1 . Digital reading appears to be destroying habits of “deep reading”. Amazing numbers of people with year of schooling are in effect illiterate (不识字的). Admittedly, some people have been complaining about new media since 1492, but today’s complaints have an evidential basis, Ljubljana Reading Manifesto says, “The digital area may lead to more reading than ever in history, but it also offers many attractions to read in a shallow and scattered (碎片化的) manner— or even not to read at all. This increasingly endangers higher-level reading.”
Digital literacy has changed reading. When you read a book on paper, you can be entirely inside the experience, absorbing hundreds of pages to capture the world’s complexity. Online, says Maryanne Wolf of UCLA, we are “skimming, scanning, scrolling”. The medium is the message: doing deep reading on your phone is as hard as playing tennis with your phone. Recently, a bright 11-year-old told me I was wasting time on books: he absorbed more information faster from Wikipedia. He had a point. But digital readers also absorb more misinformation. And they seldom, absorb nuanced (微妙的) ideas.
In the white paper that underlies the Ljubljana Reading Manifesto, experts catalogue the passive parts of digital reading: “Recent studies of various kinds indicate a decline of... critical and conscious reading, slow reading, non-strategic reading and long-form reading.” In the 2021 international PISA survey, 49 percent of students agreed that “I read only if I have to”, 13 percentage points higher than in 2000.
As professors from Northwestern University foresaw in 2005, we are returning to the days when only an elite (精英的) “reading class” consumes long texts —despite more people spending longer in education and book sales remaining robust.
People who lose higher-level reading skills also lose thinking skills. That’s horrible, because “higher-level reading” has been essential to civilization. It enabled the Enlightenment, and an international rise in sympathy for people who aren’t like us.
1. What is the advantage of the digital reading?| A．It makes more people start to read widely. |
| B．It makes more people begin to think deeper. |
| C．It helps the young to make use of the Internet. |
| D．It helps people take advantage of their spare time. |
| A．Supportive. | B．Opposed. | C．Objective. | D．Unconcerned. |
| A．Teens should change the critical and conscious reading. |
| B．Nearly half of the teens never read at all. |
| C．They don’t believe what the experts indicate. |
| D．The trend of reading books is increasingly declining. |
| A．More and more books are purchased. |
| B．It’s unnecessary for people to buy books. |
| C．More and more people like to visit the bookstores. |
| D．The sales of books keep still for a really long time. |
In a specially designed studio theater in Hangzhou, New Dragon Gate Inn, a traditional Shaoxing Opera performance
As the play gains popularity in the past weeks, Chen Lijun,
3 . Making travel a surprise
Most people plan their vacations well in advance, including where they are going.
Earlier this year, mystery box purchases surged (激增) among young American people. Usually, travelers buy a mystery box at a low price—usually 100 or 200 dollars—and then receive several destination options to choose from.
A citizen named Carrie is eager to go on a mystery box trip, stating that travelling alone usually costs too much and that too many people don’t know where to go. ”However, the mystery box directly offers me a few destinations, which is wonderful and cheap,“ Carrie said.
Gary, 16, has turned his eagerness to go on a mystery box trip into a reality.
| A．It is the state capital of Texas |
| B．Tourism is a major source of income for the area |
| C．After the destination is decided, their trip begins |
| D．But some like the thrill of not knowing where they will end up |
| E．Months ago, he traveled with a group of friends to Austin in Texas |
| F．Travel mystery boxes bring excitement to many less popular destinations |
| G．But even so, a large number of people feel disappointed with travel mystery boxes |
Cruise, an autonomous-vehicle company, is suspending all its driverless operations across the US. The decision is based on an accident in which a Cruise robotaxi
On Oct 2, the car hit a woman and she
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While the journey of driverless cars is not without obstacles, the eventual destination is bound
5 . It’s perhaps the world’s most famous underwater attraction that remained in film and in legend: the Titanic. But now experts say the ocean liner, once a wonder of the high seas, is falling to pieces.
Capt. Alfred McLaren, the scientist who in July led the most recent expedition to the ship’s underwater grave, said his team saw clear signs of the accelerating damage of the wreck (残骸). There was damage likely caused by rust and sea life, and the captain’s cabin had collapsed.
“I was absolutely astonished,” McLaren said.
Worse still, the fallen mast (桅杆) that crushed the ship’s deck is believed by many to be the result of an unapproved salvage (打捞) operation. “It was almost depressing to see how quickly she was getting worse,” McLaren says. “I would be really surprised if there’s very much standing up from the bottom, two decades from now.”
Ed Kamuda, who runs the Titanic Historical Society in Springfield, Mass., says adventure tourists — who pay $36,000 each to visit the wreck — are also contributing to the destruction of it.
“This is something I expected. I just didn’t expect it to happen so quickly,” Kamuda said. “People are going down just as an ego trip to say ‘I was there.’ All this takes a fare on the ship.”
The Titanic has sat at the bottom of the Atlantic since it sank after hitting an iceberg on its maiden voyage on April 14, 1912. More than 1,500 people died that night. The ship came to rest at the bottom of the freezing North Atlantic, more than 2 miles beneath the waves. The wreck was discovered in 1985, and since then it has been repeatedly visited by treasure hunters.
But still some scientists say those divers, and other thrill seekers are not necessarily to blame for the Titanic’s current problems.
Capt. Craig McLean of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration went on an expedition to the Titanic in June as part of a government study that is monitoring the condition of the ship. He says it’s unclear what part of the damage is from Mother Nature and which is from human nature.
“It’s too early and there isn’t enough evidence to put our fingers on anything,” McLean said.
Regardless, most agree there’s little that can be done for this most famous of wrecks. And soon, the mighty Titanic could well be lost again.
1. McLaren expected that in twenty years _______.| A．Only a minor part of the wreck would remain as it is |
| B．The wreck would be getting worse at a faster speed |
| C．Only salvage operation with the purpose of research would be approved |
| D．The wreck would be completely destroyed by unapproved treasure hunters |
| A．To contribute to the breaking down of the Titanic. | B．To help finance the preservation of the Titanic. |
| C．To satisfy their curiosity and adventurousness. | D．To better understand the history of the Titanic. |
| A．Visitors should not be prohibited from the Titanic and other famous wrecks |
| B．The influence of the thrill seekers on the wreck will finally be determined |
| C．The government should contribute more to the monitoring of the Titanic |
| D．The damage of the Titanic is not necessarily attributed to the adventure tourists |
| A．promising | B．discouraging | C．controllable | D．vague |
1. What is the talk mainly about?
| A．Old people’s lives. | B．A supermarket chain. | C．Services for the elderly. |
| A．She lost her phone by accident. |
| B．She was cheated through phone. |
| C．She was unable to make calls. |
| A．True Call. | B．Safeway. | C．Red & Yellow Care. |
| A．Businessmen. | B．Sick people. | C．Senior customers. |
7 . Well over half of the average diet in the UK and US now consists of ultra-processed food (UPF) — or, as one scientist prefers to put it, industrially produced edible (可食用的) substances. Though defining it technically is complex, the simple explanation is that it contains items you wouldn’t normally find in a kitchen.
Sometimes UPF looks like junk food obviously artificial and high in salt, fat and sugar. But it often comes in reliable forms such as soup, muesli or yogurt. Unfortunately, almost every food that comes with a health claim on the packet is UPF. And a vast body of data has emerged in support of the theory that UPF damages the human body and increases rates of cancer, mental illness, etc.
Produced by a handful of multinational companies, UPF is created to be cheap to produce and transport, with industrially derived (提取的) substances replacing costlier ingredients (原料) and ensuring long shelf lives. It is also designed to make us buy more — essential in a system where businesses must keep growing to satisfy their shareholders each quarter. Global consumption is rising fast, especially in middle-income countries.
The impact is firstly on individual bodies, but through them on health services. This is a social problem that cannot be solved by telling consumers to check product labels. UPF consumption is not propelled by laziness or greed, but poverty, intensive marketing and foods designed to make us keep eating:
Taking on big food is harder than tackling big tobacco has been. It requires addressing a broad range of products that many people cannot simply cut out. But it is possible and necessary. Addressing poverty is central: when people can afford to eat more healthily, they generally do. The government should ensure that people learn not only about the risks of UPF, but also about how to eat well. Measures should be taken to ensure that the food consumption is pushed by nutritional needs and appetites — not by financialised growth.
1. What can we know about UPF?| A．It can’t be found in a kitchen. | B．It looks like junk food but is healthy. |
| C．It is most popular in rich countries. | D．It may harm physical and mental health. |
| A．Forbidden. | B．Proved. | C．Driven. | D．Assessed. |
| A．To handle the tobacco problem first. | B．To limit the production of UPF. |
| C．To ban people from consuming UPF. | D．To raise people’s awareness of healthy diet. |
| A．UPF: Blame Businesses, Not Consumers | B．UPF: Convenience Food |
| C．UPF: Time to Reach More People | D．UPF: A Sensitive Issue |
8 . As we walked along the street recently, my friend suddenly sighed, “How I miss the ice-cream my grandma used to buy me after school!”
But it was just one of the fair-priced treats.
I miss the good old days too, but on second thoughts, I don’t believe that some expensive ice-cream means the market is “corrupted”.
Zhao Xuekuan, a senior ice-cream dealer agrees with me. His shop has probably the widest variety of ice-creams m the market.
| A．They don’t choose cheaper ones |
| B．The other day I read a post on Weibo |
| C．While walking, she was licking on one |
| D．The development of a market has its own rules |
| E．For the past few months, many cities went through lockdown |
| F．Of course, market supervisors should still monitor ice-cream pricing closely |
| G．He said that the bestsellers in his shop are always classic types that cost less than 5 yuan each |
9 . “Always wear sunscreen.” “Eat a balanced diet.” “A penny saved is a penny earned.” You probably all learned these lessons as a kid. But chances are, despite knowing these, you still stepped outside without putting on sunscreen, gulped an entire bag of chips in one go or spent more money than you had expected.
It’s a mistaken idea that knowing is half the battle. In most situations, just knowing something is not nearly enough for you to put it into practice.
| A．How to address that? |
| B．But it is often not the case. |
| C．So what is the reason for it? |
| D．Information doesn’t always change behavior. |
| E．Behavior change is not educational pursuit but an environmental one. |
| F．They refer to financial education as a way that can make money for them. |
| G．Targeted ads are getting more personalized; everything around you is focusing on spending. |
10 . Scot Case, Vice President of the environmental marketing firm Terra Choice, was not happy. Case last year sent his researchers into a big-box retail store to evaluate the green advertising claims of some of the products on its shelves. The results were shocking, of the 1,018 products Terra Choice surveyed, all but one failed to live up fully to their green boasts.
He couldn’t believe the result, and had his team redo the survey, but the results came back the same. “It just shows we’re awash in greenwash.” He said.
Many consumers may not have heard the term green washing, but they’ve surely experienced it — misleading marketing about the environmental benefits of a product. Greenwashing isn’t new — ever since the environment was an issue in the early 1970s. As going green has become big business, environmental advocates worry that truly green companies could get lost in the situation.
“We have such a challenge ahead of us on climate change, says Kevin Tuerff, a co-founder of the marketing consultancy EnviroMedia. “Greenwashing harms the effort we need to be making.”
The first step to cleaning up greenwashing is to identify it, and Tuerff and his partners have hit on an innovative way to spotlight particularly abnormal examples. They’ve launched the Greenwashing Index a website that allows consumers to post ads that might be examples of greenwashing and rate them on a scale of 1 to 5 — 1 is a little green lie; S is a big green lie.
It’s a simple device, but it shows the power of the Interne to uncover misleading ads with a simple Web search, any consumer can find out the index they want to know. Googling isn’t the only way to take out the greenwashing, however. The Terra Choice website offers a list of what it calls the “six sins of greenwashing” — six simple signs that should remind consumers of a company that is more interested in selling the earth than saving it.
“We have better green products but a lot of exaggerated (夸张的) claims,” says Case. “That could be enough to destroy the whole green movement” — and that’s not a little green lie.
1. Which of the following statements is TRUE about greenwashing?| A．It is harmful for the environment. |
| B．It is a special way to wash so as to save water. |
| C．It is environment-friendly so it should be advocated. |
| D．It is beneficial for both the consumers and the companies. |
| A．Holding hearings to tell genuine environmental claims from false ones. |
| B．Launching the Greenwashing Index a website to expose greenwashing. |
| C．Offering a list of “six sins of greenwashing” for companies’ reference. |
| D．Updating Green Guide for consumers which hasn’t changed since 1998. |
| A．Organic products but without any certificates. |
| B．Energy-efficient products made of harmful material. |
| C．Food which is low in nutrition but high in calorie. |
| D．Pesticides which are said to be environment-friendly. |
| A．The effort on environmental protection. |
| B．The advocation of green advertisements. |
| C．The distinction between green products and common ones. |
| D．The distinction between real environmental claims and false ones. |
