter is not real life. But as for Zoom dysmorphia, people simply were not aware that video calls could cause distortion. These types of insecurities also affect a much bigger part of society. Almost everybody who worked from home during the COVID-19 pandemic used video meeting. The impact can be significant and lasting.
Jane has mixed feelings. Her job will be online for the coming future. Feeling less attractive on screen than in real life, she is considering cosmetic surgery (整容外科) to improve her confidence. “But it feels stupid as a 40-year-old woman to think too much about my appearance like a teenager. There are bigger problems in the world.”
1. The underlined word in the 2nd paragraph is closest in meaning to “________”.| A．earn | B．change | C．invent | D．discover |
| A．They always think they are not attractive. |
| B．They are worried because they feel ugly on the screen. |
| C．They hate attending video meetings frequently. |
| D．They spend a lot of time in front of the mirror. |
| A．She feels ashamed of building her confidence in this way. |
| B．She feels disappointed at the result of surgery. |
| C．She is hopeful about her coming future. |
| D．She feels unsafe about the world. |
From November 5th to 10th, 2021, the fourth China International Import Expo (CIIE)
The display area for consumer goods occupied 90,000 square meters of exhibition space,
The Online Country Exhibition enabled 58 countries and 3 international organizations
Having experienced the benefits of the fourth CIIE, enterprises described it as an event
