1 . Digital reading appears to be destroying habits of “deep reading”. Amazing numbers of people with year of schooling are in effect illiterate (不识字的). Admittedly, some people have been complaining about new media since 1492, but today’s complaints have an evidential basis, Ljubljana Reading Manifesto says, “The digital area may lead to more reading than ever in history, but it also offers many attractions to read in a shallow and scattered (碎片化的) manner — or even not to read at all. This increasingly endangers higher-level reading.”
Digital literacy has changed reading. When you read a book on paper, you can be entirely inside the experience, absorbing hundreds of pages to capture the world’s complexity. Online, says Maryanne Wolf of UCLA, we are “skimming, scanning, scrolling”. The medium is the message: doing deep reading on your phone is as hard as playing tennis with your phone. Recently, a bright 11-year-old told me I was wasting time on books: he absorbed more information faster from Wikipedia. He had a point. But digital readers also absorb more misinformation. And they seldom, absorb nuanced (微妙的) ideas.
In the white paper that underlies the Ljubljana Reading Manifesto, experts catalogue the passive parts of digital reading: “Recent studies of various kinds indicate a decline of... critical and conscious reading, slow reading, non-strategic reading and long-form reading.” In the 2021 international PISA survey, 49 percent of students agreed that “I read only if I have to”, 13 percentage points higher than in 2000.
As professors from Northwestern University foresaw in 2005, we are returning to the days when only an elite (精英的) “reading class” consumes long texts — despite more people spending longer in education and book sales remaining robust.
People who lose higher-level reading skills also lose thinking skills. That’s horrible, because “higher-level reading” has been essential to civilization. It enabled the Enlightenment, and an international rise in sympathy for people who aren’t like us.
1. What is the advantage of the digital reading?A.It makes more people start to read widely. |
B.It makes more people begin to think deeper. |
C.It helps the young to make use of the Internet. |
D.It helps people take advantage of their spare time. |
A.Supportive. | B.Opposed. | C.Objective. | D.Unconcerned. |
A.Teens should change the critical and conscious reading. |
B.Nearly half of the teens never read at all. |
C.They don’t believe what the experts indicate. |
D.The trend of reading books is increasingly declining. |
A.More and more books are purchased. |
B.It’s unnecessary for people to buy books. |
C.More and more people like to visit the bookstores. |
D.The sales of books keep still for a really long time. |
2 . When you try a new restaurant or book a hotel, do you consider the online reviews? Do you submit online reviews yourself? Do you pay attention if they are filtered (过滤) and moderated? Does that influence your own online review submissions? A team examined these in recently published research.
In a world where businesses thrive or die by online reviews, it’s important to consider the meaning of a platform’s review moderation policies, the transparency (透明度) of those policies, and how that affects the submitted reviews.
In 2010, Yelp showed a video for the first time to help users understand how its review filter works and why it is necessary. Then, Yelp added a section to show filtered reviews. Previously, Yelp didn’t unveil information about its review filter. This change presented the perfect opportunity to examine the effect of policy transparency on submitted reviews.
The team compared reviews of over 1,000 restaurants on Yelp to those of the same restaurants on TripAdvisor, which wasn’t transparent about its review filter with its practices unchanged. They used a difference-in-difference (DID) approach. They found the number of reviews submitted to Yelp decreased. Those submitted were increasingly negative and shorter in length compared to TripAdvisor. Also, the more positive a review, the shorter it was.
Platforms are pressured to have content guidelines and take measures to prevent fraud (欺诈) and ensure that reviews are legal and helpful. However, most platforms aren’t transparent about their policies, leading consumers to suspect that reviews are handled to increase profits. Whether or not to be transparent about review filters is an important decision for platforms with many considerations.
Users may put less time and effort into their reviews if they suspect that they have a significant chance of being filtered, or they may do the opposite to make their review s less likely to be filtered. Since most fake (假的) reviews are overly positive, users may assume that positive review s are most likely to be filtered and act accordingly.
However, with a transparent policy, those who submit fake reviews may be incentivized (激励) to change their ways.
1. How does the author lead in the topic?A.By describing a phenomenon. | B.By putting forward questions. |
C.By comparing online reviews. | D.By mentioning recent research. |
A.make something public | B.consider something practical |
C.make something perfect | D.consider something important |
A.Their number was on the rise. | B.Their length was increasing. |
C.Longer ones meant less positivity. | D.More positive ones were submitted. |
A.Purposes of applying online review filters. |
B.Suggestions on how to treat online reviews. |
C.Methods of preventing review s from being filtered. |
D.Effects of review filters without transparent policy. |
3 . “I spilled soup all over the table, but it wasn’t my fault”. “I got into trouble at school, but it wasn’t my fault.” Such statements are often heard. “It’s not my fault” is actually a common response for so many people and especially teenagers. Parents complain that they’re tired of the “excuses”.
The reason why variations of “it’s not my fault” are so popular is that they get us out of guilt, blame and anger. Those emotions may come from others’ reactions or our own self-talks. In the case of adolescents, they are often trying to escape responsibility and punishment for mistakes.
Some teens would benefit from decreasing their self-blame. Those who blame themselves for things that they can’t control tend to be highly self-critical and are more likely to be anxious.
Many teens overly rely on “it’s not my fault”. However, overuse of the phrase can result in feelings of helplessness to control their own lives. Besides, “it’s not my fault” focuses a teen’s attention on what is done as opposed to what needs to be done. In trying to get them to assume responsibility, many parents attempt to convince their children that something is their fault, but the approach tends to be ineffective. A more effective approach is to face up to drawbacks to find solutions to the drawbacks actively.
People may not have caused all their problems, but they have to solve them anyway. Getting stuck in sharing blame often keeps people from moving forward effectively. What does one do if he is pushed into a deep lake? One could certainly stay in water, yelling, “It’s not my fault.” However, that is not going to get him out of water. At some point, he needs to swim to shore, regardless of the fault.
Like most things in life, freeing ourselves from blame has its advantages and disadvantages. The question isn’t what is “right”, but what is most effective in moving forward.
1. Who is likely to rely on “it’s not my fault”?A.A highly self-critical teenager. |
B.A teenager unwilling to admit a fault. |
C.A teenager facing up to his responsibilities. |
D.A teenager anxious about uncontrollable things. |
A.Letting them focus on what is done. |
B.Persuading them to admit their fault. |
C.Making them correct the mistake actively. |
D.Helping them analyze the reason for the mistake. |
A.To put forward a new solution to drawbacks. |
B.To show handling problems should come first. |
C.To explain why teenagers get stuck in sharing blame. |
D.To analyze what kind of problem is caused by others. |
A.To help teenagers out of self-blame. |
B.To tell parents how to educate children. |
C.To help teenagers face mistakes properly. |
D.To tell children to do self-talks consciously. |
4 . Making employees feel happy and healthy at work is good for many businesses. But it isn’t always an easy thing. A research suggests that just 33% of the U. S. employees consider themselves fully engaged (投身于) at work, while 16% are actively disengaged, and 51% are just showing up.
But there is an exception. When it comes to employee engagement, it seems that employees in small companies are doing better. According to the same research, the largest U. S. companies have the lowest levels of engagement, while companies with fewer than 25 employees have the highest. And in one recent report, 75 percent of small business workers surveyed said they were “very” or “extremely” satisfied with their role as a small company employee.
Unlike big companies, small companies are often short of resources but the employees can get more surprises there. Small companies offer excellent career opportunities to their employees. The bosses often know their staff very well and understand their personal needs. Employees of small companies are more likely to receive free meals, paid leave, and they can even bring their pets to work.
But of course, there’re many other draws in small businesses. One of the top draws is flexible scheduling (弹性工时). Another is being able to really see the fruits of one’s labor. Besides, noncash award is also a big draw. This could be something small that reflects employees’ interests and lifestyles.
While a parental leave might lead to some financial problems, small companies may do something to improve it. “It may be impossible for a five person team to be reduced to four for six months,” writes Camilla Velasquez, head of HR management platform Just works. “But it could be possible to allow new parents to take on reduced hours in a work from home environment.” This kind of method has been realized in some small companies.
1. What can we infer from Paragraph 2? ______A.Employees can develop better in small companies. |
B.Employees can earn more money in small companies. |
C.Employees in big companies are hard to be satisfied. |
D.Employees in small companies are more engaged at work. |
A.The benefits of working for small companies. |
B.The differences between small and big companies. |
C.What challenges staff in small companies may face. |
D.Why small companies are short of resources. |
A.Choices. | B.Attractions. | C.Difficulties. | D.Competitions. |
A.Small companies may have more employees with much happiness. |
B.Big companies should learn from some small companies. |
C.Employees should have their own hobbies and lifestyles. |
D.Employers should pay more attention to the staff’s needs. |
5 . I had to say something after reading The Anxious Generation. It is going to sell well , because Jonathan Haidt is telling a scary story about children’s development many parents are led to believe. However, the book’s repeated suggestion that digital technologies are rewiring our children’s brains and causing the epidemic (流行病) of mental illness is unsupported by science. Worse , the rude proposal that social media is to blame might distract (分心) us from effectively responding to the real causes of the current mental-health crisis in young people.
Researchers have searched for the effects suggested by Haidt. Our efforts have produced a mix of no, small and mixed associations. Most data are correlative. When associations over time are found, they suggest not that social-media use predicts or causes depression, but that young people who already have mental-health problems use such platforms more often or in different ways from their healthy peers.
We are not alone here. Several analyses and systematic reviews centralize on the same message. An analysis done in 72 countries shows no consistent or measurable associations between well-being and social media globally. Moreover, studies from some authorities finds no evidence of intense changes associated with digital-technology use.
As a psychologist studying children’s and adolescents’ mental health, I appreciate parents’ frustration (沮丧) and desire for simple answers. As a parent of adolescents, I would also like to identify a simple source for the pain this generation is reporting. There are, however, no simple answers. The beginning and development of mental disorders are driven by a complex set of genetic and environmental factors.
More young people are talking openly about their mental-health struggles than ever before. But insufficient services are available to address their needs. In the United States, there is, on average, one school psychologist for every 1,119 students. We have a generation in crisis and in desperate need of the best of what science and evidence-based solutions can offer. Unfortunately, our time is being spent telling stories that are unsupported by research and that do little to support young people who need, and deserve, more.
1. What is presented in The Anxious Generation?A.Scary stories affect children’s brains. |
B.Parents are responsible for children’s health. |
C.Teen’s mental illness results from screen time. |
D.The epidemic of mental illness is unavoidable. |
A.Many countries do research in mental health. |
B.Well-being and social media are closely related. |
C.The young are trapped in the mental-health crisis, |
D.Social media don’t necessarily cause mental illness. |
A.Effective actions need to be taken. | B.Positive stories should be shared. |
C.Financial support needs to be provided. | D.Broader research should be done. |
A.To suggest ways to help those in need. |
B.To encourage parents to brave the crisis. |
C.To recommend a newly-published book. |
D.To give a voice to children’s mental issues. |
6 . We sometimes think that everything was much better and easier in the past. It’s one of the tricks our minds play on us, especially when we arc in low spirits.
Actually, it’s unlikely that things were objectively better in the past. This form of thinking is called rosy retrospection,which is a well-studied cognitive bias. It happens because when we think about the past, we are more likely to focus on positive generalities than annoying details.
If you think back to a holiday with your family five years ago, you’re likely to recall the beautiful views rather than the uncomfortable bed. In other words,the negative details disappear from our memory over time while the positive ones remain.
Rosy retrospection can influence how we make decisions, and it’s one of the reasons why we easily return into problematic relationships. The longer it is since we experienced the negative influence of a relationship, the more likely we are to let the good memories outweigh the bad memories and to perhaps forgive unforgivable behavior. It’s always a good idea to review our nostalgic (怀旧的) feelings with a healthy degree of doubt.
But rosy retrospection does serve an important purpose. It keeps us in a positive state of mind in the present and is important to our psychological wellbeing. In fact, people who tend to remember negative experiences more than positive ones are likely to exhibit psychological disorders. Research generally suggests that our happiest days are still to come. And even if they’re not, it’s still important to believe that they are. Don’t shy away from looking upon the past with a certain degree of nostalgia. But, for the same reason, don’t use the past as an excuse to be unhappy in the present.
1. What does the underlined phrase “rosy retrospection” in Paragraph 2 mean?A.Having a preference for good memories. | B.Remembering exactly about the details. |
C.Concentrating on impossible things. | D.Thinking objectively about the past: |
A.Reviewing the nostalgic feelings critically. |
B.Ignoring the nostalgic feelings absolutely. |
C.Forgiving the unacceptable behavior generously. |
D.Getting back to the problematic relationships bravely. |
A.The good excuse for present unhappiness. |
B.The accuracy of remembering past details. |
C.The importance of maintaining a positive mindset. |
D.The negative impact of recalling past experiences. |
A.Negative. | B.Cautious. | C.Favorable. | D.Objective. |
7 . For centuries, people have wondered about the strange things that they dream about. Some psychologists say that this nighttime activity of the mind has no special meaning.
Before modern times, many people thought that dreams contained messages from God. It was only in the twentieth century that people started to study dreams in a scientific way.
The Austrian psychologist; Sigmund Freud, was probably the first person to study dreams scientifically.
The Swiss psychiatrist (精神病学家) Carl Jung was once a student of Freud’s. Jung, however, had a different idea about dreams. Jung believed that the purpose of a dream was to communicate a message to the dreamer.
Can dreams help us understand ourselves?
A.The people in men’s dreams are often other men. |
B.His research shows that one’s dream is often based on the reality. |
C.Modern-day psychologists continue to develop theories about dreams. |
D.Psychologists continue to try to answer this question in different ways. |
E.Others believe that dreams can tell us about a person’s mind and emotions. |
F.In his book, Freud wrote that dreams are an expression of a person’s wishes. |
G.He thought people could learn more about themselves by thinking about their dreams. |
8 . Every bookstore in Beijing used to have a massive fiction room piled to the ceiling with great books. These days, you’re as likely as not to find that those rooms have been shrunk down to the size of a solitary (单独的) table thickly covered with the latest releases and best-selling novels. This, however, begs the question: Is fiction dying out, or is print media finally succumbing to (屈服于) its electronic and audio copy rivals (对手)?
Now that Kindle is leaving China, some say that maybe people will get back to traditional reading. I doubt it, however. This downward reading trend has been evident for a long time now. When Jeff Bezos first launched Kindle, Steve Jobs from Apple said it would fail because “people don’t read anymore. It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is.”
But I don’t think reading itself is dying. It is merely becoming more functional — in other words, something you have to do in order to get some tangible (实际的) benefit. Gone are the days when people just read for fun. Why lumber (迫使担负) through a musty old book when you can watch an action movie or play a video game? Of course, people know that these are poor substitutes (替代品) for a good book.
In fact, there is nothing better than getting lost in a great book. I remember reading Shackleton, the British polar explorer, when I was a boy. After turning over the last leaf of this extraordinary adventure, I felt as if I, too, had just been to the South Pole and back. This imaginary achievement translated into a sense of confidence which must have been infectious, as soon afterwards all of my friends were themselves picking up books to read for fun. Psychologists say that you are the average of the five friends you surround yourself with. We can learn from them and they can also come to have a profound effect on our own habits and mindset. In this way, a book, too, can be a mentor (导师). The ideas, advice, mindset, and experiences of other people living in other times can get transmitted to us down through the pages of a good book.
In the age of fragmented (碎片化的) information, the winners will be those who can stay focused. However, in a world that easily gets distracted, deep reading seems to be getting further away from us. Our biggest problem is not Kindle’s departure from China, but our own departure from reality. Great books transmit universal truths; get them read. How exactly you do so is up to you.
1. The author mentioned Kindle in the text to _______.A.praise its convenience and popularity in reading |
B.explore the reason for the decline of print media |
C.highlight the decreasing trend of traditional reading |
D.show our regret for its departure from China’s market |
A.He is famous for imaginary writing. | B.He finds nothing better than an old book. |
C.He visited the South Pole many times himself. | D.His adventure story influenced the author a lot. |
A.we can be influenced by positive ideas | B.we’d surround ourselves with good friends |
C.we can learn from other people’s experiences | D.we can develop good habits and ways of thinking |
A.great books are more popular than action movies |
B.we should avoid being distracted by modern technology |
C.reading great books can help us stay focused |
D.traditional reading will eventually disappear |
A.It’s necessary to find a better substitutes for books like Kindle. |
B.We should read more in order to escape from reality. |
C.We need to face the reality that reading is becoming less popular. |
D.We have to accept the fact that Kindle is leaving China. |
A.To discuss the future trend of reading. | B.To advocate the benefits of reading. |
C.To analyze the reasons for the decline of reading. | D.To compare different forms of reading. |
9 . Many of us seem to have lives that follow a certain way. From kindergarten all the way to getting married, every stage of our lives seems to be preset (预置). And although this works well for a lot of people, according to British scholar Jay Shetty, there is no “right” schedule to live our lives by.
A few months ago, a video of Shetty’s speech “Before You Feel Pressure” became popular on the Internet across the world. In the video, he sends an important message that we should think “outside of the way” and have the courage to follow our hearts. As Shetty says in the video, we don’t have to get stressed and put ourselves in the race with our peers (同龄人) or judge our lives based on others’. “Everything in life happens according to our time, our clocks,” he says.
In his inspiring speech, Shetty points out that UK author J. K. Rowing got her famous “Harry Potter” series published at age 32, after being turned down by 12 publishers. Shetty also mentions that Chinese businessman Jack Ma didn’t even start the Alibaba Group until he was 35 years old. So we shouldn’t let anyone rush us.
As physicist Albert Einstein once said, “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that is counted truly counts. The key to staying on our own tracks is to be patient and keep our own interest.” In Australian nurse Bronnie Ware’s best-selling book “The Top Five Regrets of the Dying”, she recorded the dying regrets of her patients, and the top one on the list was: “I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the one others expected of me.”
Indeed, we are all unique in our personalities and gifts, and there is no perfect fit for all. We should listen to our inner voices and ignore what the world has taught us, and what we have picked up from people around us. “It is important to allow people to go back to being self-aware of their own interests, needs and concerns”, Shetty told the magazine. “It’s disconnecting from what makes sense to what actually moves you and what makes sense internally (内在的).”
1. What does Jay Shetty agree to?A.All people live their lives according to schedules. |
B.The stages of our lives should be preset. |
C.Few people have lives that follow a certain way. |
D.We can live our lives not according to the given way. |
A.To show everyone can be a winner. |
B.To show great new life can begin anytime. |
C.To show hard work is the key to success. |
D.To show success does not happen in one’s youth. |
A.The top dying regret was not living the life people wanted. |
B.We should count and analyze everything in life. |
C.One should live a life as expected by others. |
D.Everything that is counted truly counts. |
A.people should listen to others’ advice |
B.we should follow the heart and do what we want to do |
C.what makes sense should not be about what people care internally |
D.needs and concerns are not acceptable |
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Good morning, everyone! Today, I want to talk about something that’s often overlooked by students: labor education.
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