1 . There are many differences in ways of thinking between East and West. Many of them are reflected in daily behaviour. In particular, Chinese people sometimes attach more importance to their appearance and social status than to their inner qualities, while Westerners think the opposite. However, Socrates (Ancient Greek philosopher) and Confucius share significant similarities that are universal.
Both philosophers share several teachings in common; for example, their understanding of the nature of knowledge and their opinions on education. Socrates believed “There is only one good, knowledge;and only one evil, ignorance.” Similarly, Confucius said, “Isn’t it a pleasure to study and practice what you have learned?” But both also acknowledge the limits of knowledge. Socrates said: “All I know is that I know nothing.” Similarly, Confucius said, “When you know a thing, to hold you know it; when you don’t know a thing, to allow you don’t know it-this is knowledge.”
However, there are important differences in their understanding of morality. Confucius believed each person should follow certain regulations according to virtue(德行). Everyone should play their role in a society where people are interdependent in order to achieve harmony in the whole society. For instance, when asked how to govern a country, Confucius stated “An emperor should act like an emperor, a subject should act like a subject.” Socrates, however, places self-knowledge over social knowledge.
Another difference between them is their attitude towards political domination(支配). Confucius believed the best way to govern a country isn’t through legal system, but through virtue. Socrates, by contrast, declared that “nothing is more important than justice”.
Why have East and West developed such different cultural values? A widely accepted theory holds that Eastern civilization was an agricultural civilization. Hence the need for a collective society and friendly relations with neighbors was strong. Western civilization, however, was nomadic(游牧的). Their mobility makes them less dependent on society after migration.
In spite of their differences, the two cultures have more in common than differences. The shared concern for moral values in the teachings of Socrates and Confucius also shows us more fundamental similarities between Eastern and Western cultures in their pursuit of virtuous lives.
1. What do the two philosophers share about knowledge?| A．The learning of knowledge is easy. | B．The learning of knowledge is endless. |
| C．A man without knowledge is foolish. | D．A man shall not pretend to understand. |
| A．Nothing is more important than a legal system. |
| B．I am not a Chinese, but a citizen of the world. |
| C．Not everyone should play his own role in society. |
| D．A man does what is proper to the position he is in. |
| A．The difference in political atmosphere. | B．The difference in the length of history. |
| C．The difference in economic development. | D．The difference in levels of social dependency. |
| A．Reasons for similarities of Eastern and Western cultures. |
| B．The introduction of great figures of two different cultures. |
| C．Comparisons of the thoughts of the two great philosophers. |
| D．The contributions of two great philosophers to civilization. |
Throughout history, many species of animals have been threatened with
The reason is that elephants are a common resource, while cows are private goods. Elephants wander
3 . Imagine being an Olympic racer. Before stepping onto the track, you have to decide which pair of shoes to wear: One made from sustainable materials or a traditionally built model? If you’re like most people, you’d opt for the non-sustainable version. Consumer behavior research indicates sustainable products are often assumed to be weaker, less durable and perform worse than non-sustainable ones.
But are there instances in which sustainability is not a liability? To investigate this, researchers conducted a series of studies. They theorized that under some circumstances, sustainability may provide a halo effect, meaning that being perceived as sustainable also leads consumers to assume other positive characteristics about them as well.
In the first study, 595 participants were asked to make judgments about several household products like washing powder. The results suggest one’s values do play a role: People with higher environmental values viewed sustainable products as also being higher-performing, thus lending support for the halo effect theory.
The second experiment looked specifically at the effect of messaging, testing to see whether focusing the sustainability claims on the company, as opposed to the product, would be more effective in driving participants’ belief in product performance. 270 participants were asked. The results suggest that associating sustainability with the company has a much larger impact than messaging about product sustainability.
Study 3 sought to further expand these mechanisms by examining the influence of societal impact. 148 participants who saw various advertisements for products either described as having a “sustainable benefit” or “societal benefit” were more likely to see the products as being of higher performance if they were presented as positively impacting society, above and beyond merely being sustainable, supporting the idea that the halo effect is driven by the belief of the company as a moral agent engaged in socially beneficial behavior.
Contrary to previous thinking, this research illustrates that sustainability claims can produce positive belief about product performance in the above conditions. Like the track star, consumers often feel sustainability and performance exclude each other. When the brand (品牌) presents it just the right way, there doesn’t need to be a trade-off. These can be one and the same.
1. What does the underlined word “liability” in paragraph 2 mean?| A．Priority. | B．Secret. | C．Drag. | D．Target. |
| A．highlight the product | B．are aimed to generate profits |
| C．contrast with consumers’ values | D．are made about the company itself |
| A．Previous experience. | B．Sales statistics. |
| C．Respondents’ opinions. | D．Social phenomenon. |
| A．How Green Products Benefit Consumers |
| B．How Consumers View Company Culture |
| C．How Sustainability Claims Impact Product Quality |
| D．How Psychology Helps the Belief in Green Products |
4 . Famous adventurer Caroline Paul noticed females show less bravery than men and tend to shy away from adventure-seeking outdoor activities even before puberty (青春期).
But how come women seem to be much less gutsy than men? Paul found the answer to be in the way they are raised. Parents more likely warn girls than boys about accidents and demand carefulness. When playing outdoors, they tend to discourage daughters from taking risks and assist them, as if they were too delicate to do it by themselves, while they encourage their sons’ initiative, letting them push their boundaries on their own. Fearful girls in plays as kids become less daring women in real life as adults.
Paul was different. Her mother made it a point to raise fearless daughters, supporting her thirst for physical challenges. Paul became one of San Francisco’s first 15 female firefighters and completed many seemingly impossible missions like walking up the. Golden Gate Bridge and climbing Denali, the worst-weathered mountain of Alaska.
Paul thought sharing her adventures and inspiration with young women would help them get better. The result, The. Gutsy Girl: Escapades for Your Life of Epic Adventure, is a book for girls, in which she outlines the attempts, successes, and failures of her adventures.
Parents are warned that most of Paul’s adventures aren’t the kind they’d want their girls to try and she says so herself, over and over warning: safety first. What, however, parents should hope their girls try is to dream big and forget fear.
“The pressure girls face at puberty to be pretty and liked is enormous,” Paul said in the book, stressing that a familiarity with outdoor adventures works as a solution to that and makes for real-life training. Plus, not all of Paul’s adventures end in success, which is great: daring means daring to fail, too — something females are particularly scared of.
Paul’s book will convince any female that she, too, is bound to have a life of heroic adventure — whether it’s in the woods or in the boardroom.
1. What does the underlined word “gutsy” in paragraph 2 mean?| A．Energetic. | B．Optimistic. | C．Flexible. | D．Courageous. |
| A．How they are brought up. | B．Their innocent nature. |
| C．How their parents behave. | D．Social discrimination against them. |
| A．Try to stay slim and pretty. | B．Sign up for a jungle exploration. |
| C．Put risk-taking before security. | D．Act perfectly to keep failure at bay. |
| A．To give tips on how to be ambitious. |
| B．To recommend a book intended for girls. |
| C．To assess Paul’s strengths and weaknesses. |
| D．To present a long-standing cultural phenomenon. |
5 . Parenting styles have changed over the years in response to the rapid changes in the world. Whether it is tapping technology or applying the best parenting practices to meet a parenting need, parents nowadays generally invest more time in finding out how best to raise their children.
Modern parents often look to the internet and social media for parenting advice. The availability of resources has helped modern parents engage more in their children’s development, both academically and emotionally. Modern parents are also more eager to find out effective parenting methods to help them raise disciplined and confident children.
A modern parenting style that has emerged is helicopter parenting, where parents are much too focused on their children. They help children with tasks they’re capable of doing on their own, like selecting activities and friends for them, or calling their teachers about homework matters. Such a parenting style can hold back the development of the children’s ability to handle responsibilities independently. Children might be ill-equipped with life skills such as doing laundry (洗衣),clearing their plates or coping with their schoolwork. Always protecting children from failures may also prevent them developing adaptability and acquiring skills like problem-solving.
On the other hand, parents in the past tended to monitor less. Children were given more control over how to manage their schoolwork and choose their friends. Domestic helpers were also not the norm then, hence children of the past were often expected to shoulder the responsibilities of caring for younger brothers and sisters and managing housework. Living in the pre-internet age, parents were less informed about different parenting methods, and their parenting styles were guided more by their personalities, common sense and friendly advice from the extended family and neighbors, rather than by social media influences or parenting websites.
There is no one right way to raise a child. Each child is unique and should be raised differently by parents who are present but not wandering, who are supportive but not controlling, and who protect but not care too much.
1. What does the underlined word “tapping” mean in paragraph 1?| A．Employing. |
| B．Tracking. |
| C．Monitoring. |
| D．Identifying. |
| A．Flexible. |
| B．Efficient. |
| C．Conventional. |
| D．Overinvolved. |
| A．They educated kids in a rigid way. |
| B．They overestimated their kids’ independence. |
| C．They afforded kids more space for self-growth. |
| D．They tended to stay away from social activities. |
| A．How to raise all-round children. |
| B．How to enhance parent-child bonds. |
| C．How parenting modes have shifted over the years. |
| D．How information technology boosts people’s lifestyles. |
6 . The slogan of a University of Northern Iowa clothing exchange also serves as the perfect description of a fashion currently popular among students: thrifting-trading clothes with friends informally or through campus events and websites such as Swapstyle or at a thrift store.
Students are becoming increasingly vocal champions of this creative and commercial effort and the culture it represents. The act of thrifting is at the heart of the rise in students’ do-it-yourself (DIY) fashion shows and themed parties in which clothes must be handmade-composed of older, organic or recyclable items.
More broadly, the thrifting movement represents a generational switch built on five basic beliefs: old is new, mixing is far better than matching exchanging beats shopping, the best things in life are free (or incredibly cheap), and social responsibility is the new black.
According to recent campus and professional press reports, more students are thrifting so they can remain fashionable during the economic downturn.
They are giving up brand loyalty. They are also increasingly unwilling or unable to buy things at full price. Instead, they are seeking discounted ways to stand out stylistically, including making certain classic clothes the next big things.
“It’s often hard to find two of the same clothing items in a thrift store. You can leave knowing that the special outfit you are getting for your major event, no one will have,” Saint Xavier University rising senior Sydney Bennett confirms. “Because a lot of the items in thrift stores are classic, you will have a chance to showcase a ‘recycled style’ that is just like new for our generation.”
To this end, Bennett calls thrifting “a treasure hunt and shopping experience rolled into one ”.
1. Which item of the following will disqualify you for DIY fashion shows?| A．A newly-bought dress. | B．A pair of washed-out jeans. |
| C．An out-dated sweater. | D．A second-hand cotton jacket. |
| A．It’ll damage economy. | B．It’s a temporary success. |
| C．It was started by the government. | D．It reflects a change in philosophy of life. |
| A．Getting anything for nothing. | B．Staying loyal to the brand. |
| C．Seeking out unique items. | D．Buying as many clothes as possible. |
| A．To evaluate a rule. | B．To clarify a concept. |
| C．To introduce a new trend. | D．To recommend a way of life. |
7 . When Andre too the stand in a courtroom on a fall afternoon in 2022, he testified (作证) to the financial worth of an old-growth redwood.
Andre is a registered professional forester in California. Before his testification, foresters from Redwood National and State Parks in northern California were deep into a months-long investigation of burl poaching (树瘤偷猎). Burls, the bark covered growths that can stick out from a tree’s trunk, produce a wood that’s valued for its unique grain and smooth workability. Because of their beauty and relative rarity, old-growth burls fetch very high prices and are eventually turned into tables and bowls, or carved into statues.
Burl poaching is an ongoing concern in northern California’s parks. It affects the stability of some of the only old-growth coastal redwoods: Only 4% of the coastal redwoods remain, and 45% of those are conserved in park boundaries. When someone poaches a burl from one of these ancient trees, it leaves the tree with structural damage that can kill it, and makes it more subject to disease.
When poaching cases are brought to trial, judges are tasked with arguing for a punishment that takes a tree’s worth into account. The reliance on a purely market-based fine is gradually falling from favor. Judges have started arguing more forcefully for valuation that considers the forest as a complex ecosystem, within which old-growth is just a single, yet crucial, element. It’s a shift from the easily quantifiable toward a multi-aspect consideration of worth. The gravity of poaching is most felt, not simply the loss of a marketable resource. The new strategy is partly due to the surprisingly low fines for poachers, usually based on that week’s wood market data.
Finally, the judges handed down two years’ probation (缓刑), community service hours and a $1,200 fine to the poacher. Although judges and foresters continue to argue for expanding definitions of “worth”", poaching from American forests still remains worth the risk.
1. What drives poachers to steal old growth redwood burls?| A．The absence of a forest law. | B．The burls’ medicinal properties. |
| C．The commercial profits from burls. | D．The burls’ fast reproduction ability. |
| A．Where redwoods are distributed. |
| B．How many varieties of redwoods exist. |
| C．What threat burl poaching poses to redwoods. |
| D．Why California’s parks are home to redwoods. |
| A．Overall value of the tree. | B．Previous poaching cases. |
| C．Average wood market prices. | D．Environmental impacts of the tree. |
| A．It fails to reach desired effects. |
| B．It causes panic among poachers. |
| C．It discourages people from poaching. |
| D．It guarantees reasonable sentences to poachers. |
8 . Drone hobbyists will be required to register their aircraft with the government or face unspecified penalties (处罚), the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced a new law on Monday.
The move is an attempt to prevent drones endangering air safety, as the number of complaints about errant (偏离的) flyers has skyrocketed in recent months, the FAA said.
“We are certainly seeing a significant increase in reports,” Huerta, administrator of the FAA, said. “Clearly, this is an industry that is taking off. And there are a lot of activities taking place in the national airspace system.”
Drones are taking to the skies in groups, and the number of tiny flyers is expected to multiply in the coming years. Amazon and Google aim to use drones to deliver commercial goods in the next decade. Already this year, pilots and others have reported 100 complaints about drones a month, roughly double the rate of complaints in 2021, the FAA said. Many of those complaints are about close calls, in which drones narrowly miss other aircraft.
The FAA bars people from flying drones within 5 miles of an airport, or higher than 400 feet above the ground. But increasingly, drone pilots are breaking those rules. In August, for instance, two airplanes landing at Kennedy International Airport came within 100 feet of a drone flying at a height of roughly 800 feet. When such drones violate (侵犯) airspace, the government currently has no way to locate their operators.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the FAA are working out the details, but right now, the new registry wouldn’t require drones to carry trackers. And it wouldn’t institute a policy of “geofencing”, which involves creating marked-off safe spaces where drones would automatically be deactivated.
“Unless a drone crashes, it could be difficult to identify tiny flyers from sight alone. But our biggest challenge so far has not been identifying the drone itself. It’s been connecting it back to the person who’s using it,” said Foxx, secretary of the TSA.
1. Why did the FAA announce the law?| A．To promote drones’ business services. |
| B．To regulate drones for airspace security. |
| C．To adjust the flight direction of errant drones. |
| D．To charge people for personal use of airspace. |
| A．Frees. | B．Saves. | C．Distracts. | D．Prohibits. |
| A．Building safe drone airspace. |
| B．Tracking down the drone pilots. |
| C．Publicizing current flight rules. |
| D．Planting trackers on the drones. |
| A．Drones Will Get People in Trouble |
| B．America Is Expanding Drone Industry |
| C．Complaints About Drones Continue to Pour in |
| D．Flying Unregistered Drones Will Be Illegal in the US |
According to a survey, most Chinese young netizens are in favor of videos featuring traditional culture. That
China Chic, or guochao, features fancy designs mixed with elements from traditional culture. It became widely
China Chic has changed from a consumption trend
The concept
China Chic expresses traditional culture with the language of pop culture, bringing it closer to young people. Eager to show their personalities to the .world, young people find national identity a good way to distinguish
10 . In need of some encouragement? Students at West Side Union Grade School in California are providing just that in recorded messages on a free telephone hotline.
Peptoc is an art project created by teachers Asherah Weiss and Jessica Martin of this school. Peptoc is how Martin’s son, a first-grader at the school, spelled “pep talk”, which refers to a speech attempting to input enthusiasm and determination in a team.
The project consists of student-made motivational flyers (海报), and a hotline with pre-recorded pep talks and life advice from kids aged 5 — 12.
Dial 707-998-8410 and you will be greeted with the following message: “If you’re feeling mad, depressed or nervous, press one. If you need words of encouragement and life advice, press two. If you need a pep talk from kindergarteners, press three. If you need to hear kids laughing with delight, press four.”
Since its launch last month, the hotline has been receiving up to 9,000 calls per hour. Martin said she had signed up for the cheapest hotline provider she could find, thinking the kids would be excited to hear 100 people had called in a month. “And then two days later, we’re getting 500 an hour, and now we’re getting 9,000 an hour.”
Patients at Johns Hopkins Medical Center had been regularly calling the hotline. Rima Meechan, the school’s principal, heard from a woman with cancer who called during her treatment. Weiss said she had seen the school’s office manager in tears on the phone with the administrator of an elder care facility, where most patients are over 90 years old. The administrator was calling to thank all of the kids, because he played it for everyone who was part of that facility, and he said, “I haven’t heard laughter like that from them in years.”
Weiss and Martin said it’s more than just the messages. “Adults support children, but we don’t really celebrate how much they support us,” Martin said, “And to be able to be consoled by them gives us great hope that maybe we’re all going to be okay.”
1. What will the caller obtain through the hotline?| A．Parental motivation. | B．Operators’ friendly service. |
| C．Experts’ real-time guidance. | D．Kids’ recorded inspiring words. |
| A．The rapid popularity of the hotline. |
| B．The contribution of art education to society. |
| C．The general phenomenon of anxiety disorder. |
| D．The dramatic change in patients’ values of life. |
| A．Accompanied. | B．Concerned. | C．Comforted. | D．Admired. |
| A．To promote the free telephone hotline. |
| B．To offer positive energy to needy people. |
| C．To help students express themselves freely. |
| D．To fuel students’ enthusiasm for public affairs. |
