1 . As one of the biggest topics of the last decade, sustainability has become the beacon (灯塔) of hope to protect the planet. From supermarkets taking action on plastic packaging to the zero was to movement that can be practised from your kitchen, changes made by individuals and organizations across the globe have had an impact on the way we think shop and live.
So what does that mean for the world of technology? You’d be forgiven for thinking that the words “sustainable” and “technology” don’t usually go hand in hand. E-waste is, after all, one of the planet’s biggest contributing waste streams. Not only that, but the materials that go into technology products are also part of the problem.
But with a challenge comes an opportunity, and there’s already some brilliant progress happening — great news for those of us wanting to be more sustainable with our technology. Firstly renewed products are having its moment. While consumers would previously turn their noses up the idea of a second-hand device, there’s been a huge surge in demand for renewed technology products.The second major step in tackling the problem of e-waste is a change in attitudes from owning a product to subscribing for one. A subscription for a smartphone might sound like a foreign concept, but it’s already gaining momentum. At the forefront of this movement is a London-base technology startup, which offers a subscription service for the latest smartphones. As customer aren’t paying to own the phone at the end of their contract, the monthly price is significantly low than average.
Studies show that extending a phone’s lifespan from one to four years can decrease environmental impact by about 40%. So the next time it comes to refreshing your device-whether a smartphone, laptop, tablet or something else-consider the more environmentally friendly options that are at your fingertips.
1. What’s the purpose of paragraph 1?| A．To change the way we think shop and live. |
| B．To introduce the topic of sustainability in technology. |
| C．To tell us what people have done to protect the planet. |
| D．To call on people to do something for the environment. |
| A．High-tech products are in short supply. |
| B．E-waste contributes to the biggest waste streams. |
| C．The two sustainability problems in technology. |
| D．Ignoring sustainable technology is unforgivable. |
| A．Supportive. | B．unacceptable. |
| C．Sympathy. | D．Doubtful. |
| A．By upgrading the old one. |
| B．By renting a smartphone. |
| C．By throwing away a renewed phone. |
| D．By replacing the old one with the latest. |
2 . Like it or love it, social media is a major part of life. Teens spend more than half of their waking hours online. They use some of that time to post pictures and create profiles on social media accounts.
Clicking on a thumbs-up or a heart icon is an easy way to stay in touch.
What’s more, viewing posts with a lot of likes activates the reward system in our brain.
Joining social media can give people a sense of being in the know. But posts may exaggerate (夸大) how well our friends and others are feeling, making them appear much happier than we are.
| A．It can also lower the viewer’s self-control. |
| B．A popular post doesn’t necessarily mean it is a quality post. |
| C．It’s no surprise: Feedback from peers affects how teens behave. |
| D．Their brains respond to those likes by turning on the reward center. |
| E．And that can, inappropriately, make us feel less successful than them. |
| F．But those “likes” can have power that goes beyond a simple connection. |
| G．Most of what they do is read and respond to posts by friends and family. |
3 . Shortly after 6 am on Monday, buses carrying 200 immigrants rolled into Midtown Manhattan from Texas, Most of them, including young children, wore lightweight sweaters or blankets to keep out the cold. Mayor Eric Adams’ administration warned that 10 to 15 busloads of migrants were expected to arrive this week due to the lifting of Title 42, a Trump-era public health rule passed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Monday temporarily blocked the Biden administration from ending the pandemic-era Title 42 immigration policy, leaving in doubt whether officials will continue to drive off migrants over concerns about public health risks. Title 42 is set to expire (期满) on Wednesday.
“We have been told in no uncertain terms that, beginning today, we should expect an influx (流入) of buses coming from the border and that more than 1,000 additional asylum (政治避难) seekers will arrive in New York City every week,” Adams said in a statement released on Sunday. “We need help from Washington.”
Seeking to draw the Biden administration’s attention to the growing immigrant crisis, Republican governors of border states such as Texas and Arizona have been shipping migrants to Democratic-controlled cities such as New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, DC.
New York has received more than 31, 000 migrants and has opened 60 emergency shelters, mostly in hotels, as well as six other centers. New York City’s school chancellor (校监) said in October that the school system has enrolled more than 5, 500 new migrant students, most of whom came from Latin America.
Adams, who declared a state of emergency over the migrant influx in October, said in a statement on Sunday that if nothing changes and the policy expires, the cost of absorbing new migrants was unsustainable and could lead to cuts to existing city programs.
“Our shelter system is full, and we are nearly out of money, staff, and space. To be honest, if corrective measures are not taken soon, we may very well be forced to cut programs New Yorkers rely on,” he said. Adams accused the federal government of ignoring the city’s pleas for aid and accused Republicans and Democrats in Congress of failing to “raise their hand” to help.
1. Why are so many migrants supposed to arrive in New York City?| A．New York City faces a major labor shortage. |
| B．The immigration policy is to be no longer valid. |
| C．Washington has announced a new immigration rule. |
| D．New York City provides them with better living conditions. |
| A．Washington, DC. | B．Philadelphia. |
| C．New York City. | D．Texas. |
| A．Supplies of. | B．Benefits of. |
| C．Rewards for. | D．Demands for. |
| A．New York opens 60 emergency shelters |
| B．New York City hit by new immigrant flow |
| C．New York City needs help from Washington |
| D．New York City’s school system enrolls many migrant students |
4 . Social media is taking over our lives: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and now, TikTok. These social media platforms have changed from a way to stay connected to an industry where even kids can make money off their posts. While this may seem like another opportunistic innovation, it’s really full of hidden false realities.
The median income (中位收入) recorded in the United States of America was about $63,000 in 2018. TikTokers can make anywhere from $50,000 to $150,000 for a TikTok brand partnership, and TikTokers with over a million followers can make up to $30,000 a month—$360,000 a year. They are making more than the average person trying to feed their family and keep a roof over their heads simply by posting a 15-second video.
This is mad in more ways than one. Not only is it an overpaid “job”, it promotes undeserved admiration from viewers and a false sense of reality. Many of these famous TikTokers are still teens and the effects of fame at such an early stage in life might cause issues later in life, such as mental illness. Teens between the ages of 13 and 17 make up 27% of TikTok viewers, who can be easily influenced by what they are watching. They can put a false sense of self-value into who they look up to and what they represent: money, fame, being considered conventionally attractive.
While TikTok has become a great tool for marketing, it’s important to understand how this content affects young viewers. If we’re constantly consuming content that shows us all we need to do to be successful is be conventionally attractive and post a 15-second video featuring a new dance, it will challenge our knowledge of what really makes someone successful and will in turn affect our individual work ethnics (伦理). What about the people who miss birthdays and family holidays due to their jobs and aren’t getting paid nearly as much as these TikTokers?
Richard Colyer, president and creator of Metaphor, Inc, had his own view on this issue. “It sounds great that kids can make money for doing the latest dance moves in a 15-second video, but we should feed the minds of kids and not just their bank accounts. TikTok can be great if used properly. Money alone is not good; technology alone is not good and connectedness can be bad if it is only online.”
Again, as a fellow consumer of TikTok, I do enjoy the app when I have some time to kill and need a good laugh. I’m not against someone making a living on entertainment, but what does getting famous by posting a 15-second video teach young people?
1. What does the underlined word “this” in Paragraph 1 refer to?| A．Social networking. |
| B．A job offered by TikTok. |
| C．Making money on social media. |
| D．Staying connected to the Internet. |
| A．TikTokers can hardly make ends meet. |
| B．Social media platforms like TikTok can make people overpaid. |
| C．Teens are wise to make a huge amount of money from TikTok. |
| D．TikTokers earn such a high income that they can support their family. |
| A．They are likely to develop false values. |
| B．They tend to live an adult life too soon. |
| C．They are forced to pay for certain services. |
| D．They may stop believing other social media. |
| A．Contents of videos need checking before their release online. |
| B．We have a responsibility to supply teens with food for thought. |
| C．Young TikTokers should be banned from opening bank accounts. |
| D．Money and technology can be good if used properly by TikTokers. |
5 . We all know that unpleasant feeling when we’re talking about something interesting and halfway through our sentence we’re interrupted. But was that really an interruption? The answer depends on whom you ask, according to new research led by Katherine Hilton from Stanford University.
Using a set of controlled audio clips (录音片段), Hilton surveyed 5, 000 American English speakers to better understand what affects people’s perceptions of interruptions. She had participants listen to audio clips and then answer questions about whether the speakers seemed to be friendly and engaged, listening to one another, or trying to interrupt.
Hilton found that American English speakers have different conversational styles. She identified two distinct groups: high and low intensity speakers. High intensity speakers are generally uncomfortable with moments of silence in conversation and consider talking at the same time a sign of engagement. Low intensity speakers find it rude to talk at the same time and prefer people speak one after another in conversation.
The differences in conversational styles became evident when participants listened to audio clips in which two people spoke at the same time but were agreeing with each other and stayed on topic, Hilton said. The high intensity group reported that conversations where people spoke at the same time when expressing agreement were not interruptive but engaged and friendlier than the conversations with moments of silence in between speaking turns. In contrast, the low intensity group perceived any amount of simultaneous (同时) chat as a rude interruption, regardless of what the speakers were saying.
“People care about being interrupted, and those small interruptions can have a massive effect on the overall communication,” Hilton said. “Breaking apart what an interruption means is essential if we want to understand how humans interact with each other.”
1. What does Hilton’s research focus on?| A．What interruptions mean to people. |
| B．Whether interruption is good or not. |
| C．How to avoid getting interrupted. |
| D．Why speakers interrupt each other. |
| A．Record an audio clip. | B．Answer some questions. |
| C．Listen to one another. | D．Have a chat with a friend. |
| A．It’s important. | B．It’s interesting. |
| C．It’s inefficient. | D．It’s impolite. |
| A．Human interaction is complex. |
| B．Communication is the basis of life. |
| C．Interruptions promote thinking. |
| D．Language barriers will always exist. |
6 . As online learning becomes more common and more and more resources are becoming digital form, some people have suggested that public libraries should be shut down and everyone should be given an iPad with an e-reader subscription.
Supporters of this idea state that it will save money because libraries are expensive to maintain. They also believe it will encourage more people to read because they won’t have to travel to a library to get a book. They could also access more materials because libraries won’t have to buy physical copies of books.
However, it would be a serious mistake to replace libraries with tablets. First, digital books and resources are associated with less learning and more problems. A study done on tablet vs book reading found that people read 20-30% slower on tablets, obtain 20% less information, and understand 10% less of what they read compared to people who read the same information in print. Additionally, staring too long at a screen has been shown to cause more health problems, including dry eyes and headaches.
Second, it is incredibly narrow-minded to assume that the only service libraries offer is book lending. Libraries can keep community connected. One neighborhood found that, after a local library community events, over a third of residents reported feeling more connected to their community. Similarly, a survey conducted in 2015 found that nearly two-thirds of American adults feel that closing their local library would have a major impact on their community. People see libraries as a way to connect with others, which tablets can’t offer nearly as well or as easily.
While replacing libraries with tablets may seem like a simple solution, it would encourage people to spend even more time looking at digital screens. In many areas, libraries are such an important part of the community network that they could never be replaced by a simple object.
1. Why do people want to close libraries?| A．To pursue economy and convenience. |
| B．To promote e-books and subscription. |
| C．To advocate e-reading and e-learning. |
| D．To follow e-learning trend and fashion. |
| A．By listing reasons. |
| B．By giving examples. |
| C．By doing experiments. |
| D．By making comparisons. |
| A．Information and solution. |
| B．Encouragement and association. |
| C．Efficiency and connection. |
| D．Understanding and satisfaction. |
| A．Books Grow Popular |
| B．E-reading is a New Trend |
| C．Libraries Still Matter a Lot |
| D．Digital Screens Gain Popularity |
7 . The well-known Tsinghua University and Peking University held graduation ceremonies (典礼) on the same day this year. The presidents of the two universities delivered excellent speeches at the ceremonies as they used words, phrases or ways of expression that are very popular on the Internet currently. At the same time, graduation speeches by other university presidents were also under the spotlight for the same reason. Their speeches were warmly welcomed by students as they contained many fashionable words today, such as “floating clouds” (meaning “too small and of little importance to mention”) and “gelivable” (meaning ”very helpful”) . In the speeches , these university presidents recalled campus life together with students and finally moved all the audiences. They were very different from the usual run of lectures.
Many university presidents have changed their regular manner of making speeches at graduation ceremonies from an advising and preaching (说教)mode to a more fashionable and funny way. They try to use those words popular among young people in their speeches.
In the past, university presidents’ speeches were criticized for being too standard and lacking emotion. Now, they use fashionable words in their speeches, reflecting they are starting to adopt more everyday attitudes to students. The use of these new expressions has triggered a heated discussion. It focuses on the question of whether university presidents should speak in an informal way at graduation ceremonies.
Supporters who are in favor of the university presidents, new manner of making speeches consider it good to build close ties with students by using the youth’s own words even during the formal ceremonies. Opponents argue the new ways have no practical value or significance for education but are merely to please those leaving university.
1. What can we infer from Paragraph 1?| A．The word “gelivable “ means “too small and unimportant”. |
| B．More and more students are eager to make speeches in public. |
| C．These university presidents recalled campus life in their speeches |
| D．University presidents’ new ways of making speeches are popular with the young. |
| A．Set off | B．Take over | C．Break down | D．Focus on |
| A．How university presidents’ speeches were criticized for being too standard. |
| B．Whether university presidents should use fashionable words on formal occasions. |
| C．How words are changing with the development of technology. |
| D．Whether ifs necessary for us to follow the traditional customs. |
| A．Negative | B．Objective | C．Doubtful | D．Indifferent |
National holidays have traditionally provided a time for families to gather again in
Reversed celebration is
Besides work pressure, there is another reason for the growing reversed celebration culture—the
New research shows that the average cost of raising a child to the age of 18 in China in 2021 was 485,000 yuan for a first child,
New policies permit
10 . Over the last few years, social mobility (流动性) between the generations has become an important topic. Many possible factors that prevent children from moving further up the social ladder than their parents have already been investigated, such as financial resources, the educational system and genetics. Recently, Dr. Reto Odermatt (University of Basel) and Prof. Dr. Warn Lekfuangfu (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid) conducted a study to investigate the connection between career aspirations (抱负) in social mobility and later life satisfaction.
The basis for the study is a dataset(数据集) that follows the lives of over 17,000 people in the UK who were all born in the same week in 1958, and continues to collect data to this day. Among other things, the dataset gathers together information on each individual’s childhood environment, the backgrounds of their parents, the participants’ abilities, their aspirations in their youth, their jobs and their happiness as an adult.
The authors used this database to investigate how the aspirations of children and young people affect their later life. And they eventually found that the educational and career aspirations held by participants as teenagers were among the most important forecasters overall for their later success in education and careers. This indicates that ambitious career goals motivate people to invest more in their future career success.
The opposite is also the case: unambitious career aspirations can be an important explanation for limited social mobility. The study showed that young people whose parents were less well educated did indeed have less ambitious career goals. “This cannot be explained solely (唯一地) by the differences in family income or in participants’ abilities. It is more the case that inequality seems to begin early on, with their parents’ aspirations for them,” reasons Odermatt. “We didn’t expect parents’ aspirations for their children to have such a strong influence.”
“This reminds us that we shouldn’t leave it entirely to parents to influence children’s career aspirations; schools can step in here,” Odermatt points out. Teaching staff could actively make teenagers aware of careers that suit their abilities. This could encourage them to look beyond their own horizons. After all, a person’s view of the world is often strongly defined by their surroundings.
1. What is the purpose of the first paragraph?| A．To present previous research findings on social mobility. |
| B．To introduce the concept of social mobility to readers. |
| C．To indicate the complexity of social mobility research. |
| D．To stress the practical significance of the new study. |
| A．It has some unexpected limitations. |
| B．It focuses more on children than on adults. |
| C．It covers many aspects of individuals involved. |
| D．It was set up through joint efforts of many countries. |
| A．“Dreaming big” can have a negative influence on young children. |
| B．Children’s future can be obviously affected by parents’ aspirations. |
| C．Educated parents tend to have unambitious aspirations for children. |
| D．Ambitious career goals can be helpful in removing social inequality. |
| A．To help students broaden their horizons. |
| B．To encourage students to try various careers. |
| C．To make changes to the students’ surroundings. |
| D．To improve students’ adaptability to new environments. |
