1 . Binge-watching (刷剧) is when a person watches more than one episode of a show in a row. With developments in the speed and connectivity of the Internet, increases in technology and the rise of on-demand entertainment companies, people can now have their favorite shows stream (流播) directly to their television at their convenience.
This behavior is nothing new. In fact, binge-watching has been officially listed in dictionaries since 2015. The entertainment companies recognize this behavior and many take steps to encourage it. Often, instead of releasing each episode on a week-by-week basis, an entire series will become available concurrently. Once the episode finishes, many platforms will display pop-ups with “you might like” suggestions, or will automatically play the next episode.
However, recent research suggests that out of the more than half of British adults who watch more than one episode of a show back-to-back (一集接一集地), almost a third have admitted missing sleep or becoming tired as a result; and 25% have neglected their household chores (家务活). Next we’ll be missing work!
Bingeing has other connections — binge eating, binge drinking and binge smoking. All of them are often associated with a lack of control and a possible route to addiction. Lindsey Fussell, consumer group director, said, “The days of waiting a week for the next episode are largely gone, with people finding it hard to resist (抗拒) watching multiple episodes around the house or on the move.” If people find binge-watching hard to resist, are we witnessing the birth of a new type of addiction?
The countless number of information and entertainment that television and online media can bring us is, many would say, a good thing. However, when the activity begins to bleed into other areas, causing us to stop functioning, then it becomes a problem. So, what’s the answer? Moderation! Neither a tiny amount, nor too much. After all, as the old proverb says, “A little of what you fancy does you good.”
1. How did the writer develop the first paragraph?| A．By giving a definition. | B．By telling a story. |
| C．By listing some examples. | D．By analyzing the cause and effect. |
| A．For convenience. | B．At the same time. |
| C．In detail. | D．Free of charge. |
| A．people can’t control their feelings | B．people can’t resist the temptation of Bingeing |
| C．people have no patience to do work | D．people are addicted to waiting for a new episode |
| A．To keep online media from stopping functioning. |
| B．To enjoy entertainment as much as possible. |
| C．To learn life lessons from the episodes. |
| D．To watch episodes in a moderate way. |
2 . In China, if you are not married by the time you are 30, you are in for trouble: social blame and pressure from family and friends can get you down. And if you are a woman, it’s even worse.
Many young people get married simply to get other people off their backs (免受别人的指责) . This is a serious compromise (妥协). One ends up not marrying the ideal partner.
There are, however, a few young people who refuse to compromise: if they can’t find a good marriage partner, they say, they would rather not marry at all.
34-year-old Kate is a university lecturer in English. She said she would not describe herself as celibatarian (独身主义者) but simply a woman who hasn’t come across the right man yet. She has sharp comments for the way in which the old generation looks at marriage.
“Many people think marriage is a duty--to your parents, family and society. Nobody cares if your marriage is happy or not, she said, I think this is very wrong and I intend to live and act according to my own will.”
Happily for her, her parents are open-minded and not put pressure on her. But the same does not apply to her friends. They are constantly trying to get her together with some young man or another. She always refuses politely.
1. The main idea of this passage is that _______ .| A．marriage is a duty to society |
| B．people should get married before 30 years old |
| C．women should get married earlier than men |
| D．late marriage should be respected |
| A．she doesn’t think he is the right man she wants |
| B．he is either too old or too young |
| C．he is either important or little learned |
| D．he doesn’t have good manners |
| A．In China, one may face social blame and family pressure if one hasn’t got married by the age of 30. |
| B．Miss Kate won’t compromise if she can’t have her ideal marriage. |
| C．Miss Kate’s parents are always worried about her marriage. |
| D．Miss Kate wants to many a worthy young man. |
| A．nobody will pay attention to whether you are happy or not in your family life |
| B．everybody will be happy and satisfied |
| C．you can easily find an ideal partner |
| D．young people will have nothing to worry about in marriage |
3 . Many young Chinese people suffer from image anxiety.
“How unfriendly is the world to unattractive girls?” became a popular hashtag on Sina Weiboin March. The hashtag resonated (引起共鸣) with many girls who shared their personal experiences.
“My nose is not high enough, my chin is short and flat, and my eyes are small,” Tang Yuqi, acollege student, told China Youth Daily. She doesn’t even answer the door without putting on makeup first. “I just can’t accept myself if I’m not wearing it,” Tang added.
But beauty doesn’t come from a makeup brush or a thinner waist. Growing taller and having perfect skin isn’t the solution to insecurity. The fact that every person is different is something to be celebrated.
A line from an episode of China’s first female monologue drama called Hear Her Says it perfectly: “I am not perfect. Perfection is mundane.
| A．I am perfect when I fully realize myself. |
| B．The fact that every person is different is something to be celebrated. |
| C．Some people even go through surgery just to achieve what they believe society considers “beautiful”. |
| D．When I was a teenager, I was always doubting whether my face was too big, whether my nose was too wide. |
| E．If you’re someone who looks in the mirror every day and concentrates only on any minor flaw, you’re not alone. |
| F．What promotes this anxiety among young people? |
| G．One internet user talked about how her friends would often cut her image out of group pictures because they thought she was too fat. |
According to a new study, the world population
The world population is currently estimated at 7.8 billion. The
Lead study Professor Stein, told the press, “The last time that world population declined was in the mid-14th century,
The fertility rate is the average number of
5 . The year 2114 will be an eventful one for art. In May of that year in Berlin, the philosopher-artist Jonathon Keats’ “century cameras” — cameras with a 100-year-long exposure (曝光) time — will be brought back from hiding places around the city to have their results developed and exhibited. Six months after that, the Future Library in Oslo, Norway, will start to welcome its guests, presenting 100 books printed on the wood of trees planted in the distant past of 2014. As Katie Paterson, the creator of the Future Library, puts it: “Future Library is an artwork for future generations.”
These projects, more than a century in the making, are part of a new wave of “slow art” intended to push viewers and participants to think beyond their own lifetimes. They aim to challenge today’s short-term thinking and the brief attention spans of modern consumers, forcing people into considering works more deliberately. In their way, too, they are fighting against modern culture — not just regarding money, but also the way in which artistic worth is measured by attention.
In a similar fashion, every April on Slow Art Day, visitors are encouraged to stare at five works of art for 10 minutes at a time — a tough task for the average museum visitor, who typically spends less than 30 seconds on each piece of art.
Like the Future Library, the century cameras are very much a project for cities, since it’s in cities that time runs fastest and the pace of life is fastest. “Since I started living in a city, I’ve somehow been quite disconnected,” Anne Beate Hovind, the Future Library project manager, who described how working on the library drew her back to the pace of life she knew when she was growing up on a farm in her youth, told The Atlantic magazine.
1. According to the first paragraph, what will happen in 2114?| A．The wood of trees planted in 2014 will be made into books. |
| B．The Future Library will be open to the public for the first time. |
| C．A camera which was produced 100 years ago will be exhibited. |
| D．A book about photos with a 100-year exposure time will come out. |
| A．They ignore works of modern culture deliberately. |
| B．They spend only a little time in admiring artworks. |
| C．They seldom pay attention to the price of artworks. |
| D．They focus too much on artistic worth of artworks. |
| A．To preserve works of art for a longer time. |
| B．To promote works of art for modern culture. |
| C．To advocate creating works of art more slowly. |
| D．To encourage people to consider works of art more deliberately. |
| A．Convenient. | B．Competitive. |
| C．Efficient. | D．Busy. |
6 . Student loan (贷款) debt has become a worldwide problem. In America, the country’s overall student debt reached a record of $1.6 trillion in 2019. The average person with student loan debt owed between $20, 000 and $25, 000, A recent Japanese government report says it has been lending over $9 billion yearly to students since 2010. Similar conditions exist in Africa and South America.
Several factors account for high student loan debt. One is that employers everywhere have increased their demands for skilled workers, making higher education a requirement for many jobs. The students, however, after graduation, often find that their country’s economy is not strong enough to support their financial needs, so their ability to pay back the loan becomes a problem.
To solve the problem, many countries are seeking their ways. Australia has developed a system where students do not have to pay anything back until they are earning at least $40, 000 a year. In America, several candidates (候选人) running for president in the 2020 election have offered more extreme solutions that all or at least some of these loans will be forgiven (免除).
Some professors in several universities recently studied what the effects of debt forgiveness might be. They found that, on the whole, sudden debt relief greatly improved the borrowers’ lives. Not only did they have more money, but they were more likely to move to a new area and seek better paying work.
Yet the professors’ research doesn’t include what might happen to financial institutions or the overall economy if debt were totally forgiven. It only looks at how debt forgiveness would help the borrowers. They warn of some other possible negative effects. If a borrower knew that if he ran into any trouble he would be saved because he could get the debt relief, then he might actually become more reckless (轻率的) with his borrowing in the future.
No matter what, the professors agree that if countries do decide to approve some student debt relief the neediest students should be helped first.
1. How does the author introduce the problem of student loan?| A．By making a comparison. | B．By making classifications. |
| C．By setting down general rules. | D．By presenting some data. |
| A．It will surely provide some benefits to borrowers. |
| B．It aims to encourage more students to borrow money. |
| C．It has already been carried out in South America. |
| D．It will prevent a person from landing a well-paving job. |
| A．Uncaring. | B．Positive. | C．Cautious. | D．Disapproving. |
| A．Student loan debt is the most serious problem worldwide. |
| B．Growing global student debt encourages search for solutions. |
| C．Student loan debt tends to pull the needy out of trouble. |
| D．People hold different opinions on debt forgiveness. |
7 . 
Cheating can happen in a lot of different ways.When people cheat,it’s not fair to other people，like the kids who studied for the test or who the true winners of a game were.
Many people like the action of cheating.In their opinion,it makes difficult things seem easy,like getting all the right answers on the test.But it doesn't solve the problem of not knowing the material and it won't help on the next test—unless the person cheats again.
Some people lose respect for cheaters and think less of them.The cheaters themselves may feel bad because they know they shouldn't get that good grade.And,if they get caught cheating,they will be in trouble at school，and maybe at home,too.
Some kids cheat because they're busy or lazy and they want to get good grades without spending the time studying.Other kids might feel like they can’t pass the test without cheating.Even when there seems to be a “good reason” for cheating,cheating isn’t a good idea.
If you were sick or upset about something the night before the day and couldn’t study,it would be better to talk with the teacher about this.And if you don’t have enough time to study for a test because of swim practice,you need to talk with your parents about how to balance swimming and school.A kid who thinks cheating is the only way to pass a test needs to talk with the teacher and his or her parents so they can find some solutions together.Talking about these problems and working them out will feel better than cheating.
1. What does the author think when kids cheat in class?| A．It is unfair to other people. |
| B．It does harm to their health. |
| C．Teachers should punish them. |
| D．Teachers shouldn't stop them at once. |
| A．Because they think the material in the test is very difficult. |
| B．Because they want to do better than the others. |
| C．Because cheating can make hard things seem very easy. |
| D．Because they have little time to study their lessons. |
| A．Some kids can’t pass the test without cheating. |
| B．Why kids cheat in the test. |
| C．Cheating isn’t a good idea. |
| D．Some kids don't spend the time studying. |
| A．Cheaters are often thought highly of. |
| B．People show no respect for those who cheat. |
| C．Parents whose kids cheat are often in trouble. |
| D．Kids cheat in the test because of swim practice. |
8 . By now, we are all aware that social media has had a tremendous influence on our culture, in business, on the world-at-large. Social media websites revolutionized the way people communicate and socialize on the Web. However, aside from seeing your friend’s new baby on Facebook, or reading about Justin Bieber’s latest conflict with the law on Twitter, what are some of the real influences?
Social networks offer the opportunity for people to re-connect with their old friends and acquaintances, make new friends, share ideas and pictures, and many other activities. Users can keep pace with the latest global and local developments, and participate in campaigns and activities of their choices. Professionals use social media sites like LinkedIn to enhance their career and business development. Students can work together with their peers to improve their academic and communication skills.
Unfortunately, there are a few downsides too to social networking. If you are not careful, immoral people can target you for cyber bullying and disturbance on social sites. School children, young girls, and women can fall victim to online attacks which can create tension and suffering. If you are a victim of cyber bullying, do not take it lying down, but try to take appropriate legal action against the attacker.
Many companies have blocked social networks as addicted employees can distract themselves on such sites, instead of focusing on work. In fact, studies show that British companies have lost billions of dollars per year in productivity because of social media addiction among employees.
Also, what you carelessly post on the Internet can come back to trouble you. Revealing (泄露) personal information on social sites can make users vulnerable (易受伤害的) to crimes like identity theft, stalking, etc. Many companies perform a background check on the Internet before hiring an employee. If a potential employee has posted something embarrassing on social media, it can greatly affect their chances of getting the job. The same holds true for our relationships too, as our loved ones and friends may get to know if we post something undesirable on social networks.
Social media has its advantages and drawbacks as each coin has two sides. It is up to each user to use social sites wisely to enhance their professional and social life, and exercise caution to ensure they do not fall victim to online dangers.
1. Paragraph 2 mainly shows that social networks ________.| A．help students finish their homework | B．offer professionals good chances |
| C．benefit users in various ways | D．guide users to make right choices |
| A．forbid the use of social networks during work time |
| B．avoid posting embarrassing information |
| C．refuse to hire potential addicted employees |
| D．take legal action against the attackers |
| A．share experiences in using social media | B．remind people to wisely use social media |
| C．provide some advice on social problems | D．raise public awareness of social problems |
A． | B． |
C． | D． |
9 . In the early 1970s American women gave birth, on average, to 2.12 children each. By 2018 that number had fallen to 1.73. Jordan Nickerson and David Solomon, professors at MIT, think they have found an interesting factor which help explain this change: America’s increasingly protective child car-seat laws.
Their study examines the effect that car-seat policies may have had on American birth rates. During the 1980s, only the children aged under three had to be secured in child-safety seats. But since then, the requirements have been slowly increased. Today, most places in America make children sit in safety seats until their eighth birthdays. That concern for youngsters’ safety has had the unexpected consequence of fewer three-child families.
In drawing this conclusion they have connected population data with changes in state laws on safety seats. They discovered that stricter laws had no noticeable effects on the rates of births of first and second children, but with a drop, on average, of 0.73 percentage points in the number of women giving birth to a third while the first two were young enough to need safety seats.
The professors also made two other related observations. The reduction they saw was limited to families that did actually have access to a car. And space in the vehicle is the important factor. In pre-safety-seat days, putting three young children into the back of a family car was a perfectly practical advice. Most such cars, though, can comfortably accommodate only two safety seats. So, as the child car-seat laws change, a family must wait longer time for a third child to fit in the car. Sometimes, that wait will mean no third child is ever born.
Unless, of course, the family concerned buys a bigger car. But average families have the obvious reasons not to do so — big cars cost more, and are more costly to run. Interestingly, Dr Nickerson and Dr Solomon found that the third-child deterrent (遏制作用) appears even stronger among wealthier families. As they observe, “large cars may reflect their real status and taste, which may make people unwilling to switch even when they can afford to.”
1. What is the passage mainly about?| A．Changes in American car-seat laws. |
| B．Ways to ensure children’s safety in cars. |
| C．Influence of car-seat laws on American birthrate. |
| D．The connection between cars and American birthrate. |
| A．The space of the family car. | B．The family’s economic status. |
| C．The quality of child safety seats. | D．The desire to have a third child. |
| A．They are a symbol of wealth. |
| B．They are affordable to most families. |
| C．They are more popular among richer families. |
| D．They are unable to solve child birth rates problem. |
| A．By comparing data. | B．By making surveys. |
| C．By doing experiments. | D．By holding interviews. |
10 . Sharing is a good thing, right? We are told that it is good for the environment by cutting waste and needless consumption. We encourage it in our children for their moral growth, and when we think of it as a neighborhood activity, we get a glow of warmth (无比温暖的感觉). But how many people actually go and ask a neighbor for a cup of sugar?
A report, Social Cities, outlines worrying signs about the increase in social isolation (孤立) and loneliness in Australian cities. As one of ideas for social connection in cities, sharing house or car resources is listed in the report. Environmentalist Ted suggests we share more things in his professional writing The Simpler Way, and his call is supported by environmental groups. The Australian Conservation Foundation encourages organized sharing through popular articles such as Give a Little, Take a Little and Join the Free Cycling Sharehood. In these articles, online sharing networks like “The Sharehood” and “Friends with Things” are promoted. These websites make the exchange of goods and services easier.
The idea of The Sharehood has been warmly received by citizens with many people signing up as members, yet very few go on to take advantage of the network. The media has also actively advertised the concept, yet not much actually gets shared. It is interesting that giving the idea of sharing as “the right thing to do” was common among those involved in The Sharehood, as well as those who were not. And most interesting of all, neither group shared more or less than the other.
So why are neighborhood sharing networks failing? With so many people willing to share items, generously posting offers to fix computers or lend wheelchairs, what could possibly be going wrong? The problem is in our definition (定义) of “sharing”. In practice, sharing is considered to be an act of generosity, rather than the common use or ownership of goods, time, or experience. We are taught as children that sharing is about being generous — no more than that.
1. What is the idea of sharing listed in the report Social Cities as?| A．A result of a cooperative economy. |
| B．A method of reducing the cost of living. |
| C．A way to get to know a strange city quickly. |
| D．A solution to strengthening social links in cities. |
| A．The media overstate the benefits of sharing. |
| B．Many people have opposite views on sharing. |
| C．The idea of sharing is well accepted in Australia. |
| D．Environmentalists are highly respected in Australia. |
| A．Active participation of environmental groups. |
| B．People’s one-sided understanding of sharing. |
| C．High public attention to sharing activities. |
| D．Convenience of online shopping. |
| A．Why are sharing networks unsuccessful? |
| B．When was the idea of sharing first promoted? |
| C．What inspired the development of shared economy? |
| D．How can we take advantage of neighborhood resources? |
