1 . Twelve-year-old Catherine has a lot of friends—632, actually, if you count up her online friends. And she spends a lot of time with them.
But is it possible that Catherine’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 platform.
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 world, 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 anyone 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 tell about true friends. | B．To start a discussion. |
| C．To encourage online friendships. | D．To summarize(总结) the text. |
| A．In any case. | B．In public. | C．In person. | D．In advance. |
| A．Unconcerned. | B．Positive. | C．Worried. | D．Confused. |
| A．Teenagers need to focus on real-world friendships. | B．It’s easier to develop friendships in real life. |
| C．It’s wise to turn to friends online. | D．Social media help people stay closely connected. |
2 . What was your answer when you were asked to name the best university in the world? I can bet with almost 100% confidence that the universities you came up with included widely known institutions such as Oxford and Cambridge, Harvard, MIT, or Tsinghua University.
The medium through which they are known, other than word of mouth, is to a large extent attributed to various university rankings, some of which are considered to be more accurate and authoritative than others. Among all the organizations that produce global university rankings, the three most trusted and established ones are Shanghai Ranking Consultancy (SRC), Times Higher Education (THE), and Quacquarelli Symonds (QS).
Each year, they rank universities by assessing a combination of measures of their strengths. Since each organization prioritizes a different set of factors that make for a good university, the three organizations often yield different results. Take the year 2023 as an example: QS ranked MIT number one while THE assigned the honor to the University of Oxford. For SRC, the spot belonged to Harvard.
Thousands of students and parents refer to those rankings when they make college application decisions; academics also look to how their own universities measure up in this fiercely competitive race of academic competence.
However, there also exist skeptics who hesitate to hold these rankings in too high a regard. They argue each of the rankings emphasizes a criterion that is different from the other two, yet no criterion is completely free of prejudice.
SRC, for instance, values a university’s research performance the most, but ignores the level of diversity in terms of each university’s demographics (人员构成). The methods THE and QS use to rank universities have also been subject to questioning and criticism. They mostly ask scholars from a selected list of higher-education institutions to state their opinions about a certain university’s reputation, and they use these scholars’ opinions as their standard. Such methods sound subjective to many people.
As for the next time when someone asks you which university is the best in the world, you might not want to rush into a fixed answer.
1. What does the example in 2023 show?| A．Different criterion produces different result. |
| B．The best university varies from year to year. |
| C．SRC, THE and QS are more trustworthy organizations than others. |
| D．MIT, Oxford and Harvard are universally acknowledged as the best universities. |
| A．worried | B．doubtful | C．annoyed | D．careful |
| A．Explanation of the ranking process. |
| B．Impact of the rankings on the public. |
| C．Limitation of each of the three rankings. |
| D．Opinions of students on the three rankings. |
| A．Think twice before deciding. |
| B．Pay no attention to the rankings. |
| C．Just rely on your own judgement. |
| D．Take the research performance as a priority. |
3 . Using more wood for construction has been praised as a lower-emission alternative to carbon-intensive steel and concrete but it may not be as carbon friendly as thought.
“It would be very convenient if wood were a better solution,” says Tim Searchinger atPrinceton University. Wood is, in theory, a renewable resource and any wood used in buildings acts as long-term carbon storage. Research has found that using wood for construction instead of concrete and steel can reduce emissions.
But Searchinger says many of these studies are based on the false assumption that harvesting wood is carbon neutral (中和的). “Only a small percentage of the wood gets into a timber (木材) product, and a fraction (小部分) of that gets into a timber product that can replace concrete and steel in a building,” he says. Efficiencies vary in different countries, but much of a harvested tree is left to rot and used for short-lived products like paper or burned for energy, all of which generate emissions.
In a report for the World Resources Institute, Searchinger and his colleagues have modeled how using more wood for construction would affect emissions between 2010 and 2050, accounting for the emissions from harvesting the wood. They considered various types of forests and fractions of wood going towards construction. They also factored in the emissions savings from replacing concrete and steel. In general, they found a large increase in global demand for wood would probably lead to rising emissions for decades.
The researchers report in a related paper that increasing forest harvests between 2010 and 2050 would add emissions equal to about 10 percent of total yearly emissions. William Moomaw at Tufts University in Massachusetts says the works show that harvesting timber, even when done sustainably, isn’t a carbon neutral activity.
Ali Amiri at Aalto University in Finland says the report’s conclusions about emissions from rising demand are probably correct, but the story is different for wood we have already harvested. Boosting the efficiency of current harvests and using more wood for longer-lived purposes than paper would cut emissions, he says. “We cannot just say we should stop using wood.”
1. What is a common belief about wood used in construction?| A．It is cost-efficient. | B．It is a zero-emission material. |
| C．It stores carbon in a long run. | D．It functions as an alternative to concrete. |
| A．Making Fuels. | B．Building houses. |
| C．Making furniture. | D．Producing fertilizers. |
| A．Harvesting timber sustainably is carbon neutral. |
| B．Replacing concrete and steel saves a lot of emissions. |
| C．Less wood consumption makes no difference to emission. |
| D．An increasing demand for wood results in rising emission. |
| A．Where Does Harvested Wood Go? |
| B．Are Wood Buildings Climate-Friendly? |
| C．Boost the Efficiency of Harvested Wood |
| D．Stop Using Wood, A Carbon Neutral Activity |
4 . Microsoft won’t renew the contracts (合同) for dozens of news production staff working at its MSN website and plans to use AI to replace them. The roughly 50 employees were informed that their services would no longer be needed beyond June 30.
The Microsoft spokesman said in a statement, “Like all companies, we analyze and make judgments on our activities and services on a regular basis. This can result in increased investment in some places and, from time to time, rearrangement in others. These decisions are not the result of the pandemic.”
MSN will use AI to replace the production work its journalists had been doing. That work includes using an automated system (自动化系统) to identify trending news stories from dozens of publishing partners and to help improve the content by rewriting headlines or adding better accompanying photographs or slide shows.
“I spend all my time reading about how automation and AI are going to take all our jobs — now it’s taken mine” one of the terminated contractors said. “But with fewer human beings to monitor the technology, AI may not be fully familiar with strict editorial guidelines and could end up letting through inappropriate stories.”
MSN has experienced a number of changes since its launch as Microsoft Network in 1995. Once it offered original content and links to news, weather and sports. In 2013, it rolled back original news content and began cutting employees. By 2014, it launched are designed version that partnered with other news sites, paying them to redistribute their content. Today, the news service relies entirely on those partnerships with no original news content of its own. Selecting and editing stories rather than actually generating them made it easier for MSN to increasingly rely on an automated editing system.
1. On what basis did Microsoft make the decision to cut employees?| A．Pressure from competitors in the industry. | B．The proposal that AI engineers put forward. |
| C．Difficulties the pandemic has brought about. | D．Analysis and assessment made by the company. |
| A．Developing an automated working system. | B．Bettering the content by revising headlines. |
| C．Shooting photos to go with the news story. | D．Finding out the inappropriate news stories. |
| A．fired | B．trained | C．chosen | D．promoted |
| A．A well developed distribution strategy. | B．Money saved from cutting on employees. |
| C．Are designed version with no original news. | D．The technical cooperation with other websites. |
5 . 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. |
| 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 |
| A．Design an advanced program. | B．Use facial recognition systems. |
| C．Set up real-name registration systems. | D．Borrow accounts of their older relatives. |
| 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 |
6 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。
Online voting has become so
In my opinion, online voting is
To be honest, voters sometimes feel annoyed,
7 . There’s a song in your head. You keep hearing it repeatedly. You can’t make it stop, and it’s driving you crazy! Has this happened to you? Maybe you have suffered from an earworm, which is a memory of a song.
Earworms are common. A study showed that 90 percent of people experience them. Why do we get earworms? According to neurologist Oliver Sacks, music affects us whether we pay attention to it or not. We’re surrounded by music all the time in our everyday lives. Sacks wonders if there is a higher incidence of earworms today because of all this music in our environment.
Research on the primary auditory cortex supports Sack’s ideas. The auditory cortex is the part of the brain that processes sound. It’s a short-term storage system for small amounts of auditory information. Some of this auditory information is forgotten, and some of it goes into long-term memory. However, songs appear to stay in the auditory cortex for a long time.
James Kellaris, a professor of marketing at the University of Cincinnati, thinks that only certain types of songs become earworms. These songs are repetitive, simple, and incongruous — something unexpected such as uneven rhythm. Your brain pays a lot of attention to a song like this, Kellaris says. Because it is repetitive and unusual, it stays longer in the auditory cortex. At that point, Kellaris believes, it becomes an annoying earworm.
Advertisers often use jingles — short songs that are easy to remember to promote sales. Advertisers want jingles to stick in people’s minds to keep them thinking about their products. It seems that advertisers have learned what Kellaris has found out in his research.
Is there any way to get rid of an earworm? Here are some tips Kellaris collected: replace the earworm song with another song, try to distract yourself by doing an intense activity such as exercising, or tell someone about your earworm. What if none of these strategies work? Then perhaps you should just sit back and try to enjoy the music in your head!
1. How does the author lead to the topic?| A．By giving a definition. | B．By describing a phenomenon. |
| C．By drawing a conclusion. | D．By clarifying a question. |
| A．The mechanism of earworms. | B．The lasting effect of memory. |
| C．The necessity of the research. | D．The significance of music. |
| A．Paragraph 2. | B．Paragraph 3. | C．Paragraph 4. | D．Paragraph 5. |
| A．Earworms — the Songs in Your Head | B．Jingles — the Typical Earworms |
| C．How Do Earworms Change Our Life? | D．How Do We Live with Earworms? |
1. 支持者的观点；
2. 反对者的观点；
3. 你的观点。
注意：
1. 写作词数应为80左右；
2. 不要出现真实的姓名和校名。
Whether to Study at Home or Abroad
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“Radish knives” have become a hot-sale product in shops near schools. They are also a hot-sale product online. So far more than 400, 000 “radish knives”
The rising popularity of these toys has raised worries among parents about their possibility to lead
A radish knife is a colorful plastic toy that looks just like a radish. It is made of plastic, and usually 5 centimeters in
“Playing with a toy knife may have
利 | 弊 | 你的观点 |
| 1. 产量高，解决粮食短缺问题； 2. 农药使用少，生产成本低，价格便宜。 | 1. 可能对人体有害; 2. 可能对环境造成威胁，破坏生态平衡，影响作物的多样性。 | ? |
2. 可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
参考词汇：农药chemical fertilizer
These days more and more genetically modified crops have been appearing on supermarket shelves, which are favored by many consumers.
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