1 . From camping to Frisbee (飞盘游戏), China’s urban residents are always on the lookout for the next outdoor activity in fashion. Over the last few months, farming vegetables has become the most popular one as more and more people seek to break away from urban routines for a short break back with nature.
Completely different from traditional farming, the pieces of land are divided into smaller parts so they can be rented out to families with kids, the elderly, and white-collar residents. They are usually located on the suburbs of cities, and promise potential tenants(租户)hours of peaceful gardening and beautiful scenery.
As their own “landlords,” inexperienced city residents get to experience the whole process—from sowing vegetable seeds and watering them to eventually harvesting the fruits of their labor. Shanghai resident Tai Xin rented a 100-square-meter plot of land on Shanghai’s suburbs that costs 1,000 yuan annually. She says, “I initially thought my seven-year-old son would be able to better understand crops, planting, picking, and agricultural science.” But her parents, who have been helping with babysitting, are now also engaged on the “farm”. “We’re pleased to be here,” she added. Tai says she visits the plot of land, around two kilometers away from her home, once in a while but only on weekends. She spends a couple of hours watering the crops, removing weeds, and sometimes just organizing a picnic with her family.
But like other outdoor activities, vegetable gardening, as an emerging trend, is not without its complications. Most of the land for such vegetable gardens are agricultural tracts (大片土地) rented from the local government, says Zhang Ling, who operates the Shanghai Shanxi Fruit &Vegetable Cooperative.
“The regulator wants to keep track of the kind of vegetables planted as well as the yield to guarantee the city’s food supply,” says Zhang. “It’s very difficult for us to track that since our customers are mostly amateur farmers and they could be very spontaneous(自发的)in what they want to plant. A failure to meet the regulatory requirements, however, may lead to the land rental contract being canceled.”
1. What is the latest trend among urban residents in China?| A．Camping in the wilderness. |
| B．Playing Frisbee in city parks. |
| C．Seeking adventurous urban routines. |
| D．Engaging in outdoor farming activities. |
| A．It is carried out by various tenants on smaller lands. |
| B．It involves planting crops for commercial purposes. |
| C．It focuses on large-scale agricultural methods. |
| D．It is primarily promoted by local gardeners. |
| A．She thinks it’s a little expensive. | B．She finds it quite time-consuming. |
| C．She considers it a good family activity. | D．She believes it aims for health education. |
| A．Concerned. | B．Positive. | C．Carefree. | D．Unclear. |
2 . Fast food chains have tried for years to appeal to customers who care about their health. They have added lighter food to their menus, such as salads and yogurt. Of course, the lighter food goes with the usual burgers, fried chicken and shakes.
Menus have changed over the past three decades. According to a recent study, fast food menus are less healthy than they were 30 years ago. The study suggests the problem is getting worse. The fat, salt content and size of fast food meals are the problem. They are often the reason for the rising obesity (肥胖) rate among adults in the United States. The researchers found that the average main dish weighed more in 2016 than in 1986. It also had more calories and more sodium (钠). One expert said, “The restaurants have not done enough. The big picture is that there have been some positive changes, but they are small. Overall, the changes have gotten worse.”
The average fast food dessert had more calories in 2016. It also weighed more than the average fast food dessert thirty years earlier. Restaurants are counting on bigger sundaes and cookies to increase the amount spent on each order. For example, McDonald’s recently introduced “donut sticks” dusted with sugar. Six sticks have 280 calories. But you can also order 12 sticks for less than the cost of two single orders.
The researchers found that, over the 30 years, there were more calories in items like chips, soup, and French fries. Sodium content rose even though portion(一份) size did not grow much. When consumed together as a single meal, the study found that the average main dish and side order account for nearly 40 percent of a 2000-calory daily diet.
1. Why do fast food chains provide lighter food?| A．To match the fast food. | B．To attract more customers. |
| C．To reduce the cost of each meal. | D．To improve the health of customers. |
| A．They take in more calories from fast food. |
| B．They have little time to exercise regularly. |
| C．They eat much more dessert after every meal. |
| D．They eat fast food more frequently than before. |
| A．Showing the way of restaurants’ making cookies. |
| B．Presenting the popularity of restaurants’ new food. |
| C．Stressing the increase in restaurants’ food varieties. |
| D．Explaining the intention of restaurants’ adding dessert. |
| A．Fast Food Is Still Killing Us | B．Don’t Eat Any Fast Food Now |
| C．Try to Eat More Lighter Food | D．People Are Becoming Fatter and Fatter |
3 . Phone call anxiety is on the rise, with a quarter of 18-24 year olds avoiding picking up the phone.
In face-to-face interactions, we rely heavily on gestures, facial expressions, and body language to interpret messages, which are absent in phone conversations.
The fear of making and receiving phone calls can have negative effects on both your personal and professional lives.
While it’s understandable why phone calls can feel awkward in today’s digital age, it’s essential to recognize the value they hold in effective communication and relationship building. As we navigate this “phone anxiety pandemic”, it is crucial to encourage and relearn the art of phone conversation, balancing the ease of texting with the depth and authenticity of a real-time voice call.
| A．This anxiety is not entirely new. |
| B．Who are reluctant to pick up phones? |
| C．Why are we making fewer phone calls? |
| D．It represents a sense of being separated. |
| E．Therefore, it is important to take phone anxiety seriously. |
| F．This can lead to misunderstandings and a feeling of disconnect. |
| G．This balance is key to establishing good relationships in in increasingly digital world. |
4 . They say you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. But when it comes to tackling a tricky task, researchers have found that getting angry can also be a powerful motivator.
The experiments suggest people who are angry perform better on a set of challenging tasks than those who are emotionally neutral.
The study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, details how researchers at Texas A&M University conducted experiments involving more than 1,000 people, and analysed survey data from more than 1,400 people to explore the possible impact of anger on people in various circumstances.
In one experiment, students were shown images previously found to cause anger, desire, amusement, sadness or no particular emotion at all. Participants were subsequently asked to solve a series of anagrams (变形词).
The results reveal that for a challenging set of anagrams, those who were angry did better — although no difference was seen for easy anagrams.
The researchers say one explanation could be down to a link between anger and greater persistence, with the team finding those who were angry spent more time on the difficult set of anagrams.
In another experiment, participants who were angry did better at avoiding flags in a skiing video game than those who were neutral or sad, and were on a par with (同水平) those who felt amusement or desire.
“This pattern could indicate that general physical arousal (激起) had a benefit for game scores, as this would be greater in anger, amused, and desire conditions compared to the sad and neutral conditions,”the researchers write. However, no such differences in performance was found when it came to an easier video game.
“People often prefer to use positive emotions as tools more than negative and tend to see negative emotions as undesirable,” said Lench, the first author of the study. “Our research adds to the growing evidence that a mix of positive and negative emotions promotes well-being, and that using negative emotions as tools can be particularly effective in some situations.”
1. What tasks did the researchers set for the students?| A．Recognizing different emotion images. | B．Helping analyze a series of survey data. |
| C．Putting tasks into different categories. | D．Performing tasks in various emotional states. |
| A．It brings team spirit into full play. | B．It promotes a deep insight into the tasks. |
| C．It increases effort toward attaining a goal. | D．It changes challenging tasks into easy ones. |
| A．Research result consistent with previous findings. |
| B．Potential application of the research finding. |
| C．A further explanation of the research method. |
| D．A reasonable doubt about the research process. |
| A．To present more proofs. | B．To draw a conclusion. |
| C．To make a comparison. | D．To criticize old practices. |
5 . “Beijing’s Forbidden City can be at risk of being flooded, but it’s not because modern technologies and repairs have deteriorated the drainage (排水) system,” Beijing News Radio reported.
The report is in response to a popular online view: The Forbidden City, the royal palace of Ming and Qing dynasties also known as the Palace Museum, has never been flooded throughout its history of more than 600 years.
Earlier, a video showed ankle-deep water near the Forbidden City’s Cining Palace, where the royal women used to live. Some netizens have questioned whether modern drainage repair works have made the system much weaker.
Di Yajing, an official in control of affairs relating to the site, told Beijing News Radio that the Forbidden City has a complex (复杂的) drainage system. “Rain coming down from roofs was guided to the basement and then to the drains,” she said, adding that rainwater would flow from the central of the palace to both sides, and from north to south, due to differences in heights.
“The drains were cleared once a year in springtime in ancient times and nowadays they are cleared three times a year except in winter,” the report said. “Although the number of clearing increased every year, it’s not modern technology that worsened the ability of the drainage system,” the report said. During the clearing process, workers found lots of modern objects such as plastic bottles and bags, even towels and clothing, and these things resulted in the blocking of the drainage system.
In addition, there are plenty of records that have recorded occasions in which the palace was flooded and some roofs or walls were damaged by floodwaters, according to the report. For example, a rain in 1885 led to floodwaters of about 1 meter deep. Every time people would have to find out the place of blockage, clear it and then the drainage system would work well right away.
1. What does the underlined word “deteriorated” in paragraph 1 mean?| A．Fixed up. | B．Caused damage to. |
| C．Taken control of. | D．Checked on. |
| A．To clarify a popular view online. |
| B．To praise the Forbidden City’s drainage system. |
| C．To introduce the challenge faced by the Forbidden City. |
| D．To stress the effect of technology on protecting old buildings. |
| A．Poor management. | B．Buried bricks. |
| C．Pipe cracking. | D．Lots of rubbish. |
| A．The palace was once destroyed by floods. |
| B．Beijing has experienced many natural disasters. |
| C．The drainage system doesn’t always operate perfectly. |
| D．Ancient architecture suffered a lot to survive until today. |
6 . It often happens that a number of applicants (申请人) with almost the same qualifications and experience all apply for the same position. In their educational background, special skills and work experience, there is little, if anything, to choose between half a dozen candidates. How then does the employer make a choice? Usually on the basis of an interview.
There are many arguments for and against the interview as a way of selection. The main argument against it is that it results in a wholly subjective decision. As often as not, employers do not choose the best candidate. They choose the candidate who makes a good first impression on them. Some employers, of course, reply to this argument by saying that they have become so experienced in interviewing staff that they are able to make a good assessment of each candidate’s likely performance. The main argument in favor of the interview is that an employer is concerned not only with a candidate’s ability, but with his or her suitable personality for the particular work situation. Many employers, for example, will overlook occasional mistakes from their secretary if she has a pleasant personality.
It is perhaps true to say therefore, that the real purpose of an interview is not to assess the assessable aspects of each candidate but to make a guess at the things that are hard to measure, such as personality, character and social ability. Unfortunately, both for the employers and applicants for jobs, there are many people of great ability who simply do not interview well. There are also, of course, people who interview extremely well, but are later found to be very unsatisfactory employees. Candidates who interview well tend to be quietly confident, but never boastful (自夸的) direct and straightforward in their questions and answers; cheerful and friendly, but never over-familiar; and sincerely enthusiastic and optimistic. Candidates who interview badly tend to be either very shy or over-confident. They either talk too little or never stop talking. They are either over-polite or a bit rude.
1. People argue over the interview mainly because they have ________.| A．different purposes in the interview | B．different experiences in interviews |
| C．different standards of selection | D．different ways of selection |
| A．personality | B．character | C．opinion | D．ability |
| A．a link between success in interview and personality |
| B．connections between work abilities and personality |
| C．differences in interview experience |
| D．differences in personal behavior |
| A．He thinks it is a good way of selection. | B．He doesn’t quite agree with it. |
| C．He is neither for nor against it. | D．It is not clear. |
7 . Cruise through many neighborhoods or parks around the world, and you will find no shortage of well-mowed expanses of grass. Lawns (草坪) do look attractive.
Why did lawns become so popular?
What environmental problems are lawns causing?
Lawns are homogenizing the environment, not only in terms of biodiversity but also visually. You compare countries’ and cities’ urban landscapes around the world, and they look exactly the same.
You have to find your own local solution. We can take inspiration from the natural plant communities around us. In suburban and rural areas, that might mean having a meadow or prairie. In other places, it might be a savanna like environment or mountain plants. You can have a “grass-free” lawn; with only low-growing plants that create the same effect as a lawn, and you can walk on it.
How can we persuade people to adopt these alternatives?
When people see them, they appreciate them and like them.
| A．So it is all about education. |
| B．What are these alternatives? |
| C．And it is understandable fondness. |
| D．What are the inspirations of lawns? |
| E．However, they choke out biodiversity. |
| F．Lawns came to be seen as a symbol of civilization and a way of life. |
| G．Lawn upkeep takes resources, fertilizer and pesticide that enter groundwater and runoff water. |
1. Why do fewer and fewer people do the cooking?
| A．They are living a busy life. |
| B．It’s difficult to cater for all tastes. |
| C．There’s a wide variety of takeout food. |
| A．Fast food. | B．Home-made dishes. | C．Low-sugar dessert. |
| A．Ordering food on the Internet. |
| B．Cooking healthy meals at home. |
| C．Eating at a restaurant in the neighborhood. |
| A．Americans’ daily diet has changed a lot. |
| B．People like trying different cooking styles. |
| C．Ordering food online is convenient and popular. |
9 . The next time you’re at an airport or hotel, you might notice a traveling group that consists of young kids, parents, and grandparents vacationing together.
The shift toward multi-generational travel has a few explanations. For one, grandparents today stay healthy later in life, allowing them more energy for travel.
Whatever the reason for its popularity, a multi-generational trip can be a rare time when younger and older generations can glimpse the complex people they have each become. Away from the family home, older generations get to see their adult children as responsible parents. Kids get to see their grandparents encounter a new environment.
| A．Another explanation is time pressure. |
| B．The benefits of multi-generational trips are numerous. |
| C．Decades ago, only wealthy families vacationed together. |
| D．A scene like this would have been rare a few decades ago. |
| E．Multi generational family travel tops the list of travel trends. |
| F．Everyone gets to break out of their family roles and figure out how to be together. |
| G．Also, big-group accommodation has become more affordable through online platforms. |
10 . Leadership is a quality that is hard to define. Everyone can think of inspiring leaders from history but managers who think they can base their style on Nelson Mandela or Elizabeth I are suffering from misunderstandings of greatness.
The biggest mistake is to consider leadership entirely equal to charisma(魅力). Billy McFarland was just 25 when he set up the Fyre festival which promised attendees a luxury experience on a deserted island in the Bahamas. As shown by the Netflix documentary, “Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened”, Mr McFarland was an unusual salesman. He convinced investors that he was a visionary businessman and persuaded talented young people to work for him.
But he lacked the skills to put his vision into practice. Festival guests arrived to find their food consisted of cheese sandwiches, rather than first-class cuisine. They were housed not in luxury villas, but in tents left over from a hurricane-relief program. The whole event ended with Mr McFarland being sentenced to six years in prison.
His example could have been a case study for the book by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic— “Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders?(and how to fix it)”. As an organisational psychologist, he points out that people tend to assume that confident individuals are competent, when there is no actual relationship between the two qualities. Those confident people are promoted and then their abilities turn out to be over-estimated.
Mr Chamorro-Premuzic argues that competence is more important than charisma or confidence. Managers need enough presence to persuade their teams to follow the business plan, but they should think in terms of coaching rather than inspiration. Employees are more likely to be engaged with their work if they get frequent feedback from their bosses, and if they are involved in setting their own goals. Another key factor in leadership is the ability to set a good example. Subordinates(下属)notice what behaviour gets rewarded and which standards are set by the person at the top.
1. What can we infer from paragraph 1?| A．Leadership is a quality impossible to evaluate. |
| B．Nelson Mandela and Elizabeth I are both overrated. |
| C．You can’t become leaders by simply imitating others. |
| D．Charismatic people are more likely to be great leaders. |
| A．Unconfident. | B．Visionary. | C．Incomparable. | D．Incompetent. |
| A．The assumption that confidence equals competence. |
| B．The phenomenon that competent people can’t lead well. |
| C．The connection between competence and career success. |
| D．The reason why confident people are popular in workplaces. |
| A．Respecting the privacy of employees. | B．Giving employees frequent feedback. |
| C．Inspiring employees with big visions. | D．Following the examples of good employees. |
