1 . For many of us, our closest meeting with wild animals is at a zoo. These places allow us to observe the behaviours and characteristics of amazing creatures. It’s an enjoyable and educational experience for us, but is it the best environment for the animals? A long time ago, people could only see wild animals as stuffed dead exhibits in a museum. Later, live animals were caught by explorers, brought home and put on show to the public in zoos — animal protection was not a priority. But modern zoos and wildlife parks have transformed the conditions and environments for animals, making bigger enclosures (围场), removing bars, and, to some extent, copying their natural habitats.
Some people have questioned the cruelty of keeping animals and using them just for entertainment, but zoos are keen to show they are here to help wildlife by educating us about protection. In the UK, the introduction of The Zoo Licensing Act 1981 also required zoos to educate the public. Well-managed zoos are now also involved in supporting and funding protection programmes.
Probably the biggest claim from zoos today is that they help to protect species that are under threat in the wild due to climate change. Robert Young, Chair in Wildlife Protection at Salford University says: “We wouldn’t have a lot of different species today if it wasn’t for zoos.” Some zoos have breeding (繁殖) programmes which help to preserve the future of species. Actor Leonardo DiCaprio recently praised Chester Zoo in the UK for its protection work. It brought a rare fish species back from the dead after breeding and releasing a school of golden fish back into their native river.
While the debate about having zoos continues, new opportunities to meet wildlife are being explored, such as using virtual reality, and Jon Coe, a zoo designer, told the BBC: “Taking a walk through a group of elephants in the Serengeti, I think, is going to be possible pretty soon.”
1. What can be inferred from paragraph one?| A．The conditions for animals are improving. |
| B．People used to kill animals for entertainment. |
| C．Museums have led to the popularity of wildlife. |
| D．Animal protection has always been the biggest concern. |
| A．prove it is cruel to keep animals in zoos |
| B．show zoos are making efforts to protect wildlife |
| C．question whether it is useful to educate the public |
| D．express not all the zoos are well managed |
| A．Because of little resources. | B．Because of heavy pollution. |
| C．Because of climate change. | D．Because of illegal hunting. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Worried. | C．Unknown. | D．Hopeful. |
2 . As you read this, pause to reflect on your recent interactions. As a politician, husband, and father, I encounter various spoken language styles: analytical or chatty, formal or informal, pointed or gentle, cooperative or decisive. Talk is the currency of politics. It is our way of negotiating, debating, and persuading. Talk is also the currency of learning-how we develop our ideas, deepen our thinking and share our feelings.
That’s why I want speaking skills, sometimes called “oracy”, to play an important part in Labor’s plans for a reformed school curriculum (课程).
Employers value speaking skills equally with reading and writing. The ability to speak well and express yourself should be something every child should master. But the curriculum doesn’t allow us to provide this. This is short-sighted. An inability to express your thoughts fluently is a key barrier to getting on and doing well in life.
Oracy is in part about good public speaking and debating skills, but in reality, it’s about teaching young people to make strong arguments, choose wise words, understand their audience, form meaningful social connections, and use facial expressions and body language to convey their message. Above all else it’s about finding your voice. To work out who you are and what you believe. If reading opens up a world of imagination and possibility, then speaking and listening opens up a lifetime of empowerment-a chance for those who feel invisible in their own country to be heard. It is about the confidence to speak out, to call out injustice or harm.
And the other side of speaking is listening, which can also be taught. Listening, truly listening, develops tolerance and understanding. And as parents we can play our part. We’ve all been there, at mealtimes, silent as we all stare at our devices. Our job, all of ours, is to get off our screens and give young people, and adults, the gift of listening.
So, oracy―speaking and listening―needs to be placed firmly at the heart of school life.
1. How does talk help a politician?| A．It deepens his wishful thinking. |
| B．It enhances his analytical skills. |
| C．It strengthens persuasive power. |
| D．It provides emotional support. |
| A．Employers underestimate the value of speaking. |
| B．Academic pressure makes students poor-sighted. |
| C．Spoken language is regarded as least important. |
| D．Oracy should deserve more attention at school. |
| A．By sharing different opinions. |
| B．By clarifying the definition. |
| C．By describing personal experiences. |
| D．By employing the concept. |
| A．Set a good example for their children. |
| B．Balance screen time and mealtime. |
| C．Have oral face-to-face communication. |
| D．Disconnect from the virtual world. |
3 . In our information-driven society, shaping our worldview through the media is similar to forming an opinion about someone only based on a picture of their foot. While the media might not deliberately mislead us, it often fails to provide a comprehensive view of reality.
Consequently, the question arises: Where, then, shall we get our information from if not from the media? Who can we trust? How about experts — people who devote their working lives to understanding their chosen slice of the world? However, even experts can fall prey to the allure of oversimplification, leading to the “single perspective instinct” that prevent our ability to grasp the intricacies of the world.
Simple ideas can be appealing because they offer a sense of understanding and certainty. And it is easy to take off down a slippery slope, from one attention-grabbing simple idea to a feeling that this idea beautifully explains, or is the beautiful solution to, lots of other things. The world becomes simple that way.
Yet, when we embrace a singular cause for or a solution to all problems, we risk oversimplifying complex issues. For instance, depending the concept of equality may lead us to view all problems through the lens of inequality and see resource distribution as the cure-all medicine, However, such rigidity prevents us from seeing the multidimensional nature of challenges and hinders true comprehension of reality. This “single perspective instinct” ultimately clouds our judgment and restricts our capacity to tackle complex issues effectively. Being always in favor of or always against any particular idea makes you blind to information that doesn’t fit your perspective. This is usually a bad approach if you would like to understand reality.
Instead, constantly test your favorite ideas for weaknesses. Be humble about the extent of your expertise. Be curious about new information that doesn’t fit, and information from other fields. And rather than talking only to people who agree with you, or collecting examples that fit your ideas, consult people who contradict you, disagree with you, and put forward different ideas as a great resource for understanding the world. If this means you don’t have time to form so many opinions, so what?
Wouldn’t you rather have few opinions that are right than many that are wrong?
1. What does the underlined word “allure” in paragraph 2 probably mean?| A．Temptation. | B．Tradition. | C．Convenience. | D．Disapproval. |
| A．They meet people’s demand for high efficiency. |
| B．They generate a sense of complete understanding. |
| C．They are raised and supported by multiple experts. |
| D．They reflect the opinions of like-minded individuals. |
| A．Simplifying matters releases energy for human brains. |
| B．Constant tests on our ideas help make up for our weakness. |
| C．A well-founded opinion counts more than many shallow ones. |
| D．People who disagree with us often have comprehensive views. |
| A．Embracing Disagreement: Refusing Overcomplexity |
| B．Enhancing Comprehension: Simplifying Information |
| C．Understanding Differences: Establishing Relationships |
| D．Navigating Complexity: Challenging Oversimplification |
4 . Working at a bank in New York City in the mid-2010s, Anna Sacks was living the life-just not the life she wanted. Sure, she was happy. But she wanted to do something that felt important.
Some people seeking meaning might read a self-help book or perhaps volunteer a few hours a week. Sacks packed up her life and moved to Connecticut to participate in Adamah, a farming program that focuses on sustainable living and growing sustainable food. When she returned to New York, her life was with a new purpose and a variety of new skills to make her dreams a reality.
“One of the things that really stuck with me from Adamah was how little waste they produced and how they handled the waste they did have, primarily through composting (堆肥),” she says. “And I just thought, ‘Why aren’t we doing that here?’”“The Adamah program opened Sacks’ eyes to the damage consumer culture is doing on a local, national, and global level, and the need to find solutions. So in 2017, she began what she calls “trash walking”.
During tours around her community, Sacks picks through garbage to look for reusable items. Soon, her “trash walking” expanded to include corporate trash along with residential trash. Surprisingly, she discovered a wide range of really great stuff-like clothing, decorations, and food-all of which she documents on TikTok.
Under the name The Trash Walker, Sacks quickly gained popularity for her videos that highlight the problems with consumerism. “The root issue is overproduction, which leads to overconsumption, which leads to a large amount of waste,” she says.
The fact is, companies often choose to trash items rather than give them away to people who might need them. A big reason for this waste is the way our current tax laws are structured, Sacks says. Sellers who destroy goods can claim the cost as a loss on their taxes and be refunded. If they give away goods, they can claim only a small amount as a charitable reduction on their taxes.
Sacks’ main focus is simply getting people to pay attention to how many unnecessary things they buy and then throw away. “Once you become aware of the way you consume, you can see ways you improve,” she says.
1. Anna Sacks packed up her life and left New York to________.| A．lead a healthy lifestyle |
| B．observe how to grow food |
| C．pursue a meaningful life |
| D．volunteer to work in a bank |
| A．The importance of trash walking. |
| B．The sustainable food people produced. |
| C．The hard truth about consumer culture. |
| D．The way people there dealt with the waste. |
| A．The tax reduction. |
| B．The quality of goods. |
| C．The tax refund. |
| D．The overproduction. |
| A．Consumer culture accounts for wasting. |
| B．Corporate trash outweighs residential trash. |
| C．Trash walking is the key to becoming wealthy. |
| D．Turning to farming leads to sustainable living. |
学校规定，学生在校期间不得使用手机，有的同学认为这是一项非常好的制度，但也有同学不以为然。请谈谈你对这一规定的看法，并给出理由。
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The internet and its cultural impact are most often viewed through the lens of the “tech bro”. Biographies, and memoirs about these big-tech bosses have shaped readers’ understanding of
Influencers—the (usually female) people behind the most popular accounts on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube—have large followings, often in the hundreds of thousands or millions. People like Jackie Aina, Matilda Djerf and Molly-Mae Hague earn a living from a combination of sponsored posts, commissions
Though they shape digital culture, too often influencers
Taylor Lorenz,
Ms. Lorenz makes the case that, despite its bad rap, influencing has “given more people the chance to benefit directly from their labor than at any other time in history”,
Some experts estimate as much as 90% of online content could be AI-generated by 2026.
7 . 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. |
8 . Worth nearly $1trn, Facebook is the world’s sixth-most-valuable company. Its revenues have grown by 56% in the past year, and its share price by more than a quarter. Nearly 3bn people use its products every month. Why would such a glittering success change its name, as the Verge, a news site, reports it plans to within days?
The likely official reason for the rebranding is that the firm has outgrown the social network that Mark Zuckerberg started 17 years ago in a Harvard dorm. Today it includes other social apps (Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger) and video hardware (Oculus, Portal). It has launched a digital wallet (Novi) and may yet offer a currency (Diem). Mr. Zuckerberg expects people eventually to associate his firm more with the “metaverse”, a virtual space for work, play and more, than with social media.
If the Facebook network is to take a back seat, there may be a case for regrouping under a new name. Facebook wouldn’t be the first tech giant to do so. In 2015 Google set up Alphabet, a holding company for the search engine and its many side projects. Under this model, Facebook would become just another app within a wider family, though by far its biggest earner. There is another possible motive for a makeover. For all its financial success, the Facebook brand has become tarnished. The social network is blamed for fueling everything from teenage anorexia (厌食症) to uprising at the US Capitol.
This month Frances Haugen, a former employee, told Congress that Facebook was failing to moderate content on its platform and covering up a drop in young American users (it denies this). Public trust in it is lower than in most tech giants, and falling. Although two years ago the firm started branding its apps as being “from Facebook”, its new “smart glasses”, which can record video and take phone calls, feature only the logo of its partner, Ray-Ban.
Mr. Zuckerberg himself has been a reason for much of the criticism of Facebook, and of bossy tech firms more generally. As the all-powerful founder, he has a higher profile than his opposite numbers at TikTok, YouTube and other social networks. Normally, a brand facing a reputational crisis might dump its unpopular CEO. But Mr. Zuckerberg’s position is unassailable (难以撼动的), which may explain why he would want to dump the brand instead.
1. Facebook plans to change its name mainly because ________.| A．it wants people to associate its name with social media |
| B．it is trying to follow the fashion led by Google |
| C．it looks to expand its business to a wider range |
| D．its former name has brought bad reputation to the company |
| A．It was founded by Zuckerberg in his college dormitory. |
| B．It has a favorable influence on teenagers’ mind and behavior. |
| C．It is as popular among youngsters in the US as it used to be. |
| D．It produced smart glasses with its logo on it. |
| A．abandoned | B．discriminated | C．globalized | D．compromised |
| A．a science review | B．a business magazine |
| C．a technical report | D．the website of Facebook |
9 . Today’s youth will drive tomorrow’s growth. Young people have always confused their elders. Today’s youngsters are no different. They have thin wallets but
A good place to start analyzing the psyche of young consumer is to consider the
These two big
In many ways youngsters’ shopping habits, like their lives, are defined by the “
These “always-on purchasers” often avoid a weekly shop so that they can have quicker
The internet has also changed how the young discover brands. Print, billboard or TV advertising has
How the young shop is clearly shifting. What they buy, too, is changing. What older generations consider optional, such as wellness and luxury, has become
More broadly, young consumers claim to be more
| A．pleasant | B．expensive | C．mild | D．refreshing |
| A．prize | B．boast | C．mix | D．challenge |
| A．recycle | B．desire | C．deliver | D．package |
| A．education | B．institution | C．family | D．economy |
| A．busier | B．luckier | C．stronger | D．calmer |
| A．reforms | B．ends | C．trends | D．shocks |
| A．doubt | B．opposition | C．criticism | D．ignorance |
| A．bubble | B．attention | C．knowledge | D．green |
| A．refunds | B．possessions | C．fixes | D．trials |
| A．approved | B．facilitated | C．reversed | D．updated |
| A．made peace with | B．made up for | C．run parallel to | D．given way to |
| A．looks | B．scents | C．textures | D．atmospheres |
| A．However | B．Hence | C．Apparently | D．Otherwise |
| A．souvenirs | B．essentials | C．memories | D．treasures |
| A．dream-connected | B．hobbies-motivated | C．values-driven | D．money-focused |
10 . The mushrooming video screens in buses, taxis and apartment halls in cities like Shanghai are taking away our already rare resource: a place for a moment of peace. Taking a nap or reading a book on buses is less pleasant now, as the LCD screens broadcast news, entertainment and advertisements at unbearable volumes.
You pay the bus fare simply to get a ride—undisturbed—but now you are exposed to this “added value”, whether you like it or not. If it’s a crowded bus, the noise is even more exasperating. More and more Chinese cities have joined Shanghai, regarded as the first to put video screens on buses, disturbing millions of passengers.
Some may like to watch programme aired on buses or in apartment halls. But those who don’t should be equally respected. Because of the bus screens, students cannot focus on reviewing their lessons or preparing for a test. People who like to read or reflect feel unsettled by the noise. Youngsters who like to listen to music on their iPods must increase the volume to fight against the competing audio. If you already feel stressed after a busy day, the bus video advertising certainly increase the tension of both your muscles and nervous system. Bus drivers are surely the worst victims because they have to bear it at least eight hours a day, non-stop.
A high public tolerance for noise pollution has helped bus video advertisers to expand their businesses. But opposition has already started to make its voice heard. Some people have already accused bus companies of breaking their contracts, since their obligation is only to deliver passengers to their destinations.
Shanghai, as a world-class city, should set an example for the country. It should first adopt world-class behavior in its massive public transportation system to return the public a peaceful place.
1. What does the underlined word “exasperating” in Paragraph 2 mean?| A．Entertaining. |
| B．Encouraging. |
| C．Disappointing. |
| D．Annoying. |
| A．Students. |
| B．Bus drivers. |
| C．Youngsters. |
| D．Office employees. |
| A．More use of public transport. |
| B．An increase in bus video advertising. |
| C．More complaints about bus companies. |
| D．Lower public awareness of consumer rights. |
| A．Opposed. |
| B．Unclear. |
| C．Supportive. |
| D．Indifferent. |
