1 . China has set new rules limiting the amount of time children can play online games. The rules limit children to just three hours of online game playing a week. That is one hour between 8 p. m. and 9 p. m. on Friday, Saturday and Sunday most weeks.

Li Zhanguo has two children aged 4 and 8. Even though they do not have smartphones, they enjoy playing online games. Like many other parents. Li is happy with new government rules. But experts say it is unclear if such policies can help prevent addiction to online games. Children might just get addicted to social media instead. In the end, experts say, parents should be the ones to set limits and support good practice.

There has been a growing concern in China about gaming addiction among children. Government reports in 2018 found that about one in ten Chinese children were addicted to the Internet. The new rules are part of an effort to prevent young people from spending too much time on unhealthy entertainment. That includes what officials call the “irrational fan culture”

Under the new rules, the responsibility for making sure children play only three hours a day as largely on Chinese gaming companies like Net Ease and Ten cent. Companies have set up real-name registration systems to prevent young users from going past game time limits. They have used facial recognition technology to check their identities. And they have also set up a program that permits people to report what is against the law. It is unclear what punishments gaming companies may face if they do not carry out the policies. And even if such policies are performed, it is also unclear whether they can prevent online addiction.

A specialist treating Internet addiction expects about 20 percent of children will find ways to break the rules by borrowing accounts of their older relatives and find a way around facial recognition. In his opinion, short-video alps such as Douyin and Kuaishou are also very popular in China. They are not under the same restrictions as games.

1. When can children play games according to the new rules?

A．Between 8 p. m. and 9 p. m. On Friday.	B．Between 8 p. m. and 9 p. m. On Tuesday.
C．Between 10 p. m. and 11 p. m. On Saturday.	D．Between 10 p. m. and all p. m. On Thursday.

2. According to experts, _________

A．the new rules can stop children’s addiction to social media

B．companies are more responsible for kids ‘ obeying the rules

C．the new rules will help prevent children playing online games

D．parents play a greater part in limiting the time of online games

3. What will children probably do to battle with the new rules?

A．Design an advanced program.	B．Use facial recognition systems.
C．Set up real-name registration systems.	D．Borrow accounts of their older relatives.

4. Which of the following is a suitable title for the text?

A．Rules Limiting Short-video alps	B．Rules Limiting Video Game Time
C．Rules Banning Irrational Fan Culture	D．Rules Breaking Addition to Social Media

2 . Most children now chat daily either online or through their mobile phones.     1     Some are shy in real life but are confident to communicate with others online; others find support from people of their own age on relationship issues, or problems at home.

Sometimes the online world, just like the real world, can cause problems, such as bullying (恃强凌弱) or arguments.     2     But there are also a few people who use the Internet for illegal aims. Children must be made aware of both the good things and the dangers.

    3     Just as you decide which TV programs are suitable, you need to do the same for the websites and the chat rooms your children visit. Remind your children that online friends are still strangers. Reminding them of the risks will keep them alert (警惕的).

    4     So it’s likely that your children may know more than you do. We get left behind when it comes to the latest gadgets and the interactive areas of websites, like chat rooms and message boards.     5     Chatters love to use abbreviations (缩略语) such as: atb (all the best), bbfn (bye bye for now), Idk (I don’t know), xlnt (excellent).

A．Going online is great fun.

B．Computer studies are part of schoolwork now.

C．The language of chat is strange to many parents, too.

D．There are some websites that are not suitable for the children.

E．To keep children safe, your management must cover the family computer.

F．They are connecting to a huge number of other children all over the world.

G．Surfing the Internet takes up too much of the time that should be spent on lessons.

4 . Thirteen-year-old Kaylee has a lot of friends — 532, actually, if you count up her online friends. And she spends a lot of time with them.

But is it possible that Kaylee’s online friendships could be making her lonely? That’s what some experts believe. Connecting online is a great way to stay in touch, they say. However, some experts worry that many kids are so busy connecting online that they might be missing out on true friendships.

Could this be true? During your parents’ childhoods, connecting with friends usually meant spending time with them in the flesh. Kids played Scrabble around a table, not Words With Friends on their phones. When friends missed each other, they picked up the telephone. Friends might even write letters to each other.

Today, most communication takes place online. A typical teen sends 2,000 texts a month and spends more than 44 hours per week in front of a screen. Much of this time is spent on social media platforms (平台).

In fact, in many ways, online communication can make friendships stronger, “There’s definitely a positive influence. Kids can stay in constant contact, which means they can share more of their feelings with each other,” says Katie Davis, co-author of The App Generation.

Other experts, however, warn that too much online communication can get in the way of forming deep friendships. “If we are constantly checking in with our virtual words, we will have little time for our real-world friendships.” says Larry Rosen, a professor at California State University. Rosen also worries that today’s kids might mistake the “friends” on the social media for true friends in life. However, in tough times, you don’t need someone to like your picture or share your blogs. You need someone who will keep your secrets and hold your hand. You would like to talk face to face.

1. What is the purpose of the first paragraph?

A．To summarize the text.	B．To tell about true friends.
C．To bring up a discussion.	D．To encourage online friendship.

2. What does the underlined part “in the flesh” mean in Paragraph 3?

A．In person.

B．In advance.

C．In any case.

D．In full measure.

3. What is Katie’s attitude towards online communication?

A．Worried.

B．Positive.

C．Confused.

D．Unconcerned.

4. What view does Rosen hold?

A．It’s wise to turn to friends online.

B．It’s easier to develop friendships in reality.

C．Social media help people stay closely connected.

D．Teenagers need focus on real-world friendships.

5 . Every festival has its own meaning. Labor Day, for example, celebrates the value of hard work. Thanksgiving is about showing thanks to people around you. And Valentines’ Day is a time when you express love to your loved ones. But somehow it now seems that all festivals we just care about one thing — shopping. And that can be a big problem.

“In a way, over-consumption (过度消费) is the mother of all our environmental problems,” Kalle Lasn once told CNN. Lasn is the organizer of Buy Nothing Day, a day set up in Canada in 1992 to fight against unhealthy spending habits, and has now become an international event. It’s held on the day, which is known as Black Friday — a famous shopping day in the US and Canada.

You can see the irony (讽刺) here.

Even though the idea of Buy Nothing Day was brought up 26 years ago, we seem to need it now more than ever. It’s just as Lasn said, all the different kinds of pollution in our lives today — bad air quality, the reduction of forest area, endangered animal species, and plastic bags found in the ocean — seem to be the same cause: over-consumption.

The latest example is the Singles’ Day shopping craze of Nov 11, which saw a new sales record. But as Nie Li, a campaigner at Greenpeace, told Reuters, “Record-setting over-consumption means record-setting waste.” And it was reported that last year the Singles’ Day packages left more than 160,000 tons of waste, including plastic and cardboard. The Collins Dictionary has also just named “single-use” its Word of the Year, pointing out the problem that there’re too many things we tow out after only using them once.

So, Buy Nothing Day might only be here for one day a year, but it’s not just to remind us to the a break from shopping on that day, but to change our lifestyle completely, focusing on fun “with people we care about” rather than wasting money on useless things.

1. What’s the authors purpose of writing the first paragraph?

A．To express the people’s love for all festivals.

B．To talk about the meaning of the festivals.

C．To appreciate the value of the festivals.

D．To bring out the topic of the passage.

2. Why did Kalle Lasn organize Buy Nothing Day?

A．To help people save money.	B．To cut the cost for daily life.
C．To prevent over-consumption.	D．To set up a new sales record.

3. What’s Nie Li’s attitude towards the shopping craze?

A．Opposed (反对的).	B．Supportive.
C．Unknown.	D．Neutral (中立的).

4. What can be a suitable title for the passage?

A．Creating a New Lifestyle	B．Buy Nothing Day
C．Festivals Around the World	D．A Change in People’s Life

7 . A new trend called “praise groups” or “in-need-of-praise” chat groups has become popular on Chinese social media. In Chinese culture, where modesty (谦逊) is valued, openly seeking and giving praise is uncommon. These chat groups provide a platform for people to receive compliments (赞扬) and encouragement, which are often lacking in their daily lives.

To join a praise group, users can pay a fee on e-commerce sites, starting at 50 yuan for five minutes of compliments. The group members will then show the person with praises and kind words. The compliments can be designed for a friend or loved one as well. Participants have found that being praised by strangers can help lift their spirits and improve their self-confidence.

For example, Meng Zha, a student at Shanghai’s Tongji University, tried the service and found it amusing and uplifting. She received compliments on her appearance and even quotes (引用) from popular songs. Ms Meng couldn’t help but laugh at the compliments and expressed her desire to post such high-quality praises in the future.

Praise groups have appeared as a way for people in China to seek and receive compliments and encouragement that may be lacking in their daily lives. It provides a positive and uplifting experience for participants, improving a sense of happiness and self-worth.

Those who support the groups, see them as an antidote to extremely bad moods (情绪) which are often associated with things happening on the Internet. “At first, the purpose of this group is to make us learn to praise others and accept others’ praises confidently. Here we can drop everything, and use our heart to praise and support others,” one member said. But the life journey is long and there are some unexpected situations that we can only count on ourselves to face when there is no one out there to offer help.

1. What is the purpose of praise groups?

A．To make praise popular.	B．To have everyone supported.
C．To share common interests.	D．To give people hope and happiness.

2. What can we learn about Meng Zha in paragraph 3?

A．She was not strong enough.	B．She was under working stress.
C．She was satisfied with the service.	D．She was a gifted singer in her area.

3. What does the underlined word “antidote” mean in the last paragraph?

A．A way of making new friends.	B．A kind of medicine.
C．A method of being confident.	D．The wisdom of solving problems.

4. What is the author's attitude to praise groups?

A．Objective.

B．Critical.

C．Supportive.

D．Unclear.

8 . Recently, the “city walk” has been gaining steam among residents and tourists around China. On social platform Xiaohongshu, data shows that the number of city walk-related topic posts has increased by 700 percent over the past three months, and the total number of interactions has increased by more than 600 percent.

A city walk is a form of urban tourism originating in the UK. Unlike traditional sightseeing, which aims to hit famous attractions and commercial center, usually by vehicles with tense schedules, city walk is about “roaming” around a city on foot, soaking up the atmosphere and finding unusual things that even a resident of the city might not have noticed before. Such walks generally avoid famous scenic spots and shopping centers, and take you to places where you can have real interactions with the local people, eat at small but authentic restaurants, and gain a deeper understanding of the history and culture of the city.

City walkers are a cast of people who possess intense curiosity. They are eager to engage with the city they are visiting or reside in their own way. By “roaming” on foot, city walkers can better feel the texture and listen to the breath of a place. They seek pleasure more through connection than consumption, which indicates a deep cultural curiosity. For example, in Chongqing, if you don’t take a walk, you can hardly experience the unique geographical charm of the mountainous city. Be it the hutong in Beijing or the Chinese parasol tree district in Shanghai; city walks allow people to see the scenery apart from the scene and uncover hidden knowledge.

The appeal of a city walk lies in the young generation’s changing attitude toward life — pursuing quality leisure time while being occupied with demanding workloads and limited time for exploration. While roaming along the road, you can entirely focus on yourself and listen to your inner voice and care for what you feel, which is a way to love yourself and benefit your mental health. Just like Oscar Wilde once said, “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.”

1. What do the underlined words “gaining steam” in paragraph one probably mean?

A．Raising concerns.

B．Getting outdated.

C．Causing trouble.

D．Receiving popularity.

2. How does the city walk differ from traditional sightseeing?

A．It pursues economical tourism.

B．It is usually well-organized and scheduled.

C．It helps promote the authentic food of the destination.

D．It focuses on feeling the local culture by connecting the city.

3. What do we know about city walkers?

A．They are keen to buy souvenirs.

B．They tend to walk as much as possible.

C．They have strong curiosity about the local culture.

D．They prefer the city landscape to the natural scenery.

4. What is the last paragraph mainly about?

A．Why city walk changes people’s lifestyle.

B．Why the young fall in love with a city walk.

C．How popular the city walk is among citizens.

D．What young people usually do during a city walk.

9 . As Internet users become more dependent on the Internet to store information, are people remembering less? If you know your computer will save information, why store it in your own personal memory,your brain? Experts are wondering if the Internet is changing what we remember and how.

In a recent study, Professor Betsy Sparrow conducted some experiments. She and her research team wanted to know the Internet is changing memory. In the first experiment, they gave people 40 unimportant facts to type into a computer. The first group of people understood that the computer would save the information. The second group understood that the computer would not save it. Later, the second group remembered the information better. People in the first group knew they could find the information again, so they did not try to remember it.

In another experiment, the researchers gave people facts to remember, and told them where to find the information on the Internet. The information was in a specific computer folder (文件夹). Surprisingly, people later remembered the folder location better than the facts. When people use the Internet, they do not remember the information. Rather, they remember how to find it. This is called “transactive memory (交互记忆)”.

According to Sparrow, we are not becoming people with poor memories as a result of the Internet. Instead, computer users are developing stronger transactive memories; that is, people are learning how to organise huge quantities of information so that they are able to access it at a later date. This doesn’t mean we are becoming either more or less intelligent, but there is no doubt that the way we use memory is changing.

1. What is the effect of the Internet according to Sparrow’s research?

A．We are using memory differently.

B．We are becoming more intelligent.

C．We have poorer memories than before.

D．We need a better way to access information.

2. Why does the passage begin with two questions?

A．To introduce the main topic.

B．To show the author’s attitude.

C．To describe how to use the Internet.

D．To explain how to store information.

3. What can we learn about the first experiment?

A．Sparrow’s team typed the information into a computer.

B．The two groups remembered the information equally well.

C．The first group did not try to remember the information.

D．The second group did not understand the information.

4. What do people do in transactive memory?

A．To keep the information in mind.

B．To change the quantity of information.

C．To organise information like a computer.

D．To remember how to find the information.

10 . Have you seen people who take pictures of food for more than 10 minutes before eating? How about those who beautify their selfie (自拍照片) so much that they can’t be _______?There must be one or more who _______ in your social media. No matter what they choose to share, they share the best but the most unreal.

Take my friend Chen. Every time we went to a restaurant, she would not take a _______ until all the dishes we _______ were on the table. Then, she would spend five minutes in setting the dishes in a seemingly random but in fact _______ order. Then the most important part: taking pictures. After that, she would choose one of the _______ and click in the filter (滤镜) app. The food eventually looked 10 times more delicious than it really was, but we had no _______ to really enjoy it—it all went cold. Actually Chen’s real life is much less elegant. For example, she hates to wash the dishes, so she leaves them in the sink for _______.

Many people care too much about others’ opinions and try too hard to _______ others. They find it hard to be ________ and to accept themselves, and thus they are afraid to show their real life on social media. What they are trying to prove is ________ what they lack in reality. But this will not bring any change to reality, as they still ________ the same old pattern of life.

If they really want an elegant life, they should put more ________ into achieving it. Being more confident, ________ themselves and trying their best to be better is much more meaningful than ________ their life on social media.

1.

A．envied

B．admired

C．recognised

D．defeated

2.

A．exist

B．survive

C．flood

D．spot

3.

A．bow

B．break

C．breath

D．bite

4.

A．ordered

B．served

C．offered

D．prepared

5.

A．messy

B．arranged

C．casual

D．correct

6.

A．dishes

B．restaurants

C．pictures

D．tables

7.

A．chance

B．choice

C．excuse

D．reason

8.

A．months

B．years

C．hours

D．days

9.

A．comfort

B．please

C．inspire

D．discourage

10.

A．independent

B．generous

C．responsible

D．confident

11.

A．rarely

B．hardly

C．exactly

D．nearly

12.

A．question

B．dislike

C．doubt

D．follow

13.

A．effort

B．ambitions

C．feelings

D．money

14.

A．identifying

B．accepting

C．persuading

D．amusing

15.

A．simplifying

B．ruining

C．beautifying

D．worsening