1 . Are you happy with your appearance?
“Almost all the girls with single-fold eyelids (单眼皮) in our class have had double eyelid operations,” Zeng, a Senior 2 student from Chengdu, told Xinhua. Zeng had the same surgery done this summer.
From popular photo-editing apps to plastic surgery (整形手术), it seems that large eyes, pale skin and a skinny body are the only standard for beauty these days. But can following this standard really make us feel good about ourselves?
“Many teenagers are upset about their appearance because they believe in unrealistic standards of beauty,” experts say.
However, trying to live up to strict standards can make us feel anxious. What troubles us is not just our “imperfect” looks, but the fact that we criticize ourselves too much.
| A．Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. |
| B．Body image anxiety is common among teenagers. |
| C．Guys care just as much as girls do about their body image. |
| D．Some teenagers might feel negative about their appearance. |
| E．It’s common for teenagers to feel confident about their appearance. |
| F．She and many of her classmates believe bigger eyes look more beautiful. |
| G．Perfect faces and bodies are everywhere in advertising, TV shows and social media. |
Japan is experiencing record heat. Last week, the temperature in eastern Japan
Japan’s heat wave is set to continue. The weather agency said that the country’s
3 . Optimism (乐观) is probably not a surprise that optimistic thinkers tend to be happier than pessimistic thinkers.
Optimists live longer.
Optimistic thinkers have lower rates of high blood pressure, heart disease, and even risk of cancer, as well as lower rates of mortality in general. These health factors may be influenced by optimists’ focus on taking care of themselves.
Optimists are more successful.
Just as optimists tend to be more resilient (有复原力的) outside of the workplace, they are also resilient on the job. Even if their bosses don’t recognize that they’re doing a good job, optimists are able to bounce back and keep performing well. People who are more optimistic also seem to have better job security than less optimistic workers.
People with higher levels of subjective well-being — a mindset that can include optimism — have stronger immune systems and even experience faster wound healing than others with lower levels of well-being. People with positive experiences lowered their rates of depression, physical symptoms, and sleep complaints.
| A．Optimists take fewer sick days. |
| B．Optimists pick themselves up faster. |
| C．But there are other benefits to being optimist. |
| D．They are more likely to live to age 85 or older. |
| E．Optimists are more likely to take steps to cope with it. |
| F．This improved security can even lead to increased optimism. |
| G．Optimists tend to exercise more, sleep better and eat healthier. |
1. What organizations used to have a lot of power?
| A．Newspapers and publishers. |
| B．Universities and bookstores. |
| C．Libraries and printing companies. |
| A．They are cheaper. | B．They are easier to carry. | C．They are more interesting. |
| A．They were bought by a tech company. |
| B．They used to have more than 600 stores. |
| C．They made billions of dollars this year. |
5 . A shocking 53.6 million metric tons of electronic waste was discarded last year, a new UN-backed report has revealed. The report shows that e-waste is up by 21% from five years ago. This isn’t surprising, considering how many more people are adopting new technology and updating devices regularly to have the latest versions, but the report also shows that national collection and recycling strategies are nowhere close to matching consumption rates.
E-waste contains materials including copper (铜), iron, gold and silver, which the report gives a conservative value of $ 57 billion. But most are thrown away or burned rather than being collected for recycling. Precious metals in waste are estimated to be worth $ 14 billion, but only $ 4 billion-worth is recovered at the moment.
While the number of countries with national e-waste policies has grown from 61 to 78 since 2014, there is little encouragement to obey and a mere 17% of collected items are recycled. If recycling does occur, it’s often under dangerous conditions, such as burning circuit boards to recover copper, which “releases highly poisonous metals” and harms the health of workers.
The report found that Asia has the highest amounts of waste overall, producing 24.9 million metric tons (MMT), followed by Europe at 12 MMT, Africa at 2.9 MMT, and Oceania at 0.7 MMT.
But whose responsibility is it? Are governments in charge of setting up collection and recycling points, or should companies be responsible for recycling the goods they produce? It goes both ways. Companies do need to be held accountable by government regulations and have incentives to design products that are easily repaired. At the same time, governments need to make it easy for citizens to access collection points and deal with their broken electronics in a convenient way. Otherwise, they may turn to the easiest option — the landfill.
1. What does the underlined word “discarded” most probably mean?| A．increased | B．distributed | C．thrown away | D．consumed |
| A．The functions of policies. | B．The great damage to environment. |
| C．The change of consumption rates. | D．The urgency of recovering e-waste. |
| A．It does harm to the workers’ health. | B．It lacks national policy support. |
| C．It hardly makes profits. | D．It takes too much time. |
| A．New technology should be used to update old devices. |
| B．Governments and companies should take responsibilities. |
| C．Non-poisonous metals had better be used in e-device. |
| D．Citizens must play a key role in recycling e-waste. |
6 . Sometime in the early 1960s, a significant thing happened in Sydney, Australia. The city discovered its harbor. Then, one after another, Sydney discovered lots of things that were just sort of there — broad parks, superb beaches, and a culturally diverse population. But it is the harbor that makes the city.
Andrew Reynolds, a cheerful fellow in his early 30s, pilots Sydney ferryboats for a living. I spent the whole morning shuttling back and forth across the harbor. After our third run Andrew shut down the engine, and we went our separate ways — he for a lunch break, I to explore the city.
“I’ll miss these old boats,” he said as we parted.
“How do you mean?” I asked.
“Oh, they’re replacing them with catamarans. Catamarans are faster, but they’re not so elegant, and they’re not fun to pilot. But that’s progress, I guess.”
Everywhere in Sydney these days, change and progress are the watchwords (口号), and traditions are increasingly rare. Shirley Fitzgerald, the city’s official historian, told me that in its rush to modernity in the 1970s, Sydney swept aside much of its past, including many of its finest buildings. “Sydney is confused about itself,” she said. “We can’t seem to make up our minds whether we want a modern city or a traditional one. It’s a conflict that we aren’t getting any better at resolving.”
On the other hand, being young and old at the same time has its attractions. I considered this when I met a thoughtful young businessman named Anthony. “Many people say that we lack culture in this country,” he told me. “What people forget is that the Italians, when they came to Australia, brought 2000 years of their culture, the Greeks some 3000 years, and the Chinese more still. We’ve got a foundation built on ancient cultures but with a drive and dynamism of a young country. It’s a pretty hard combination to beat.”
He is right, but I can’t help wishing they would keep those old ferries.
1. What can we know about Sydney’s harbor?| A．It is a culturally respected area. | B．It used to be a striking architecture. |
| C．It’s crucial to Sydney’s development. | D．It was a famous tourist attraction in 1960. |
| A．Anxious. | B．Negative. | C．Doubtful. | D．Supportive. |
| A．Controlling. | B．Discovering. | C．Solving. | D．Distinguishing. |
| A．A city being young and old is more attractive. |
| B．A city built on ancient cultures is more dynamic. |
| C．Modernity is usually achieved at the cost of elegance. |
| D．Italians bring Australians more cultures than Chinese. |
7 . Any parent knows how challenging it can be to separate kids from social media, messaging apps, or online games and videos.
Be a good role model. Children have a strong impulse (冲动) to imitate, so it’s important you manage your own smartphone and Internet use. Don’t let your own smartphone use distract from parent-child interactions.
Encourage other interests and social activities. Get your child away from screens by exposing them to other hobbies and activities, such as team sports and after-school clubs.
Talk to your child about underlying issues. Compulsive smartphone use can be the sign of deeper problems.
Get help. Teenagers often rebel against their parents, but if they hear the same information from a different authority figure, they may tend to listen.
| A．Is your child having problems fitting in? |
| B．Spend time as a family away from screens. |
| C．Is your child having trouble working harder? |
| D．Try a sports coach, doctor, or respected family friend. |
| E．Use apps to monitor and limit your child’s smartphone use. |
| F．Turn devices off and leave them in another room overnight to charge. |
| G．Youngsters lack the maturity to control their smartphone use on their own. |
8 . Do you follow fashion? If so, you know how quickly trends can change.
Fashion trends changed at a slower pace in the past. Designers produced new styles and clothing lines four times a year — once for each season.
Fast fashion refers to low-cost, quickly-made clothing that copies the latest high-end fashions. Fast fashion companies may produce new clothing weekly — 52 times per year instead of the traditional four.
Fast fashion has both advantages and disadvantages. For example, these companies seek to produce clothing as cheaply as possible, which makes it possible to sell items at much lower prices.
However, fast fashion has its downsides. The use of cheap materials means the clothing produced doesn’t last long.
| A．After a few wears, it may become torn or damaged. |
| B．Clothing may be in style one day and outdated the next. |
| C．Consequently, far more people can afford their products. |
| D．People used to make repairs to damaged clothes instead of throwing them away. |
| E．Actually, there are many ways we can do to avoid fast fashion and make a difference. |
| F．However, since the rapid rise of fast fashion in the last 50 years, all that has changed. |
| G．Therefore, fast fashion gives more people the chance to express themselves through fashion. |
增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号(∧)，并在其下面写出该加的词。
删除：把多余的词用斜线(\)划掉。
修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
注意：1.每处错误及其修改均仅限一词;
2.只允许修改10处，多者(从第11处起)不计分。
When I was my way to school last Saturday afternoon, I saw a mother and her son preparing to go across the street. A mother was about to run the light while her son prevented her. The mother felt embarrassed and stops. With more and more cars coming into our families, it had greatly improved our life. But unlucky, it has also brought many problems, such as heavy traffic and traffic accident. Traffic safety is everybody’s business. We must to obey the rules. We can tell our parents not to drink before we drive, not to run through red lights, not to talk and laugh while drive etc.
10 . In the last 50 years the media influence has grown increasingly with the advance of technology. First there was the telegraph, then the radio, the newspaper, magazines, the television and now the Internet.
We live in a society that depends on information and communication to keep moving in the right direction and do our daily activities like work, entertainment, health care, education, personal relationships, traveling and anything else that we have to do.
In our daily life, we rely on the media to get the current news and facts about what is important and what we should be aware of. We have put our trust on the media as an authority to give us news, entertainment and education. However, the influence of mass media on our kids, teenagers and society is so big that we should know how it really works.
Of all the media distribution channels the most influential has been the television. We are constantly exposed to thousands of images of violence, advertising, sex, celebrities and much more, in fact a child may be exposed to about 40,000 ads a year.
But who owns the media, which are the companies or people that shape our values, beliefs and decisions? In America, the media is basically dominated by five major companies. Those five companies own 95% of all the media that we get every day. They own the major entertainment theme parks, entertainment movie studios, television and radio broadcast networks and programming, video news and sports entertainment. They also own integrated telecommunications, wireless phones, video games softwares, electronic media, the music industry and more.
Years ago there was more diversity in companies, but they have been combined so now they are just a few and they have the power to shape our opinions and beliefs and those of our kids. So it’s important to be aware of what your kids are exposed to every day and you should also try to look at things from different perspectives and not just from the one the media gives you.
1. What does the underlined word “dominated” probably mean?| A．Invested. | B．Controlled. | C．Played. | D．Sold. |
| A．Newspaper. | B．Telegraph. | C．Radio. | D．TV. |
| A．We will know nothing about the outside world. |
| B．We’ll know more about what our kids are exposed to. |
| C．Our opinions and beliefs will be easily shaped. |
| D．A lot of money will be saved and spent on other projects. |
| A．Mass media influence |
| B．The concept of mass media |
| C．What are we exposed to? |
| D．How does the media harm the public? |
