1 . Gossip is the sharing of personal information about someone else who is not present. All of us have probably caught ourselves, from time to time, allowing ourselves to enjoy the pleasure of gossiping more than we would like to admit. Someone says the words, “Don’t tell this to anyone.”
Gossip has some characteristics (特点). First, gossip is an activity that is done with other people.
Researchers studied volunteers, including women and men, to find out some facts about gossip. They found that most gossip was neutral (不偏袒的).
| A．We can’t do it alone or only in our head. |
| B．Women gossip more than men, but only neutrally. |
| C．So people express their angry feelings by gossiping. |
| D．What’s more interesting is who gossips and how much. |
| E．And the information was interesting for the present people. |
| F．But moments later, we may tell it to someone else with the exact same warning. |
| G．It means people were simply sharing information about a person who wasn’t present. |
2 . Germany’s top court (法院) has ruled that parts of the country’s 2019 climate action law must be changed because they don’t do a good job of protecting young people. Nine young people aged 15 to 24 took the government to court over the law. They said that the government’s failure to plan carefully was putting their future lives in danger.
The judges (法官) of Germany’s highest court said climate change will influence young people far more than adults. That’s because climate change will become more serious over time. As young people become adults, they’ll be left to deal with any problems that today’s adults don’t deal with.
In 2019, Germany passed a new law, promising that the country would be producing no more CO2 than the forest can take in by 2050. The law made a plan of action until 2030. But the law didn’t have any plans for climate actions that would be taken between 2031 and 2050.
The court has asked the German government to fix the law by the end of 2022. The climate law will now need to have a plan for the actions that will be taken after 2030.
The German government has said that it will quickly begin working to make the needed changes. One important part of high court decisions like this is that they act as guides or examples for future decisions. This means that in the future, Germany’s lawmakers will be more likely to think about the climate future of young people as they create their laws.
1. Why did the judges make such a decision?| A．They decided the new law made no sense. |
| B．They wanted to give the young more rights. |
| C．They focused more on the future of the young. |
| D．They thought it’s hard to solve climate change. |
| A．It failed to take action before 2030. |
| B．It was producing more and more CO2. |
| C．It refused to consider the young’s rights. |
| D．It didn’t plan the climate actions after 2030. |
| A．It will make more decisions on climate change. |
| B．It will ask the young to help make climate laws. |
| C．It will consider the young when making climate laws. |
| D．It will encourage the young to protect the environment. |
| A．They were brave and forward-looking enough. |
| B．They couldn’t bear the present climate change. |
| C．They wanted to take part in law-making. |
| D．They planned to work in the government. |
3 . People who cross the street while looking at their phones may be fined in the city of Xiamen, Fujian province, as traffic police officers are enforcing (施行) a local regulation that was put into effect on August 1st.
A pedestrian who was crossing the street on Tuesday while looking at their phone was given a warning, becoming the city’s first to receive a reprimand (训斥) for the behavior.
The Traffic Safety Regulation on Zebra Lines in Xiamen Special Economic Zone, made into a law on Tuesday, states pedestrians should not browse their electronic devices or engage in other activities that may end anger traffic safety while using crossing lanes. Those who violate this rule and delay or stop the progress of the normal passage of vehicles are supposed to be given a warning or a fine of 50 yuan($7).
The regulation was made in response to motions by legislators (立法委员) to the Xiamen people’s congress. “Through putting uncivilized behavior right via legal means, we hope to create a better environment for drivers and pedestrians to better understand and interact with each other,” said Wu Tao, an official at the local congress.
Su Guoqiang, a deputy to the congress among those who raised the motion, said more than 20 percent of traffic accidents in Xiamen happened on crosswalks. “We hope to use the punishment of the ‘small’ act of browsing phones as something to prevent people from doing such a thing,” he told China Central Television.
Peng Chong, a traffic police officer in Xiamen, told CCTV for the time being they will mostly educate and warn violators and make everyone involved in traffic aware of the rules.
1. What does the underlined word “motions” in paragraph 4 mean?| A．Formal invitations. | B．Formal features. |
| C．Formal proposals. | D．Formal apologies. |
| A．The concrete contents of the punishment. |
| B．The reason why the motion was put forward. |
| C．The reason why people browse phones on crosswalks. |
| D．The factors that have an influence on traffic on streets. |
| A．Mostly by giving them a ticket. | B．Mostly by giving them a warning. |
| C．Mostly by making them recite the law. | D．Mostly by making them catch another violator. |
| A．Pedestrians on crosswalk warned not to end anger traffic safety in Xiamen |
| B．Xiamen expects drivers and pedestrians to better understand each other |
| C．20 percent of traffic accidents in Xiamen happen on crosswalks |
| D．Xiamen regulation on crosswalk behavior enters force |
There has long been the expression “couch potato” in English. It refers to a lazy person
The expression zhai comes
According to the BBC, in 2013 one million young people in Japan just
Some people think that it is a shameful thing to be a homebody. But in many cases, people avoid social situations not so much out of fear, but out of the desire
5 . Liu Fang, who works as a media worker in Beijing, goes to a store specializing in selling near-expired (将要过期的) food in Sanlitun and returns with a bag of snacks or drinks every week.
“The price tags on these goods have caught my eye. They are often sold at 10 percent to 30 percent of the market price,” Liu said. “More importantly, most of them are from big brands. Why wouldn’t I love them?”
Liu is among the increasing number of Chinese people who enjoy purchasing near-expired food at much cheaper prices. According to the latest report by iiMedia Research, the near-expired food industry had a market size of over 30 billion yuan in 2020. Young consumers aged between 26 and 35 accounted for 47.8 percent.
Unlike the traditional thinking that buying such goods is embarrassing, more and more young people regard it as a kind of sustainable consumption that can help reduce food waste.
“I don’t care much about the date as long as I can eat it before its expiry. It meets my demand while saving resources and protecting the environment, which is a good thing,” Wu Lin, a 19-year-old college student and a fan of near-expired food, told Xinhua.
Indeed, food waste is a great challenge for China and other countries. According to a 2020 report from the National People’s Congress, about 18 billion kilograms of food is wasted every year in China’s urban catering industry (餐饮业).
“As more Chinese people choose to buy near-expired food, the food waste will be reduced,” said Liu.
According to CGTN, China had the tradition of saving food over the decades leading to the 1990s.
As people’s lives improved greatly, many began to make or order more food than could be consumed, CGTN reported. But the trend of buying near-expired food may suggest that the Chinese virtue of frugality (节约) is staging a comeback.
“I’ve been very frugal all my life. Living through a serious famine (1959-61) (饥荒), I’m used to saving every grain and every penny,” Zhang Xin, a retired woman born in the 1950s, told CGTN. “I’m happy to see more young people, who used to spend extravagantly(奢侈地), joining our ranks."
1. What does the author want to show by telling Liu Fang’s story?| A．To show the characteristics of near-expired food. |
| B．To introduce the trend of buying food in Sanlitun. |
| C．To explain where people can buy near-expired food. |
| D．To show the recent growth in popularity of buying near-expired food. |
| A．It is a fashionable lifestyle. | B．It is a safer shopping choice. |
| C．It is environmentally friendly. | D．It offers her new shopping experiences. |
| A．People’s desire to buy less. | B．China’s economic prosperity. |
| C．The return of the Chinese virtue of frugality | D．People’s reduced concern about a product’s quality. |
| A．The Comeback of an Old Lifestyle | B．A New Food Trend among Young Consumers |
| C．The Success of the Near-expired Food business | D．The Pros and Cons of Buying Near-expired Food |
6 . Professor Paul Hughes says the way we talk to ourselves and about ourselves to other people can affect our life in many ways, from our career to our family life. He saw this firsthand while teaching at a community college.
He noticed that some students who studied hard and came to class every day still did poorly in exams. They are filled with angst about taking a test. Hughes used one of his students as an example. Lindsay was a good student. She came to class early, took part in discussions and did all of her homework. However, she did poorly in exams. When Hughes asked her how she felt before a test, she told him she was very nervous. She wondered why she had trouble remembering what she had learned. She said she did not trust that she knew the right answers.
Hughes took Lindsay’s negative statements and turned them into positive questions. Before a test, he told Lindsay to say to herself: Why am I so relaxed when I take an exam? Why am I so focused during my exam? Why do I remember everything I study for an exam? Why do I trust my answers?
Lindsay took his advice. Two weeks later, she took an exam and scored 15 points higher than she had in an earlier exam. Four weeks later, she got a “B” in the final exam.
After Lindsay left the community college and went to a four-year university, she continued to use the method of positive self-talk. She got straight A’s in all of her exams. Hughes saw student after student succeed with his method. They got more than just good test scores. They got their selfconfidence back.
Hughes does not just help his students. He also uses his positive self-talk method to help his friends and neighbors. In a television interview, he summed it up this way, “We can program ourselves for failure in class or in life, but we can also program ourselves for success.”
1. What does the underlined word “angst” in Paragraph 2 probably mean?| A．Tiredness. | B．Concern. | C．Dislike. | D．Satisfaction. |
| A．Review her lessons carefully. |
| B．Join in more group discussions. |
| C．Encourage herself by thinking positively. |
| D．Write her thoughts down to remove stress. |
| A．It helps students get smarter during the exam. |
| B．It can’t lead to success until used for a long period. |
| C．It is designed for students who do poorly in school. |
| D．It can help increase students’ scores and confidence. |
| A．Thoughts influence actions. |
| B．Sometimes hard work doesn’t work. |
| C．It’s easy to improve self-confidence. |
| D．All things are hard before they are easy. |
7 . Many people think the more time is spent, the more work will be done. So students have to spend the whole
It is
A horse runs faster after a
| A．day | B．morning | C．afternoon | D．week |
| A．never | B．common | C．glad | D．hardly |
| A．books | B．interests | C．sports | D．friends |
| A．busy | B．pleased | C．away | D．tired |
| A．For | B．With | C．Though | D．Because |
| A．until | B．when | C．at | D．on |
| A．good | B．poor | C．careful | D．happy |
| A．better | B．afraid | C．worse | D．wonderful |
| A．minute | B．moment | C．meal | D．rest |
| A．kept | B．changed | C．same | D．different |
提示：发送电子邮件或电子贺卡；打电话或发送手机短信；邮寄贺卡或礼物等。
注意：
1. 词数：80—100词左右；
2. 可以适当发挥，以使短文连贯。
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9 . Prices for collectible baseball cards seem to be rocketing. A Mike Trout card was sold for $3.9 million in 2016. A 1952 Mickey Mantle card jumped to $5.2 million on January 15. 2021. Even a Spencer Torkelson card is worth thousands right now. Spencer Torkelson may become an All-Star one day. But he is just a 21-year-old who has just joined the Detroit Tigers recently.
A baseball card is a mass-produced picture of a professional (职业的) baseball player, not an original work of art. Spencer Torkelson is not Oscar-Claude Monet, although we don’t know yet what a guy with a bat in his hands could do in the future.
Then, what makes a baseball card worth thousands, sometimes millions of dollars? John List, the University of Chicago economist, told me. “The sports card market is doing well because it’s part nostalgic (怀旧), part art and part potential profit (利润). That combination is what’s magical.”
I am a sports fan, and certainly had baseball cards as a kid. Friends still send me an occasional card, as a gift, which I treasure. But I think the true charm of baseball cards is when they are cheap. Children should be able to trade them, put them in their pockets or under their pillows with you worrying they’re damaging some future windfall.
But professional baseball card traders typically don’t even open the packs to see what players are in them and keep them stored for future sale. Eventually, they put the cards almost out of reach for children, who used to be the market for baseball cards.
Can the multi-million-dollar cards stand for what we value? I don’t think so. We have learned again and again that the most truly valuable players among us are those who treat the sick, keep communities safe, teach children. I’d like to see prices paid to those kinds of all-stars go up, too.
1. What is Oscar-Claude Monet?| A．An artist. | B．A doctor. | C．A teacher. | D．A baseball player. |
| A．They love the classical paintings. |
| B．They can trade them for big money |
| C．They are good childhood memories. |
| D．They can get fun from the collection. |
| A．Pocket money. | B．An expensive gift. |
| C．Unexpected profit. | D．An occasional present. |
| A．The other important professionals aren’t well-paid. |
| B．The other sportsmen should get higher salaries as well. |
| C．It is fair for the baseball stars to get such high payments. |
| D．Children might be able to learn the right values from those cards. |
10 . Ask people in the UK what the words “Sunday roast” mean to them, and they’ll probably take you back to their grandmothers’ dining rooms - maybe with a few stories of “the greatest puddings” and “the best ever steak”. But now the traditional Sunday roast seems to have been left back in the old days. According to the Daily Mail, just one in 50 British families sits down to this weekly meal together.
There are many reasons why the roast is becoming less popular. In the busy modern world, where breakfast is a slice of toast eaten on the way to work or school and lunch is a quick sandwich in front of the computer screen, people just don’t seem to have the time or patience to make a roast.
And Sunday was once a day when people could easily go to the kitchen to cook. Nowadays, people are often out shopping or at the cinema until it’s far too late to start thinking about heating the oven (烤箱) up.
However, a recent article from The Telegraph warned against being carried away by our tight schedules: “It would be a shame to let this fine old tradition disappear.”
The Guardian further explained that the eating of the big meal is only the half of it. The Sunday roast also makes for relaxed morning activities in the kitchen, and the table becomes the perfect place to share good food and chat with family and friends. “For busy moms and dads, even if you can manage to turn off your mobile phone and the TV only once a week and turn the Sunday roast into a real family event, children can have fun cooking the food and clearing up together.”
1. Why do people pay less attention to Sunday roast?| A．They have a busy lifestyle. |
| B．They have no interest in cooking. |
| C．They don’t think it worthwhile. |
| D．They are living in the modern society. |
| A．A recent article. | B．A traditional kitchen. |
| C．The fine old tradition. | D．The Sunday morning activity. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Positive. |
| C．Uncertain. | D．Sorry. |
| A．Sunday-Best Time for Family | B．Sunday Roast Dying Out |
| C．It’s the Perfect Time for Us | D．Let’s Sit Down Together |
