1 . Three young men were on a crowded train when they encountered a heavily armed terrorist. With little regard for their personal safety, they rushed the terrorist and controlled him. Only some people seem capable of this split-second form of heroism. Why some men rise to the occasion — and others don’t — has been a bit tricky to explain. Psychologists have explored this question through biological and personality psychology.
Of course, heroism and courage can appear in many forms, and men and women risk their reputations, health, and social standing to do what they think is right. When it comes to physically risky bravery, people assume that men will take the lead. There are sound biological reasons for this fixed image. One of the most common fears in men is that they’ll be outed as a coward (懦夫), and a man who fails to display physical courage will suffer damage to his reputation in a way that a woman will not. Throughout human history, attaining a position of high status or dominance among one’s peers (同龄人) has been the ticket that needs to get punched for men to attract mates and father children.
People tend to have an idea of what heroes are like. When rating the personalities of movie heroes, participants expected them to be more careful and hard-working, open to experience, agreeable, and emotionally stable than the average person. But some studies indicate that people who exhibit heroic behavior score high on personality usually associated with madmen: risk-taking, sensation seeking, coolness under stress, and a tendency to take over in social situations.
The study of the relationship between personality and heroism is at an early stage. Psychologists are still at a loss to predict in advance who will heroically step up when needed. Often, the hero is an otherwise ordinary person who finds himself in extraordinary circumstances. Meanwhile, some individuals trained to behave heroically might hesitate during a crisis. Future disasters will cry out for further acts of true heroism. Hopefully, the right mix of circumstances and personalities enable courage to carry the day.
1. How is the topic introduced in the first paragraph?| A．By presenting a question. | B．By giving an example. |
| C．By making a comparison. | D．By drawing a conclusion. |
| A．Be bought. | B．Be talented. | C．Be abandoned. | D．Be acquired. |
| A．There are numerous factors affecting heroism. |
| B．Heroes and ordinary people are always difficult to tell apart. |
| C．Unknown circumstances play a crucial role in heroic acts. |
| D．Individual personality is not a reliable indicator of heroism. |
| A．How Are Heroes Trained? | B．Why Are Heroes Important? |
| C．What Makes a Person Heroic? | D．Who Are the True Heroes? |
2 . Iceberg Water, which is harvested from icebergs off the coast of Newfoundland Canada, is achieving new heights of popularity in North America.
Arthur, Von Wiesenberger who carries the title “Water Master”, is one of the few water critics in North America. As a boy, he spent time in the larger cities of Italy, France and Switzerland, where bottled water is consumed daily. Even then, he kept a water journal, noting the brands he liked best. “My dog could tell the difference between bottled and tap water.” He says.
But is plain tap water all that bad? Not at all. In fact. New York’s tap water for more than a century was called the champagne of tap water and until recently considered among the best in the world in terms of both taste and purity. Similarly, a magazine in England found that tap water from the Thames River tasted better than several leading brands of bottled water that were 400 times more expensive.
Nevertheless, soft-drink companies view bottled water as the next battle-ground for market share — despite the fact that over 25 percent of bottled water comes from tap water: Pepsi Co’s Aquafina and Coca-Cola’s Dasani are both purified tap water rather than spring water.
As diners thirst for leading brands, bottlers and restaurateurs are desperate for the profits. A restaurant’s typical mark-up (加价) on wine is 100 to 150 percent, whereas on bottled water it’s often 300 to 500 percent. But since water is much cheaper than wine, and many of the fancier brands aren’t available in stores, most diners don’t notice or care.
As a result, some restaurants are turning up the pressure to sell bottled water. According to an article in The Street Journal, some of the more shameless methods include placing attractive bottles on the table for a visual sell, listing brands on the menu without prices, and pouring bottled water without even asking the diners if they want it.
Regardless of how it’s sold, the popularity of bottled water taps into our desire for better health. our wish to appear cultivated, and even a longing for lost purity.
1. What is Arthur’s purpose in mentioning his dog in paragraph 2?| A．To indicate his own preference for bottled water. |
| B．To show the importance of bottled water to dogs. |
| C．To clarify the difference between bottled water and tap water. |
| D．To exhibit the large consumption of bottled water in big cities. |
| A．tap water from the Thames River |
| B．famous wines not sold in ordinary stores |
| C．PepsiCo’s Aquafina and Coca-Cola’s Dasani |
| D．pricey bottled water with very impressive names |
| A．Most diners find bottled water affordable. |
| B．Competition from the wine industry is fierce. |
| C．Bottled water can bring in huge profits. |
| D．Bottled water satisfies diners’ desire to be fashionable. |
| A．Tap water: why tastes better? | B．Bottled water: why so popular? |
| C．A new favorite of. restaurants; bottled water | D．A rising star: tap water |
3 . Wall Street bankers, investors and economists have for months argued over whether a US recession (衰退) is coming. But for some Americans, the unforgiving economic pain typical during recession has already set in.
Al Brown and his wife faced a tough call in May when reviewing their weekly budget: what’s a higher priority, more food or dish soap? Based in Concord, North Carolina, Brown was the main breadwinner for his wife and their two children. Then in April, he was let go from his job as a global director of business development at software company Cascade. He’s since quit his gym membership and sold various items around his home, including a computer and yard furniture. His 13-year-old son quit the basketball team.
Brown, 37, now spends his days searching the internet for jobs or reaching out to potential connections. After filing over 600 applications, only a handful have produced interviews. That’s a far cry from the labor-market strength described in government figures.
Investors and economists have been expecting a recession since last year as the Fed raised interest rates to control inflation (通货膨胀). That caused companies to focus on profitability over growth, which meant cutting spending and reducing their workforces.
“I think it’s unlikely that I will get another good paying job with great benefits like the one I had,” McCollum, who lives in Cleveland, Ohio, said. More Americans are likely to encounter similar cases, some experts predict.
“As we go through this year, and into next year, there is still going to be this focus on trying to reduce costs, and it is going to result in more unemployment,” said Thomas Simons, a senior economist at Jefferies. “The impact of layoffs, currently concentrated among white-collar workers, will last throughout the economy through a ‘big pullback in overall spending’,” Simons said. “Consumer spending accounts for about two-thirds of economic output, so if more Americans are forced to cut back because they were laid off, that might throw the US economy into a recession.”
1. What are some Americans currently going through?| A．They can’t afford necessities of life. | B．They’ve lost interest in high-end gyms. |
| C．They are badly treated by their bosses. | D．They have difficulty making ends meet. |
| A．One should try various ways to find a job. |
| B．American labor market is not that friendly to job-seekers. |
| C．Few companies are interested in middle-aged job-hunters. |
| D．The government provides accurate figures of the job market. |
| A．By employing more workers. | B．By changing interest rates. |
| C．By giving priority to profits. | D．By cutting employees’ allowances. |
| A．Laid-off workers tend to go into debt. |
| B．Lower consumption may worsen the current situation. |
| C．Americans will spend more to increase economic output. |
| D．Companies are to blame for the unemployment of white-collar workers. |
4 . The news is everywhere. We can’t stop constantly checking it on our computer screens, but what is this doing to our minds?
The news is committed to laying before us whatever is supposed to be most unusual and important in the world: a snowfall in the tropics; a love child for the president; a set of conjoined (连体的) twins.
The news knows how to operate its own mechanics almost invisible and therefore hard to question. It speaks to us in a natural unaccented voice, without reference to its own perspective. It fails to disclose that it does not merely report on the world, but is instead constantly at work crafting a new planet in our minds in line with its own often highly distinctive priorities.
Why do we, the audience, keep checking the news? Fear has a lot to do with it. After even a short period of being cut off from news, our anxiety has a habit of building up. We know how much is likely to go wrong and how fast: an A380 may have its fuel line cracked and crash into the bay in flames, a virus from an African bat may leap the species barrier and enter a crowded Japanese commuter train, investors may pose a run on the currency and yet another seemingly ordinary father may call a violent end to the lives of his two beautiful young children.
The hum and rush of the news have flowed into our deepest selves. What an achievement a moment of calm now is, what a miracle the ability to fall asleep or to talk undistracted with a friend and what demanding discipline would be required to make us turn away from the messy news and listen for a day to nothing but the rain and our own thoughts. We may need some help with what the news is doing to us: with the envy and the terror, with the excitement and the frustration; with all that we’ve been told and yet occasionally suspect we may be better off never having learned.
1. What does news offer us according to the passage?| A．Its operating system. |
| B．Its preferred world. |
| C．Normal happenings worldwide. |
| D．Objective points of view. |
| A．worried about losing contact with updates. |
| B．anxious about building up a habit. |
| C．curious about an African virus in Japan. |
| D．interested in strangers’ extraordinary lives. |
| A．Talking with a friend is remarkable. |
| B．Listening to natural songs is absolutely impossible. |
| C．Preventing envy and terror is realistic. |
| D．Staying clear of the media is beneficial. |
| A．News is transforming our lifestyle secretly. |
| B．News is becoming a user’s manual. |
| C．News is filling us with growing fear. |
| D．News is enriching our life dramatically. |
1. 劳动状况描述;
2. 原因分析；
3. 你的建议。
1. 写作词数应为80左右；
2. 按如下格式作答，题目已为你写好。
Housework, Our Responsibility
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________6 . While an analysis of the Global Dietary Database for the years 1990, 2005, and 2018 found overall consumption of sweetened drinks increased—by nearly 16% worldwide over the 28-year period studied—regional intake widely varied, researchers say.
Sugary drinks have been widely associated with overweight and heart related diseases, which are among the leading causes of death and years lost to disability globally. Many national guidelines recommend limiting added sugars to less than 5% to 10% of daily calories, and because sodas (汽水) add no nutritional value, some countries tax their consumption to help their residents meet this goal.
The study, published in Nature Communications, is the latest presentation of how adults in 185 countries drink sugar-sweetened beverages (饮料). Intakes varied widely by world region. In 2018, the average person consumed 2.7 servings of sugary drinks per week, but this ranged from 0.7 servings per week in South Asia to 7.8 servings per week in Latin America. And some of the highest sugary drink intakes in the world were among urban, highly educated adults in Sub-Saharan Africa (12.4 servings per week) and in Latin America (8.5 servings per week). “We were struck by the wide variations by world regions in 2018; that Latin America had the largest intakes at all time points despite an overall decrease overtime; and that Sub-Saharan Africa had the greatest increases across all time points,” says Laura Lara-Castor, a PhD candidate at Tufts University.
“These results suggest that more work is needed such as marketing regulations, food labeling, and soda taxes.” Information from the Global Dietary Database, which gathers hundreds of survey results, also revealed a relationship between sugary beverages and socio-economic status. “Sugar-sweetened beverage intake has increased in the past few decades despite efforts to decrease their appeal,” says researchers. “Some populations are especially easily affected, and our findings provide evidence to inform the need and design of national and more targeted policies to reduce their intake worldwide.”
1. What is the main concern about sugary drinks?| A．They are just a barrier to weight loss. | B．They are linked to health issues. |
| C．They are far from nutrition standard. | D．They are a total waste of money. |
| A．To increase income for the government. | B．To promote the sales of healthier drinks. |
| C．To discourage people from drinking sodas. | D．To set a limit to the price of sugary drinks. |
| A．Sugary drink consumption trends. | B．Impact of soda taxes on purchases. |
| C．Regional variations in dietary habits. | D．Global dietary information analysis. |
| A．Sugary drinks have nothing to do with economic status. |
| B．The appeal of sugary drinks cannot be underestimated. |
| C．Some people are very particular about the sugary drinks. |
| D．National policies on sugary drinks are more than enough. |
7 . When children are growing up, what they see in their families is what they tend to consider normal. That means family traditions and other activities are generally seen as just normal. If a family eats dinner together or spends time talking with each other, that’s what the child absorbs and internalizes.
Our family traditions are declining as we move toward a more isolated (孤立的) society. How many families no longer share meals around the dinner table, instead choosing to watch TV or text friends on their phones? This tends to isolate and disconnect family members from each other. It also stops families from communicating and catching up on each other’s lives.
For those of us who grew up in a household where families shared meals together and spent time talking with each other, chances are that we are passing along those traditions to our own families. The problem is, children today often want to spend their time in front of screens rather than people. Cell phones, computers and other attention-grabbing devices often mean parents get resistance to traditional family togetherness time. This pressure can lead to parents giving in and letting children do what they want rather than fight with them over sitting at the dinner table. This creates a new normal that no longer values the idea of families and the society at large, connecting with each other.
Family and community traditions are important, not just for the current shared experiences, but for the future as well. Since children internalize their experiences, that means generations to come may not know what it’s like to sit together around the dinner table and truly connect as a family.
That is why it is so important that parents and caregivers create boundaries of behavior that help to keep family traditions alive. If you remember the shared experiences you had with your parents and grandparents, you know the important bonding that took place during those times. It is this shared experience that brings people closer together and is well worth preserving.
1. What is the phenomenon the author describes at the beginning of the text?| A．The increase in shared family meals means a shift towards isolation. |
| B．Increased use of technology replaces traditional family interactions. |
| C．More and more children prefer to spend quality time with the family. |
| D．Family members are more likely to share their updates with each other. |
| A．The inability of parents to understand technology. |
| B．The challenge of preserving traditional family values. |
| C．The influence of technology on children’s education. |
| D．The necessity of controlling children’s digital devices. |
| A．They will be more addicted to advanced technology. |
| B．They will maintain stronger and closer family bonds. |
| C．They may create new and irreplaceable family traditions. |
| D．They may not understand the value of family gatherings. |
| A．Insignificant | B．Irresponsible |
| C．Crucial | D．Overemphasized |
8 . “Few articles change owners more frequently than clothes. They travel downwards from grade to grade in the social scale with remarkable regularity,” wrote the journalist Adolphe Smith in 1877 as he traced a coat’s journey in the last century: cleaned, repaired and resold repeatedly; cut down into a smaller item; eventually recycled into new fabric. But with the improvement in people’s living standards, that model is mind-boggling in the era of fast fashion. The average British customer buys four items a month. And it is reported that 350,000 tonnes of used but still wearable clothes go to landfills in the UK each year.
Yet the gradual revival of the second-hand trade has gathered pace in the past few years. At fashion website Asos, sales of vintage clothes (古董衫) have risen by 92%. Clothing was once worn out of necessity, and now it is simply a way of life. Busy families sell used items on eBay, teenagers trade on Depop and some fashion people offer designer labels on Vestiaire Collective. Strikingly, it has become big enough business that mainstream retailers (零售商) want a slice of the action.
For some buyers and sellers, the switch to the second-hand is born of financial difficulties. Only a few have become worried about the impact of their shopping habit on the planet. But the shift is only a partial solution. Some people worry that some mainstream brands may “greenwash” — using second-hand goods to improve their image, rather than engaging more seriously with sustainability.
However, the biggest concern may be that people keep buying because they know they can resell goods, still chasing the pleasure of the next purchase but with an eased conscience (愧疚). Boohoo, a powerful fast fashion company, has seen sales and profits rise, despite concerns about environmental problems in its supply chain that led to an investigation last year.
A new Netflix series, Worn Stories, documents the emotional meanings that clothes can have: Each old item is full of memories. Actually, a handbag from a grandmother and a scarf passed on by a father are both valuable for us. A love of style is not a bad or an unimportant thing. But a committed relationship is better than a quick flash. Can we learn to appreciate our own old clothes as well as others’?
1. What does the word “mind-boggling” underlined in paragraph 1 probably mean?| A．Unbelievable. | B．Popular. | C．Reasonable. | D．Influential. |
| A．old clothes are more popular than new pieces |
| B．the online second-hand markets are booming |
| C．the fashion world begins to favor vintage clothes |
| D．many clothing brands are innovative in their new products |
| A．It makes people feel free to pursue fast fashion. |
| B．It makes people more cautious about their budgets. |
| C．It encourages people to choose eco-friendly clothes. |
| D．It pushes people to be more engaged with sustainability. |
| A．Old items have lost favor with the public. |
| B．Old items are worthy of being long cherished. |
| C．Older generations attach great importance to old items. |
| D．Older generations care about the quality of their clothes. |
9 . According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over 80 million American adults are constantly sleep deprived (睡眠不足), meaning they sleep less than the recommended minimum of seven hours a night. If you’re one of those people who are proud of being able to fall asleep quickly just about anywhere, it’s too early to gloat — it’s a distinct sign, especially if you’re less than 40 years old, that you’re severely sleep deprived.
During our lifetimes, about a third of us will suffer from at least one diagnosable sleep disorder, ranging from constant insomnia (失眠) to restless leg syndrome to much rarer and stranger conditions.
Insomnia is by far the most common problem, the main reason 4 percent of U.S. adults take sleeping pills in any given month. Insomniacs generally take longer to fall asleep, wake up for long periods during the night, or both. They have a high risk of depression, psychosis, and stroke. Lack of sleep is also directly tied to obesity: Without enough sleep, the stomach and other organs overproduce the hunger hormone (荷尔蒙), causing us to eat more. If sleep is such a natural phenomenon, why do so many of us have such trouble with it?
The problem is that in the modern world our ancient, inborn wake-up call is constantly set off by non-life-threatening situations like anxiety before an exam, worries about finances, or every car alarm in the neighborhood. Before the industrial revolution, which brought us alarm clocks and fixed work schedules, we could often handle insomnia simply by sleeping in. No longer, now.
Power naps don’t solve the problem; nor does sleeping medicine. “Sleep is not a single issue.” says Jeffrey Ellenbogen, a sleep scientist at Johns Hopkins University who directs the Sound Sleep Project, “It’s a thousand different things. It’s fascinating to regulate sleep with drugs or devices, but we don’t yet understand sleep enough to artificially intervene in it.”
1. What does the underlined word “gloat” in paragraph 1 mean?| A．be worried. | B．be delighted. | C．be concerned. | D．be surprised. |
| A．They take sleeping pills on a daily basis. | B．They fall asleep faster than others. |
| C．They will become underweight. | D．They probably come down with mental diseases. |
| A．Because of the long-standing pressure of survival. |
| B．Due to the continuously existing threats to life. |
| C．Because of the loss of the natural wake-up call. |
| D．Due to the disturbance to the natural sleeping patterns. |
| A．Taking some sleeping pills works perfectly. |
| B．Artificial intervention can’t tackle insomnia thoroughly. |
| C．Devices help people get enough sleep undoubtedly. |
| D．Sleeping during the day should be conducted carefully. |
10 . Phebe Cox grew up in what might seem an unlikely mental health danger zone for a kid: tony Palo Alto, California. But behind its surface of family success and wealth, she said, is an environment of heavy pressure on students to perform. By 2016, when Cox was in middle school, Palo Alto had a teen suicide (自杀) rate four times the national average.
Cox’s family lived by the railroad tracks where many of the suicides occurred. She got counseling (咨询). But that choice is not always easily available to teens in crisis — and she and her peers regarded school mental health services as their last choice because of concerns about privacy.
A new program provides an alternative. Called Allcove, it offers unattached health and wellness sites to those ages 12 to 25. Although Allcove is built to support a wide range of physical, emotional and social needs, its main goal is to deal with mental health challenges before they develop into deeper problems. Cox said, “I felt pretty helpless as a young teenager, but Allcove is all about the students and the students’ needs.”
About half of all lifetime mental illness begins by age 14 and 75% before age 25, according to researchers. Yet access to mental health care in the U.S. is lacking. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, some 30 million adults and children with mental health conditions go without treatment, and 129 million people live in areas with shortages of mental health professionals.
Allcove provides fully staffed safe spaces for teens and young adults to discuss and deal with their health, both mental and physical. Dr. Steven Adelsheim, a psychiatrist, who created the Allcove in 2014, said, “There is a crying need in the U.S. to reach kids with early intervention and help.” Sometimes a kid may come in with a physical complaint, and only after a few visits is the mental suffering brought out into the open. When that happens, Alcove can make a “warm handoff” to a mental health specialist onsite. Success, say Adelsheim and Cox, would mean the establishment of hundreds of Allcove centers up and down the state and, eventually, around the country.
1. Why did Cox and her peers regard school mental health services as their last choice?| A．They were indifferent to the program. |
| B．They were concerned about their health. |
| C．They were upset about the occurrence of the suicides. |
| D．They were worried about their personal information leak. |
| A．By giving examples. | B．By listing data. |
| C．By showing comparison. | D．By analyzing cause and effect. |
| A．The sense of mental suffering. | B．Involvement of health experts. |
| C．Complaints about physical suffering. | D．The pressing call for assistance. |
| A．Predictable. | B．Short-lived. | C．Unidentifiable. | D．Significant. |
