1 . My family has a new toy. At every gathering, a Mata Quest 2 virtual reality headset is now carefully unpacked and passed around. The metaverse (元宇宙) that the headsets access sounds like an appealing place. Create your own form, move between worlds and beyond the limitations of reality — what could be better? Yet the headsets are still massive and the apps cartoonist. Even the game my family loves best shows that perfect interaction with the real world and realistic pictures are still years away. After an hour, not even my nephews want to play anymore.
Yet this observation runs counter to the steady drumbeat of warnings that have emerged about virtual life over the past year. When Meta whistleblower Frances Haugen spoke out against her employer, addiction to the metaverse was one of the things she claims to be most worried about. Immersive environments would encourage users to disconnect from reality altogether, she said.
You can see why product managers like Haugen might worry. Many of us lost the battle against limiting our Internet use long ago. Tech addiction has tricked our brains into habits that ensure our overconsumption of tech products. For instance, our addiction to checking and rechecking our messaging apps. Or looking out for email notifications (通知). On this point, I agree. I’m guilty of both. I turned my own screentime reminders off months ago. Simply knowing how much time I was spending on my phone didn’t seem to be having any effect on my habits.
In lockdowns, spending hours at a time on the Internet became normalized. Yet this does not mean we are all on the edge of spending hours and hours in the metaverse. In the four years I have spent testing out virtual and augmented (强化的) headsets, I have yet to try one that feels comfortable. “Like tying a brick to your forehead,” as one friend put it. It is possible to buy upgraded head bands that attempt to redistribute the weight, but even so the sets still remain heavy.
1. How did the attitude of the author’s family change towards playing VR games?| A．From being absorbed to bored. |
| B．From being confused to confident. |
| C．From being curious to excited. |
| D．From being casual to interested. |
| A．Confirm. | B．Challenge. | C．Repeat. | D．Ignore. |
① minimizing online use.
② checking messaging apps repeatedly.
③ being addicted to email notifications.
④ silencing the screen-time reminders.
| A．①② | B．②③ | C．③④ | D．①④ |
| A．The addiction to virtual reality. |
| B．The anxiety caused by lockdowns. |
| C．The heaviness of virtual reality headsets. |
| D．The cost involved with buying tech products. |
2 . The need for clarity extends beyond how we communicate science to how we evaluate it. Who can really define stock phrases such as ‘a significant contribution to research’? Or understand what ‘high impact’ or ‘world-class’ mean? Scientists demand that institutions should be clear about their criteria and consider all scholarly outputs—preprints, code, data, peer review, teaching, mentoring and so on.
My view about the practices in research assessment is that most assessment guidelines permit sliding standards: instead of clearly defined terms, they give us feel-good slogans that lack any fixed meaning. Facing the problem will get us much of the way towards a solution.
Broad language increases room for misunderstanding. ‘High impact’ can be code for where research is published. Or it can mean the effect that research has had on its field, or on society locally or globally—often very different things. Yet confusion is the least of the problems. Words such as ‘world-class’ and ‘excellent’ allow assessors to vary comparisons depending on whose work they are assessing. Academia(学术界) cannot be a fair and reasonable system if standards change depending on whom we are evaluating. Unconscious bias(偏见) associated with factors such as a researcher’s gender, ethnic origin and social background helps the academic injustice continue. It was only with double-blind review of research proposals that women finally got fair access to the Hubble Space Telescope.
Many strategies exist to improve fairness in academia, but conceptual clarity is paramount. Being clear about how specific qualities are valued leads assessors to think critically about whether those qualities are truly being considered. Achieving that conceptual clarity requires discussion with faculties, staff and students: hours and hours of it. The University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands, for example, held a series of conversations, each involving 20-60 researchers, and then spent another year revising its research assessment policies to recognize social impacts.
Frank conversations about what is valued in a particular context, or at a specific institution, are an essential first step in developing concrete recommendations. Although ambiguous(模棱两可的) terms, for instance ‘world-class’ and ‘significant’, are a barrier when performing assessments, university administrators have said that they rely on flexible language to make room to reward a variety of contributions. So it makes sense that more specific language in review and promotion must be able to accommodate varied outputs, outcomes and impacts of scholarly work.
Setting specific standards will be tough. It will be inviting to fall back on the misleading standards such as impact factors, or on ambiguous terms that can be agreed to by everyone but applied wisely by no one. It is too early to know what those standards will be or how much they will vary, but the right discussions are starting to happen. They must continue.
1. Regarding the current practices in research assessment, the author is ________.| A．supportive | B．puzzled |
| C．unconcerned | D．disapproving |
| A．Bias on assessors can cause inequality. | B．Frank conversations harm scholarly work. |
| C．Specific qualities need to be clearly stated. | D．Broad language ensures academic fairness. |
| A．primary. | B．recognized. |
| C．optional. | D．accomplished. |
| A．Fix research assessment. Change slogans for clear standards. |
| B．Fix research assessment. Change evaluations for conversations. |
| C．Define research assessment. Change simplicity for specification. |
| D．Define research assessment. Change broad language for flexible one. |
3 . The need of plus-size consumers has long been the elephant in the room of the fashion industry until body positivity and fat acceptance movements promoted that large-bodied people are not those who are left behind. This trend has become so popular that it is influencing mainstream culture. As a result, fashion brands have finally decided to expand 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 (包容的). “Inclusive sizing means that all bodies are included in fashion, not just the ones who fit in standard sizes,” says Marie North, 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 (批评) 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 Michael 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 devotion 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 choices,” says Ludovica Ospina, professor of marketing at the College of Business.
1. What do the underlined words “the elephant in the room” in paragraph 1 mean?| A．Hardly satisfied. | B．Socially accepted. |
| C．Widely promoted. | D．Obvious but ignored. |
| A．Unclear. | B．Negative. | C．Puzzled. | D．Cautious. |
| A．Their motivation. | B．Their promotion. |
| C．Their devotion. | D．Their advertisement. |
| A．Provide more fashion choices. |
| B．Show respect to the consumers. |
| C．Produce clothes in various sizes. |
| D．Build private relationships with customers. |
4 . What comes to mind when you think about chocolate? A candy bar at Halloween? Ice cream on a hot day?
For Ibrahim, a 12-year-old boy from the West African country of Ghana, chocolate is not about sweet treats; it is about bitter work.
To change the harmful practices like this, some farms use an approach called Fairtrade.
Consumers like you can play a role as well. You can buy Fairtrade chocolate if possible, pressure candy companies to change their labour practices, or ask local stores to sell Fairtrade products.
Chocolate has a hidden story that affects children like Ibrahim—children who want a happy future just like you do.
| A．You have the power to change the story. |
| B．The labels on chocolate do not tell his story. |
| C．Fairtrade is a way of doing business that prohibits child labour. |
| D．You can also take action through the Fairtrade Schools network. |
| E．On many farms, children like Ibrahim perform difficult farming tasks. |
| F．Cocoa trees grow in the tropical climates of Africa, Latin America and South-East Asia. |
| G．With more income, farmers can pay adult workers and can send their children to school. |
1. What is the talk mainly about?
| A．Old people’s lives. | B．A supermarket chain. | C．Services for the elderly. |
| A．She lost her phone by accident. |
| B．She was cheated through phone. |
| C．She was unable to make calls. |
| A．True Call. | B．Safeway. | C．Red & Yellow Care. |
| A．Businessmen. | B．Sick people. | C．Senior customers. |
6 . Supermarkets have long been suffering as one of the thinnest-margined businesses in existence and one of the least-looked-forward-to places to work or visit. For more than a decade, they have been under attack from e-commerce giants, blamed for making Americans fat, and accused of contributing to climate change.
Supermarkets can technically be defined as giants housing 15,000 to 60,000 different products. The revolutionary idea of a self-service grocery, where people could hunt and gather food from aisles rather than asking a clerk to fetch items from behind a counter, first came about in America. There is some debate about which was the very first, but over the years a consensus has built around King Kullen Supermarket, founded in New York in 1930.
For some 300 years, Americans had fed themselves from small stores and public markets. Shopping for food involved mud, noisy chickens, clouds of flies, nasty smells, bargaining, and getting short-changed. The supermarket imitated the Fordist factory, with its emphasis on efficiency and standardization, and reimagined it as a place to buy food. Supermarkets may not feel cutting-edge now, but they were a revolution in distribution at the time. They were such strange marvels that, on her first official state visit to the United States in 1957, Queen Elizabeth Ⅱ insisted on an impromptu (即兴的) tour of a suburban-Maryland Giant Food.
The typical supermarket layout has barely changed over the past 90 years. Most stores open with flowers, fruit and vegetables at the front as a breath of freshness to arouse our appetite. Meanwhile, they keep the milk, eggs, and other daily basics all the way back so you’ll travel through as much of the store as possible, and be tempted along the way.
In the early days, as the supermarket multiplied, so did our suspicion of it. We have long feared that this “revolution in distribution” uses corporate black magic on our appetite. The book The Hidden Persuaders, published in 1957, warned that supermarkets were putting women in a “hypnoidal trance (催眠恍惚状态),” causing them to wander aisles, bumping into boxes and “picking things off shelves at random.”
1. What problem have supermarkets been facing?| A．They are actually on the way to shutdown. |
| B．They have been losing customers and profits. |
| C．They are forced to use e-commerce strategies. |
| D．They have difficulty adapting to climate change. |
| A．It was put forward by King Kullen. |
| B．It originated in the United States. |
| C．It has been under constant debate. |
| D．It proves revolutionary even today. |
| A．They use tricky strategies to promote their business. |
| B．They are going to replace the local groceries entirely. |
| C．They apply corporate black magic to the goods on display. |
| D．They take advantage of the weaknesses of women shoppers. |
7 . Recently, a coalition of business and advocacy groups from around Washington gathered to kick off a campaign to enact a carbon pricing program in the capital.Known as the Climate and Community Reinvestment Act of D.C., the plan would place a new tax on all fossil fuels bought or sold, with the hope of ultimately discouraging the use of these polluting energy sources.
The big-picture goal of this campaign is admirable: to address the ever-deepening crisis of climate chaos by dissuading the continued use of coal,oil and gas. But unfortunately, the approach —one based in a world of financial markets, trading schemes and encouraging new public revenue streams —is inherently flawed. Simply put, carbon pricing is a false solution to climate change and a distraction from real, effective climate solutions we must urgently pursue.
To date, there is insufficient evidence to indicate that carbon taxes lower greenhouse gas emissions. In fact,the opposite is true. Recently Food & Water Watch reviewed the British Columbia carbon tax program, often cited by advocates as an example of success. From 2009(the first full year of the tax)to 2014, emissions from taxed sources grew by 4.3 percent.And in the seven years after the carbon tax took effect, total gasoline sales increased by 7.37 percent.
Supporters of such plans like to focus on a deceivingly (貌似地) simple notion that increasing the price of a consumer good will automatically reduce its use. But this just isn’t the case when it comes to the purchase of necessities. People must heat their homes in winter, and they must commute to work, regardless of the cost.
Those backing the D.C.carbon pricing plan like to note that revenue from the new tax would go toward investment in clean energy sources. But only 20 percent of the generated funds would be allocated in this manner. The rest would be shared out in tax breaks for businesses and rebates (退还款) for consumers, another factor undercutting the belief that increased costs up front would change consumer behavior in the long run.
Regardless of what many well-inattention activists and community leaders want to believe, there is no convenient, market-friendly solution to our terrible climate condition. The latest science indicates that in order to avoid the worst effects of deepening climate chaos, society must transition completely to clean, renewable energy by 2035.
1. What did Food &.Water Watch find out about carbon tax program?| A．Carbon taxes could reduce greenhouse gas emissions |
| B．Carbon emissions grew at a lower rate than gasoline sales. |
| C．Carbon taxes program was generally regarded as a success. |
| D．Carbon tax program made little difference to carbon emission. |
| A．Funds gained will benefit clean energy sources. |
| B．Consumers will use less of a good when its price increases. |
| C．Increased cost will have little effect on the use of necessities. |
| D．Consumers’ reliance on fossil fuels will decrease dramatically. |
| A．ruining |
| B．weakening |
| C．highlighting |
| D．securing |
| A．The faulty Carbon Tax. |
| B．The Climate Change Myth. |
| C．The Call for Clean Energy. |
| D．The Causes of Carbon Tax. |
We’ve all seen the little kids—losing temper in the toy store, screaming in restaurants and generally making a scene in public. For their parents, giving in to a kid’s monstrous behavior helps to end the mess and gain some peace and quiet, and this is where overindulgence begins.
According to Kathy Webb, a psychotherapist in Brunswick, overindulgence is the result of parents’ beliefs. A lot of overindulging parents believe their children should be happy all the time, which is the reason why the parents try to avoid conflict at all costs. They also hold that overindulgence equals love, but experts insist that being overly permissive and indulgent is not a healthy kind of love.
Overindulgence can create a myriad of wrong attitudes and behaviors in children. When overindulged, children develop unrealistic expectations which do not serve them as they grow. Healthy parenting, Webb said, means giving children unconditional love, quality time, healthy discipline and respect for what is appropriate. “Healthy parents promote good values and use everyday life experiences to teach their children,” she said.
Many parents don’t intentionally overindulge, but fail to follow through on consequences. “Consequences help children develop their own self-guidance skills,” Webb said. “Without consequences, children never learn to discipline themselves.”
But parents who have overindulged shouldn’t just throw up their hands and walk away from the situation, feeling like failures. There are steps that can be taken to turn family life around. “All is not lost,” Webb said. “You just have to take it step by step.” Identifying problems and what can be done to correct them are the first steps. This is where parents might want to invest in some counseling or parent coaching and refer to some parenting books.
Such parents should also manage to regain proper parental power. In some families, overindulging parents are acting like peers, not parents. Consistency is also important—children often imitate the behavior they see from their parents. “Say what you mean and mean what you say,” Webb said. It seems that all it takes is one raised eyebrow and a very stern look to stop the misbehaviour. But Webb believes what really grounded her children is their inclusion in the family’s life, not just the fun stuff like vacations and outings. They should also be taught to clean house, cook, and do laundry.
1. What do overindulgent parents believe?2. What is healthy parenting according to Webb?
3. Please decide which part is false in the following statement, then underline it and explain why.
To relieve overindulgence, parents can take certain steps such as acting like kids’ peers and ensuring consistency.
4. Share one parenting method that benefits your growth and explain why.(In about 40 words)
9 . Bed rotting — the practice of spending long periods of time just staying under the covers with snacks, screens and other creature comforts — is gaining popularity on social media. Some Generation Z trend followers are now viewing it as a form of self-care, but doctors warn too much could be “sign of depression”. Are these extended breaks really wise for one’s mental health — or could they be a cause for concern?
Dr. Ryan Sultan, a professor at Columbia University in New York, who treats many young people, called the bed rotting trend attractive. “In our culture today, with too much to do, too many expectations and too much productivity, many young individuals (个人) are feeling burned out and often aren’t getting enough sleep. It’s easy to see why taking time off to lie around is attractive,” Sultan said. “In many ways, this is beneficial. It’s a chance to get away from real-life problems and clear your head before returning to life in a better state of mind, ” he added.
For the downside, however, he said a long-term need or desire for bed rotting could do harm to one’s physical health. Spending too many daytime hours in bed — awake or not — could destroy sleep schedules. Our brains are fine-tuned for sleep in darkness and alertness in light. Lying in bed half-asleep during the day will worsen sleep schedules — once that happens, it is a challenge to fix. It could also lead to blood pressure problems and obesity (肥胖).
Long-term need or desire for bed rotting could also be a warning sign of depression, according to a mental health expert. Dr. Marc Siegel, professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center and a Fox News medical contributor, agreed that while some downtime can be useful in terms of de-stressing and rejuvenation (更新), too much bed rotting is a bad health practice. In addition to increasing the risk of depression, it contributes to decreased motivation (动力) as well.
Instead of bed rotting, Siegel recommends regular exercise as a better form of de-stressing. While the occasional lazy day can be beneficial, too much could have the opposite effect. If it happens every day, that’s a fairly sensitive test for depression. Those who lack the motivation to get out of bed could also try calling or texting a family member for support, socializing with close friends, finding a small task to complete, or reaching out to a medical professional for help.
1. According to Dr. Ryan Sultan, why do young people like bed rotting?| A．They are fond of what is popular on social media. | B．They are unwilling to socialize with friends. |
| C．Bed rotting is away to escape stress. | D．Bed rotting helps fix sleep schedules. |
| A．Quickly-activated. | B．Well-trained. | C．Badly-needed. | D．Ill-equipped. |
| A．Being lazy from time to time can be good for individuals. |
| B．Sleeping in light can increase the risk of depression. |
| C．Bed rotting can allow people to avoid expectations. |
| D．Feeling down leads to decreased motivation. |
| A．Different opinions on how to become motivated. |
| B．Main causes of the long-term need for bed rotting. |
| C．Practical suggestions for young people to deal with stress. |
| D．Possible problems from lying in bed for extended periods of time. |
10 . In the fog of uncertainty about how new technology will change the way we work, policymakers around the world say confidently that we will need to upskill the workforce in order to cope. The view sounds reassuringly sensible: if computers are growing smarter, humans will need to learn to use them or be replaced by them. But the truth is, the people who are being “upskilled” in today’s economy are the ones who need it the least.
Research shows that workers with degrees are over three times more likely to participate in training as adults than workers with no qualifications. That creates a virtuous circle for those who did well at school, and a vicious circle for those who did not. If the robots are coming for both the accountants and the taxi drivers, you can bet it is those working with money that will be more able to retrain themselves out of danger, because the better educated tend to have more confidence and money to pay for their own training.
Employers also invest in these workers more. In the UK, a surprising number of employers send their senior managers to business schools. It is no good blaming employers for directing investments at their highly-skilled workers. They are simply aiming for the highest return they can get. And, for some types of lower-paid work, it is not always true that technological progress requires more skills. Sometimes, technology can de-skill a job. Just look at Uber drivers who follow the driving routes set by their app, rather than expanding their own knowledge of the streets. The UK’s latest Employment and Skills Survey suggests the use of literacy and numeracy skills at work has fallen since 2012, even as the use of computers has increased. However, the trouble is, when the computer makes your job easier one day, it might make it redundant the next. Many of those affected by automation will need to switch occupations, or even industries. But a retailer or warehouse company is not going to retrain its staff to help them move to a different sector.
It is time to revisit older ideas. The UK once had a vibrant culture of night schools, for adults to attend after their day jobs. A revival of it could be exactly what the 21st century needs. Rather than just “upskilling” in a narrow way, people could choose to learn an entirely new skill or trade, or explore interests they never had a chance to nurture before.
It is still not clear whether the impact of new technology on the labour market will come in a trickle or a flood. But in an already unequal world, continuing to reserve all the lifeboats for the better-off would be a dangerous mistake.
1. According to the writer, policymakers’ belief in upskilling the workforce __________.| A．is contrary to popular belief | B．is helpful in coping with new technology |
| C．is too difficult to put it into practice | D．is not beneficial to those who need it most |
| A．have confidence in outperforming those with degrees at school |
| B．persuade their employers to make an investment in them |
| C．minimize the risk of job loss caused by new technology |
| D．assess how new technology will change the way they work |
| A．unnecessary | B．undesirable | C．unskilled | D．unrewarding |
| A．Workers’ literacy and numeracy skills should be enhanced without delay. |
| B．Night schools can help to eliminate skill gaps among workers. |
| C．Companies should attach much importance to retraining of workers. |
| D．Those lower-skilled workers deserve giving more chances of retraining. |
