1 . The needs of plus size consumers have long been the elephant in the room of the fashion industry until body positivity and fat acceptance movements promoted the slogan (口号) that large-bodied people are not those who are left behind. This size-inclusive (尺码包容) trend has become so popular that it is influencing mainstream culture. As a result, fashion brands have finally decided to extend their size ranges. In 2022, the plus-size market grew twice as fast as the standard size market in both North America and the UK.
Yet, many consumers say fashion brands broadening their ranges are not truly inclusive. “Inclusive sizing means that all bodies are included in fashion, not just the ones who fit in standard sizes,” says Marie Southard Ospina, a UK-based journalist who covers body-image issues. “However, what many designers do right now is pick a number that they think is big enough to include plus sizes and stop. This is even more disrespectful.”
Researchers also criticize that some brands are just taking advantage of the trend. “Brands that used to promote so-called perfect bodies in their advertisements are now trying to get in on the trend by adding a few sizes. It doesn’t feel like they really care about plus-size people,” says Tom Burgess, analyst in fashion industry. “If brands cared about large-bodied consumers, then it wouldn’t have taken until now to acknowledge that they exist,” he says. “It gives the impression that companies are just trying to gain a share of the market without a real commitment to the community.”
The fashion industry must go beyond merely producing clothing in a range of sizes if they hope to succeed with a body -diverse world. The whole industry has to connect on a personal level with consumers. That involves showing shoppers that they are seen, understood and important to brands. “Consumers care about values, and so they want to buy from brands that reflect the values they believe in. Everyone should enjoy the same range of fashion options,” says Ludovica Cesareo, professor of marketing at the College of Business in the US.
1. What do the underlined words “the elephant in the room” mean in the first paragraph?| A．The hot issue that is valued. |
| B．The obvious truth that is ignored. |
| C．The important principle that is recognized. |
| D．The common phenomenon that is criticized. |
| A．They pick sizes randomly. | B．They offer limited plus sizes. |
| C．They treat designers disrespectfully. | D．They haven’t broadened standard sizes. |
| A．Their designs. | B．Their quality. |
| C．Their motivations. | D．Their advertisements. |
| A．Buyers may deserve fashion that fits their figure. |
| B．Consumers prefer brands with personalized values. |
| C．Brands should catch up with the size-inclusive trend. |
| D．A good brand image is critical in the fashion industry. |
2 . The recent reports of a 4-year-old girl on a Shanghai beach have gone viral on social media platforms, provoking debate about whether China should criminalize negligence in child supervision.
The father of the little girl claimed that he left her alone on the beach for about 12 minutes to fetch his phone. However, she was nowhere to be found when he was back. Surveillance (监控) videos show that she waited for about 10 minutes before walking toward the water’s edge alone, and then disappeared into the water. Two weeks later, her body was discovered about 100 kilometers away in neighboring Zhejiang Province.
The core issue in this case is the father’s leaving his young daughter unattended on the beach, causing her tragic death. Should such behavior, when it causes harm to a child, be seen as a criminal act? In an online survey, more than 90 percent of respondents insisted that the father be held legally responsible and face criminal punishments.
Nevertheless, according to Liu Chunquan, a lawyer, it may not satisfy the criteria for criminal negligence, since the primary focus of Chinese criminal law is on extreme cases of parental neglect, such as physical abuse and mental torture. Rarely do legal authorities charge parents; instead, they are just likely to face penalties consisting of warnings and fines.
In 2022, a 2-year-old baby drowned in a cesspool while in the company of his father. The court ruled shared responsibility between the father and the cesspool’s owner, with a 7:3 proportion. The owner was ordered to pay 20,000 yuan to the child’s family. Unluckily, similar cases do exist nationwide. Roughly, 100,000 children lose their lives in accidents annually in China, which is largely due to negligence, such as parents leaving their children unattended, either in locked cars or at home. Besides, drowning is now the main cause of death for children aged 1 to 14 years old.
It is no wonder that an increasing number of netizens request that specific laws and regulations be passed to ensure the safety of children and their well-being. Hopefully, criminalizing child supervision negligence in China can serve as a warning and precaution.
However, downsides of introducing such legislation may also emerge. For instance, it’s difficult to distinguish between a regrettable accident and criminal negligence, so that over-criminalization can be triggered, in which well-meaning parents making honest mistakes are charged with a crime.
Therefore, a more balanced approach to addressing the issue of infant safety should involve a combination of new legislation, education and support services. The ultimate objective is to prevent similar catastrophes in the future. We must recognize that children are not only their parents’ offspring, but also the nation’s future.
1. What can we infer from the tragedy of the 4-year-old girl?| A．Her father’s carelessness and negligence should be to blame. |
| B．The beach in Shanghai should not be open to small children. |
| C．Her father has been sentenced to severe penalties by the police. |
| D．She would have survived if she had not waited in the water for a long time. |
| A．Irresponsible adults contribute to children’s death. | B．People can’t be too concerned about child safety. |
| C．Kids shouldn’t be allowed to swim alone. | D．Parents’ constant monitoring is a must. |
| A．the mild penalties in the existing laws | B．parents’ ignorance of potential dangers |
| C．frequent occurrence of such incidents | D．masses of netizens’ urgent appeals |
| A．Indifferent. | B．Negative. | C．Objective. | D．Supportive. |
3 . A vast majority of people usually argue that cycling can make a significant contribution to our world. In reality, there is a gap between desired and actual numbers. In Germany, for instance, only 20% of the everyday short-distance trips are covered by bicycle. When enquiring about the causes, researchers found one point repeatedly tops the list: the perceived or potential risk on the bike routes used. Increasing the share of cycling trips thus depends crucially on well-developed bike paths.
However, designing efficient bike path networks is a complex task that involves balancing a variety of limitations while meeting overall demand. In addition, many districts are confronted with a shortage of funds available for improving the infrastructure. Researchers propose a new approach to generating efficient bike path networks. This considers demand distribution and the route option of cyclists based on preferences for secure outings. Typically, minimizing the travel distance is far from the solely goal. Aspects such as attractiveness of a route are also taken into account.
Under real conditions, a bike path network is created by constantly adding bike paths to more streets. This time, researchers start with an ideal, complex network, in which all streets in a city are equipped with a bike path. In a virtual process, they gradually remove less used bike path sections from this network. The route selection of cyclists is continuously updated. Thus, a series of bike path networks is created and is always adapted to the current usage. Each stage of it corresponds to a variant that could be carried out with less financial support.
“We illustrate the applicability of this demand-driven planning for crowded urban areas of Dresden and Hamburg,” explains researcher Christoph Steinacker. “We are approaching a real-life issue here using the theoretic toolbox of network dynamics and compare efficient bike path networks under different conditions.”
1. Why do people rarely cycle?| A．They think of cycling as inefficient. | B．They usually take long-distance trips. |
| C．They’re concerned about the security. | D．They’re unable to find special bike roads. |
| A．Tight budgets. | B．Complex routes. |
| C．Maximized travel distance. | D．Decreasing cycling demand. |
| A．It will be updated once in a while. | B．It is contrary to the real-life design. |
| C．It ensures every street has a bike path. | D．It serves as a model for other districts. |
| A．Good Planning Gets the Bike Rolling | B．A good Network Benefits More People |
| C．Cycling Paths Change Crowded Urban Areas | D．A New Concept Contributes to a Better World |
4 . In a video from Visit Iceland, a crew is seen working on making a horse-sized keyboard out of massive blocks of wood. The keyboard is then put outside against the gorgeous scenery for the typing horses to reply to emails. Unsurprisingly, the replies are nonsense, with examples listed as “bpnisi. // hihaihf＝. sf”. “OutHorse Your Email” is Iceland’s latest stunt (噱头) to promote tourism. Visitors can choose a trained horse to type responses to their work emails when they are on holiday.
Due to the pandemic, many workers have transitioned to remote working, finding that the lines between their work and personal lives have become blurred. A survey conducted by Visit Iceland revealed that 59% of people globally now feel as if their boss, colleagues, and customers expect them to reply when on holiday and 41% of people check their work emails between one and four times a day when on holiday. That’s why Iceland is assigning emails to its horses, asking them to make replies.
“When visitors travel to Iceland, we want them to fully experience everything our nation has to offer, from breathtaking surroundings to endless landscapes," said the head of Visit Iceland. "Our OutHorse Your Email service lets them do just that. With our world-first service, we hope to appeal to people to disconnect and take a well-deserved, uninterrupted break.”
Since “OutHorse Your Email” service was launched, it has got a lot of attention from the Internet. “Is it a ridiculous tourism stunt? Sure. But it indeed encourages me to enjoy my trip wholeheartedly,” said Thom Dunn, an online user from Canada. Hunter Boyce from the USA also made a comment, “The service sounds interesting, but I don’t want to drive my boss mad or be fired.”
1. What can we know about the typing horses?| A．They are trained to reply to emails. |
| B．They type meaningful emails. |
| C．They reply to emails in famous scenic spots. |
| D．They work with a common keyboard. |
| A．Unclear. |
| B．Unimportant. |
| C．Controllable. |
| D．Adjustable. |
| A．To reduce people’s pressure. |
| B．To fight against the pandemic. |
| C．To encourage undisturbed trips. |
| D．To improve visitors’ work efficiency. |
| A．Ambiguous. |
| B．Negative. |
| C．Favourable. |
| D．Indifferent. |
Eat or heat?
No more ironing, limited oven use and showering at work—Europeans are trying to keep energy use down but the bills still keep climbing. Costs of energy for British consumers will rise by 80% from October,
Keetley
A household is defined as living in fuel poverty if it is low income and needs to spend 10% or even
6 . In fact, this isn’t a new phenomenon. After all, people have complained about “kids these days” for decades. But is there really any truth in the idea that millennials (千禧一代) and Gen Z are weaker than Boomers or Gen X? People have complained about younger generations for thousands of years.
He points out the fixed concept remains alive and well, with research showing thousands of Americans believe that “kids these days” lack positive qualities that participants associate with older generations.
By doing this, older people are unconsciously comparing who they are today to today’s young people, giving an impression that today’s youth is somehow on the decline, no matter which times we’re living in.
“It’s awareness of what these different generations have gone through, why they are the way they are.” he says.
“
| A．It is actually not the truth |
| B．We were also judged by the former generations |
| C．And the old generations are usually too stubborn to change themselves |
| D．But this isn’t because the youths of today actually do lack these qualities |
| E．The best way to get the old to stop blaming the young is to create a dialogue |
| F．We seem almost forced to judge people who grew up in a different time to us |
| G．In fact, looking down on the generation that comes after you could simply be human nature |
7 . On Wednesday, two things happened. In Syria, 80 people were killed by government airstrikes. Meanwhile, in Florida, Elon Musk’s SpaceX successfully launched and fired a sports car into space. Guess which story has dominated mainstream news sites?
The launch of Musk’s Falcon Heavy rocket, the most powerful ever launched by a private company, went off successfully. Musk sent his cherry-red Tesla roadster running toward Mars, launching “a new space age”. The event attracted phenomenal publicity and made the rocket launch a masterstroke of advertising for Tesla.
Meanwhile, in Syria, where hundreds of thousands of refugees(难民) may be forced to return to unsafe homes, a UN human rights coordinator for Syria said despondently(沮丧地) that he was no longer sure why he bothers to videotape the effects of bombing, since nobody ever pays attention. He wondered what level of violence it would take to make the world care.
There is, perhaps, no better way to appreciate the tragedy of 21st-century global inequality than by watching a billionaire spend $90m launching a $100,000 car into space.
Musk said he wanted to participate in a space race because “races are exciting” and that while strapping his car to a rocket may be “silly and fun … silly and fun things are important”. Thus, anyone who mentions the huge waste the project involves, or the various social uses to which these resources could be put, can be dismissed as a killjoy.
But one doesn’t have to hate fun to question the justification for pursuing a costly new space race at exactly this moment. If we examine the situation honestly, it becomes hard to defend a project like this.
A mission to Mars does indeed sound exciting, but it’s important to have our priorities straight. First, perhaps we could make it so that a child no longer dies of malaria every two minutes. Or we could try to address the level of poverty in Alabama which has become so extreme that the UN investigator did not believe it could occur in a first-world country. Perhaps when violence, poverty and disease are solved, then we can head for the stars.
Many might think that what Elon Musk chooses to do with his billions is Elon Musk’s business alone. If he wanted to spend all his money on medicine for children, that would be nice, but if he’d like to spend it making big explosions and sending his convertible on a million-mile space voyage, that’s his right.
But Musk is only rich enough to afford these money-consuming projects because we have allowed social inequalities to arise in the first place. If wealth were actually distributed fairly in this country, nobody would be in a position to fund his own private space program.
Elon Musk is right: silly and fun things are important. But some of them are an indefensible waste of resources. While there are still humanitarian crises such as that in Syria, nobody can justify vast spending on rocketry experiments.
1. Why does the writer mention the two pieces of news at the beginning of the passage?| A．To illustrate the inequality of wealth distribution and the consequent inequality of attention distribution. |
| B．To highlight the significance of SpaceX’s successful launch of a rocket and a car into space. |
| C．To appeal to the government for more attention to the air strikes and refugee crisis in Syria. |
| D．To find out which news dominated the mainstream news sites. |
| A．Because nobody appreciated his work and all the efforts he made. |
| B．Because the violence in Syria is not serious enough to make the world care. |
| C．Because however hard he tried, nobody seemed to care about the situation in Syria. |
| D．Because he had great difficulty videotaping the effects of bombing. |
| A．The space project of SpaceX cost the government too much money. |
| B．It kills the fun to question the justification of the pursuit of space programs. |
| C．Space programs are a waste of money that cannot be justified. |
| D．Addressing problems of violence, poverty and diseases should be our top priority. |
| A．We should pay equal attention to space projects and solving social problems. |
| B．No private companies should be allowed to spend money in rocketry experiments. |
| C．The money and resources used in space projects could have been used to deal with various social problems. |
| D．Elon Musk should be blamed for misleading the public. |
8 . Over millions of years humans have responded to certain situations without thinking too hard. If our ancestors spotted movement in the nearby forest, they would run first and question later. At the same time, the ability to analyze and to plan is part of what separates us from other animals. The question of when to trust your instinct (直觉)and when to think slow matters in the office as much as in the savannah(草原).
Slow thinking is the feature of a well-managed workplace. Yet instinct also has its place. Some decisions are more connected to emotional responses and less to analysis. In demanding customer-service or public-facing situations, instinct is often a better guide to how to behave.
Instinct can also be improved. Plenty of research has shown that instinct becomes more unerring with experience. In one well-known experiment, volunteers were asked to assess whether a selection of designer handbags were real or not. Some were instructed to operate on instinct and others to deliberate(深思熟虑)over their decision. Instinct worked better for those who owned at least three designer handbags; indeed, it outperformed analysis. The more expert you become, the better your instinct tends to be.
However, the real reason to embrace fast thinking is that it is, well, fast. It is often the only way to get through the day. To take one example, when your inbox floods with new emails at the start of a new day, there is absolutely no way to read them all carefully. Instinct is what helps you decide which ones to answer and which to delete or leave unopened. Fast thinking can also help the entire organization. The value of many managerial decisions lies in the simple fact that they have been made at all. Yet as data explodes, the temptation(诱惑)to ask for one more bit of analysis has become much harder to resist. Managers often suffer from overthinking, turning a simple problem into a complex one.
When to use instinct in the workplace rests on its own form of pattern recognition. Does the decision maker have real expertise in this area? Is this a field in which emotion matters more than reasoning? Above all, is it worth delaying the decision? Slow thinking is needed to get the big calls right. But fast thinking is the way to stop deliberation turning to a waste of time.
1. What does the underlined word “unerring” in Paragraph 3 probably mean?| A．Accurate. | B．Creative. | C．Controllable. | D．Obvious. |
| A．Managers can afford the cost of slow thinking. |
| B．Fast thinking can be a boost to work efficiency. |
| C．Slow thinking will hold us back in the long run. |
| D．Too much data is to blame for wrong decisions. |
| A．To explain how instinct works. |
| B．To compare instinct and slow thinking. |
| C．To highlight the value of instinct in the workplace. |
| D．To illustrate the development of different thinking patterns. |
9 . TikTok has appeared as a major starter of food trends—from mushroom coffee and pancake cereal to cloud bread. But there’s another trend dominating TikTok that’s become bigger than any of these viral recipes. That’s the #whatieatinaday trend, which is nearing 9 billion views. These video food diaries are also popular on Instagram—typically featuring a wellness influencer or celebrity showing their foods they ate that day—often with a full-length yoga clothes mirror selfie.
The basic message these posts send is that if you eat like them, then you can eventually look like them. The posts are promoting the idea of a perfect or ideal day of eating, along with a perfect body size.
“Younger audience, especially girls and young women, accept the message that they must eat like these creators in order to achieve and maintain not only health, but also social attraction,” says Cara Harbstreet. “The biggest harm I see with this trend is that it normalizes disordered or restrictive eating behaviors. This could prevent someone struggling with an eating disorder from seeking and receiving support or treatment.”
Even if the #whatieatinaday posts are displaying a balanced day of eating, the message of “eat like me, and you will look like me” is harmful because people would not necessarily achieve the same body size as the Instagrammer even if they copied their day of eating bite for bite.
Rather than a day’s worth of food, many experts suggest posting a single meal instead. Rachael Hartley said an individual meal or recipe could serve as an idea or inspiration versus a full day of eating to copy.
“I occasionally share #whylate Wednesday posts, with the aim of showing a wide range of foods, including fast food, desserts, convenience foods and other foods that diet culture might dislike, as well as showing how to include nutrition in a gentle way,” she said.
Rachael says diet culture has changed our sense of how much is “normal” to eat at meals or snacks, so it can be helpful to see a full meal that shows a variety of foods.
1. What is paragraph I mainly about?| A．The popularity of TikTok cooking classes. |
| B．The origin of the #whatieatinaday trend. |
| C．The Internet hit of posting a whole-day diet. |
| D．The disagreement of selfies in yoga clothes. |
| A．It makes people less attractive. | B．It confuses dieting with healthy eating. |
| C．It contributes to emotional disorder. | D．It restricts people’s choice to vegetables. |
| A．A big Sunday supper with various dishes. |
| B．A single meal with only convenient noodles. |
| C．Breakfast, lunch and dinner on a Wednesday. |
| D．A day’s meals with more vegetables than meat. |
| A．To compare different eating habits. |
| B．To inform a standard posting method. |
| C．To argue against #whatieatinaday posting. |
| D．To discuss the pros and cons of diet culture. |
10 . If job seekers knew companies were using AI to fill open positions, would it stop them from applying for the job? The answer, according to a recent study, is yes — sometimes.
The researchers found that in certain instances, like the screening (筛选) of applications, participants usually accepted some degree of automation. But in other instances, like interviews, automation could stop job seekers from applying for a position.
Companies facing recent labor shortages are increasingly turning to AI as a way to facilitate and speed up the hiring process. AI can be used in tasks such as screening job candidates, checking professional licenses, and interviewing candidates.
The new research suggests that using AI in hiring could be quite opposite. For instance, in one part of the study, participants were shown fictional job postings and then asked if they intended to apply for the position. The researchers found that if the job posting said that AI was used both to screen applicants and to conduct interviews, participants’ intention to apply for the position averaged 2.77 on a six-point scale. If AI was used only for the screening process, participants’ intention to apply averaged 3.73.
In another experiment, the researchers also found that study participants saw pros and cons in the use of AI in interviewing. When told the hiring would be fully automated, some participants expected the whole hiring process to be more consistent (始终如一的) in its judgments. But others tended to believe that they had less voice in the final outcome. Overall, the study results suggest this concern tends to outweigh the appreciation of AI’s lack of bias (偏见) at the interviewing stage.
A mixed approach may be a way to get the best of both worlds. Participants may have been more open to automation earlier in the hiring process because they could see some benefits from using AI — such as less-biased decisions. But during the later stages applicants expect personal interaction, to give them an opportunity to sell themselves and to learn more about the company.
1. Why do companies increasingly turn to AI in hiring?| A．To attract more applicants. | B．To boost hiring process. |
| C．To pick out top candidates. | D．To solve labor shortages. |
| A．Screening job candidates. | B．Interviewing candidates. |
| C．Grading professional licenses. | D．Predicting final outcomes. |
| A．Less AI involvement. | B．Lack of consistent judgments. |
| C．Less-biased decisions. | D．Lack of personal interaction. |
| A．Hi-tech is a two-edged sword. |
| B．AI finds its way to hiring process. |
| C．Automation may discourage job seekers. |
| D．A mixed approach should be adopted in hiring. |
