1 . Text messaging, or simply “texting”, which allows people to send and receive messages on mobile phones, becomes very popular today.
The advantages of texting are obvious. Texting helps to save money. If you have a few words to greet your families and friends on their birthdays or on some important festivals, sending messages can be cheaper than phone calling. Texting helps to save time. Even if you want to send a message to 100 people, you can do it one second. Texting helps you to “talk” to someone when he is too busy to answer the phone. Texting can also help you to “talk” to someone secretly if you don’t want others to hear what you are talking on the phone. These advantages are so amazing that many people are crazy about it. They hold mobile phones in hands all day long, send dozens of messages each day, and even text while driving or walking.
However, texting has its disadvantages. Junk messages may come into your mobile phone box now and then. When your phone box gets too full, you can’t receive any more messages. You may therefore miss some important information.
What’s more, if you don’t do texting properly, for example texting while driving or walking, it can be dangerous. It can cause injuries and even death. It was reported that about 6,000 people were killed and half a million were injured for this reason each year. In Fort Lee, a small town in New Jersey, USA, three people died because they walked into traffic while texting in 2011. Two researchers at Stony Brook University, New York found that texters are 60% more probably to have an accident than others. When people are texting, they don’t notice other people or things around them. To reduce traffic accidents, all drivers of the UN are now not allowed to text while driving. About 32 countries have passed laws restricting the use of mobile phones while driving.
Texting is a wonderful way of communication. However, only when we use it properly, can we fully enjoy the fun it brings.
1. How many advantages of texting are mentioned in the passage?| A．Two. | B．Three. | C．Four. | D．Five. |
| A．6,000 people were killed and injured. |
| B．Texters are easier to have an accident. |
| C．Texting is a good way of communication. |
| D．Many people text to greet families and friends. |
| A．not allowing | B．not telling | C．enjoying | D．making |
| A．we should do less texting | B．texting has many advantages |
| C．texting is better than phone calling | D．we should do texting properly |
2 . Smoking is even a tradition in Chinese celebrations. At my wedding, we handed out the traditional candies to people who came. I had said to my wife, Ellen, that handing out packets of cigarettes was wrong, as it just encouraged people to continue a deadly habit. “But it’s traditional,” she replied, “People would think we were mean if we don’t!”
Over the years I’ve been given cigarettes as gifts and have always handed them straight back. This might make me look ungrateful in Chinese eyes, but I can’t understand the logic behind handing someone a gift that will cause them to smell terrible, have awful breath, and even worse, kill them.
This year the university I work at has taken the bold step of making the entire campus “smoke free”. As my students are either doctors doing postgraduates studies, or medical students on their way to being doctors, I thought they would be in favor of such a move, but I was wrong. Many of them have complained to me that they see this as depriving them of their civil rights and that they should be allowed to smoke when and where they like.
When I pointed out to them that cigarettes do harm not only to those smoking themselves, but even to those breathing in second hand smoke, the argument was dismissed with a wave. “Those studies aren’t conclusive”, one doctor replied. “Besides, my grandmother told me that smoking is manly.” Tempting(诱人的) as it was to ask if she was also a doctor, I let the argument go and went off in search of some fresh air.
1. Which of the following is a consequence of smoking according to the author?| A．It will leave you breathless. | B．People believe you are mean. |
| C．People think you are ungrateful. | D．It will make your smell unpleasant. |
| A．Objective. | B．Unconcerned. | C．Negative. | D．Positive. |
| A．Robbing. | B．Accusing. | C．Informing. | D．Reminding. |
| A．Technology. | B．Entertainment. | C．Art. | D．Life. |
3 . Sending a thumbs-up can be seen as passive aggressive(冒犯的), according to Gen Z (those born between 1995 and 2009) who say they feel attacked whenever it is used. Whether the chat is informal, between friends or at work the symbol appears to have a very different, ‘rude’ meaning for the younger generation.
A 24-year-old on Reddit summed up the Gen Z argument, saying it is best ‘never used in any situation’ as it is ‘hurtful’. “No one of my age in the office does it, but the Gen X (those born between 1966 and 1980) people always do it. Take me a bit to adjust and get it out of my head that it means they’re mad-at me,” he added. Other young people agreed it is bad form, especially at work where it can make the team appear unfriendly and not easygoing.
“My last workplace had a WhatsApp chat for our team to send information to each other on, and most of the people on there just replied with a thumbs up. I don’t know why but it seemed a little bit hostile to me,” one woman said. One Reddit user also said the thumbs up actually means that “I’ve read your message and have nothing to add and I hope and pray...all the people in this group chat have nothing to say on it too.”
Older workers appear confused by the reaction, saying they use the thumbs up in work-related chats to show “I agree” or “I understood and will follow.”
Part of the issue is that young people tend to use the thumbs-up in jokes. Barry Kennedy, 24, he said he only used it to communicate with older people like his parents or older colleagues. A survey of 2, 000 people conducted by Perspectus Global showed that a majority of people between the ages of 16 and 29 believe that you are “officially old” if you use thumbs-up or heart emoji.
1. Which of the following point is not the Gen Z’s understanding of the emoji thumbs-up?| A．Being rude. | B．Being agreeable. |
| C．Being hurtful. | D．Being unfriendly. |
| A．Unfriendly and aggressive. | B．Tough and difficult. |
| C．Unwanted and unacceptable. | D．Strange and unusual. |
| A．Because of their poor communications kill. |
| B．Because of their being old with worse memory. |
| C．Because of their less communicating with the young. |
| D．Because of their different understanding of the emoji. |
| A．The Thumbs-up Emoji: Rejected by the younger generation |
| B．The Thumbs-up Emoji: Highly Welcomed by Old People |
| C．The Thumbs-up Emoji: A Sign of Generation Gap |
| D．The Thumbs-up Emoji: A Sign of Being Aggressive |
4 . “Beauty is only skin deep” it is said. This means that a person’s appearance is not as important as their character. Yet it is strange why people and especially women are willing to spend a fortune on making themselves more attractive physically.
Attractive people are more popular generally. Beauty draws a positive response from the people around. This is obvious with children. For example, based on observation, there is a tendency for adults to treat good-looking children better. This favorable treatment continues into adulthood, as attractive people are more likely to be chosen for leadership positions and given more opportunities.
Another important benefit that good-looking people enjoy is that they find a husband or wife more easily.
On the other hand, beauty has a number of disadvantages as well. Firstly, a good-looking person tends to attract unwanted attention from all kinds of people. The admirer may have bad intentions and cause problems for the target.
While every individual should take care of their outward appearance and look their best, they should not neglect (忽视) their inner beauty or character.
| A．Life is not always easy for beautiful people. |
| B．The skincare industry is a multi-billion dollar business. |
| C．It turns out being conventionally beautiful has its benefits. |
| D．It is a fact that people are first attracted to outward appearance. |
| E．They should not place such importance on beauty that they become proud. |
| F．Being well-treated gives attractive people more confidence and they perform better. |
| G．Another problem faced by good-looking people is that they may not be taken seriously. |
5 . At first glance, Huaguoshan kindergarten in Zhuzhou, a city in the southern province of Hunan, looks much like any other schools for kids in China. But it has a year-long waiting list, because of its widely advertised guoxue.
Children at Huaguoshan are taught how to bow, and how to greet each other politely. In some rooms they learn ancient techniques. In others, they recite poems, perform tea ceremonies and play Chinese chess. The school says that mastering skills is secondary to building character. “For example, our children learn to respect their rivals (对手) and accept defeat in chess,” explains one of the teachers.
Of course, the school charges hefty fees. Actually, the guoxue trend has already created a huge demand for education in kindergartens across China. Frost & Sullivan, a data firm, estimated that the market for preschool children was worth $73 billion in 2020, almost doubled its value in 2018.
Strictly speaking, guoxue content has long been part of the curriculums from primary to high schools in China. In 2014, the number of classical texts to be taught in primary schools increased from 14 to 72. In 2017, the government put out new guidelines for more comprehensive guoxue curriculums in primary and secondary schools by 2025. In 2020, more guoxue content was added to the university entrance exam. In May, 2021, the education ministry approved more guoxue classes to strengthen “a sense of belonging to and pride in the Chinese nation”.
Guoxue is the ancient system of thought that emphasizes respect for authority and usually involves learning traditional morals, thoughts, and classical Chinese texts, especially those associated with Confucius, who thought that such values were essential to achieve moral excellence as individuals. He thought that such upstanding citizens would form the basis for social harmony and stability.
After decades of welcoming foreign trends, many Chinese people are now interested in Chinese traditions. Television shows include “Chinese Poetry Conference”, in which participators are quizzed on classical poems. Young people wear traditional clothes in public.
1. Why is Huaguoshan kindergarten so popular?| A．It has the best teachers. | B．It has very pretty buildings. |
| C．It focuses on skill learning. | D．It stresses character building. |
| A．Various. | B．Low. | C．Extraordinary. | D．Reasonable. |
| A．The study burdens on students. | B．The increasing trend of guoxue. |
| C．The effects of guoxue education. | D．The huge guoxue market potential. |
| A．Classical poems. | B．Traditional morals. |
| C．Modern technology. | D．Confucian thoughts. |
6 . The artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT can offer everything from answers to basic general knowledge questions, to writing essays and poems. Ask ChatGPT to write about the history of the French Revolution or Battles of Hastings, and it will provide a perfect essay in less than a second. It's such a powerful tool openly accessible to any student for free. However, AI-based plagiarism (抄 袭) or so called “AIgiarism” is fast taking off across student populations internationally, ringing alarm bells in schools and universities around the world
The developers OpenAI have since decided to prevent the misuse of its technology. The company is developing a system, water marks, for identifying those who cheat by submitting essays written by ChatGPT. By using the system which changes certain works into a recognizable pattern, the machine written text could be identified by anyone looking for the signs. These changes would not be noticeable to the reader. The researchers say that by setting up this kind of security system, it could prevent the technology from being misused for whatever reason. Such measures will also prevent an overdependence on the tool, which still has a long way to go before improving its accuracy, due to the fact that it collects the information from all over the internet. The CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, said in a statement that it would be a mistake to depend on it for anything important at this stage.
Schools also in turn have tried to take matters into their own hands, with many across Europe and the US updating their policies to warn of punishments for those who are caught using the program improperly.
Other schools have limited internet network access to ChatGPT on campus. Examiners have the sense to identify essays written by ChatGPT by a lack of emotion or personal experiences in them. This ability is a human advantage—AI will struggle to copy.
1. Why does the author mention French Revolution and Battles of Hastings?| A．To explain what they are. | B．To introduce the history of France. |
| C．To show the power of ChatGPT. | D．To make a comparison between them. |
| A．It will make ChatGPT helpless for people. |
| B．It will probably prevent an overdependence on ChatGPT. |
| C．The readers are worried about the system's future. |
| D．It has successfully recognized essays written by ChatGPT. |
| A．AI is able to match humans. |
| B．AI has no ability. |
| C．AI has an advantage over humans. |
| D．There is something that AI can't copy from humans. |
| A．Actions Against the Misuse of ChatGPT |
| B．ChatGPT Is Forbidden |
| C．All the Systems of OpenAI |
| D．ChatGPT—A Powerful Tool |
7 . Will you eat everything in your lunch box today? If not, what will you do with what’s left over? Save it for another time or throw it in the bin?
A new report by the United Nations estimates(估计)17% of all the food produced around the world gets wasted each year. That means 931 million tons of wasted food! Most of the waste(61%)happens in households, while food services such as restaurants and cafes make up 26 percent and shops make up 13 percent, the UN found.
“Many countries haven’t yet known how much food they have wasted, so they don’t understand how serious the problem is,” said Clementine O’Connor, from the UN Environment Program and co-author of the report.
Food waste is also bad for the environment. The UN Environment Program estimates that wasted food is responsible for 8—10% of global greenhouse gas emissions(排放物). If food waste were a country, it would have the third highest greenhouse gas emissions in the world, after only the US and China.
The report found food waste in homes wasn’t limited to higher income countries such as the US, the UK and Australia. Food waste researcher, Professor Brian Roe, from Ohio State University in the US, said food was also sometimes wasted in poor countries because they didn’t have refrigerators.
Professor Brian Roe said household and cultural habits could lead to waste at home, including “buy one, get one free” deals. Meanwhile, “use-by” or “best-before” dates on products could also be causing people to throw away food. People could be throwing out food because they think it is unsafe to eat, when in fact the date only shows when quality might decline.
1. Where does most of food waste happen?| A．At home. | B．At cafes. | C．At shops. | D．At restaurants. |
| A．To tell us greenhouse gas emissions are very serious. |
| B．To tell us the US produces the most greenhouse gas. |
| C．To show food waste is quite common all over the world. |
| D．To show food waste does great harm to the environment. |
| A．The harm of food waste. | B．How food waste happens. |
| C．Why we shouldn’t waste food. | D．The ways to reduce food waste. |
| A．Why do people waste food? | B．Where do people waste food? |
| C．Food waste is a serious problem | D．Food waste happens in different countries |
8 . If you are reading this, you were probably born in the 2000s. The oh-ohs. The 21st century. That would make you young, creative, and no doubt smart. Maybe good-looking, too. Right? But what do other people think about your generation?
Some adults worry that you’re more interested in the screen in front of you than the world around you. They think of you as the “face-down generation” because you use your phone so much. They wonder how you will deal with school, friends and family. Are today’s teenagers too busy texting and taking selfies(自拍)to become successful in real life—or “IRL”, as you would say?
Other adults worry that today’s youth are spoilt (溺爱) and don’t want to face the challenges of adult life. Many children born in the 1990s and 2000s were raised by “helicopter parents” who were always there to guide and help their children with a busy schedule filled with homework and after-school activities such as dancing, drawing, or sports. With parents who do everything for them, today’s youth seem to prefer to live like teenagers even when they are in their 20s or 30s.
Does the face-down generation need a heads-up? Well, probably not. The fact is that many of today’s teenagers are better educated and more creative than past generations. They also seem to be willing to become leaders. More young people than ever volunteer to help their communities. There are also brave young people such as Malala Yousafzai, the teenager who won the 2014 Noble Peace Prize for pushing girls’ rights to go to school.
So if you’re one of the oh-ohs, there’s no reason to be worried about the future. Things are looking up for the face-down generation. Chances are that you do GR8(great)and LOL(laugh out loud).
1. Who is this passage written for?| A．The teenagers | B．The teachers |
| C．The parents | D．The oh-ohs |
| A．Help and direct their children. | B．Do homework instead of children. |
| C．Guide children to face challenges. | D．Plan a busy schedule for children. |
| A．Anxious. | B．Confident. | C．Satisfied. | D．Helpless |
| A．Parents should put down their phones. |
| B．Young people should be better educated. |
| C．The oh-ohs should be hopeful about the future. |
| D．Face-down generation should raise their heads. |
9 . It was a quiet early afternoon in the library, and we librarians were enjoying a chat at the library desk. Suddenly, a regular reader, who had been reading a magazine, marched up to us, gave us an annoyed “Shush (嘘)!” and went back to her seat.
Shocked into silence, we tried not to laugh. How strange for a group of librarians to be shushed by a reader! Shouldn’t it be the other way around?
Well, it seems hard to explain. If you’re a baby boomer (婴儿潮出生的人) like me, you probably remember libraries as places of adults’ silent reading. These days, however, libraries are more like busy community centers, where being noisy to some degree is the new normal, especially when kids are taking part.
I am a loud librarian. My voice is naturally on the louder side. The hundreds of programs I led as a children’s librarian were filled with singing, dancing, movement exercises and cheerful readings of books with crowds of children and their caregivers. No shushing allowed!
Growing knowledge about the importance of kids and teens learning through hands-on experiences has since caused a sea change in how public libraries connect with young readers. These types of programs like board games, poetry reading and story times certainly aren’t designed to be silent.
But it’s a balancing act. Not all readers—or librarians—like the idea of a noisy library. It’s clear to me now that on the day my colleagues and I were shushed by a reader, we should have been using our “library voices” as we talked. Still, it’s unlikely that libraries will ever return to the days when they were places of silence. There’s just too much fun and learning happening. I heartily agree with my friend Rachel Payne, an early-childhood service educator at the Brooklyn Public Library, who told me, “When I visit a library and it is quiet, I always feel a bit sad. A library where conversations are happening and tables are full is a very good thing!”
1. How did the author think of the shush from a reader?| A．Unexpectedly funny. | B．Really annoying. | C．Quite necessary. | D．Very heartwarming. |
| A．They serve kids only. | B．They become quieter. |
| C．They are less popular. | D．They have different functions. |
| A．To show different voices. | B．To express the author’s idea. |
| C．To make the end interesting. | D．To promote a new reading method. |
| A．How to Act in the Library | B．It’s OK for a Library to Be Noisy |
| C．Why to Keep Silent in the Library | D．It’s Necessary for Librarians to Change |
10 . Most of us spend our lives surrounded by screens, which offer us convenience as well as connection and an ocean of information. But since it’s easy to feel pressured to keep up with every notification, technology may feel more like a burden than a blessing. Thus, the idea of “digital detox” is becoming increasingly inviting.
The phrase “digital detox” describes getting rid of TV, phones, computers and other forms of technology that control our lives for a period of time. Some experts advocate completely avoiding unnecessary screen time for 30 years. Others suggest using an app that will limit the amount of time one can spend on certain websites. A third option is logging out in evenings or on weekends. Others simply turn their phones off at scheduled times. Some even pay high prices to take vacations in places where they can unplug from their digital routine.
Why might you want to take a digital detox? Perhaps you find that you are spending longer than you intend on certain apps or that they distract you from more important things. Perhaps social media is depressing because you compare yourself to others or you fear missing out on things that other people are enjoying. Constant negative news can also give rise to a lot of stress.
Technology can also have physical effects. Many people experience back or neck pain as a result of bending over screens. The blue light coming from most screens can also affect people’s sleep by preventing production of melatonin(褪黑素).
Giving up all screens may not be realistic, but strategic breaks from technology may be good for your body, mind, emotions and relationships. It is high time that you picked a time to turn off your devices and focus on really important things.
1. Why does the author say “technology may feel more like a burden than a blessing” in paragraph 1?| A．To confirm a concept. |
| B．To present a problem. |
| C．To explain a rule. |
| D．To make a prediction. |
| A．Recover. | B．Benefit. | C．preventing | D．Suffer. |
| A．Apps selection difficulty. |
| B．Fear of missing important things. |
| C．Exposure to false news. |
| D．Pressure from social comparison. |
| A．To recommend healthy lifestyles. |
| B．To call for reducing the use of digital devices. |
| C．To give instructions on starting digital detox. |
| D．To present different attitudes to digital products. |
