1 . 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. |
2 . Marilu Arce loves her job, but for a time she considered leaving. The traffic-plagued commute from her home to her office, nearly two hours each way, meant her daughters couldn’t enroll in after school activities because she couldn’t get home in time to take them.
Then her employer adopted a policy permitting her to work from home two days a week, and “I feel like it changed my life,” she said. Her stress level has dropped. Her daughters are thrilled. She likes her job more. That’s the type of reaction Arce’s boss likes to hear as the company measures the success of the work-from-home policy which was instituted three years ago in hopes of improving employee retention. So far, it seems to be working: turnover was less than five percent last year—its lowest ever.
Flexible work policies top employee wish lists when they look for a job, and employers increasingly have been offering them. Studies have shown working remotely increases employee engagement, but in moderation because there is still value in the relationships nurtured when colleagues are face to face. The key, advocates of flexible work policies say, is to match the environment with the type of work that needs to be done.
The flexibility hasn’t hurt productivity, which is up 50 percent. There is “something lost” when colleagues don’t gather at the water cooler, but it’s outweighed by the retention and happiness gains, he said. As jobs that require physical work decline, thanks to technological advances, life superficially appears to get better. Consumers benefit in the form of cheaper prices. Labor-saving appliances all make things easier and suggest that even more and better benefits are on the horizon. But is something lost?
Talk long enough to the most accomplished academics, they will brag about a long-ago college summer job waiting tables or repairing hiking trails. They might praise the installer who redid their kitchen. There seems to be a human instinct to want to do physical work. The proliferation of hard-work reality-television programming reflects this apparent need. Indeed, the more we have become immobile and urbanized, the more we tune in to watch reality television’s truckers, loggers, farmers, drillers and rail engineers. In a society that supposedly despises menial jobs, the television ratings for such programmes suggest that lots of Americans enjoy watching people of action, who work with their hands.
Physical work, in its eleventh hour within a rapidly changing Western culture, still intrigues us in part because it remains the foundation for 21st century complexity. Before any of us can teach, write or speculate, we must first have food, shelter and safety. And for a bit longer, that will require some people to cut grapes and nail two-by-sixes. No apps or 3D printers exist to produce brown rice. Physical labour also promotes human versatility: Those who do not do it, or who do not know how to do it, become divorced from—and, at the same time, dependent on—labourers. Lawyers, accountants and journalists living in houses with yards and driving cars to work thus count on a supporting infrastructure of electricians, landscapers and mechanics. In that context, physical labour can provide independence, at least in a limited sense of not being entirely reliant on a host of hired workers.
1. The author mentions the example of Arce to show that________.| A．she dislikes the present job for the long commuting time |
| B．she is having trouble balancing work and school life |
| C．people usually don’t work hard outside office |
| D．employers are facing the problem of staff drain |
| A．it helps to increase job satisfaction for the employees |
| B．it improves harmonious relationship among colleagues |
| C．the decline in physical work gives employees more mobility |
| D．employees are entitled to request it according to their work |
| A．They entertain those employees burned out with overwork. |
| B．People can learn some basic labour skills from these programmes. |
| C．There’s an ongoing need for physical labour skills that technology doesn’t possess. |
| D．They offer instructive information for both employers and employees. |
| A．The Emergence of Alternative Work Arrangements |
| B．The Rise of Automation, the Decline in Need for Labour |
| C．Time to Rethink in the Face of the Evolution of Work |
| D．New Challenges for Today’s Employers and Academics |
3 . What Do Babies Know?
As Daniel is settled into a highchair and wheeled behind a black screen, a sudden look of worry appeared. His dark blue eyes dart left and right in search of the familiar reassurance of his mother’s face. She calls his name and makes soothing noises, but Daniel senses something unusual is happening. He sucks his fingers for comfort, but finding no solace, his mouth crumples, his body stiffens. This is the usual expression when babies are left alone or abandoned.
Watching infants piece life together, seeing their senses, emotions and motor skills take shape, is a source of mystery and endless fascination at least to parents and developmental psychologists. We can decode their signals of distress or read a million messages into their first smile. But how much do we really know about what’s going on behind those wide, innocent eyes?
Daniel is now engaged in watching video clips of a red toy train on a circular track. The train disappears into a tunnel and emerges on the other side. A hidden device above the screen is tracking Daniel’s eyes as they follow the train and measuring the diameter of his pupils 50 times a second. As the child gets “habituated”, as psychologists call the process— his attention level steadily drops. But it picks up a little whenever some novelty is introduced. The train might be green, or it might be blue. And sometimes an impossible thing happens—the train goes into the tunnel one colour and comes out another.
Variations of experiments like this one, examining infant attention, have been a standard tool of developmental psychology ever since the Swiss pioneer of the field, Jean Piaget, started experimenting on his children in the 1920s. Piaget’s work led him to conclude that infants younger than 9 months have no innate knowledge of how the world works or any sense of “object permanence”(that people and things still exist even when they’re not seen). Instead, babies must gradually construct this knowledge from experience. Piaget’s “constructivist” theories were massively influential on post war educators and psychologists, but over the past 20 years or so they have been largely set aside by a new generation of “nativist” psychologists. They asserted that infants arrive already equipped with some knowledge of the physical world. Nowadays, these smart-baby theories through a rigorous set of tests tend to be more Piagetian. That is, babies know nothing.
1. What can we know about Daniel?| A．Daniel’s attention level dropped when he saw a blue train. |
| B．Daniel didn’t notice the toy train when it came out of the tunnel. |
| C．Daniel’s attention fell when he was accustomed to the changes. |
| D．Daniel’s brain activity could be monitored by a special equipment. |
| A．Parents are over-estimating what babies know. |
| B．Piaget’s theory was rejected by parents in the 1920s. |
| C．Baby’s behaviour after being abandoned is not surprising to some extent. |
| D．Numerous experiments conducted on infants aims to prove scientists’ hypothesis. |
| A．excited | B．bored | C．disappointed | D．distracted |
| A．The theories about what babies know changed over time. |
| B．Why the experiment that had been done before was rejected. |
| C．Infants have the innate knowledge to know the external environment. |
| D．Piaget’s “constructivist” theories were massively influential on parents. |
4 . Nowadays, with the popularization of science and technology, people seem to have a painless, cost-effective new way to become pretty-photo retouching, currently a universal way to beautify photos through digital devices.
Even those who believe themselves to be unattractive can become easy on the eye with the push of a button. Some may say that retouching allows people to see a better side of themselves sand can help people build their confidence. However, it is more likely to deepen people’s anxieties regarding their appearance.
After you have taken a selfie and used a retouching program such as Photoshop or Meitu to glamorize yourself, you may finally see the more perfect self you’ve always desired to be. As a result, you may be boastful about yourself for a while, but when you turn your head and look at your real, imperfect self in the mirror, you will soon suffer from a strong sense of loss. Even though retouching can bring you short-term happiness and self-confidence, it can never change your actual appearance in real life. Eventually, the fantasy you had created for yourself by retouching your images will only come to make you feel more depressed after you are once again faced with the reality of how you actually appear.
Photo retouching may also lead to personal anxiety and low self-dignity. Before retouching technologies were invented, only a few celebrities and bloggers looked appealing on social media. Most people posted pictures of themselves on the internet that were very close to how their real, ordinary, everyday selves would appear in reality. They didn’t have to worry about whether their nose was delicate enough or whether they had any acne (痤疮) on their face because most of the others didn’t look flawless in pictures, either.
However, with the continuous emergence of retouching technologies, you may one day suddenly discover that all of the selfies of the people around you have become stunningly gorgeous. The delicate body curve, the doll-like enormous eyes and the supermodel-sized long legs are no longer exclusive to beauty-pageant (选美比赛) winners or movie stars.
Imagine yourself lying on the sofa while idly checking your WeChat Moments. You can’t take your eyes off these charming photos that have been posted by your colleagues, friends and classmates. Then you may have a glance at your own chubby belly and dark skin. Shame, anxiety and self-doubt begin growing in your heart. You plunge into deep fear and self-blame since you cannot figure out why everyone else looks so beautiful, while you are not. But actually, deep down in your heart, you know why, but you just can’t shake off this envy that’s going to drown you.
1. What does the underlined word “glamorize” in Paragraph 3 mean?| A．make somebody appear attractive | B．beautify oneself with more make-up |
| C．publicize the image that one is good-looking | D．present somebody’s image in a reasonable way |
| A．Becoming beautiful was an exclusive right for celebrities and bloggers. |
| B．There is no tolerance of one’s imperfection in contemporary society. |
| C．People posting selfies online used to enjoy the life without trouble. |
| D．Retouching causes an unhealthy mentality in one’s appearance. |
① a sense of seeming happiness and temporary confidence
② ever-worsening depression, anxiety and fear
③ inability to change one’s actual situation
④ bad influence on social relationships and information distribution
| A．①② | B．①②③ | C．②③ | D．②③④ |
| A．Ways to Decode the Retouching | B．Retouching: Causes and Treatment |
| C．Navigating Life without Retouching | D．Retouching: A Lift or a Lie? |
5 . New efforts are being made to prevent American college campuses from cigarette smoking. Twenty colleges in the United States recently received money to help protect their campuses from the harm of cigarettes.
Supporters say that every child deserves to grow up in a safe and healthy environment free from harmful second-hand cigarettes. And in November, smoking at college campuses may become illegal.
Before banning smoking at college campuses, the US has passed laws banning smoking at most workplaces. 27 American states ban smoking in all indoor workplaces.
Those supporting smoke-free at workplaces and college campuses give one major reason: the bad influence of smoking on health.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says smoking has a great influence on health. They think cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable deaths in the United States. Smoking is responsible for 480,000 deaths every year.
Supporters say the bad influence of second-hand smoke makes it a public health problem. Some also say that college campuses are a good place to ban smoking.
Gary Reedy, the CEO of the American Cancer Society, said it was important to stop college students from smoking, and he expected to successfully create a cigarette-free generation (世代).
The CDC found that 13 percent of adults between the ages of 18 and 24 smoke cigarettes. Reedy says that reducing the number of college students who smoke can help reduce the number of older adult smokers. He also says once a person starts smoking, it is hard to stop.
1. Who are the new efforts good for?| A．College students. | B．The CDC. |
| C．Young smokers. | D．People in public places. |
| A．The bad influence of smoking. | B．Money wasted on cigarettes. |
| C．Laws passed by the US. | D．Public attention to health. |
| A．Smoking spreads easily among college students. |
| B．Smoke-free campuses have a long-term influence. |
| C．It is easier for college students to stop smoking. |
| D．There’re more older adult smokers in the world. |
| A．Second-hand smoke is affecting college students too |
| B．Groups take steps to protect college students |
| C．Cigarettes should be totally banned in college |
| D．Banning smoking is being tried at US colleges |
6 . Around 1870, the world entered an era of sustained rapid technological development that was unlike anything that had happened before; each successive generation found itself living in a new world, utterly transformed from the world into which its parents had been born.
Brad DeLong, an economics professor at the University of California, argues that there are two great puzzles about this transformation in his forthcoming book “Slouching Towards Utopia.” The first is why this happened. DeLong thinks there were three great “meta-innovations”- innovations that enabled innovation itself: the rise of large corporations, the invention of the industrial research lab and globalization. The second is why all this technological progress hasn’t made society better than it has. One thing I had not fully realized until reading this book is the extent to which progress hasn’t brought felicity. Over the 140 years surveyed, there have been only two eras during which the Western world felt generally optimistic about the way things were going.
The first such era was the 40 or so years leading up to 1914, when people began to realize just how much progress was being made and started to take it for granted. Unfortunately, that era of optimism died in fire and blood, with technology enhancing rather than lessening the horror. The second era was the “30 glorious years”, the decades after World War II when social democracy(民主)-a market economy with its rough edges smoothed off by labour unions and a strong social safety net-seemed to be producing the most decent societies humanity had ever known. But that era, too, came to an end, partly in the face of economic setbacks and bitter politics.
It would be silly to say that the incredible progress of technology since 1870 has done nothing to improve things; in many ways, today’s average American has a far better life than the richest people of the Gilded Age. But the progress hasn’t made us satisfied or optimistic. DeLong offers some explanations for this disconnect. His book definitely asks the right questions and teaches us a lot of crucial history along the way.
1. What does Brad DeLong say about the transformation in his book?| A．It brought about a better society. |
| B．It could be divided into three types. |
| C．It resulted from technological progress. |
| D．It inspired many commercial innovations. |
| A．Emotional satisfaction. | B．Global development. |
| C．Social justice. | D．Economic stability. |
| A．Unique but painful. | B．Sweet but short-lived. |
| C．Glorious but violent. | D．Democratic but long-lost. |
| A．Benefits of Technology to Society |
| B．Technology Makes Us More Human |
| C．Technology and the Rise of Pessimism |
| D．How Technology Transformed Our Lives |
7 . In the past decade, the use of social media has grown in a way that no one could have guessed. It has turned some teenagers into celebrities (名人) and turned the famous into the infamous, overnight.
A key feature of social media, however, is its volatility. Trends come and go, disappearing almost as quickly as they appeared. So, what were the key social media trends of 2019?
Short video apps such as TikTok and its Chinese equivalent Douyin, took the world by storm. The Telegraph reported that TikTok was ranked 8th on Apple’s App Store in April. And Douyin had more than 300 million domestic monthly active users in June, CNBC said.
Why are these short videos — which are rarely longer than a few minutes — so popular? Jiang Yige, Singapore-based analyst at FengHe Fund Management, has a theory. Short videos are “just right to fill in the little gaps in our busy schedules”, he told CNBC.
These videos — apart from being very convenient — are important to teenagers because they allow them to express themselves, according to Teen Vogue.
The sense of community that users of short video apps get is another appealing feature. Liza Koshy, a user of the US app Musically who has over 2 million followers, said that she was thrilled when anyone said that her video had “inspired” him. “It’s really cool...because I think that as short video creators that’s what we all expect,” she added.
Live streaming is another feature of our social media life that now seems as natural as sunrise. It’s a pretty neat idea: You can watch anyone, anywhere, live.
However, China has taken live streaming to a whole new level. In China, more than 100 million viewers monthly watch a live streaming video. Forbes thought that a number of factors had led to the popularity of live streams. Among them is viewers’ ability to interact while remaining anonymous.
However, the boom in social media may be having side effects too. Fake news is one serious problem it arguably causes. Material shared on these platforms is often not checked for accuracy. The most basic content can be false and can sway users one way or another. We use social media all the time; that doesn’t mean that we understand the influence it is having on us. We should be mindful of both the time we spend on it and its impact on our minds.
1. The underlined word “volatility” in Paragraph 2 possibly means “being ”.| A．changeable | B．steady |
| C．promising | D．violent |
| A．they are very convenient |
| B．they help people kill time |
| C．they provide a sense of community |
| D．they allow people to express themselves |
| A．The information from social media is highly reliable. |
| B．When it comes to social media, people know short videos the best. |
| C．People can’t communicate with each other without social media. |
| D．There is still much room for social media to make improvement. |
| A．Rapid Development of Social Media |
| B．Key Social Media Trends of 2019 |
| C．Short Videos Taking the World by Storm |
| D．Live Streaming — A New Feature of Social Media |
8 . Years ago it was popular to speak of a generation gap, a disagreement between young people and their elders. Parents said that children did not show them proper respect and obedience (服从), while children complained that their parents did not understand them at all. What had gone wrong? Why had the generation gap suddenly appeared? Actually the generation gap has been around for a long time. Many people argue that a gap is built into the fabric (结构) of our society.
One important cause of the generation gap is the chance that young people have to choose their own ways of life. In more traditional societies, when children grow up, they are expected to live in the same area as their parents, to marry people that their parents know and agree to, and to continue the family occupation. In our society, young people often travel great distances for their education, move out of the family home at an early age, marry or live with people whom their parents have never met, and choose occupations different from those of their parents.
In our easily changing society, parents often expect their children to do better than they did：to find better jobs, to make more money, and to do all the things that they were unable to do. Often, however, the strong wish that parents have for their children is another cause of the disagreement between them. Often, they discover that they have very little in common with each other.
Finally, the speed at which changes take place in our society is another cause of the gap between the generations. In a traditional culture, elderly people are valued for their wisdom, but in our society the knowledge of a lifetime may become out of date overnight. The young and the old seem to live in two very different worlds, separated by different skills and abilities. No doubt, the generation gap will continue to be a feature for some time to come. Its causes are rooted in the freedom and changes of our society, and in the rapid speed at which society changes.
1. What is the text mainly about?| A．The concept of generation gap. | B．The reasons for generation gap. |
| C．Ways to reduce generation gap. | D．Attitudes towards generation gap. |
| A．They depend on their parents to make a life. |
| B．They live with their parents in the same area. |
| C．They ask their parents for the best advice. |
| D．They have very little in common with their parents. |
| A．Parents should be strict with their children. |
| B．The generation gap is partly caused by the older generation. |
| C．Parents couldn’t do things well themselves. |
| D．The young never want to satisfy their parents. |
| A．Parents are not strict enough with their children. |
| B．The young value the old too much for their wisdom. |
| C．Young people don’t have the knowledge of a lifetime. |
| D．The society develops too fast. |
9 . Many kids and teenagers have cell phones in their hands. However, is it really necessary for them to have phones at school? Here are the pros and cons.
Pros
They can get in touch when necessary. The main benefit of having a phone is that your children can get in touch with you whenever they need to.
Cons
The latest smartphones can almost double as a computer. It means they offer far more of a distraction to kids than they used to.
Cell phones could interrupt lessons. Many children, even though they are asked to do so, forget to turn off their phones during lessons and their phones may make sounds.
| A．Cell phones can be turned off or put on mute. |
| B．Children use ordinary phones instead of smartphones. |
| C．This allows you to feel they are safe. |
| D．Without cell phones, campus life would be less colourful. |
| E．They have some other functions — a calculator and the ability to save notes. |
| F．This not only annoys other pupils, but also prevents them from learning well. |
| G．Nowadays, children can not only text and make calls with their phones, but also play games, surf the Internet and listen to music. |
10 . In 1909, Forster published a science fiction short story, The Machine Stops, in which a future civilization falls apart because its technology — much of which sounds a lot like the internet — collapses. Last Friday, after Storm Eunice caused the biggest national power cut on record to more than 55,000 homes across southern and eastern England and South Wales, people begin to think Forster’s imagined machine was really stopping.
It’s not unreasonable to think that Forster’s machine is seizing up when your gas heating doesn’t work because the pump is electric, when you have to go for a drive to charge the mobile phone, when everything in the freezer is going off, when you can’t get on the internet because the WiFi needs mains power, and much of your home technology — from smart doorbells to smart speakers — doesn’t work because, even if it has battery back-up, it still needs Wi-Fi. Millions of landlines will stop working by 2025 because they will use the internet, requiring a broadband connection.
The death of the landline will spell the moment when we are finally full hostages to the electricity supply. As hundreds of thousands of households across northern England lost power because of Storm Arwen last December, people in remote areas without mobile reception were left unable to call for help, as their landlines were phased out in favour of broadband-enabled phones reliant on electricity.
What are we to do to keep our homes working when electricity can no longer be relied on? People have taken to firing up wood burners to keep warm. Those with oil-fired kitchen ranges for cooking,heating and hot water,have been feeling particularly grateful for that reliable appliance.
“A more radical solution is house batteries. However,for society as a whole,it is less likely to be put into action because home batteries are not a neat and wonderfully clean solution”,says Dr Constable,“Lithium-ion batteries are dangerous. They cause fires. That’s why airlines are cautious about them and why you can’t take those little electric scooters on the London.”
1. Why did people begin to believe Forster’s imagination?| A．A smart home was not reliable at all. | B．They saw the biggest national disaster. |
| C．Forster gave a solution to their trouble. | D．What Forster described became a reality. |
| A．By analysing the troubles. | B．By listing a lot of facts. |
| C．By sharing an expert’s idea. | D．By recommending a fiction. |
| A．Substitutes ought to be prepared before they are needed. |
| B．The smarter technology is, the less we need to worry about. |
| C．The more technology we rely on, the more powerless we may be. |
| D．Home batteries are a wonderful choice when there is no electricity. |
| A．Being Left Hostages to Electricity | B．Time to Look for New Energy |
| C．Days at Home without Electricity | D．Collapsing of Future Civilization |
