1 . Is art boring? It’s not, really. I don’t think so, at least. But there’s a problem with how we look at art, how we approach it.
Museums are formal and strangely dry. There’s no embrace. Barriers prevent us from leaving the path set by the curator (馆长). Glass traps the paintings permanently in their frames – an invisible barrier that prevents us from ever getting close to the art, from touching it, feeling it. Guides and guards are constantly observing us, stopping us from taking photos, or using selfie sticks, or talking too loud. Museums have too many rules. And they’ve made our art boring.
We should be able to see art, to sometimes touch it. How can we feel any connection to the world? Art is a way to connect to the world, and yet so much of our art (and it is our art, not theirs, not yours — but ours) is unreachable.
Why can’t we laugh in museums? Why can’t we take silly selfies in front of art, our tongues sticking out, our hands in the air? Art is not boring and yet, we as a society, have made it so. We’ve trapped incredible artists behind glass boxes, with random rules governing noise levels, lights, flashes, sounds, photos, selfies, pens & pencils.
I love art. I think it has this incredible power to change our world. It can move us — as individuals, or as a collective society. Art is so often a window to something else. And yet we’ve allowed museums and galleries and collectors to prevent us from ever opening those windows.
Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy art museums. There are many fantastic ones around the world. And without so many wonderful curators and collectors, we wouldn’t be able to enjoy much of the art that is created -the masterpieces and the newer, more contemporary (and sometimes crazy) art. But at the same time, we’ ve allowed museums too much control.
They’ve taken our art. They’ve controlled our world. And our world, our art — it’s not meant to be controlled. It’s meant to be experienced — however that may be. It’s an individual, personal choice. Let’s take back our art, our museums. And take some selfies.
1. According to the writer, how may visitors to museums feel?| A．Interested. | B．Unwelcome. | C．Excited. | D．Ashamed. |
| A．The writer believes that art should never be kept in museums. |
| B．The writer is losing his love of art due to museums’ policies. |
| C．The writer believes museums are taking away the power of art. |
| D．The writer believes that art should be replaced by something else. |
| A．Help me. | B．Control me. | C．Misunderstand me. | D．Frighten me. |
| A．All of us can create art. | B．Museums are of little use. |
| C．Admission to museums should be free. | D．Museums should give visitors more freedom. |
2 . In the eyes of many environmentalists, the world appears to be getting worse. They believe, the natural resources are running out and the air and water are becoming ever more polluted. But if we check the facts, things look different. Energy has become more abundant, not less so. Fewer people are starving. What seems to cause this gap between perception and reality?
One factor is the prejudice in scientific research. Scientific funding goes mainly to areas with many problems. That may be wise policy, but it will also create an impression that there are more potential problems than actually exist.
Secondly, environmental groups seek attention from the mass media. They also need to get continuous financial support. Understandably, perhaps, they sometimes exaggerate (夸大) their arguments. In 1997, for example, the World Wide Fund for Nature issued a statement titled: “Two thirds of the world’s forests lost forever”. The truth turns out to be near 20%.
The media can add to confusion too. People tend to be more curious about bad news than good. Newspapers and broadcasters are there to provide what the public wants. That, however, can lead to significant misinterpretations. For example, when a natural disaster happens, the media usually highlights the negative parts, giving more attention to the disaster’s details and what happens afterward. This flood of bad news can make people think that such events are more frequent or serious than they actually are. Consequently, people may develop a sense of insecurity, despite statistically low probabilities of similar events happening to them.
Another factor is people’s poor perception. People worry that vaccines can cause severe side effects or long-term health problems. Despite extensive scientific evidence demonstrating their safety and effectiveness, some individuals remain hesitant due to unfounded fears.
It is crucial that we look at the facts if we want to make the best possible decisions for the future. It may be costly to be overly optimistic – but more costly still to be too pessimistic.
1. What aspect of scientific research does the writer worry about in paragraph 2?| A．The need to produce results. | B．The selection of research areas. |
| C．The lack of financial support. | D．The desire to solve research problem. |
| A．To show how influential the mass media can be. |
| B．To show how effective environmental groups can be. |
| C．To show how the mass media can help groups raise funds. |
| D．To show how environmental groups overstate their claims. |
| A．educate readers | B．mislead readers |
| C．meet readers’ expectations | D．encourage readers’ feedback |
| A．Making decisions based on reality. | B．Balancing optimism and pessimism. |
| C．Being optimistic to avoid costly mistakes. | D．Addressing the environmental crisis gradually. |
3 . If you’ve ever discovered unexpected online shopping activity on your accounts- 
worth of See ’n Says, for example-you know the risks of handing your cellphone to a restless preschooler. But children’s impulse (冲动) buys just uncover the surface of potential risks when children and technology meet. With smartphones and the Internet so accessible, children are leaving their digital fingerprints at increasingly early ages, often without guidance on the importance of privacy or security.
For the past eight years, Michigan State University professors Jessica Vitak and Tamara Clegg have talked to parents, teachers and kids about the challenges of surfing the Internet. Their current project, Connecting Contexts, offers a variety of learning opportunities to help kids safely and smartly interact with the ever-progressing technology they encounter. “Having these conversations early,” said Vitak, “will build awareness and habits around privacy they can take into adulthood. ”
“Many of the parents we interviewed didn’t feel they needed to talk about privacy with their kids before middle or high school,” said Vitak. “But if you’re willing to hand your child a smartphone or a tablet, then they are old enough to learn how to use them safely. ”
In December, the Federal Trade Commission proposed massive changes to existing federal rules around how online platforms collect children’s data and make money from it. It grilled (责问) Meta, Discord and other social media companies last month on their efforts to protect children on their platforms. It also carried out six bills before the Congress would tighten online security and safety for kids.
Extending from elementary to middle school, their work offers tested tools and resources for parents, teachers and children-including conversation starters at home, practical tips for building a better password or using social media, choosing learning apps for the classroom and age-appropriate “micro-lessons” that can be integrated into the courses.
1. What does the author describe at the beginning of the text?| A．The typical style of kids’ digital life. | B．The risks of kids’ exposure to technology. |
| C．The convenience of online shopping. | D．The role of smartphones in kids’ growth. |
| A．Parents lack awareness of kids’ online privacy. |
| B．Parents should set age limits for phone use. |
| C．Kids have little self-discipline on the Internet. |
| D．School should be responsible for kids’ online safety: |
| A．It stopped children spending money on social media. |
| B．It made lots of changes to the present rules. |
| C．It collected data from online platforms. |
| D．It introduced several protective bills. |
| A．Kids’ Online Risks and Privacy Education |
| B．Actions Taken to Protect Kids’ Online Privacy |
| C．Kids’ Early Privacy Habits in the Internet Age |
| D．Researchers Create Technology Safety Tools for Kids |
4 . For a place with a reputation for bottling up feelings, Britain is remarkably honest about mental health problems. The British are more likely than people in any other rich country to think that mental illness is a disease like any other and that support should be sought. Only the Swedes hold the idea that a history of mental health problems should not disqualify someone from public office.
Much of the rich world has struggled with rising rates of self-reported mental health problems. But the numbers in Britain are frightening. Around 4.5 million Britons were in contact with mental health services in 2021-2022, which was almost 1 million higher than five years ago. A National Health Service (NHS) survey in 2023 found that one in five 8-to 16-year-olds in England had a probable mental disorder, up from one in eight in 2017. In 17-to 19-year-olds the figure had increased from one in ten to one in four.
It is good that people do not feel they must bottle things up. Awareness of mental health has raised public knowledge of mental health disorders and revealed that many Britons’ needs are not met, but it has caused damage, too.
Despite the best intentions, campaigns intended to raise awareness are leading some people to combine normal responses to life’s difficulties with mental health disorders. Special treatment creates motivations for people to seek diagnoses (诊断) and to medicalise problems unnecessarily. The need to treat people with milder conditions competes with care for those who have the most severe ones. Medicalising mild worry may not benefit patients; instead, normal teaching is just as good for mental health. But the great harm from over diagnosis is to those who most need help.
Britons’ approaches to mental health require several changes. More money should go on research so that individuals are treated appropriately. More time and effort should be given to those most in need of help. All suffering should be taken seriously, but a diagnosis is not always in someone’s best interests.
1. What is Britons’ attitude towards mental health problems?| A．Conservative. | B．Uncaring. | C．Critical. | D．Open. |
| A．By listing examples. | B．By analyzing the causes. |
| C．By presenting the statistics. | D．By referring to professionals’ views. |
| A．Ignorance of milder mental cases. | B．Over-medicalisation of normal stress. |
| C．The lack of teaching in mental health. | D．Unnecessary treatment for most diseases. |
| A．Britain’s Mental Health Mess | B．New Social Crisis in Britain |
| C．Reform in Britons’ Mental Health | D．Britons’ Rising Mental Disorders |
5 . If you are experiencing physical symptoms that could indicate burnout, consider seeing your primary care doctor or a mental health professional to determine whether they are driven by stress or rooted in other physical condition, Dr. Dyrbye said. Don’t just take no notice of the symptoms and assume they are
“It’s really easy to
If it is burnout, then the best solution is to
Despite popular culture coverage of the issue, burnout can’t be “fixed” with better self-care, Dr. Maslach said — in fact, this
When burnout
| A．beneficial | B．insignificant | C．straightforward | D．overwhelming |
| A．stress | B．ignore | C．observe | D．recognize |
| A．address | B．discount | C．conceal | D．stretch |
| A．subjects | B．signs | C．causes | D．impacts |
| A．pass on | B．write down | C．rely on | D．deal with |
| A．relieve | B．remove | C．recover | D．remark |
| A．implication | B．innovation | C．indication | D．intention |
| A．audiences | B．choices | C．performances | D．sentences |
| A．take charge of | B．have interest in | C．take notice of | D．make use of |
| A．suffering | B．shocking | C．spreading | D．motivating |
| A．accounts for | B．depends on | C．results from | D．contributes to |
| A．employer | B．librarian | C．customer | D．participant |
| A．ensure | B．focus | C．revise | D．check |
| A．neglect | B．witness | C．encounter | D．emphasize |
| A．amazed | B．delighted | C．surprised | D．frustrated |
6 . Jennifer and James Crumbley were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter (过失杀人罪) due to their failure to prevent their son Ethan from carrying out a deadly school shooting in Michigan, US. They were sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison on April 9, reported The New York Times. The sentence for them marks the first instance in the US where parents have been held legally accountable for their child’s involvement in a mass shooting.
Prosecutors (检察官) argued that the couple ignored clear signs of their son’s mental health issues and emphasized that they purchased the gun he used in the 2021 attack. Ethan, who was only 15 when he killed four students in the shooting, was sentenced to life. “Opportunity knocked over and over again, louder and louder, and it was ignored,” Judge Cheryl Matthews told the court.
Instances of extreme and violent crimes committed by minors consistently stir shock and controversy globally. Such issues urge widespread societal reflection, leading nations to consider revising laws to lower the age of criminal responsibility. While most countries and regions have maintained a standard minimum age of criminal responsibility at 12 or 14 years for an extended period, there are exceptions. For example, Japan lowered the age from 16 to 14 in 2000, according to Xinhua.
In 2010, Denmark lowered its minimum age of criminal responsibility from 15 to 14 years old. However, researchers found that this change did not reduce crime rates among 14-year-olds. Instead, the punitive measures (惩罚措施) had negative effects. These young individuals often fell behind their peers academically, especially on high school graduation exams, and the rate of reoffenders increased. Consequently, Denmark reversed this policy two years later, restoring the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 15 years old, The Paper reported.
Denmark’s experience showed that the law doesn’t always stop people from committing crimes again. Furthermore, preventing young people from committing crimes poses a complex challenge.
In Germany, imprisonment is considered a last resort, with a focus on educational, rehabilitative (善后的) and disciplinary measures, as noted in a 2018 paper published in the Justice Evaluation Journal. According to the paper, youth imprisonment is applied in only 2 percent of all cases. Additionally, some prisons offer vocational programs for young inmates, including woodworking, metalworking, and farming. Meanwhile, most of these teenage offenders are placed in community programs where social workers help educate and guide them toward a normal life.
1. Why were Jennifer and James sentenced ?| A．They were the murders of involuntary manslaughter. |
| B．They offered a gun to Ethan who carried out a school shooting. |
| C．They didn’t take the parenting responsibility for their son’s problems in growth. |
| D．They ignored their son’s mental health problems. |
| A．Parents should be the key power to stop young people from committing crime. |
| B．Solving the problems of minor’s crime needs joint efforts and diverse measures. |
| C．Lowering the age of criminal responsibility can effectively prevent minors from crime. |
| D．Increasing the rate of youth imprisonment can effectively prevent minors from crime. |
| A．action to take | B．a place to visit |
| C．an end to happen | D．a chance to take |
| A．to show the severity of youth crime |
| B．to show the efforts countries have made to stop youth crime |
| C．to show the measures countries have made to stop youth crime |
| D．to raise parents’ awareness of regulating and educating responsibility |
7 . Aviation is a big polluter. Cutting the sector’s impact on global warming is high on the agenda. Although many governments are regulating emissions from cars and trucks, air transportation is technologically rooted in old patterns.
Facing the reality that the sector will keep emitting a lot, ICAO has established an international carbon-trading plan—Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation, or CORSIA. This encourages wide use of offsets (抵消) : aviation companies can buy emissions credits or invest in sectors that store carbon, such as forestry, to allow them to carry on as normal. CORSIA aims to keep CO2 emissions at 2019 levels through such purchases for emissions over that year’s baseline. ICAO predicts that increasing demand might reach 1. 7 billion tons by 2035, potentially making aviation the largest offset market in the world.
Yet offsetting faces a fundamental challenge: the size of the offset requires estimating flows of warming pollution that would have occurred if the carbon-removal project hadn’t existed, and comparing them against flows with the project in place. The former — a baseline that is unobservable — is a hotbed for shady accounting.
The vast majority of offsets today and in the expected future come from forest-protection and regrowth projects. The track record of reliable accounting in these industries is poor, because they lack convincing baselines. Even with oversight, forest projects are often troubled by wild assumptions, for example that trees would disappear completely from these areas in the absence of those projects, even when there are other forest protections in place. Such assumptions drive up baselines and flood the market with huge volumes of offsets. They make it easier for accountants to claim a net reduction in emissions even though the atmosphere sees little or no benefit. These problems are essentially unfixable. Evidence is mounting that offsetting as a strategy for reaching net zero is a dead end.
In our view, this approach could prove dangerously narrow. Removing aviation’s impact on global warming means upending the industry. The longer that reality is overlooked, the harder it will be to find effective solutions.
1. What does aviation refer to in the passage?| A．A project which needs revising. | B．A resource which needs trading. |
| C．A market which needs expanding. | D．An industry which needs reforming. |
| A．To support the development of forestry. | B．To earn the largest profit in offset market. |
| C．To keep the levels of emission unchanged. | D．To make up for emissions over the baseline. |
| A．Too many offsets are filling the market now. |
| B．Some projects may cheat to create more offsets. |
| C．Offsetting contributes a lot to reducing emissions. |
| D．Trees would totally disappear without the projects. |
| A．Disapproving. | B．Confused. | C．Favorable. | D．Unconcerned. |
8 . Childhood can bring a lot of awe (敬畏). Research also suggests that awe is important in promoting well-being beyond our individual lives — it can encourage our children to care for others.
A recent study by researchers Eftychia Stamkou, Keltner, and their colleagues invited children aged 8-13 to take part in an experiment. In the awe group, children were offered a short part of a movie that features a child transformed into a seal (海豹) and exploring the sea while in the joy group, children were offered a short part of another movie where friends were celebrating.
Researchers measured children’s kindness toward poor families by inviting children to support their food drive by spending as much time as they wanted in counting donated things, to make sure the poor got access to the donated food as quickly as possible. They also invited children to donate the reward they earned from taking part in the research (e.g., a snack or a museum ticket) to a poor family.
The results? Children who watched the awe-inspiring video spent more time counting food donations and donated their rewards to poor families more often compared to the children who watched the joy-inspiring video. These findings highlight that awe-inspiring art can motivate children to be sympathetic toward people who have been forcibly displaced (离开家园) from their countries of origin.
As parents, we can also seek out everyday experiences of awe in our communities to share with our children, like wall paintings of the city scenery and folk art. Awe can be inspired by music, like the harmonious sounds of a wooden guitar and the beat of a drum. Awesome architecture, like symphony halls, museums, and even features like staircases, can be a way to experience awe with our children.
1. What does the research find?| A．Awe should be inspired early. | B．Awe helps kids be more generous. |
| C．Individual lives affect kids’ health. | D．Training awe gives kids excitement. |
| A．They watched different movies. | B．They commented on the videos. |
| C．They were asked some questions. | D．They donated money to poor families. |
| A．They learned this from a video. | B．They were motivated by the movie. |
| C．They liked to contribute to charity. | D．They were reminded by the homeless. |
| A．Give reasons for feeling awe. | B．List experiences of awe. |
| C．Show benefits of awe to kids. | D．Appeal for developing awe in kids. |
9 . In the last few months, companies, often backed by governments, have raced to launch or begin building AIs for their native languages including Indonesian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean and multiple Indian languages. But will they ever be able to compete or offer a solid alternative to Silicon Valley’s AI bots like ChatGPT?
Machine learning engineer Yennie Jun started noticing the problem when she was testing ChatGPT-4 in different languages. “I saw that it was slower, and just not as good when using it in Korean and Chinese which usually have good quality training data to draw on,” she said.
Earlier this month Yennie decided to test GPT-4 — the latest AI model from Open AI — with some tricky maths problems. She asked the same maths questions in 16 different languages and found it much better at solving problems in certain languages like English, German and Spanish. In fact, GPT-4 was able to correctly solve the maths problems in English more than three times as often compared to other languages, such as Armenian or Farsi. It wasn’t able to solve any of the tough questions in Burmese or Amharic.
“I think the current state of AI will accelerate inequality. Emerging markets just don’t have the computing power, data sets or the AI resources to compete with the western world’s models,” said Nick Adams, founding partner at Differential Ventures.
However, one promising project launched by India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology aims to improve the amount of training data in low-resourced languages by crowd sourcing. The project invites people to “make your own AI language models better by confirming data”. Participants are played audio from podcasts or shows in different Indian languages and then given digital medals in reward for translating them in their own languages. But there is a mountain to climb. Despite the huge populations of native speakers, only a few thousand people have so far got involved.
1. Why does the author ask the question in paragraph 1?| A．To present an argument. | B．To question building AIs. |
| C．To introduce the topic. | D．To showcase expectations. |
| A．Turn on. | B．Keep on. | C．Focus on. | D．Depend on. |
| A．Negative. | B．Hopeful. | C．Ambiguous. | D．Tolerant. |
| A．An AI language model. | B．An approach to training data. |
| C．A language to translate. | D．A plan launched by India. |
10 . Professor Dallas Smythe first described commercial media as a system for delivering audiences to advertisers. This perception of the viewing public as a “market” for products as well as an audience for advertising reflects the economic preference of the current media system in America. The unplanned side effects of advertising, however, concern many critics (评论家).
Dinar Godrej holds the view that advertising creates an attack on our senses, that advertising can act as a “compulsive liar”, and that the disorder advertising creates attacks us with images and ideas that result in a cultural change that creates desires for goods that only the wealthy can actually get. This author takes the point of view that there is really nothing positive that advertising contributes to a society, and that just about everything about advertising is negative.
John Calfee addresses many of these issues but also focuses on how the information in ads benefits consumers. He takes the position that advertising functions in the public’s interest, and that even the argument about ads can be beneficial because they can result in competitive pricing for consumers. He also states that individuals can learn about important issues (such as health) through ads.
There are also more neutral (中立的) views, such as those held by people who see it as an economic engine to deliver “free” programs to people, or the idea that advertising is an art form in itself. Whatever the perspective, one thing is true: Advertising can have both obvious and potential (潜在的) impact. It can be defended on solid ground and criticized on solid ground.
1. Why does Dinar Godrej think advertising can be a “compulsive liar”?| A．It creates disorder in our body. | B．It is full of images and ideas. |
| C．It changes our feelings for goods. | D．It creates goods for the wealthy. |
| A．It helps control prices. | B．It decreases public’s interest. |
| C．It avoids arguments. | D．It is good for people’s health. |
| A．Few people hold neutral views on advertising. |
| B．We can not see all the impact of advertising. |
| C．Advertising encourages us to learn about art. |
| D．Advertising is seldom criticized by people. |
| A．Positive. | B．Objective. | C．Doubtful. | D．Subjective. |
