1 . Twelve-year-old Catherine has a lot of friends—632, actually, if you count up her online friends. And she spends a lot of time with them.
But is it possible that Catherine’s online friendships could be making her lonely? That’s what some experts believe. Connecting online is a great way to stay in touch, they say. However, some experts worry that many kids are so busy connecting online that they might be missing out on true friendships.
Could this be true? During your parents’ childhoods, connecting with friends usually meant spending time with them in the flesh. Kids played Scrabble around a table, not words with friends on their phones. When friends missed each other, they picked up the telephone. Friends might even write letters to each other.
Today, most communication takes place online. A typical teen sends 2,000 texts a month and spends more than 44 hours per week in front of a screen. Much of this time is spent on social media platform.
In fact, in many ways, online communication can make friendships stronger. “There’s definitely a positive influence. Kids can stay in constant contact, which means they can share more of their feelings with each other,” says Katie Davis, co-author of The App Generation.
Other experts, however, warn that too much online communication can get in the way of forming deep friendships. “If we are constantly checking in with our virtual world, we will have little time for our real-world friendships,” says Larry Rosen, a professor at California State University. Rosen also worries that today’s kids might mistake the “friends” on the social media for true friends in life. However, in tough times, you don’t need anyone to like your picture or share your blogs. You need someone who will keep your secrets and hold your hand. You would like to talk face to face.
1. What is the purpose of the first paragraph?| A．To tell about true friends. | B．To start a discussion. |
| C．To encourage online friendships. | D．To summarize(总结) the text. |
| A．In any case. | B．In public. | C．In person. | D．In advance. |
| A．Unconcerned. | B．Positive. | C．Worried. | D．Confused. |
| A．Teenagers need to focus on real-world friendships. | B．It’s easier to develop friendships in real life. |
| C．It’s wise to turn to friends online. | D．Social media help people stay closely connected. |
2 . Last August, Joe and Mary Mahoney began looking at colleges for their 17-year-old daughter, Maureen. With a checklist of criteria(标准) in hand, the Dallas family looked around the country visiting half a dozen schools. They sought a university that offered the teenager's intended major, one located near a large city, and a campus where their daughter would be safe.
“The safety issue is a big one,” says Joe Mahoney, who quickly discovered he wasn't alone in his worries. On campus tours other parents voiced similar concerns, and the same question was always asked: what about crime? But when college officials always gave the same answer—“That’s not a problem here.”—Mahoney began to feel uneasy.
“No crime whatsoever?” comments Mahoney today, “I just don’t buy it.” Nor should he: in one year alone, the U. S. Department of Education had reports of nearly 400,000 serious crimes on or around our campuses. “Parents need to understand that times have changed since they went to college,” says David Nichols, author of Creating a Safe Campus. “Campus crime mirrors the rest of the nation.”
But getting accurate information isn’t easy. Colleges must report crime statistics(统计数字) by law, but some hold back for fear of bad publicity, leaving the honest ones looking dangerous. “The truth may not always be obvious,” warns S. Daniel Carter of Security on Campus, Inc, the nation's leading campus safety watchdog group.
To help concerned parents, Carter promised to visit campuses and talk to experts around the country to find out major crime issues and effective solutions.
1. The Mahoneys visited quite a few colleges last August _________.| A．to express the opinions of many parents | B．to choose a right one for their daughter |
| C．to check the cost of college education | D．to find a right one near a large city |
| A．receive too many visitors | B．mirror the rest of the nation |
| C．hide the truth of campus crime | D．have too many watchdog groups |
| A．believe | B．admit | C．mind | D．expect |
| A．that are protected by campus security | B．that report campus crime by law |
| C．that are free from campus crime | D．that enjoy very good publicity |
| A．Exact campus crime statistics. | B．Crimes on or around campuses. |
| C．Concerns about kids'campus safety. | D．Effective solutions to campus crime. |
3 . Children love playing games. That is a well-known fact. Kids learn how to play games at a very early age, and once they find a game they love, they can play for hours and hours on end. In fact, kids’ games are so popular that there is an entire industry devoted to designing and selling them. There seems to be a fun game for kids for every occasion. Christmas and birthdays are often celebrated with the family tradition of gifting a new game.
Old games handed down from generation to generation include such favorites such as hopscotch, red rover, London Bridge and duck-duck-goose; they are always big hits and still played at many schools during recreation time.
In recent years, though, Internet games and gaming systems seem to have taken the kids’ world by storm. Kids’ online games have quickly become a very popular way to pass the time with small children and teens alike. Online games are a great way to have fun, and they can be quite educational as well. Many online games created for specific age groups encourage grade appropriate development and educational skills.
Hundreds of Internet sites offer fun and educational games for kids. Some games need them to use brains, while others involve hands and feet. Many of these sites are created by big names, such as National Geographic, which we can trust. They offer free games that parents know are appropriate for kids. Parents are encouraged to go online and research online games appropriate for their kids’ age before allowing their kids to play these games. Parents want to have the ability to set or monitor their kids’ play time, which is a problem National Geographic is working to solve.
With so many options to choose from, parents and children will find it easy to find fun games and activities on the Internet. And nowadays, being able to use a computer is a very important skill for your little one to learn, so playing on the computer is definitely both educational and fun. Your child is sure to learn new skills about any subject with the right, trusted website.
1. The industry of kids’ games is prosperous probably because ______.| A．there are all kinds of games for children |
| B．children are mostly crazy about games |
| C．people would like to play games together |
| D．parents love to buy gifts for their child |
| A．popular and practical | B．complicated and expensive |
| C．similar and educational | D．funny and instructive |
| A．The news is updated every day. |
| B．There is a large amount of information. |
| C．The games are good for kids’ mental and physical health. |
| D．It can help parents to control kids’ play time. |
| A．supportive | B．objective | C．negative | D．pessimistic |
4 . It is quite reasonable to blame traffic jams, the cost of gas and the great speed of modern life, but manners on the road are becoming horrible. Everybody knows that the nicest men would become fierce tigers behind the wheel. It is all right to have a tiger in a cage, but to have one in the driver’s seat is another matter.
Road politeness is not only good manners, but a good sense. It takes the most cool-headed drivers great patience to give up the desire to beat back when forced to face rude driving. On the other hand, a little politeness goes a long way towards reducing the possibility of quarrelling and fighting. A friendly nod or a wave of thanks in answer to an act of politeness helps to create an atmosphere of good will and becomes so necessary in modern traffic conditions. But such behaviors of politeness are by no means enough. Many drivers nowadays don’t even seem able to recognize politeness when they see it.
However, misplaced politeness can also be dangerous. A typical example is the driver who waves to a child crossing the street at a wrong place into the path of oncoming cars that may not be able to stop in time. The same goes for encouraging old ladies to cross the road wherever and whenever they want to.
An experienced driver, whose manners are faultless, told me it would help if drivers learnt to correctly join in traffic stream without causing total blockages that give rise to unpleasant feelings. Unfortunately, modern drivers can’t even learn to drive, let alone master the roadmanship (公路驾车技能). Years ago, experts warned us that the fast increase of the car ownership would demand more give-and-take from all road users. It is high time for all of us to take this message to heart.
1. Which of the following can be the best title for this passage?| A．Traffic Jams. | B．Good Manners. |
| C．Road Politeness. | D．Modem Drivers. |
| A．Traffic jams. | B．The behaviour of the drivers. |
| C．The great speed of modern life. | D．Terrible road conditions. |
| A．Encourage children to cross the road whenever they want to. |
| B．Beat back when forced to face rude driving. |
| C．Be able to recognise politeness when he sees it. |
| D．Join in a traffic stream quickly however other people feel. |
| A．master the roadmanship |
| B．neglect politeness when they see it |
| C．give a friendly nod in answer to an act of politeness |
| D．encourage old ladies to cross the road whenever and wherever they want to |
5 . When given the choice, about 85% of people say they would not want to know about some negative event far in the future. Yet recently millions around the globe have downloaded FaceApp, which allows users to see how they might age in real life.
Many had fun with joking that they love the FaceApp old filter (滤镜). Beneath the humor is a serious subject: How do we learn to relate to our future selves? It’s important that we try to because it could help strengthen the long-term decisions that we make. However, we often fail to make sacrifices for the older versions of ourselves.
More than half of the respondents in a recent survey of 2, 800 Americans said they rarely or never thought about what their lives might be like 30 years from now. This isn’t surprising, since most of us are firmly rooted in the present and thinking about the distant future can seem like a distant priority. My ongoing research might also offer an explanation: We tend to think about our future selves as if they are someone different from who we are today. In an effort to narrow these empathy (共情) gaps, my research workmates and I have tried to humanize (使人性化) people’s future selves in the same way others have tried to humanize charity receivers. Given that a photograph of one hungry child can spark emotional reactions, and cause viewers to donate, we have provided participants with vivid images of their distant selves.
That seems helpful. In a recently completed project in Mexico, we found that exposure to future-self images led more people to add to their pensions (养老金). Despite this research, I’m not sure that the app users will suddenly increase their pension and care about their health. The silly app isn’t paired with an immediate opportunity to change any of these things.
The lesson from FaceApp shouldn’t be that we need to combine hi-tech visuals with savings for retirement. The lesson, then, leads to a question: What more can be done to urge us to think about, care for who we will one day become?
1. What can we learn about FaceApp?| A．It provides future-self images. | B．It is the most downloaded app. |
| C．It helps people make decisions. | D．It makes people age in real life. |
| A．They have known future life from FaceApp. |
| B．They fail to make sacrifices for their future. |
| C．They pay more attention to the present. |
| D．They consider future selves the same as today’s. |
| A．Completing a project in Mexico. |
| B．Offering aging images of participants. |
| C．Raising reflections among viewers. |
| D．Giving a photograph of a hungry child. |
| A．Positive. | B．Objective. |
| C．indifferent. | D．Unfavorable. |
6 . There is a popular saying in the English language: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Well, that is not true. Unkind words, name-calling or even the so-called “the silent treatment” can hurt children as much as being physically hit, sometimes even more so. A recent study of middle school children showed that verbal (言语的) abuse by other children can harm, the development in the brain. The study was a project of researchers at Harvard Medical School in Massachusetts. Researcher Martin Teicher and his team studied young adults, aged 18 to 25. These young men and women had not ever been treated in a cruel or violent way by their parents. The researchers asked the young people to rate their childhood exposure to verbal abuse from both parents and other children. Then the researchers performed imaging tests on the brains of the subjects.
The images showed that the people who reported suffering verbal abuse from peers in middle school had underdeveloped connections between the left and right side of the brain. The two sides of the brain are connected by a large bundle of connecting fibers called the corpus callosum. This was the area that was underdeveloped.
The middle school years are a time when these brain connections are developing. So, unkind, hurtful comments from children or adults during this period have the greatest effect. The researchers tested the mental and emotional condition of all the young people in the study. The tests showed that this same group of people had higher levels of fear, depression, anger and drug abuse than others in the study.
The researchers published their findings online on the American Journal of Psychiatry's website.
Parents cannot control what other people say to their children, but they can prepare their children.
1. Why does the author use the popular saying at the beginning?| A．To show the power of words. |
| B．To introduce an opposite view. |
| C．To prove the author's argument. |
| D．To show ancient people's wisdom. |
| A．They were hurt by unkind words. |
| B．They performed poorly in imaging tests. |
| C．They had their brain slightly damaged. |
| D．They experienced no physical abuse at home. |
| A．Comments on the findings. |
| B．Approaches to further studies. |
| C．Suggestions to parents. |
| D．Different opinions on the matter. |
| A．Unkind words hurt the brain. |
| B．Verbal violence should be stopped. |
| C．The way we speak matters. |
| D．Words are worse than sticks and stones. |
7 . Is any economist so dull as to criticize Christmas? At first glance, the holiday season in western economies seems a treat for those concerned with such vagaries (奇想)as GDP growth. After all, everyone is spending; in America, retailers make 25% of their yearly sales and 60% of their profits between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Even so, economists find something to worry about in the nature of the purchases being made.
Much of the holiday spending is on gifts for others. At the simplest level, giving gifts involves the giver thinking of something that the recipient would like he tries to guess his or her preferences, as economists say - and then buying the gift and delivering it. Yet this guessing of preferences is not easy; indeed, it is often done badly. Every year, ties go unworn and books unread. And even if a gift is enjoyed, it may not be what the recipient would have bought if they had spent the money themselves.
Interested in this mismatch between wants and gifts, in 1993 Joel Waldfogel, then an economist at Yale University, sought estimate the difference in dollar terms. In a research, he asked students two questions at the end of a holiday season: first, estimate the total amount paid (by the givers) for all the holiday gifts you received; second, apart from the emotional value of the items, if you did not have them, how much would you be willing to pay to get them? His results were gloomy: on average, a gift was valued by the recipient well below the price paid by the giver.
In addition, recipients may hot know their own preferences very well. Some of the best gifts, after all, are unexpected items that you would never have thought of buying, but which turn out to be especially well picked. And preference can change. So by giving a jazz CD, for example, the giver may be encouraging the recipient to enjoy something that was ignored before. This, a desire to build skills, is possibly the hope held by many parents who ignore their children’s desires for video games and buy them books instead.
Finally, there are items that a recipient would like to receive but not purchase. If someone else buys them, however, they can be enjoyed guilt-free. This might explain the high volume of chocolate that changes over the holidays. Thus, the lesson for gift-givers is that you should try hard to guess the preference of each person on your list and then choose a gift that will have a high emotional value.
1. For what reason are economists concerned about holiday purchases?| A．Seasonal sales don’t match profits well. |
| B．Some of the holiday purchases end up with waste. |
| C．Sales and profits arc far from being matched. |
| D．Seasonal sales fail to satisfy people's special wants. |
| A．accurate | B．persuasive |
| C．depressing | D．undoubtable |
| A．Recipients tend to overestimate the values of a gift. |
| B．People’s preference is born with nature and remains unchanged. |
| C．Chocolate is a gift which may cause recipients’ sense of guilt |
| D．Gifts may be used to help a person to cultivate a hobby or skill. |
| A．Guessing preference is important although sometimes it fails. |
| B．The more money you spend on the gift, the more emotional value it has. |
| C．Recipients’ preferences have an impact on the holiday season economy. |
| D．The attached value of a present is the essence of gift giving. |
8 . Have you seen people who take pictures of food for more than 10 minutes before eating? My friend Stella is such an example. Every time we went to a restaurant she would not take a bite until all the dishes we
Many people care too much about others’ opinions and try too hard to
If they really want an elegant life, they should put more
| A．ordered | B．served | C．offered | D．prepared |
| A．cooking | B．washing | C．setting | D．collecting |
| A．messy | B．arranged | C．casual | D．missed |
| A．dishes | B．restaurants | C．tables | D．pictures |
| A．chance | B．choice | C．excuse | D．reason |
| A．comfort | B．please | C．inspire | D．discourage |
| A．independent | B．generous | C．responsible | D．confident |
| A．real | B．secret | C．peaceful | D．healthy |
| A．rarely | B．hardly | C．exactly | D．nearly |
| A．difficulty | B．change | C．guidance | D．harm |
| A．question | B．dislike | C．doubt | D．follow |
| A．effort | B．ambitions | C．feeling | D．money |
| A．other than | B．more than | C．rather than | D．less than |
| A．identifying | B．accepting | C．persuading | D．amusing |
| A．simplifying | B．ruining | C．beautifying | D．worsening |
9 . When we see a person in trouble our immediate reaction is to lend a hand. But what if we se an animal in trouble, does the same rule apply?
This question was raised after a group of penguins were saved from an icy gully (峡谷) in Antarctica. It was filmed for the BBC wildlife series Dynasties. After seeing that a group of penguins had fallen into a gully and been trapped with their young the film crew were so concerned about their safety that they built a slope (斜坡) so that a few of the penguins could save themselves.
The case has taken the international media by storm. Viewers watching this film let out a sigh of relief. "I'm so glad. I understand not taking action directly involved, but a helping hand isn't bothering, right?" viewer Kathryn Shaw said on her Facebook.
However, others think human interference (干涉) is unnatural. "You can't have sunshine throughout your life. To have done anything else would only make matters worse," said the show's creator David Attenborough, according to The Times.
In this case, however, Mike Gunton, the executive producer of the series, said that this was a one-off situation. "There were no animals going to suffer by interfering. You weren't touching the animals and it was just felt by doing this. They had the chance not to have to keep slipping down the slope," he told the BBC.
Such cases are familiar to Paul Nicklen, wildlife photographer for National Geographic. He told Metro, "If it's ever a predator (捕食者) situation，no matter how gut-wrenching，you stay out of the way. Even when you're watching a male polar bear eat a baby bear."
"There's no rule book in those situations. You can only respond to the facts that are right there in front of you," Will Lawson, the show's director, told Daily Mail.
1. What has caused to a heated media discussion?| A．People's various comments on penguins. |
| B．The ways of helping the trapped penguins . |
| C．Some penguins' sufferings in a gully. |
| D．Ways of filming the series Dynasties. |
| A．Anxious. | B．Sad. |
| C．Annoyed. | D．Thrilled. |
| A．Shooting an eagle catching a snake. |
| B．Preventing a polar bear eating a baby bear. |
| C．Watching a lion attacking a deer. |
| D．Distracting a crocodile biting an antelope. |
| A．The Necessity of Lending a Hand to Animals in Trouble. |
| B．Suggestions on How to Save Animals in Trouble. |
| C．Effects of Human Interference on Animals in Trouble. |
| D．Opinions on Whether to Help Animals in Trouble. |
10 . Toilet paper as we know it today is a relatively modern invention that's only been around for about 150 years. It s natural to wonder what was used before modern toilet paper. Toilet paper in its ancient form dates back to China in at least the 6th century. Although paper itself appeared long before that time.
In ancient times, many kinds of materials(材料) were used instead of toilet paper. For example, sand was used by people who settled near the desert(沙漠); grass was used by people living in the grassland. Some other things known to have been used included: fur, leaves, rocks, snow, and so on. Of course, it wasn’t uncommon for people to go to the bathroom in a small river.
They might have used a cloth or their hands to clean themselves afterward. For many people, that might have been preferable to the method used by ancient Romans: a sponge(海绵)on a stick kept in saltwater...and shared by everyone using public bathrooms.
Luckily for us, Joseph Gayetty created the first toilet paper in 1857. His “Gayetty's Medicated Paper” didn’t become popular soon, however, since the public was used to using materials they got for free rather than spending money on toilet paper. The rolled toilet paper we’re familiar with today appeared in the 1880s. It wasn’t necessarily soft like we’re now used to, though. Paper production methods would often leave splinters(刺)in toilet paper. It wasn’t until 1935 that Northern Tissue said they had made “splinter- free” toilet paper.
Other improvements in toilet paper happened over the course of the 20th Century. Larger rolls with softer paper became more popular. Today, take a trip to your local supermarket and you will find many different kinds of toilet paper. For such a widely-used, necessary invention, it isn’t given much thought...until it runs out!
1. What might decide which material ancient people used after using the bathroom?| A．What they did. | B．Where they lived. |
| C．How old they were. | D．How long they used the bathroom. |
| A．Because the paper had splinters. |
| B．Because the paper couldn’t be shared. |
| C．Because people didn't want to pay for it. |
| D．Because people preferred rolled toilet paper. |
| A．By providing examples. | B．By making comparisons. |
| C．By telling an interesting story. | D．By following the order of time. |
| A．A great invention--toilet paper |
| B．Why was toilet paper invented? |
| C．Toilet paper vs water: which to choose. |
| D．What did people use before toilet paper? |
