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 . 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. |
3 . I recently spent half a weekend sitting on the sofa watching the Davis Cup. I thought about going for a run, but I did not want to miss the rest of the match. Soon it was starting to get dark, so I did not bother (费神). Whenever I watch tennis, I think how nice it would be to play it regularly. But I have been thinking that for almost 20 years without actually setting foot on a court. The evidence would suggest that I’m not the only one.
When a country or city competes to host an international sporting event, it often promises that more people will take up sports as a result. London was no exception. Tessa Jowell, who helped to bid for (申办) the 2012 Olympics for London, said that by 2012 two million more people would be physically active. And 60 percent of young people would be doing at least five hours of sports per week.
In the end, just over one-third of people in Britain take part in sports once a week. A report on Olympic and Paralympic influences has said that a big change in participation levels simply has not happened.
Why isn’t there a big increase in people taking part in sports after most sporting events? Perhaps it is a mistake to assume a definite link between watching sports and playing it. While the games are on, they actually encourage people to do just the opposite — to spend whole sunny days not out playing sports, but inside sitting on the sofa with the curtains shut to stop the sun shining on the TV screen. We don’t expect half the audience of a hit musical to apply to drama school the next day, yet we seem to expect it of sporting events.
The high-level performances on show only remind people that they could never match the excellent athletes in their sporting achievements even if they trained full time.
Maybe participation in sports is not the right thing to expect after a major sporting event. The Olympics can do many things, but maybe this cannot necessarily be one of them.
1. How does the author introduce the topic?| A．By sharing experiences. | B．By asking questions. |
| C．By listing figures. | D．By analyzing causes. |
| A．Watching sports is closely linked with playing it. |
| B．Watching games discourages people from going out. |
| C．Watching games encourages people to take part in sports. |
| D．Half the audience of a hit musical will take part in drama soon. |
| A．Do people like participating in sporting events? |
| B．Do people prefer watching big sporting events? |
| C．Do the Olympics encourage people to match athletes? |
| D．Do big sporting events make us do more sport? |
| A．Positive. | B．Negative. |
| C．Uncertain. | D．Objective. |
4 . Even though we may believe that it’s important to say thank you, sometimes expressing gratitude is easier said than done. We might find ourselves getting confused about the details of what to say or the best way to deliver the message. As a result, many times, we do not express our gratitude.
According to new research, however, it’s possible we might be making our thanks more complicated than it needs to be. In a paper published in The Journal of Positive Psychology, researchers compared the effects of expressing thanks in person, over a video call, and by text. And, while people generally expect an in-person thank-you to be most impactful, what happened in reality was quite different: sending a thank-you by text was almost as impactful as delivering the message in person. Additionally, texting maybe especially well-suited for situations where we feel embarrassed about expressing our appreciation.
In one study, 219 college students from the United States and China participated in a gratitude activity in which they wrote about three things they were grateful for over a two-week period. After writing, the students were asked to actually thank the person involved. Some connected with the gratitude recipient (接受者) in person, others via video call, and others via text. At the beginning and end of the two weeks, participants completed surveys measuring their feelings of well-being, connections with others, depression, loneliness, and happiness.
The researchers found that people who expressed gratitude increased their well-being, with only a few differences between the different methods of gratitude expression. Overall, video calls were just as beneficial as meeting in person. Texting was slightly less effective than video calling -- it didn’t make people feel more connected and happy. However, participants who sent their thanks by text still experienced benefits: texting boosted their well-being and reduced their loneliness.
Overall, the message is that we shouldn’t worry about finding just the “right” way to express our gratitude. In fact, you’re probably better off sending a quick thank-you today than waiting for the right time to schedule an in-person visit. You can be sure that many of gratitude’s benefits can be attained regardless of how you send the message.
1. How do people make expressing gratitude complex?| A．They think it is useless to express gratitude. |
| B．They feel ashamed to express gratitude. |
| C．They think too much about the best way to do it. |
| D．They waste too much time before saying it. |
| A．Video chats. | B．Face to face visits. |
| C．Sending messages. | D．Making phone calls. |
| A．Learning to be grateful can give us a lot of benefits. |
| B．We need to put saying thank-you into our daily routine. |
| C．We should learn how to express appreciation to others. |
| D．We shouldn’t be bothered by how to express our gratitude. |
5 . You know the feeling — you have left your phone at home and feel anxious, as if you have lost your connection to the world. “Nomophobia” (无手机恐惧症) affects teenagers and adults alike. You can even do an online test to see if you have it. Last week, researchers from Hong Kong warned that nomophobia is infecting everyone. Their study found that people who use their phones to store, share and access personal memories suffer most. When users were asked to describe how they felt about their phones, words such as “hurt” (neck pain was often reported) and “alone” predicted higher levels of nomophobia.
“The findings of our study suggest that users regard smartphones as their extended selves and get attached to the devices,” said Dr Kim Ki Joon. “People experience feelings of anxiety and unpleasantness when separated from their phones.” Meanwhile, an American study shows that smartphone separation can lead to an increase in heart rate and blood pressure.
So can being without your phone really give you separation anxiety? Professor Mark Griffiths, psychologist and director of the International Gaming Research Unit at Nottingham Trent University, says it is what is on the phone that counts — the social networking that creates Fomo (fear of missing out).
“We are talking about an Internet-connected device that allows people to deal with lots of aspects of their lives,” says Griffiths. “You would have to surgically remove a phone from a teenager because their whole life is ingrained in this device.”
Griffiths thinks attachment theory, where we develop emotional dependency on the phone because it holds details of our lives, is a small part of nomophobia. For “screenagers”, it is Fomo that creates the most separation anxiety. If they can’t see what’s happening on WeChat or Weibo, they become panic-stricken about not knowing what’s going on socially. “But they adapt very quickly if you take them on holiday and there’s no Internet,” says Griffiths.
1. Which of the following may Dr Kim Ki Joon agree with?| A．We waste too much time on phones. |
| B．Phones have become part of some users. |
| C．Addiction to phones makes memories suffer. |
| D．Phones and blood pressure are closely linked. |
| A．We worry we may miss out what our friends are doing |
| B．We fear without phones we will run into a lot of trouble |
| C．We are accustomed to having a phone on us |
| D．We need our phones to help us store information |
| A．Approved of. | B．Relied on. | C．Opposed to. | D．Determined by. |
| A．In a research report. |
| B．In a science textbook. |
| C．In a popular science magazine. |
| D．In a fashion brochure. |
6 . Personality used to be a one-per-customer deal: like it or not, you were who you were, and lying to a pen pal was about the closest you could get to have a different ego. That was then. With the appearance of MySpace, Facebook, and other social networking sites, a second, carefully crafted identity is now available to anyone with an Internet connection. And that has psychologists wonder: just how well do these online personalities match the person sitting at the keyboard?
The answer, it turns out, is pretty well. In a recent study of 133 undergraduates with Facebook profiles, University of Texas psychologist Samuel D. Gosling measured the correlation between personality tests online and off, and found — contrary to the assumption that social networking sites can’t capture one’s features—that the students represented themselves quite faithfully.
Gosling surveyed the group on a standard five-point personality test, which measures extroversion (外向性), agreeableness, sense of responsibility, emotional stability, and openness to new experiences. Then he rated the same subjects based only on their Facebook profiles, which usually included photos and lists of interests, from academic majors to favorite books and movies.
Gosling found a correlation between assessments in four of the five categories, with emotional stability as the only one showing no significant results across personal and online assessments.(Gosling says he was not surprised at the latter, since emotional stability is something that people are good at hiding across most media.)While extroversion showed the highest correlation, the study suggests that “openness to new experience” is perhaps better conveyed online than in person.
“Facebook users don’t tend to put a lot of personal information on their pages, ” Gosling says, so someone who posted touching personal stories, for example, might come off as oversharing without intending to.
In short, says Gosling, Facebook users aren’t generally using the site as an image buffer, a resume enhancer, or a separate self. “They just use it as a medium for social life.”
1. What is the usual assumption about social networking sites?| A．They provide good study platforms. |
| B．They contain totally fake information. |
| C．They couldn’t show one’s real nature. |
| D．They are friendly to various personalities. |
| A．Openness to new experience. | B．Extroversion. |
| C．Sense of responsibility. | D．Emotional stability. |
| A．True personality beautifies image. |
| B．The site is a medium for social life. |
| C．Only cheats invest in a false identity. |
| D．Various interests can be shared there. |
| A．To introduce a finding. | B．To offer a recommendation. |
| C．To defend a viewpoint. | D．To present a phenomenon. |
7 . In the race to catch up with the changing time, we are forgetting how to live without the support of our phones, laptops, and tablets.
The first thing you need to do to unplug is to turn off your phone notifications. As soon as we hear a notification drop on our phones — whether it is something of importance or not — we are attracted to check it. When you’re not working and are not required to call, text, or return an email, turn off your phone (or put it on silent mode).
I know it’s hard to stay away from your phone when it keeps buzzing with incoming texts, calls, and emails.
One of the best ways that I believe can help you disconnect is being in nature.
| A．Keep track of how much time you’re spending on your phone. |
| B．This way you won’t be tempted and keep getting distracted. |
| C．Take a walk in the park near you or your garden without your phone. |
| D．When feeling bored, we often look for our phones to overcome our boredom. |
| E．Here are some simple ways you can disconnect and unplug for a more mindful living. |
| F．Therefore, setting a boundary on what to reply, and when to reply should be important. |
| G．Disconnecting from technology can be very helpful for quality time with your beloved ones. |
8 . Survivor bias (偏见，偏差), occurs when you tend to assess successful outcomes and disregard failures. This sampling bias paints a more promising or even misleading picture of reality.
Survivor bias is a sneaky problem that tends to slip into analyses unnoticed. For starters, it feels natural to emphasize success, whether it’s entrepreneurs, or survivors of a medical condition. We focus on and share these stories more than the failures.
Think about the famous college dropouts who became highly successful, such as Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates. These successful examples might make you think a college degree isn’t beneficial. However, that’s survivor bias at work! These famous individuals are at the forefront of media reports. You hear more about them because they are extraordinary. You’re not considering the millions of other college dropouts that aren’t rich and famous. You need to assess their outcomes as well.
Survivor bias has even occurred in medical studies about severe diseases. Younger, healthier, and more fit patients tend to survive a disease’s initial diagnosis more frequently. Hence, they are more likely to join medical studies. On the contrary, older, weaker patients are less likely to survive long enough to participate in studies. Consequently, these studies overestimate successful disease outcomes because they are less likely to include those who die shortly after diagnosis.
Undeniably, successful cases are usually more visible and easier to contact than unsuccessful cases. However, focusing on the high-performing successes and disregarding other cases introduces survivor bias. After all, you’re leaving out a significant part of the picture as it’s harder to collect data from the less successful members of a population. Incomplete data can affect your decision-making process. Put simply, survivor bias produces an inaccurate sample, causing you to jump to incorrect conclusions.
To minimize the impact of survivor bias, you should find ways to draw a representative sample from the population, not just a few of successful samples. That process might call for more expense and effort, but you’ll get better results.
1. What writing technique is used in Paragraphs 3 and 4?| A．Making comparisons. | B．Giving examples. |
| C．Describing facts. | D．Analyzing data. |
| A．You will take all factors into account before making a final analysis. |
| B．You will overestimate the failure rate so you may quit your project. |
| C．You will only have partial data and reach an incorrect conclusion. |
| D．You will be more likely to survive in unfavorable circumstances. |
| A．People tend to lose sight of the overall statistics. |
| B．People are unwilling to read unsuccessful stories. |
| C．Doctors don’t have enough expense to collect abundant samples. |
| D．The media should be responsible for kids’ dropping out of school. |
| A．Leave out the famous historic cases. |
| B．Collect a wide enough range of samples. |
| C．Focus on those most mentioned examples. |
| D．Select some successful and inspiring tales. |
9 . How did nearsighted people manage in the pre-glasses past? Have you ever thought about this? Aristotle may have written the first observations of myopia around 350 B.C. Because their eyeballs are too long, people with this condition can see objects that are close by, but distant objects tend to look blurry.
Neil Handley, a museum curator, said not much is known about how people dealt with myopia before the first lenses for nearsighted people were invented in the 15th century in Europe. And he noted that “even in the history of the invention of spectacles, that is a late development.”
There are 13th-century European examples of handheld convex lenses that were used to treat age-related vision loss known as presbyopia. But the technology wasn’t applied to treat nearsightedness for another 200 years.
“Because of the way that lens is held, you can see through it, and the artist has captured the effect that the glass has,” Handley said. Myopia could be something of a modern condition. Rates of myopia have risen sharply in recent decades, and researchers have projected that half the world will be myopic by 2050.
Doctors are still trying to figure out the cause behind this trend. Some have blamed genetic causes or an increase in studying and screen time.
It’s likely that myopia didn’t affect as many people in the past as it does now. Handley said the late creation of nearsighted glasses suggests that treating the small number of people with myopia wasn’t regarded as a priority and that people could have gotten by with this condition by making some adaptations in their lifestyle. Or, maybe there was more of an emphasis on putting people in jobs that were suited to their ability to see, he said.
For example, people with myopia were historically valued in artisan contexts, such as medieval European monasteries, where illuminating manuscripts and painting required making tiny, precise skills.
1. What can be learned about the first myopia glasses?| A．They came into people’s view around 350 B.C. |
| B．They could help shorten people’s eyeballs. |
| C．They didn’t come out until the 15th century. |
| D．They were initially designed for old people. |
| A．Noticed. | B．Predicted. | C．Doubted. | D．Conducted. |
| A．People in the past didn’t develop myopia. |
| B．My opia could be cured by changing one’s lifestyle. |
| C．People with myopia could also lead a normal life. |
| D．Most art-related jobs favored near sighted people. |
| A．Glasses for nearsighted people have developed a lot. |
| B．Nearsightedness is increasing at an alarming rate. |
| C．Various reasons contribute to modern myopia. |
| D．Myopia was not so disturbing in the past. |
10 . Lifestyle creep, sometimes called lifestyle inflation, is when living expenses and non-essential expenditures grow with income. In bad cases of lifestyle creep, this unnecessary spending can cut into savings.
Lifestyle creep is most visible among high earners, but anyone can fall into this trap. Who hasn’t justified eating out more often every week after receiving a 1 or 2 percent raise? The temptation of a more costly lifestyle is difficult to resist. If you’re making enough money to afford a larger apartment, shouldn’t you move to a larger apartment?
Improving your standard of living as your income increases isn’t an objectively bad thing, but when that habit cuts into your savings efforts, it can be a major financial risk. As Katie Waters, a financial planner at Stable Waters Financial, says, “Something’s got to give.”
Then how to avoid lifestyle creep? It just takes the same moderation and planning you used when you had a smaller income. If you can, head off lifestyle creep from the beginning by giving your raise or bonus money a purpose immediately. This can be to pay down debt, save for a house, or add to retirement accounts. This way, you won’t be tempted to spend it on a non-necessity. If you fear you’ve already fallen victim to lifestyle inflation at any level, you can still turn your spending around. If you are putting all your expenses on your credit card, Waters recommends rearranging so only routine, fixed monthly expenses are on the card. “The monthly variable costs—food, clothing, personal care, purchases for the home, the list goes on—are where your money slips away easily.” Waters says, “Calculate your possible savings each pay period and put that money into a separate checking account.”
“As with all things, the secret to managing your finances like an adult is a constant strive for balance,” Waters says. “Have fun along the way, but don’t let the tail wag the dog.”
1. What can we learn about lifestyle creep?| A．It contributes to a pay raise. | B．It refers to a high living standard, |
| C．It sometimes affects a person’s savings. | D．It only traps people with a high income. |
| A．To list the bad consequences of lifestyle creep. |
| B．To stress the importance of giving in one’s life. |
| C．To show that lifestyle creep is quite understandable. |
| D．To support that lifestyle creep can cause financial problems. |
| A．Put all the expenses on a credit card. | B．Save the bonus money for a non-necessity. |
| C．Increase the monthly costs on food and clothing. | D．Set different checking accounts for specific purposes. |
| A．Don’t bite the hand that feeds you. | B．Don’t put the cart before the horse. |
| C．Don’t do one thing under the cover of another | D．Don’t count the chicken before they are hatched. |
