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 . Chinese students always complain that they’re under great pressure and don’t get enough sleep. But they may be surprised to learn that they’re much luckier than their peers in South Korea and Japan, according to a recently published report, conducted by Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences on the physical and mental health of senior high school students in the three Asian countries.
According to the study among nearly 6,000 high school students in the three countries, Chinese students are the tallest but poorest in physical fitness. Chinese students are on average 168.17cm, compared with 167.61cm for South Korean students and 164.70cm for Japanese students. Chinese students asked for sick leave more than students in other countries. About 72 percent of Korean students never asked for sick and injury leave during high school, compared to 53 percent for Japanese students and 45 percent for Chinese students. Moreover, Chinese students drink alcohol and smoke earlier than Korean and Japanese students. Around 70 percent of Chinese students have drunk alcohol, compared to 50 percent for Korean and Japanese students.
According to the survey, Japanese and South Korean students suffer more pressure than their Chinese peers. Statistics show 16 percent of students in China said they experienced mental pressure often over the past year, while the numbers in Japan and South Korea were 33 percent and 47 percent respectively. Their worries come from “study”, “future after graduation”, “friendships” and “relationship with their parents”. To go with stress, 57.9 percent of Korean students sleep the least, less than six hours a day, compared with 46.6 percent of Japanese students and 30 percent of Chinese students.
More Chinese students were satisfied with their physical appearance, double that of students in the survey from Japan and South Korea. The report said that over half of students in South Korea had tried to lose weight in the past year, while in China the figure was only 22 percent. In measures of self-worth, such as “I think I am valuable” and “I think I am successful”, “I can complete many things”, “I won’t give up to failure,” Chinese students showed greater self-confidence than students in Japan and South Korea.
1. What’s the main idea of the second paragraph?| A．Chinese teenagers are tallest, but most unhealthy. |
| B．Chinese students drink most alcohol and smoke earliest. |
| C．Japanese students ask for least sick leave. |
| D．Chinese students ask for sick leave most often. |
| A．Chinese students are luckiest, yet most unsuccessful. |
| B．Chinese students are confident in themselves and luckier. |
| C．Japanese students are most stressed. |
| D．South Korean students sleep the least. |
| A．The height. | B．The percentage. | C．The weight. | D．The number. |
| A．study and career | B．physical appearance | C．friendships | D．family relationship |
3 . When my mother died a few years ago，we looked through boxes in which she had lovingly stored her children’s lives. Handwritten report cards from grade schoo1. News cuttings about games. Postcards from summer camps. And so many photos：birthdays，graduations，weddings and trips to wonderful places.
After my father’s death，I found many handwritten pity letters from his friends. Rereading them once a year，I am transported back to the time I miss so much. Of course，I received many emails about Dad as well，but I wouldn’t begin to know how or where to find them. Besides，personal messages are more meaningful when presented in the hand of the sender.
My kids，now in their 20s，have mostly digital keepsakes. Increasingly they rely on Facebook to store memories. Their letters from college，sent by email，are long gone. Many photos，never printed，have disappeared. I really worry that for them.
In Andrew Hoskins’new book Digital Memory Studies，he concludes，“Despite the gradual disappearance of photographs，letters and other objects that are reminders of people and past experiences，their keeping is like holding on to those people and experiences. ”Digital items offer nothing of the kind.
Mark B. McKinley explained that collecting physical memorabilia(值得纪念的事物)can serve as a means of control to bring out a comfort zone in one’s life，calming fears and easing worries. It’s no wonder that children are fond of collecting things—it's important to their development.
One mother says，“My Son collects pieces of broken stones. ”The kid might become a great geologist or a successful businessman. But will his mom print out a photo of that unique collection? Will his degree in geology be memorialized on paper，or will he be given a digital diploma? And will he collect his first paycheck or will he be paid by direct deposit?
1. What can be concluded from the first three paragraphs?| A．People don’t collect physical objects. |
| B．Hard copies fail to preserve our memory. |
| C．Physical objects aren’t collected for memory. |
| D．Memories are stored on the Internet forever. |
| A．He is against it. |
| B．He is hopeful about it. |
| C．He is confused about it. |
| D．He doesn’t care about it. |
| A．It cures their illnesses. |
| B．It makes them feel relaxed. |
| C．It keeps their life under contro1. |
| D．It helps them lead a comfortable life. |
| A．To explain a unique collection. |
| B．To offer direct support to the boy. |
| C．To encourage readers to share their ideas. |
| D．To show her worry about the loss of collecting. |
The Internet is popular with everybody. It’s
5 . “Do not tell anyone”. We often hear these words when someone tells us a secret. But keeping a secret is hard. We’re often tempted（引诱）to “spill the beans”, even if we regret it later.
According to the professor, Asim Shah, keeping a secret may well “become a burden”. This is because people often have an “eager and anxious urge（冲动）to share it with someone”. An earlier study, led by Anita, a scientist at the University of Notre Dame, US, suggested that keeping a secret could cause stress. People entrusted（托付）with secrets can suffer from depression, anxiety, and body aches, reported the Daily Mail.
Secrets are so often getting out. Why do people share them at all? Shah explained that people often feel that it will help them keep a person as a friend. Another reason people share secrets is guilt over keeping it from someone close to them. A sense of distrust can develop when people who are close do not share it with each other. “Keeping or sharing secrets often puts people in a position of either gaining or losing the trust of someone, ”according to Shah.
He added that talkative people could let secrets slip out. But this doesn’t mean that it is a good idea only to share secrets with quiet people. A quiet person may be someone who keeps everything inside. To tell such a person a secret may cause them stress, and make them talk about the secret.
Shah said that to judge whether to tell someone a secret, you’d better put yourself in their position, Think about how you would feel to be told that you mustn’t give the information away. Shah also recommended that if you accidentally give up someone’s secret you should come clean about it. Let the person know that their secret isn’t so secret anymore.
1. Why does the author say keeping a secret may “become a burden”?| A．Because people are born not to be able to keep secrets. |
| B．Because when people have secrets, their bodies ache. |
| C．Because keeping secrets is certain to cause depression. |
| D．Because keeping secrets could probably be harmful to health. |
| A．2. | B．3. | C．4. | D．5. |
| A．To fall by accident. | B．To let out secrets on purpose. |
| C．To spread secrets to everyone around. | D．To give away secrets unintentionally. |
| A．Quiet people are more likely to keep the secrets to themselves. |
| B．Sharing secrets helps establish friendship or get over the, sense of guilt. |
| C．Putting yourself in others’ shoes helps realize the importance of keeping secrets. |
| D．A person who is asked to keep a secret will suffer from psychological problems only. |
6 . Binge-watching (追剧) your favorite TV series is bad for your brain. Dr. Randall Wright, based in Texas, said the need to watch episode (集) after episode has a similar influence on the brain to gambling (赌博). What’s more, it often leads to social loneliness, snacking on junk food and a shortage of exercise and sleep, which, over time, is bad for the brain.
When you let auto play start the next episode, you can find out what happens next and your brain receives good feedback, Dr. Wright wrote in an article. This right-away satisfaction is similar to gambling where even after a win, you are not satisfied and want to continue playing. With binge-watching, you are not satisfied with stopping after episode five and want to continue watching. This cycle coupled with the snacking and the long time sitting can lead to unhealthy changes in your brain and body over time.
Dr. Wright said, “Binge-watching itself is not bad. It becomes problematic when you are watching a third, fourth or fifth episode instead of doing healthy activities.” But he said it is possible to avoid the bad influence of binge-watching with four tips, including staying away from salty, fatty, calorific foods, exercising before a binge-watching, setting an alarm for sleep and balancing TV viewing with socializing.
If you add these tips to your binge-watching practice, you can create lasting healthy habits and still enjoy the now-and-then binge-watching time without hurting your brain.
1. What might “it” in paragraph 1 refer to?| A．Gambling. | B．Binge-watching. |
| C．TV series. | D．Brain. |
| A．The long time sitting. | B．The changes of feeling. |
| C．The snacking on junk food. | D．The immediate satisfaction. |
| A．The tips on how to develop a healthy lifestyle. |
| B．The reasons why binge-watching is problematic. |
| C．The ways to keep away from binge-watching. |
| D．Do’s and don’ts of binge-watching. |
| A．Ill Health: The Result of Addiction |
| B．Healthy Habits: A Must of A Better Life |
| C．Binge-watching: A Killer of Your Brain |
| D．TV-Viewing: Gradual Harm on Your Health |
7 . Ed Dohring had dreamed of reaching the top of Mount Everest. But when he reached the mountain top a few days ago, he was shocked by what he saw.
Climbers were fighting to take selfies along the way. The flat part of the mountain top, which was about the size of two Ping-Pong tables, was packed with 15 or 20 people. To get up there, he had to wait hours in a line, with temperature dropping to -30 Celsius.
“At least 10 people died. And some seemed to have been avoidable,” he said. “It was frightening when I had to step around the body of a woman who had just died.”
The problem hasn't been snowstorms or strong winds. Tourist guides and industry leaders blame having too many people on the mountain and too many untrained climbers.
The Nepalese government, hungry for every climbing dollar it can get, has no strict rules about who can climb Everest, and has allowed more climbers than Everest can safely deal with. It is just an invitation for disaster—at 29,000 feet. At that altitude, a delay of even an hour or two can mean life or death.
“To be sure, one of the biggest problems this year seems to be the number of people trying to reach the top of the mountain at the same time. And since there is no government traffic police high on the mountain, the task of deciding when and how many groups can start climbing is left up to tourism companies.” said Lukas Furtenbach, a guide who recently led his climbers to the Chinese side of Everest because of the overcrowding in Nepal and the rapid increase of untrained climbers. “But the government should not just take whatever they can get while ignoring the necessary traffic rules.”
1. Why did Ed Dohring feel frightened along the way to the Everest's top?| A．The mountain top was too small. | B．A fight took place among the climbers. |
| C．The temperature suddenly fell to 30°C. | D．He had to walk over a dead climber's body. |
| A．The traffic police. | B．The tourists themselves. |
| C．The Nepalese government. | D．The tourism companies. |
| A．There were fewer climbers. | B．It was a less dangerous road. |
| C．The weather was better there. | D．It was a newly found attraction. |
| A．An accident at the top of Mount Everest. |
| B．The poor management of the Nepalese government. |
| C．The causes of the accidents at the top of the Mount Everest. |
| D．The messy state of the tourist roads in the Mount Everest area. |
Countries around the globe are spending billions of dollars and lots of time on various space missions, whether to Mars or other planets much
Firstly, exploring space has already made a difference in the fight against world hunger. It has
Secondly, space exploration has already promoted technological improvements that benefit us all. High-end products around the world
Finally,
9 . What makes us happy?
There has long been a notion that money buys happiness. However, although“we really, really tried that for a couple of generations, it didn’t work,”said Francine Jay, author of The Joy of Less, A Minimalist Living Guide: How to Declutter, Organize, and Simplify Your Life.
Thanks to a travel-inspired revelation（启发），Jay has been happily living a simpler life for 12 years.“I always packed as lightly as possible, and found it delighting to get by with just a small carry-on bag,”she told CNN.“I thought if it feels this great to travel lightly, how amazing would it be to live this way? I wanted to have that same feeling of freedom in my everyday life.”
Jay decided to get rid of all her unnecessary possessions and live with just the essentials.“I wanted to spend my time and energy on experiences, rather than things.”
Jay is a follower of a movement called“minimalism（极简主义）”. Growing numbers of people have been attracted to this life-style all over the world. Minimalists are typically progressive and concerned about the environment, Leah Watkins, a lead researcher at Otago University in New Zealand, told Stuff magazine in March.
But many simply experienced unhappiness caused by owning too many possessions. Depression with the materialism of our world isn’t new. English romantic poet William Wordsworth summed up how dispiriting（令人消沉的）this was back in 1802, at the beginning of the industrial age, when he wrote:“Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers”. His preference was to go back to nature. Closer to our own times, the hippies（嬉皮士）of the 1960s also sought to“drop out”of modern life.
And for many minimalists, their key is to unload. Without objects, they“believe people are forced more and more into the present moment and that’s where life happens,”wrote Stuff.
But does simplicity ever feel like a sacrifice?
“It’s eliminating the excess—unused items, unnecessary purchases—from your life. Well, I may have fewer possessions, but I have more space…Minimalism is making room for what matters most,”said Jay.
And“the real questions”，according to Duane Elgin, US social scientist, are“what do you care about?”and“What do you value?”
He told CNN:“It’s important for people to realize minimalism isn’t simply the amount of stuff we consume. It’s about our families, our work, our connection with the larger world, our spiritual dimension. It’s about how we touch the whole world. It’s a way of life.”
1. What was the author’s main purpose in writing the text?| A．To argue whether money buys happiness. |
| B．To recommend one of Francine Jay’s books. |
| C．To explore the trend of minimalism. |
| D．To give tips on how to lead a happy life. |
| A．A book she came across. |
| B．A follower of minimalism she met on a trip. |
| C．The pleasure she enjoyed from travelling lightly. |
| D．Her desire to keep up with modern life. |
| A．be in love with materialism |
| B．like saving and visiting nature often |
| C．be disappointed with his or her current life |
| D．be environmentally friendly and live with fewer things |
| A．Minimalism is a healthy lifestyle that is in conflict with modern life |
| B．Minimalism means people have to sacrifice some pleasure to live simply |
| C．Minimalism limits people’s freedom to enjoy their lives to the fullest. |
| D．Minimalism enables people to reflect on what truly counts in their lives. |
10 . As Americans live longer and the job market stays competitive, fast-food chains are increasingly hiring from senior centers, churches and aging advocacy groups like AARP, Bloomberg reports. And it's not just death rates and economic trends driving the change. Seniors have more polished social skills, but teens are stopped from growing up online with fewer real-world connections.
“I spend a lot of time with young kids. They can he very disrespectful,” 63-year-old Church's Chicken manager Stevenson Williams tells Bloomberg of his teen coworkers. “You have to coach them and tell them this is your job, not the street,” Williams says. Having “soft skills” such as politeness often comes more easily to the seniors, who have had a lifetime of experience in the workforce to learn how to treat customers compared with young people.
Employers thus get a more mature worker at no additional cost but the reasons for seniors outpacing teen hires are many. The US Census Bureau reported this year that, by 2035, there will be more Americans over age 65 than there are children under age 18. Plus, fewer people in their prime (盛年)are working—thanks to the unaffordable childcare that forces many parents to stay at home, according to a study by Princeton University.
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) forecasts the number of American workers aged between 65 and 74 will swell 4.5 percent by 2024, while the 16-to-24s will shrink 1.4 percent. By 2024, the BLS projects the labor force will grow to about 164 million people. That number includes about 41 million people aged 55 and older about 13 million of whom are expected to be aged 65 and up.
So don’t be surprised to see even more service with a smile and silver hair in that drive-through lane.
1. What does the underlined part “the change” in Paragraph 1 refer to?| A．The job market gets competitive. |
| B．Americans live longer. |
| C．Senior centers are becoming more popular. |
| D．Fast-food chains hire more senior people. |
| A．They demand less pay. |
| B．Teens are easy to quit. |
| C．Teens are hard to control and manage. |
| D．They are good at socializing. |
| A．Knowing customers’ needs. |
| B．Having high education. |
| C．Having lots of connections with the real world. |
| D．Being skillful at computer. |
| A．They prefer to look after children. |
| B．They find it hard to find a job. |
| C．They find it hard to pay for childcare. |
| D．They are unwilling to work with senior citizens. |
