1 . China’s generation-Z is not “lying flat”, a phrase for giving up on hard work, as is often claimed, and making constant efforts to do everything is still the mainstream of a group who believes success should be achieved by constant efforts, Chinese officials said at a press briefing on Thursday, in response to a question on how younger generations should achieve balance between a lifestyle of “lying flat” in face of high pressure and involution.
“Most Chinese youth hold an optimistic view on the future, and the saying ‘lying flat’ is more of a joke to release pressure and express their feelings,” He Junke, the First Secretary of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of Communist Youth League of China (CYLC), said at a press briefing of the State Council Information Office on Thursday.
At the press briefing, China released the first nationwide white paper on youth development titled “Youth of China in the New Era,” which showed achievements linked to the country’s youth development in the new era and reflected the spirit of younger generation. The white paper was also released ahead of the 100th anniversary of the founding of CYLC.
He said China has attached great importance to deeper issues reflected in the talk of “lying flat” among young generation, a result of increasing pressure from work, study and life caused by China’s unique demographic structure and highly competitive labor market.
“Some in the younger generation feel confused or lost. In response, authorities have scaled up (扩大) the amount of support available to help solve their issues in education, employment, marriage and child raising,” He noted, while urging the whole society to support the mental development and psychology of generation-Z.
He Junke pointed out that it is also important for certain young people to realize that it is unrealistic to build a career without taking responsibility and making efforts. “All happiness is achieved through devoted efforts, and making constant efforts is also a kind of happiness,” He stressed.
1. What does the underlined word “involution” in paragraph 1 mean?A.The cruel external competition. |
B.The healthy external competition. |
C.A great change in conditions. |
D.A complete circular movement. |
A.He thinks that “lying flat” is useful to release pressure. |
B.He laughs at most Chinese youth who give up hard work. |
C.He thinks that “lying flat” is fun to express their feelings. |
D.He disagrees that most Chinese youth is giving up working hard. |
A.Problem of “lying flat” reflected deeper issues. |
B.More and more young people choose to lie flat in China. |
C.Young people face great pressure in their study and work. |
D.China’s population structure affects the supply of labor market. |
A.To encourage them to “lie flat” and avoid hard work. |
B.To create a highly competitive labor market for the younger generation. |
C.To push them to take on more responsibility and make concrete efforts. |
D.To help them solve their issues in education, employment, marriage, and child raising. |
Recently, a group of children from Nanning, Guangxi, wearing orange down jackets and blue pants, took
Each day, their attractive presence is trending on
To express gratitude for the hospitality (好客) received in Heilongjiang, a lot of tangerines from Lipu of Guangxi
3 . Greece has criticized the United Kingdom for canceling (取消) a planned meeting between Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, apparently so that Sunak could avoid talking about ancient artefacts (历史文物) that Greece says were taken illegally. Mitsotakis and Sunak were set to meet on Tuesday, but Sunak canceled it on Monday, reportedly after learning that Mitsotakis planned to talk about the Parthenon sculptures.
The UK government initially believed Mitsotakis would not talk about the sculptures, which are now in the British Museum. The sculptures were once part of the Parthenon in the Greek capital Athens. The row (纠纷) became more serious after Mitsotakis told the BBC on Sunday the UK’s offer to store some of the sculptures in London and some in Athens was akin to cutting the Mona Lisa in two. He also said the sculptures had been essentially stolen.
Mitsotakis said he was deeply disappointed by the abrupt cancellation of the meeting. “Those who firmly believe in the correctness and justice of their positions are never hesitant to engage in constructive argument and debate,” he was quoted by The Associated Press as saying. The BBC reported that sources in the Greek government were puzzled and annoyed by the meeting cancellation.
Greece has long criticized the way in which the Parthenon sculptures ended up in London, after they were bought by British diplomat Lord Elgin and shipped to the UK between 1801 and 1804. Because the two nations disagree on the legality of the deal and have firm positions, they have tended to avoid talking about the issue during high-level diplomatic meetings.
The UK’s Transport Secretary Mark Harper said on the BBC’s Breakfast program on Tuesday that it was regretful that the prime ministers would not meet during Mitsotakis’UK visit. He said Mitsotakis had been offered the chance to meet instead the UK’s deputy prime minister, Oliver Dowden, but he had refused the meeting. “The views of Greece on the Parthenon sculptures are well known,” Mitsotakis was quoted by The Guardian as saying. “I had hoped to have the opportunity to discuss them with UK Prime Minister along with other international challenges. ” The UK’s opposition Labour Party criticized Sunak for canceling the meeting and said his behavior appeared disrespectful.
1. Which can replace the underlined phrase “akin to” in paragraph 2?A.Contrary to. | B.Similar to. | C.Relevant to. | D.Adapted to |
A.An Englishman purchased them and sent them there. |
B.Some stole them and sold them to a British diplomat. |
C.The then Greek government presented them to the UK as a gift. |
D.The then British army took them by force and transported them there. |
A.He was too occupied with other affairs. |
B.He was supposed to meet UK Prime Minister. |
C.He didn’t approve of his words and behaviors. |
D.He had arranged for another official to meet him. |
A.Sunak and Mitsotakis set to meet on Tuesday |
B.Mitsotakis thinks highly of Greece artefacts stored in UK |
C.Mitsotakis plans to take back Parthenon sculptures from UK |
D.Greece’s arguing with UK about artefacts sparks diplomatic row |
4 . Going against the trend of going to well-known yet crowded tourist destinations on vacation, a growing number of holidaymakers in China are spending their holidays at less-known places to look for unique and relaxed holiday experiences. “Reverse tourism” (反向旅游) has appeared as a new trend among young holidaymakers in China.
During the weeklong public holiday, which ended on Oct 7, large numbers of vacationers, especially youth who long to escape their busy city lives, avoid popular holiday destinations in order to get off the beaten track and enjoy some peace and quietness.
According to data from online travel agency Qunar, the number of rooms booked at hotels in less-traveled cities during the holiday was up 30 percent year-on-year. Bookings for four and five-star hotels in less-traveled places, including Linxia in Gansu province and Shizuishan in Ningxia, all increased at least 10 times from the same period of 2021. Even 12.5 percent of youth who normally have little time for themselves simply had a time in a hotel to make the much-awaited holiday more relaxing.
Besides crowds, some vacationers chose less-traveled places to save on the cost of trips to popular destinations, which often involve expensive tickets, meals and hotel stays. What’s more, less-known attractions are able to offer more natural experiences, according to social media posts. And unlike popular destinations, some undeveloped places with little online attention can offer more surprises.
Jiang Han, a senior researcher at the Beijing-based public policy think tank Pangoal (盘古智库), said that reverse tourism will become one of the future directions for the market and is an opportunity for growth which can match the camping economy.
1. If you support “reverse tourism”, you will probably choose ________.A.a famous tourist destination on holidays |
B.a cheap and popular vacation |
C.a developed destination to enjoy yourself |
D.a less-known place for relaxed experiences |
A.By giving numbers. | B.By listing reasons. |
C.By comparing opinions. | D.By giving definitions. |
A.Negative. | B.Doubtful. |
C.Positive. | D.Unconcerned. |
A.Vacationers can save money while travelling. |
B.More and more people accept less-travelled destinations. |
C.People prefer to spend their holidays by travelling. |
D.Young people often have little time to travel around. |
5 . The World Health Organisation has produced a report predicting that 9.8 billion of us will be living on this planet by 2050. Of that number,72 percent will be living in urban areas. Presented with this information, governments have a duty to consider how best to meet the needs of city residents.
Take New York City, a place where I frequently meet up with other researchers in my field. Luckily for me, I do not need to navigate the crowded streets. Admittedly my experience of the urban lifestyle here is limited to the hotels I stay in, and the blocks within a three-kilometre walk. But whenever I leave my room in search of a store providing fruit or anything with nutritional value, none can be found. New York has made great advances in redeveloping its museums and arts centres, but authorities must recognise that people’s basic needs must be met first.
Sometimes these basic needs are misunderstood. In some urban areas, new residential developments are provided with security features such as massive metal fences in the belief that these will make residents safer. There is little evidence that such steps make a difference, but we do know they make residents feel unwilling to go outside and walk around their neighbourhood. This adds up to a feeling of being cut off from others.
So where are planners and developers going wrong? Inviting a group of locals to attend a consultation event is the conventional method for discovering what a community might want. The issue here is that it often attracts the same few voices with the same few wishes. Successful development is taking place in many urban areas around the world. There is no better way for city planners to do this than to visit these places in person.
1. What are governments expected to do in the near future?A.Plan cities well to benefit their citizens. |
B.Lower the population in urban areas. |
C.Provide their citizens with more information. |
D.Predict the population on earth. |
A.Certain venues cannot be reached on foot. |
B.Museums and arts centres are pretty old. |
C.There are a limited number of hotels. |
D.Healthy food is not easy to obtain. |
A.Doubtful. | B.Tolerant. | C.Unconcerned. | D.Appreciative. |
A.The Process of Urbanization | B.The Increasing Population on Earth |
C.The Management of Cities | D.The Work of Developers |
6 . “Few articles change owners more frequently than clothes. They travel downwards from grade to grade in the social scale with remarkable regularity,” wrote the journalist Adolphe Smith in 1877 as he traced a coat’s journey in the last century: cleaned, repaired and resold repeatedly; cut down into a smaller item; eventually recycled into new fabric. But with the improvement in people’s living standards, that model is mind-boggling in the era of fast fashion. The average British customer buys four items a month. And it is reported that 350,000 tonnes of used but still wearable clothes go to landfills in the UK each year.
Yet the gradual revival of the second-hand trade has gathered pace in the past few years. At fashion website Asos, sales of vintage clothes (古董衫) have risen by 92%. Clothing was once worn out of necessity, and now it is simply a way of life. Busy families sell used items on eBay, teenagers trade on Depop and some fashion people offer designer labels on Vestiaire Collective. Strikingly, it has become big enough business that mainstream retailers (零售商) want a slice of the action.
For some buyers and sellers, the switch to the second-hand is born of financial difficulties. Only a few have become worried about the impact of their shopping habit on the planet. But the shift is only a partial solution. Some people worry that some mainstream brands may “greenwash” — using second-hand goods to improve their image, rather than engaging more seriously with sustainability.
However, the biggest concern may be that people keep buying because they know they can resell goods, still chasing the pleasure of the next purchase but with an eased conscience (愧疚). Boohoo, a powerful fast fashion company, has seen sales and profits rise, despite concerns about environmental problems in its supply chain that led to an investigation last year.
A new Netflix series, Worn Stories, documents the emotional meanings that clothes can have: Each old item is full of memories. Actually, a handbag from a grandmother and a scarf passed on by a father are both valuable for us. A love of style is not a bad or an unimportant thing. But a committed relationship is better than a quick flash. Can we learn to appreciate our own old clothes as well as others’?
1. What does the word “mind-boggling” underlined in paragraph 1 probably mean?A.Unbelievable. | B.Popular. | C.Reasonable. | D.Influential. |
A.old clothes are more popular than new pieces |
B.the online second-hand markets are booming |
C.the fashion world begins to favor vintage clothes |
D.many clothing brands are innovative in their new products |
A.It makes people feel free to pursue fast fashion. |
B.It makes people more cautious about their budgets. |
C.It encourages people to choose eco-friendly clothes. |
D.It pushes people to be more engaged with sustainability. |
A.Old items have lost favor with the public. |
B.Old items are worthy of being long cherished. |
C.Older generations attach great importance to old items. |
D.Older generations care about the quality of their clothes. |
7 . There’s a part of your brain that processes faces. It’s located, according to scientist Nancy Austen, in the area “just behind and underneath, and a bit from your right ear.” It’s called the fusiform gyrus (梭状回).
There are people who may see a particular person’s face every day of their lives and still not recognize it. They see a nose, teeth, and cheeks, but when these are put together, they cannot keep a memory of it.
Sufferers of face blindness must develop other ways of recognizing coworkers, friends, and family.
A.But what happens |
B.So what can people do |
C.Whenever you see someone you know, it tells you who he is |
D.Jane Goodall has spent all her time in studying chimps in the wild |
E.Jane Goodall, the world’s leading expert on chimps (黑猩猩), has it |
F.The medical term for this condition is prosopagnosia, more commonly called face blindness |
G.They remember single feature s instead, such as a specific style of clothing, or an extra toothy smile |
8 . The Stanford marshmallow (棉花糖) test was originally conducted by psychologist Walter Mischel in the late 1960s. Children aged four to six at a nursery school were placed in a room. A single sugary treat, selected by the child, was placed on a table. Each child was told if they waited for 15 minutes before eating the treat, they would be given a second treat. Then they were left alone in the room. Follow-up studies with the children later in life showed a connection between an ability to wait long enough to obtain a second treat and various forms of success.
As adults we face a version of the marshmallow test every day. We’re not tempted by sugary treats, but by our computers, phones, and tablets — all the devices that connect us to the global delivery system for various types of information that do to us what marshmallows do to preschoolers.
We are tempted by sugary treats because our ancestors lived in a calorie-poor world, and our brains developed a response mechanism to these treats that reflected their value — a feeling of reward and satisfaction. But as we’ve reshaped the world around us, dramatically reducing the cost and effort involved in obtaining calories, we still have the same brains we had thousands of years ago, and this mismatch is at the heart of why so many of us struggle to resist tempting foods that we know we shouldn’t eat.
A similar process is at work in our response to information. Our formative environment as a species was information-poor, so our brains developed a mechanism that prized new information. But global connectivity has greatly changed our information environment. We are now ceaselessly bombarded (轰炸) with new information. Therefore, just as we need to be more thoughtful about our caloric consumption, we also need to be more thoughtful about our information consumption, resisting the temptation of the mental “junk food” in order to manage our time most effectively.
1. What did the children need to do to get a second treat in Mischel’s test?A.Take an examination alone. | B.Share their treats with others. |
C.Delay eating for fifteen minutes. | D.Show respect for the researchers. |
A.the calorie-poor world and our good appetites | B.the shortage of sugar and our nutritional needs |
C.the tempting foods and our efforts to keep fit | D.the rich food supply and our unchanged brains |
A.Be selective information consumers. | B.Absorb new information readily. |
C.Use diverse information sources. | D.Protect the information environment. |
A.Eat Less, Read More | B.The Later, the Better |
C.The Marshmallow Test for Grownups | D.The Bitter Truth about Early Humans |
9 . With growing awareness of the gender gap in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) fields, where women hold only 27% of jobs, Chinese researchers have explored a cause influencing women’s participation in STEM careers. They studied how teen girls can be influenced by their own peers who believe the inaccurate stereotype (刻板印象) that boys are better at math.
The study found that when surrounded by peers holding this stereotype, middle-school girls scored lower on math tests. This influence even persisted into college, impacting women’s math performance and self-confidence. The researchers suggest dealing with this issue during the middle school period to reduce the negative impact on women’s long-term STEM engagement.
Middle school is considered a critical developmental stage where teens are forming a stronger sense of self separate from their parents. This change often makes teens more likely to be influenced by the opinions of their peers. It’s also a period when, objectively measured by standardized tests, girls on average have better math skills than boys. However, teens may not realize it.
In some middle schools in China, the researchers studied the potential role of peer-pressure beliefs of the gendered math stereotype. In classrooms where the belief that “boys” natural ability in studying math is greater than that of girls” was significantly higher than the standard, girls’ later performance on math tests was lower than the results for boys. Moreover, girls in these classrooms were less likely to participate in math-related out-of-class activities. They were also less likely to feel that their teachers paid attention to them and offered praise, leading to lower math-related self-confidence.
The researchers conclude that preventing the harm from gender math stereotyping requires a change of the social environment for children and young adults, in addition to focusing on changing girls’ attitudes and choices.
1. What is the focus of the study?A.Inaccurate stereotype of STEM. |
B.Women’s participation in STEM. |
C.Teen girls’ academic performance. |
D.Gender stereotype’s influence on girls. |
A.Girls do better in math than boys. |
B.Teens have strong self-confidence. |
C.Teens are experiencing a key stage. |
D.Girls are easily affected by their peers. |
A.score high in standardized tests |
B.be often praised by math teachers |
C.show low confidence in math tests |
D.take an active part in school’s math club |
10 . Fewer dings, please!
I have some important information. The average American—oh, wait. <ding!> New notification(通知). CNN: something about Taylor and Travis. Hmmm. <ding!> And our dog food is out for delivery. Whew. Why do they always send me such messages?
The average American gets about 70 smartphone notifications a day. And according to a new study, the number is far higher for teenagers, whose phones ding and vibrate with hundreds or even thousands of daily notifications. This constantly distracts us from work, life, and each other.
“Humans are not good at doing so many things at the same time,” Professor Smith, a behavioral scientist, reminded us. “It takes extra time and efforts to switch our attention. We feel more tired and get interrupted so many times a day that these effects can lead to a decrease in our happiness and social connection.”
I am grateful to get the latest news that my favorite basketball team has won. I’m eager for messages from my family. But I wonder why The New York Times feels it is urgent to remind me, as they did this week, about “The 6 Best Men’s and Women’s Cashmere Sweaters.”
This is, of course, a circumstance created by ourselves. It is true that instant communication has brought us too much information. So many urgent notifications, not many of which are truly urgent; and only a few are interesting. So many hours spent looking at the light of a small screen, while so often being unaware of the world all around us. So why not choose to check notifications just several times a day?
<ding!> Hey! My Cashmere Sweater is here!
1. What does the underlined word “This” in paragraph 3 refer to?A.The result of a new study. | B.The important information. |
C.Receiving too many notifications. | D.Getting messages from teenagers. |
A.Messages from his grandparents. | B.The delivery news about dog food. |
C.Something about Taylor and Travis. | D.The Best Men’s Cashmere Sweaters. |
A.Unclear. | B.Negative. | C.Positive. | D.Supportive. |