1. What is the man probably doing?
| A．Reading a newspaper. | B．Playing a video game. | C．Driving in the country. |
| A．To attract more tourists. |
| B．To be famous on the Internet. |
| C．To call drivers’ attention to safety. |
| A．A local farmer. | B．A transport company. | C．A government department. |
2 . While technology addicts teens to their devices, they are not helpless against the draw of it. Here are five ways educators can support their students’ digital well-being.
Explore design tricks companies use. The technology we use daily is designed to catch and hold our attention. Companies know what keeps our eyes on the screen. To help, teachers can unpack design tricks and explain how companies employ features like auto-play to get users to stay on their apps.
Talk about how technology can increase feelings of anxiety. The decline in youth mental health is associated with an increase in social media use.
Uncover the ways that AI can play a role in misinformation. AI is rapidly transforming the world. Recommendation algorithms (算法), which determine what we do and do not see on our feeds and in our search results, can have very real consequences.
Encourage families to have meaningful conversations with their child. Take the time to share with families the topics and resources you’re teaching in class.
| A．Social media is ruining our life. |
| B．Connect them with their inner world. |
| C．Build their awareness of thinking traps. |
| D．This by no means indicates all technology is bad. |
| E．They can pull us toward increasingly extreme views. |
| F．It turns out adults and kids all pursue digital well-being. |
| G．Knowing these can motivate students to get back their attention. |
3 . We’ve all done it before—dropped a box of unwanted household belongings at a flea market and driven off with a sense of accomplishment. But have you ever stopped to think about where those items actually go?
Business journalist Adam Minter began considering this while cleaning out his late mother’s home. Seeking reassurance that his mother’s donated items would be put to good use rather than destroyed, he started a journey worldwide that resulted in his latest book, “Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale”. He found the industry significantly in the dark, with a disturbing lack of data on secondhand goods, despite their crucial role in clothing, furnishing and educating people worldwide.
In this book, Minter fully reveals himself as an investigative journalist. He doesn’t shy away from the commonly-accepted assumptions about the global trade in used goods. First, Minter questions the idea that shipments of secondhand clothes from developed countries to Africa have destroyed local textile industries (纺织业). That’s overly simplistic, he says. He further explains that multiple factors, such as declining cotton production in local areas and economic liberation, have influenced the situation.
Minter then explores the topic of car seats, making a statement that recycling car seats, instead of selling them secondhand, is wasteful and might compromise (危害) safety for children in developing countries. It is disturbing to say so in a society that prioritizes child safety and highlights zero risk, but when you consider the excessive caution that might endanger children’s lives elsewhere, the situation starts to look different.
Minter calls it “waste colonialism,” this idea that developed countries can apply their own safety standards onto the markets of developing countries—and it’s deeply wrong. Why label an used car seat or an old TV as unsafe if someone else, with different skills, is perfectly capable of repairing it and willing to use it, especially if they lack access to new products and other options?
The book explores the huge problems of handling surplus (剩余的) items and how producers discourage repairs and promote the sales of new products. Minter calls for initiatives to enhance product repairability and increase product lifetime.
1. Why does Minter set out on a journey worldwide?| A．To remember his late mother. | B．To explore where used items end up. |
| C．To collect data for fashion industries. | D．To advocate recycling of used goods. |
| A．groundless | B．one-sided | C．conventional | D．self-contradictory |
| A．Selling old TV sets to developing countries. |
| B．Denying access to used car seats domestically. |
| C．Banning used goods export to developing countries. |
| D．Prioritizing safety in new goods for developing countries. |
| A．Handle used items efficiently. | B．Promote sales of new products. |
| C．Make more sustainable products. | D．Take the initiative to boost production. |
4 . It isn’t just the beauty of vast natural wonders like the Grand Canyon that can take your breath away. You can find awe in everyday things. A new research, published in the journal Emotion, found that older adults who took “awe walks” felt more positive emotions in their daily lives.
In the study, 52 older adults aged 60 to 90 were divided randomly into two groups. They were told to take at least one 15-minute walk each week for eight weeks. Volunteers in the “awe group” were instructed in how to inspire awe as they walked. “We asked them to try to see the world with fresh eyes—to take in new details of a leaf or flower, for example,” Sturm says. For example, one participant from the awe group wrote about “ the beautiful fall colors and how the leaves were no longer crunchy (嘎吱响) underfoot because of the rain”. However, people in the other group were less focused on the world around them.
In addition, participants were asked to take selfies (自拍) in the beginning, middle, and end of each walk. Researchers found that participants who took awe walks showed a “small self”, in that they filled less of their photographs with their own image and more with the background scenery. “When we feel awe, our attention shifts from focusing on ourselves to focusing on the world around us.” Their smiles also grew broader by the end of the study. “We analyzed the intensity of their smiles in the selfies, and participants who took awe walks displayed greater smiles over time than those who took control walks. The former reported greater positive emotions in general, including more joy and gratitude.”
Participants in the control group took more frequent walks than those people in the awe group, the researchers discovered. But walking more didn’t result in positive changes in emotional health or in the way their selfies were taken. This suggests that the results were mainly due to experiencing awe, and not just in spending time exercising.
1. Why is the example mentioned in paragraph 2?| A．To show the way of awe walks. |
| B．To state the benefits of awe walks. |
| C．To inspire participants to walk in awe. |
| D．To indicate leaves aren’t crunchy because of the rain. |
| A．They smile more in a selfie. |
| B．They fill fewer photos with surroundings. |
| C．They pay more attention to themselves. |
| D．They show more appreciation and delight. |
| A．Objective. | B．Favorable. | C．Concerned. | D．Disappointed. |
| A．Awe Walks Promote Your Physical Fitness |
| B．Awe Walks Improve Your Positive Emotions |
| C．Frequent Walks Contribute to Emotional Health |
| D．Experiencing Awe Does Wonders for Everyone |
5 . Social media allow teenagers to create online identities, communicate with others and build social networks. These networks can provide teenagers with valuable support. Teenagers also use social media for entertainment and self-expression. And the platforms can expose teenagers to current events, allow them to communicate across geographic barriers and teach them about different kinds of subjects, including healthy behaviors. However, social media use can also negatively affect teenagers, distracting them, influencing their sleep, and exposing them to bullying (恐吓), rumor (谣言) spreading, untrue views of other people’s lives and peer pressure.
There are steps you can take to encourage responsible use of social media and limit some of its negative effects.
Set reasonable limits. Talk to your teenager about how to avoid letting social media affect his or her activities, sleep, meals or homework. Encourage a bedtime routine that avoids electronic media use, and keep cellphones and iPads out of teenagers’ bedrooms. Set an example by following these rules yourself.
Monitor your teenager’s accounts. Let your teenager know that you’ll be regularly checking his or her social media accounts. You might aim to do so once a week or more. And make sure you follow through.
Explain what’s not OK. Discourage your teenager from gossiping, spreading rumors, bullying or damaging someone’s reputation—online or otherwise. Talk to your teenager about what is appropriate and safe to share on social media.
Encourage face-to-face contact with friends. This is particularly important for teenagers who are vulnerable to social anxiety disorder.
Talk about social media. Talk about your own social media habits. Ask your teenager how he or she is using social media and how it makes him or her feel. Remind your teenager that social media is full of unrealistic images.
If you think your teenager is experiencing signs or symptoms of anxiety or depression related to social media use, talk to your child’s health care provider immediately.
1. How does the author mainly develop the first paragraph?| A．By providing reasons. | B．By making comparison. |
| C．By following the order of importance. | D．By raising questions. |
| A．Powering them off. | B．Putting them in the schoolbag. |
| C．Keeping them out of bedroom. | D．Listening to them instead of watching. |
| A．Warm-hearted. | B．Easily hurt. | C．Deeply moved. | D．Hard-working. |
| A．Teenagers. | B．Officials. | C．Teachers. | D．Parents. |
6 . Young children are significantly more likely than adults to have their opinions influenced by robots according to a new research. The study, conducted-at the-University of Plymouth, compared how adults and children respond to an identical (相同的) task when in the presence of both their peers (同龄人) and robots.
It showed that while adults regularly have their opinions influenced by peers, something also demonstrated in previous studies, they are largely able to resist being persuaded by robots. However, children aged between seven and nine were more likely to give the same responses as the robots, even if they were obviously incorrect.
The study asks people to look at a screen showing four lines and say which two match in length. When alone, people almost never make a mistake but when doing the experiment with others, they tend to follow what others are saying.
When children were alone in the room in this research, they scored 87%on the test, but when the robots join in their score drops to 75%. And of the wrong answers, 74% matched those of the robot.
Professor Belpaeme said, ”People often follow the opinions of others and we’ve known for a long time that it is hard to resist taking over views and opinions of people around-us. But as robots will soon be found in the home and the workplace, we were wondering if people would follow robots. What our results show is that adults do not follow what the robots are saying. But when we did the experiment with children, they did. It shows children can perhaps have more of an affinity (亲和力)with robots than adults, which does pose the question: What if robots were to suggest, for example, what products to buy or what to think?“?
1. What did the adults do when staying with robots?| A．They generally refused the robots’ effects. |
| B．They totally accepted the robots’ suggestions. |
| C．They tried to persuade robots to resist them. |
| D．They usually compared robots with their children. |
| A．Because children were not as clever as the adults. |
| B．Because robots reflected better than human beings. |
| C．Because robots in the presence made mistakes. |
| D．Because children wanted to affect the robots on purpose. |
| A．He is optimistic about the result. | B．He is worried about the future. |
| C．He doesn’t care about the result. | D．He doubts the result of the research. |
| A．What is the meaning of the research? |
| B．What should adults do to avoid the problem? |
| C．Why are children more likely to be influenced? |
| D．What will be done to solve the problem? |
7 . Have you ever taken a personality test and found the results to be scarily accurate, checked your horoscope and had everything come true or taken an online quiz that told you precisely what your favorite Disney princess means about you? Well, we certainly have done so too many times, so we decided to do a little investigation into how Internet -quizzes, magazines and horoscope books seem to know us so well.
We discovered that we’ve all been falling victim to the Barnum effect. The Barnum Effect is the phenomenon that occurs when individuals believe that personality descriptions apply specifically to them, despite the fact that the description is actually filled with information that applies to everyone. It was named after P. T. Barnum, a famous 19th century showman, who would famously say, “There’s a fool born every minute.”
Indeed, Barnum proved to be right, as pseudoscience —such as astrology and personality tests — remains popular to this day. The Bamum effect explains why extremely general statements, such as the results of your personality test, seem so specific to you. Don’t believe us? Well, late psychology professor Bertram Forer offered some proof.
In a historic study, Forer conducted a personality test to his students. Forer copied statements such as “You have a great need for other people to like and admire you.” and “You have a tendency to be critical of yourself.” from the newspaper’s horoscope column and gave a test to every student. Forer asked his students to rate the accuracy of the test from one to five, with “one” being the least accurate and “five” being the most accurate. The average rating was 4.26. The universally high ratings from students on the personality test supported the Barnum effect.
One of the most important factors when reproducing this study is to keep the statements as vague as possible, with a mix of mostly positive and some negative content. For example, using the phrase “at times” makes for a powerful Barnum Effect. See “At times you are outgoing and sociable, while at other times you are shy and reserved” who would not agree with that statement?
So, keep in mind that we are not immune to the Barnum effect. Take everything you hear with several grains of salt.
1. What is the purpose of Paragraph 2?| A．To present a controversial opinion. | B．To provide an example of an idea. |
| C．To offer a solution to a problem. | D．To define the meaning of a term. |
| A．Potential application of the Barnum effect. | B．Further explanation of the Barnum effect. |
| C．Supporting evidence for the Barnum effect. | D．A reasonable doubt of the research process. |
| A．They are so specific. | B．They are unclear. |
| C．They are positive. | D．They are believable. |
| A．Phenomenon—analysis. | B．Cause—effect. |
| C．Problem—solution. | D．Claim—counterclaim. |
8 . Facing the growing digital economy and new positions incubated (孵化) in the sector such as deliverymen and live-streaming hosts, young people, especially those born after 2000, are expressing a stronger willingness for flexible work relations with companies, and also wish to become “digital workers” with flexible work locations and schedules.
A report from Peking University’s National School of Development released on Wednesday said that nearly 66 percent of surveyed employees born after 2000 prefer to work from home. The number is higher than surveyed people born after 1970, with about 54. 4 percent of them preferring the new way.
“The Internet can do anything for me. I check emails from my clients and submit my proposals through WeChat, then we discuss plans via teleconference. I love working from home actually,” said Mi Lu, a 28-year-old new media operator in Beijing. “It’s a much more convenient and cooler thing. We work everywhere, perhaps in a cafe, or on a bullet train or even on the table of a restaurant.”
Hu Jiayin, an associate professor in Peking University’s National School of Development, concluded that their survey shows that young people desire freedom in their jobs, but also wish for stability in their careers because of uncertainties brought by the fast-changing digital economy.
“But the development of the digital economy also brings great uncertainties and a sense of insecurity to the working population, so we’ve found some interesting things during our surveys that over 30 percent of job seekers we’ve surveyed wish to have a stable job at state-owned companies,” she added.
Li Qiang, vice-president of Zhaopin, said that the greatest risk to those seeking flexible work is whether the company pays the salary fully and on time. “It’s necessary for job seekers to set up a long-term development plan, rather than be shortsighted.” He added that companies may bear risks that flexible employees can’t deliver high-quality work in a limited time period, which requires the companies to establish a sound work delivery standard to help evaluate employee performance.
1. What attracts the young people to become “digital workers”?| A．The increasing network security. | B．The convenient transportation. |
| C．The flexible working style. | D．The bright prospects. |
| A．Digital economy is interesting and promising. |
| B．Young people pay little attention to instability in working. |
| C．30% of surveyed job seekers desire to work in government agencies. |
| D．The development of digital economy is a double-edged sword for job seekers. |
| A．Job seekers lack ambitions. | B．Employers are shortsighted. |
| C．Some companies require working overtime. | D．Flexible work conditions needs improving. |
| A．Favorable. | B．Objective. | C．Ambiguous. | D．Disapproving. |
9 . How important has Internet become in our lives? The Pew Research Center conducted a survey to celebrate the Web’s 25th birthday. The researchers were greatly heartened by what they found.
“In 2006, only 14 percent of American adults used Internet. Today, it’s 87 percent,” said Lee Rainie, the director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet Project. “It is what has impressed us the most.”
The survey also showed that 70 percent of the Internet users have been treated kindly or generously online, while 25 percent of respondents said they have been treated unkindly. More than half—56 percent—of users said they’ve seen an online community come together to help someone solve a problem. 25 percent said they’ve left an online group because members were too unpleasant.
When Pew asked questions about whether being online has enriched people’s relationships—or not—the results were very positive: 67 percent of Internet users said their online communication with family and friends has generally strengthened those relationships. Only 18 percent said it has generally weakened those relationships.
According to the survey, 53 percent of Internet users said Internet has become the hardest tech tool to give up. It is 15 percent higher than the result of a similar survey conducted in 2006. In fact, more people said they would have a harder time stopping using Internet than giving up TV. (These days, so much great television streams across the Internet that it makes sense.)
“In our survey, we have found that the Web makes a few people very unhappy. There’s strong evidence pointing to the fact that Internet users tend to compare their daily lives with the ‘highlight moments’ of their friends’ lives,” said Lee Rainie. “It’s really silly.”
1. Which is the most impressive result of the latest survey?| A．Users’ dependence on Internet. | B．The fast growth of Internet users. |
| C．The kindness of online communities. | D．The strengthened family relationships. |
| A．15%. | B．38%. | C．53%. | D．68%. |
| A．Online depression cannot be avoided. | B．Don’t show off in online communities. |
| C．Don’t make unnecessary comparison. | D．Copy your friends’ wonderful lifestyles. |
| A．Optimistic. | B．Worried. | C．Unconcerned. | D．Doubtful. |
10 . Marks &Spencer(M&S) is planning to remove “best before” labels from 300 varieties of fruit and vegetables in its stores to cut food waste. The change will rely on customers using their judgment to determine whether goods are still fine to eat.
The measure, to be rolled out this week, will affect 85% of the supermarket’s fresh pro-duce offering. “Best before” labels differ from “use by” dates, with the former often merely a measure of aesthetics(美学), while the latter tending to indicate a safety risk if ignored. “Best before” labels were meant to help consumers, but instead were blamed for creating mountains of waste from perfectly eatable food.
Tesco, the UK’s largest supermarket chain, had already announced the end of best before dates on its own-brand fruit and vegetables as far back as 2018, while the German supermarket Lidl also says it does not include best before information to reduce food waste. Now M&S is doing the same, with the aim to halve(减半) food waste from its products by 2030 com-pared with 2018. Achieving those targets would put it in line with the UK’s commitment to meet the United Nations’ goal of halving food waste by 2030 compared with 2007.
Reducing food waste is a vital part of tackling carbon emissions associated with farming and food distribution(分配). WRAP, a food waste charity, estimates that as much 45%of global greenhouse gas emissions can only be tackled by changing the way we make and consume products and food. It said that removing dates on fresh fruit and vegetables can save the equal of 7 million shopping baskets of food a year.
Catherine David, a director at WRAP, said, “We’re thrilled to see this move from M&S, which will reduce food waste and help tackle the climate crisis. We urge more supermarkets to get ahead on food waste by cutting date labels from fresh produce, allowing people to use their own judgment.”
1. What does Marks &Spencer intend to do?| A．Maintain the safety of their products. |
| B．Ask customers to pick out eatable produce. |
| C．Sell its own-brand fruit and vegetables. |
| D．Remove “use by” labels from its fresh produce. |
| A．Denied. | B．Canceled. | C．Introduced. | D．Examined. |
| A．Meet government regulations. |
| B．Improve food safety standards. |
| C．Increase sales of fresh produce. |
| D．Get rid of dates labels on fresh produce. |
| A．M&S’s new move to reduce food waste. |
| B．Tesco follows M&S’s lead on food labels. |
| C．M&S calls for a fight against climate crisis. |
| D．Effective methods to protect the environment. |
