1 . previous recessions (经济衰退), billionaires were hit along with the rest of us; it took almost three years for Forbes’s 400 richest people to recover from losses caused in 2008’s Great Recession. But in the coronavirus recession of 2020, most billionaires have gotten richer than ever before.
Billionaires increased their new billions just as millions of other Americans ran into terrible financial problems. More than 20 million people lost their jobs at the start of the pandemic. Food banks across the country are preparing for another great increase in demand. Why are American billionaires doing so well while so many other Americans suffer? People may find part of the reasons from the following fact. Stocks (股票) are overwhelmingly owned by the wealthy, and the stock market has recovered from its early-pandemic depths much more quickly than other parts of the economy.
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What does the author mainly tell us in the passage?| A．Food banks are not enough in the United States. |
| B．The richest kept getting richer even in the pandemic. |
| C．The stock market recovered before the pandemic started. |
| D．400 richest people recovered from losses in the pandemic. |
2 . In addition to the problem of miscomprehension from both sides, there are victories accidentally or deliberately twisted, especially when only the victors know how to write. Those who are on the losing side often have only their things to tell their stories. The Caribbean Taino, the Australian Aboriginals, the African people of Benin and the Incas, all of whom appear in this book, can speak to us now of their past achievements most powerfully through the objects they made: a history told through things gives them back a voice. When we consider contact (联系) between literate and non-literate societies such as these, all our first-hand accounts are necessarily twisted, only one half of a dialogue. If we are to find the other half of that conversation, we have to read not just the texts, but the objects.
What does the underlined word “conversation” in paragraph 3 refer to?| A．Problem. | B．History. | C．Voice. | D．Society. |
3 . Regulatory limits for how much PFAS food packaging should contain can vary greatly. For instance, a new law in California set the limit at less than 100 ppm. “Compared to America, Denmark sets a much lower regulatory limit of 20 ppm with great success,” said Xenia Trier, an expert at the European Environment Agency. “It does work to set limits and enforce them. PFAS do migrate from the paper into the food. Even though it was not 100%, we still saw considerable transmission. In general, transmission from packaging to food is increased as the temperature of the food rises. It is the same with the time spent in wrapping materials.” Trier told NBS, one of the major American mass-media companies.
What does the underlined word “it” refer to in paragraph 4?| A．Considerable migration of grease and water. |
| B．PFAS transmission from packaging to food. |
| C．Wrapper exposure to high food temperature. |
| D．Regulatory limits concerning food packaging. |
4 . ......
These kids are admittedly luckier than those for whom going back home is sadly not an option. But when choosing to live with your mum is the only way of coping with an insecure job, or with the costs of renting in the city, then that’s not much of a choice. Home is still the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. But a healthy and successful society shouldn’t be sending quite many overgrown children hurrying back for shelter, and nor should it leave quite many parents feeling bad about it.
What is the author’s attitude to this trend?| A．Favorable. | B．Confused. | C．Tolerant. | D．Disapproving. |
There are not many nations that can say their national dish has become international.
The word “pizza” came from the Latin word “pinsa” meaning flatbread. Long ago, pieces of flatbread, topped with mushrooms and herbs (香料), were a simple and tasty meal. They were mostly for those who didn’t have enough money to buy plates, or who were on the go. In the 18th century, Naples, in southern Italy, had become one of the largest cities in Europe, and it was growing fast. Lots of city people were poor and they were always rushing around to look for work.
It was in America that pizza found its second home.
For a lot of people in western countries, when they cannot decide what to eat, they order pizzas.
A. Nobody knows where pizza came from.
B. Italy has two such dishes, spaghetti and pizza.
C. They needed food that was cheap and easy to eat.
D. In 1905, the first pizzeria, Lombardi’s, was opened in New York City.
A. The use of avatars has also caused a few concerns.
B. However, other users view avatars in a more positive light.
C. The use of several avatars can also be a risk, as people can use avatars to cheat others online.
D. They look forward to a time when their avatar will act like a real person and travel around bigger, more exciting virtual worlds.
E. Some users worry that they are spending so much time in virtual worlds that they are becoming afraid of meeting people in the real world.
A. It turned out that the second group remembered the information better. In another experiment, the researchers gave people facts to remember, and told them where to find the information on the Internet. The information was in a specific computer folder (文件夹).
B. According to Sparrow, we are not becoming people with poor memory as a result of the Internet. Instead, computer users are developing stronger transactive (交互) memory. This doesn’t mean we are becoming either more or less intelligent, but there is no doubt that the way we use memory is changing.
C. As Internet users become more dependent on the Internet to store information, are people remembering less? If you know your computer will save information, why store it in your own personal memory—your brain? Experts are wondering if the Internet is changing what we remember and how.
D. In a recent study, Professor Betsy Sparrow her research team wanted to know whether the Internet is changing memory. In one experiment, they gave people 40 unimportant facts to type into a computer. The first group of people understood that the computer would save the information while the second group understood that the computer would not save it.
E. Surprisingly, people later remembered the folder location better than the facts. When people use the Internet, they do not remember the information. Rather, they remember how to find it. This is called ”transactive memory“.
A. For example, governments can use tax systems and place restrictions on the marketing of foods that are high in fat, salt or sugar. They can also provide healthy food in schools.
B. It is expected to rise by 100% among boys under 18, but go up even more sharply by 125% among girls the same age.
C. About 2.6 billion people around the world are already overweight. But on current trends, that is expected to rise to more than 4 billion people within 12 years, according to a research by the World Obesity Federation.
D. Therefore, governments and policymakers around the world need to do all they can to avoid passing health, social and economic costs on to the younger generation.
E. The research also shows that obesity(肥胖)among children and young people is increasing faster than among adults. By 2035, the number of obese youth is expected to be at least double the rate seen in 2020.
A. It is reported that one in three people lose a whole year off their life due to noise. And this has been linked to heart disease, sleep loss, and high blood pressure.
B. According to recent studies, excessive (过量) noise does harm to us. The average person wakes up to an alarm and then turns on the radio or TV. Outside, planes roar, cars honk, and ambulances wail.
C. When participants were exposed to a silent pause after listening to relaxing music, increased relaxation was observed. When surrounded by silence, your consciousness has more freedom to process information. This can lead to better decision-making.
D. In this noisy world, the sound of silence is a gentle friend. Try to remove yourself to a place of pure silence and simply be with it. If you let it fill you, you are open to wellness.
E. Because of this, it is time to value silence, a gift and a rare product like gold. Shut off your phone, turn off the music, and spend time alone. Studies showed that even though relaxing music can positively affect the cardiovascular and respiratory (呼吸的) systems, silence is ideal.
10 . Just as a hungry brain craves (渴望) food, a lonely brain craves people. A new brain study demonstrates this. After being left alone, it shows people’s brains would be activated at the sight of other people. The action was in the same brain region that speeds up when a hungry person sees food.
Livia Tomova, a neuroscientist, who studies how the brain produces mental activities, and her colleagues began this study. They recruited (招募) 40 people. On one day, the participants had to fast—not eat anything at all—for 10 hours. On another day, the same people were placed in a room for 10 hours. They couldn’t see anyone. No friends, no family and no social media. They weren’t even allowed to check their email. After both days, Tomova and her colleagues put the people in a MRI machine. It shows activity in the brain by tracking how much blood is flowing to each region.
At the end of each day, the participants showed high activity in a brain area called the midbrain. The scientists were interested in two, small areas within it. Both areas produce dopamine, a chemical that is important in craving and rewards. The two areas activated when hungry participants saw pictures of tasty pizza or juicy hamburgers. After the volunteers had been isolated, those brain areas became active when they saw social activities they missed. It might be playing sports or chatting with friends.
The midbrain plays an important part in people’s motivation to seek food or friends. In fact, it responds to food and social signals even when people aren’t hungry or lonely. But hunger and loneliness increased the reactions and made people’s responses specific to the thing they were missing. And the more hunger or isolation the volunteers said they were experiencing, the stronger the activity in this part of the brain. Tomova and her colleagues published their results November 23 in Nature Neuroscience.
What can be the best title for the text?
| A．Dopamine—a Sure Sign of Age |
| B．Midbrain—a Nest for the Thoughts |
| C．Hunger Makes Mental Health Struggle |
| D．Loneliness Makes Our Brains Need People |
