1 . As part of my research, I collected every digitized number one New York Times bestseller from 1960 to 2014 and ran the Flesch-Kincaid test* on 563 of them. Most books meant for a general audience will fall within the fourth- to eleventh-grade range, as did all of these bestsellers. If you look at the scores over the decades, an unmistakable trend becomes clear: The bestseller list is full of much simpler fiction today than it was 40 or 50 years ago. In the 1960s, the median （中间的，中位数的） book had a grade level of 8. Today the median grade level is 6.

On the upper end, James Michener’s 1988 novel Alaska had a grade-level score of 11.1. Of the books I analyzed, 25 had a grade level of 9 or higher. But just two of these were written after 2000.

On the low end, eight books tied for the lowest score of 4.4. All were written after 2000 by one of three high-volume writers: James Patterson, Janet Evanovich, and Nora Roberts.

There’s no way around it: While prize-winning literary novels such as Jonathan Franzen’s.

The Corrections make the number one spot on occasion, overall, the books we’re reading have become simpler. Does that mean that books-and therefore their readers-are getting “dumber” too?

It is true that today’s bestsellers have much shorter sentences than the bestsellers of the past, a drop from a median of 17 words per sentence in the 1960s to 12 in the 2000s. Also, today’s list is much more often topped by commercial novels than in the past.

It would be easy to associate the New York Times list of reading-level decline with the rise of arguments that the country’s intellect is at an all-time low, but I don’t think this is fair.

Writing doesn’t need to be complicated to be considered powerful or literary. The winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, The Goldfinch, was also a bestseller and has a reading level of 7.2. While many classics have high scores (The Age of Innocence at 10.4, Oliver Twist at 10.1, The Satanic Verses at 10.1), just as many have surprisingly low scores: To Kill a Mockingbird at 5.9, The Sun Also Rises at 4.2, and The Grapes of Wrath at 4.1. These books are highly respected, but they are also accessible enough to be taught in middle and high school.

It’s logical that our bestselling books are not complex-by definition, popular means they appeal to the masses. For what it’s worth, plenty of successful “literary” writers have welcomed the beauty of “easy” writing.

As one bestselling writer put it,” One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.” His name: Jack Kerouac. By the way, Kerouac’s most popular book, On the Road, scores a reading level of 6.6.

*The following is the formula of the Flesch-Kincaid test and the resulting score is the grade level required to understand the text.

1. What does the writer’s research find?

A．The Flesch-Kincaid test fails to reflect the truth.

B．More novels were written before 2000 than after 2000.

C．The language of best-sellers has been getting simpler.

D．High-volume writers were mostly born between 1960 and 2000.

2. By “there’s no way around it”, the writer means that what follows is _______.

A．something that we cannot deny	B．something that we think unusual
C．something that is worthy of a prize	D．something that will cause damage

3. Why does the writer mention the books To Kill a Mockingbird, The Sun Also Rises and The Grapes of Wrath?

A．To illustrate how respected books are usually like.

B．To stress the importance of being complicated to classics.

C．To remind readers that there are too many classics to name.

D．To show that books can be both respected and easy to read.

4. What does the writer think of the trend of best-sellers that is introduced in the passage?

A．It makes readers dumber.	B．It doesn’t do much harm.
C．It fails to be accepted by writers.	D．It should be paid attention to.

2 . It was an autumn day, and 1 was standing in the kitchen, hanging my head over the counter and trying to figure out how many calories were in a bowl of homemade yogurt and fruit. And I felt annoyed.

I was 16, and my best friend and I had gone to our first Weight Watchers meeting. It was the trend in the mid-1980s，and even though I was an athlete, like many teen girls, I didn't necessarily like what I saw in the mirror. But after a week or so of recording every meal and snack and calculating the calories, I had had enough. I went back to my routine of chowing whatever I wanted, running and skiing, and let that be that. And it's still pretty much what I do; as long as the workouts are regular and the food is whole and balanced, my body's set point hasn't varied for years.

The weight loss trend of three decades ago−full of scales and counting calories−has fallen away. Now fasting is popular. The ways to keep fit vary: on the 5:2 diet a person eats for five days and fasts for two days each week, while the 18:6 refers 10 fasting for 18 hours and then eating within a six-hour window each day.

In this issue, Associate Editor Mark Barna tries to understand the science behind the fasting plans. Researchers have found that animals like monkeys age more slowly after years of eating less, and in the lab in humans, they saw improvements in a number of signs that indicate risk of some hard to cure diseases. The hope for healthy weight loss isn’t over yet, but at least now the calculators don’t have to be out at every meal.

1. What made the author annoyed?

A．Her body was not as strong as an athlete’s.

B．There were too many calories in the yogurt and fruit.

C．The Weight Watches meeting was not necessary for her.

D．She had to work out the calories in every meal and snack.

2. Which of the following can replace the underlined word “chowing”?

A．Eating.

B．Doing

C．Cooking.

D．Choosing.

3. How do people keep fit now?

A．They limit the calories they take in.

B．They lose weight only.

C．They fast daily or weekly.

D．They eat enough every day.

4. What do we know about the researchers’ finding in this passage?

A．People grow more slowly if they eat less.

B．People are healthier if they eat less.

C．People have stopped losing weight now.

D．People calculate their food for every meal.

3 . 以下表格是对几个国家的孩子在一天内做家务的时间的统计，请你简要描述表格内容，对时间不同的原因加以简要评析，并就此发表你的看法并提出建议。

国家	时间（分钟）	你的建议
America	70	……
South Korea	40
the UK	35
France	30
Japan	20
China	14

注意：1.词数100左右；

2.可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。

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4 . Every pet owner loves his pet. There is no argument here.

But when we asked our readers whether they would clone their beloved animals，the responses（反应）were split almost down the middle. Of the 228 readers who answered it，108 would clone their beloved animals，111 would not and nine weighed each side without offering an opinion.

Clearly，from readers’responses，this is an issue that reaches deeply into both the joy and eventual sadness of owning a pet. It also shows people’s widely different expectations over the developing scientific procedure.

Most of the respondents who favored the idea strongly believed it would produce at least a close copy of the original；many felt the process would actually return an exact copy. Those on the other side，however，held little hope that cloning could truly recreate a pet；many simply didn’t wish to go against the natural law of life and death.

Both sides expressed equal love for their animals. More than a few respondents owned“the dog/cat in the world”.They thought of their pets as their“best friend”，“a member of the family”，“the light of their life”.They told moving stories of pets’ heroism，intelligence and selfless devotion.

Few wonder the loss is so disturbing（令人不安的）and the cloning so attractive.“People become very close to their animals，and the loss can be just as hard to bear as when a friend or family member dies，”says Gary A. Kowalski，author of Goodbye Friend：Healing Wisdom for Anyone Who Has Ever Lost a Pet. “For me，cloning feels like an attempt to turn death away... It’s understandable. Death is always painful. It’s difficult to deal with it. It’s hard to accept.”

But would cloning reduce the blow? This question seemed to be at the heart of this problem.

1. While talking about the readers’ responses，the expression“eventual sadness of owning a pet”refers to _______.

A．the troubles one has to deal with in keeping a pet

B．the high cost of owning a pet

C．the death of one’s pet

D．the dangers involved in the cloning of a pet

2. What can we know from what Gary A Kowalski says?

A．He has never thought about the problem of cloning.

B．He is in favor of the idea of cloning pets.

C．He has lost his beloved pets.

D．He has doubts about the cloning of pets.

3. What is the key question at the heart of the problem of cloning pets？

A．Can cloning make the pain one suffers less when a pet dies？

B．Can pet owners afford the cost of cloning？

C．Does cloning go against the law of nature？

D．How reliably does cloning produce an exact copy of one's pet？

5 . It is now possible to watch live sport on television on any day of the week, and the present amount of reporting will undoubtedly increase further in years to come. This is certainly having an influence on the live sports events themselves, and there are both benefits and shortcomings to this.

    1     For one thing, with digital broadcasting, there are now many more TV channels than there were even ten years ago. Moreover, sport has become an important form of entertainment, attracting both men and women.

What are the benefits of this televised sport?     2     Large football clubs benefit financially(财政上) from TV income and the top players can be well paid. Less popular sports also receive money that can be used in training and advertising. What’s more, there is a health benefit to some of the population.     3    

However, there will be some disadvantages if so much sport is on television. Considering football again, many small clubs have suffered financial losses recently, as they cannot compete with the large ones.     4     Fewer people watch live matches nowadays, preferring to watch from the comfort of their living room. And ticket prices have risen greatly.

In a word, watching live sport on television has both good and bad effects. Televised sport has created many chances and benefited certain people and clubs very much.     5    

A．Why has there been such growth in televised sport?

B．Why are there so many benefits of watching live sport on television?

C．Televised sport can be helpful in increasing people’s value of teamwork.

D．There has been a general falling in ticket sales, especially among smaller clubs.

E．Through televised sport, more people have become interested in actually playing sport.

F．One obvious advantage of televised sport is the money provided by television companies.

G．However, it has also been responsible for changing the nature of live sports events for ever.

6 . 语法填空

Amsterdam     1     (call) the “City of Bicycles” because of the convenience of riding bicycles there. In the 1960s, a group of cycling fans had     2     idea that it would be better for everybody if cars weren't allowed in the city centre and only bicycles were. They were     3     (hope) that this would help to save energy, reduce     4     (pollute) and provide free public transport. The group painted hundreds of bicycles white and placed them in lots of neighbourhoods around Amsterdam for people to use.

    5     (fortunate), it didn't work because     6     (thief) took all the bicycles within weeks! However, more than thirty years later, the “white bike” is back in town — this time with a computer chip to record its every move!    7     (take) a bicycle, you have to insert a special card. People who want to use the bikes     8     (park) at special parking places have to take them to another special parking place     9     has enough room. Thanks to the good ideas of lots of people, many people around the world have been enjoying city center streets     10     cars for many years.

7 . As businesses and governments have struggled to understand the so-called millennials—born between roughly 1980 and 2000—one frequent conclusion has been that they have a unique love of cities. A deep-seated preference for night life and subways, the thinking goes, has driven the revitalization of urban cores across the U.S. over the last decade-plus.

But there’s mounting evidence that millennials’ love of cities was a passing fling(放纵). Millennials don’t love cities any more than previous generations.

The latest argument comes from Dowell Myers, an urban planning professor at USC.As they age, says Myers, millennials’ presence in cities, will “be evaporating(蒸发) through our fingers, if we don’t make some plans now.” That’s because millennials’ preference for cities will fade as they start families and become more established in their careers.

It’s about more than aging, though. Demographer William Frey has been arguing for years that millennials have become‘stuck’in cities by the 2008 downturn and the following slow recovery, with poor job prospects and declining wages making it harder for them to afford to buy homes in suburbia.

Myers, too, says observers have confused young people’s presence in cities with a preference for cities. Survey data shows that more millennials would like to be living in the suburbs than actually are. But the normal career and family cycles moving young people from cities into suburban houses have become, in Myers’ words, “a plugged up drain.”

But unemployment has finally returned to healthy lows (though participation rates and wages are still largely stagnant), which Myers says should finally increase mobility for millennials.

Other trends among millennials, supposedly matters of lifestyle preference, have already turned out to have been driven mostly by economics. What was once deemed their broad preference for public transit may have always been a now-reversing inability to afford cars. Even decades-long trends towards marrying later have been accentuated as today’ s young people struggle for financial stability.

Investors are already taking the idea that millennials will return to old behavior patterns seriously, putting more money into auto manufacturers and developers. But urban lifestyles, up to and including trendy bars, aren’t just hip—they’re a part of what powers a city’s economic engines, bringing people together to explore new ideas, create companies, and build careers.

From the 1960s to the 1990s, we saw that suburbanization(城市郊区化) also means an economic and social hollowing out for cities. Now that the economic shackles are coming off today’s young city residents, cities that want to stay vibrant(充满生机的) have to figure out how to convince them—and their growing families—to stick around.

1. Why are Millennials about to leave city?

A．It is too expensive for them to buy apartment in cities.

B．They find it difficult for to seek a god job in cities.

C．It is easier to get married moving to the suburban.

D．They are more confident with their economic situation.

2. What does the author mean quoting Myerˈs “a plugged up drain"(para 5)?

A．Millennials are reluctant to leave attractive cities.

B．Millennals are stopped from moving to the suburbs.

C．Milennials are unwilling to be cut off from the suburban.

D．Millennials are afraid of another economic decline.

3. How does the author feel about the suburbanization?

A．sign of stable finance.

B．A growth of health issues

C．A conflict of new ideas.

D．A loss of modem life

8 . Directions: Read the following passage. Summarize the main idea and the main point(s) of the passage in no more than 60 words. Use your own words as far as possible.

Desertification

Desertification is one of the world’s most alarming processes of environmental degradation(退化). The issue is often unclear, however, by a common misperception: that it’s a “natural” problem of advancing deserts in faraway developing countries. In fact, desertification is about land degradation: the loss of the land’s biological productivity, caused by man-made factors and climate change.

Each year, desertification and drought cause an estimated $42 billion in lost agricultural production. The risks of desertification are sufficient and clear. It contributes to food insecurity, hunger and poverty, and can give rise to social, economic and political tensions that can cause conflicts, further poverty and land degradation. The great urgency of this challenge led the United Nations General Assembly to state 2006 to be the International Year of Deserts and Desertification (IYDD). It is a strong reminder of the urgent need to address the far-reaching implications of this problem. United Nations General Secretary recently summarizes in this way: “I look forward to working with Governments, civil society, the private section, international organizations and others to focus attention on this crucial issue, and to reverse the trend of desertification and set the world on a safer, more sustainable path of development.”

The IYDD also presents a golden opportunity to get the message across strongly and effectively that desertification is a global problem which we ignore at our risk. It is important to recognize that dry-lands are home to some of the most magnificent ecosystems of this world. These unique natural habitats have been home to some of the world’s oldest civilizations. They stand like open-air museums, bearing witness to bygone eras. The Year will therefore also celebrate the delicate beauty and unique inheritance of the world’s deserts.

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9 . 选词填空（可变换形式）

The other day when I was going shopping, I saw some people     1     begging on the street. What shocked me was that among them were many small children.    2    , it is shameful not only for those young beggars, but also for our society.

To     3     is a generally accepted belief in modern society. And to be successful, one must learn to depend on himself/herself when he/she is still young.

Children are the flowers of our country and we must teach them to hold this belief if we want them to     4       healthily. But some parents have     5     this. They even teach their children to go to the streets to beg money from others.

In my opinion, efforts must be made to prevent these young beggars from doing this. They should be sent back to schools, where they can learn knowledge and technique to     6     the future.

10 . Ambition (志向，抱负) is a necessary quality in life. It is the force which drives us on to use whatever talent we have got.     1    , these talents will not be used for our own and others’ benefit. Without ambition we are just jellyfish that flop though life. We only react to events: we don't try to control them.

    2    . First of all, it can be unrealistic. We may not be able to see the limits of our own abilities, so we do ambitious things that are completely beyond us. Some people can see our good qualities and our limitations objectively. They may tell us that we haven’t the ability We refuse to take their evaluation. We keep on trying. Many years and many disappointments later we are forced to accept their judgment. But what a waste of time our ill-founded ambition has caused us!

Besides, our ambition can be too concentrated. We devote our attention to one narrow aim, such as getting distinctions in our science subjects. Everything that may draw us away from this aim is cutout of our lives. In the end we get our distinctions. But we are isolated beings who only care about particular examination. And we probably won’t make good scientists.     3    .

And our ambition can be limited to lifeless objectives.    4    . Persons who feel inferior try to make up by seeking the respect of others through owning these artificial signs of worth.

    5    . But, like all blind forces, it must be directed if not to cause disaster.

A．Still, ambition can have several disadvantages

B．Because our ambition may make us among selfish people

C．Unless we have got some degree of ambition

D．Since we don’t have the breadth of view necessary for greater success

E．Ambition is necessary in the lives of individuals

F．As long as tightly controlled by the head and the heart

G．We want to gain money, or power, or membership of some circles