Many of us enjoy doing it: you turn on the camera on your mobile phone and hold it at a high angle, making your eyes look bigger and your cheekbones more defined. You turn to your best side and click. There it is — your selfie.
Over the past year, “selfie” has become a well-known term across the globe. This August the Oxford dictionary added the word to their online dictionary and defined it as: “A photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically with a smartphone or webcam and up-loaded to a social media website.”
Today it’s not difficult to find social networking pages full of photos people have taken of themselves and their friends. And selfie culture has become especially relevant for young people. As many as 91 percent of teenagers have posted photos of themselves online, according to a recent survey by the US Pew Research Center.
So what are the reasons for the rise of selfie culture?
“The cult (狂热) of the selfie celebrates regular people,” Pamela Rutledge, a professor at the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology, told Vogue magazine. “There are many more photographs available now of real people than models.”
Posting selfies also allows you to control your image online. “I like having the power to choose how I look, even if I’m making a funny face,” Samantha Barks, 19, a high school student in the US, told Vogue.
In addition to self-expression and documentation, selfies “allow of a close friendship for long-distance friends, because you can see each other’s faces every day”, wrote Casey Miller at The Huffmgton Post.
But US psychologist Jill Weber is concerned that selfies might lead to social problems, “There’s a danger that your self-esteem may start to be tied to the comments and ‘likes’ you get when you post a selfie, and they aren’t based on who you are — they’re based on what you look like,” Weber told Vogue. “When you get nothing or a negative response, your confidence can plummet.”Which of the following is NOT the reason why selfie became popular ？
| A．It enables people to choose how they look. |
| B．It helps people improve their self-esteem. |
| C．It is considered a good way to stay connected with friends that are far away. |
| D．It’s a chance for ordinary people to show off themselves. |
What is Jill Weber’s attitude toward the popularity of selfies ?
A. optimistic B. objective
C. supportive D worriedIn the passage, the writer mainly wants to tell us _____
| A．the history of selfie |
| B．the advantages of selfie |
| C．the disadvantages of selfie |
| D．some information about selfie |
According to the passage , selfie culture ____
| A．has a history of several centuries |
| B．can bring people self-confidence |
| C．may ruin people’s friendship |
| D．gains its popularity nowadays |
The underlined word “plummet” in the last paragraph probably means .
| A．quickly decrease | B．greatly strengthen |
| C．become dangerous | D．rapidly develop |
“In wilderness(荒野) is the preservation of the world.” This is a famous saying from a writer regarded as one of the fathers of environmentalism. The frequency with which it is borrowed mirrors a heated debate on environmental protection: whether to place wilderness at the heart of what is to be preserved.
As John Sauven of Greenpeace UK points out, there is a strong appeal in images of the wild, the untouched; more than anything else, they speak of the nature that many people value most dearly. The urge to leave the subject of such images untouched is strong, and the danger exploitation(开发) brings to such landscapes(景观) is real. Some of these wildernesses also perform functions that humans need—the rainforests, for example, store carbon in vast quantities. To Mr.Sauven, these “ecosystem services” far outweigh the gains from exploitation.
Lee Lane, a visiting fellow at the Hudson Institute, takes the opposing view. He acknowledges that wildernesses do provide useful services, such as water conservation. But that is not, he argues, a reason to avoid all human presence, or indeed commercial and industrial exploitation. There are ever more people on the Earth, and they reasonably and rightfully want to have better lives, rather than merely struggle for survival. While the ways of using resources have improved, there is still a growing need for raw materials, and some wildernesses contain them in abundance. If they can be tapped（利用） without reducing the services those wildernesses provide, the argument goes, there is no further reason not to do so. Being untouched is not, in itself, a characteristic worth valuing above all others.
I look forwards to seeing these views taken further, and to their being challenged by the other participants. One challenge that suggests itself to me is that both cases need to take on the question of spiritual value a little more directly. And there is a practical question as to whether wildernesses can be exploited without harm.
This is a topic that calls for not only free expression of feelings, but also the guidance of reason. What position wilderness should enjoy in the preservation of the world obviously deserves much more serious thinking.
| A．many people value nature too much |
| B．exploitation of wildernesses is harmful |
| C．wildernesses provide humans with necessities |
| D．the urge to develop the ecosystem services is strong |
| A．The exploitation is necessary for the poor people. |
| B．Wildernesses cannot guarantee better use of raw materials. |
| C．Useful services of wildernesses are not the reason for no exploitation. |
| D．All the characteristics concerning the exploitation should be treated equally. |
| A．Objective. | B．Disapproving. |
| C．Skeptical. | D．Optimistic. |
CP: Central Point P: Point Sp: Sub-point(次要点) C: Conclusion
I am a writer. I spend a great deal of my time thinking about the power of language—the way it can evoke(唤起) an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth. Language is the tool of my trade. And I use them all—all the Englishes I grew up with.
Born into a Chinese family that had recently arrived in California, I’ve been giving more thought to the kind of English my mother speaks. Like others, I have described it to people as “broken” English. But I feel embarrassed to say that. It has always bothered me that I can think of no way to describe it other than “broken”, as if it were damaged and needed to be fixed, as if it lacked a certain wholeness. I’ve heard other terms used, “limited English”, for example. But they seem just as bad, as if everything is limited, including people’s perceptions(认识) of the limited English speaker.
I know this for a fact, because when I was growing up, my mother’s “limited” English limited my perception of her. I was ashamed of her English. I believed that her English reflected the quality of what she had to say. That is, because she expressed them imperfectly her thoughts were imperfect. And I had plenty of evidence to support me: the fact that people in department stores, at banks, and at restaurants did not take her seriously, did not give her good service, pretended not to understand her, or even acted as if they did not hear her.
I started writing fiction in 1985. And for reasons I won’t get into today, I began to write stories using all the Englishes I grew up with: the English she used with me, which for lack of a better term might be described as “broken”, and what I imagine to be her translation of her Chinese, her internal(内在的) language, and for that I sought to preserve the essence, but neither an English nor a Chinese structure. I wanted to catch what language ability tests can never show: her intention, her feelings, the rhythms of her speech and the nature of her thoughts.
| A．she uses English in foreign trade |
| B．she is fascinated by languages |
| C．she works as a translator |
| D．she is a writer by profession |
| A．Americans do not understand broken English. |
| B．The author’s mother was not respected sometimes. |
| C．The author’s mother had positive influence on her. |
| D．Broken English always reflects imperfect thoughts. |
| A．well structured |
| B．in the old style |
| C．easy to translate |
| D．rich in meaning |
| A．The change of the author’s attitude to her mother’s English. |
| B．The limitation of the author’s perception of her mother. |
| C．The author’s misunderstanding of “limited” English |
| D．The author’s experiences of using broken English. |
At exactly eleven Sir Percival knocked and entered, with anxiety and worry in every line of his face. This meeting would decide his future life, and he obviously knew it.
“You may wonder, Sir Percival,” said Laura calmly, “if I am going to ask to be released (免除) from my promise to marry you. I am not going to ask this. I respect my father’s wishes too much.”
His face relaxed a little, but one of his feet kept beating the carpet.
“No, if we are going to withdraw(退出) from our planned marriage, it will be because of your wish, not mine.”
“Mine?” he said in great surprise. “What reason could I have for withdrawing?”
“A reason that is very hard to tell you,” she answered. “There is a change in me.”
His face went so pale that even his lips lost their color. He turned his head to one side.
“What change?" he asked, trying to appear calm.
“When the promise was made two years ago,”she said, “my love did not belong to anyone. Will you forgive me, Sir Percival, if I tell you that it now belongs to another person?”
“I wish you to understand,” Laura continued, “that I will never see this person again, and that if you leave me, you only allow me to remain a single woman for the rest of my life. All I ask is that you forgive me and keep my secret.”
“I will do both those things, ”he said. Then he looked at Laura, as if he was waiting to hear more.
“I think I have said enough to give you reason to withdraw from our marriage,” she added quietly.
“No. You have said enough to make it the dearest wish of my life to marry you,” he said.
| A．Angry. | B．Calm. |
| C．Nervous. | D．Excited. |
| A．Laura had once promised to marry Percival |
| B．Laura's father wished to end her marriage |
| C．Percival had been married to Laura for two years |
| D．Percival asked to be released from the marriage |
| A．a novel | B．a report |
| C．a diary | D．an essay |
Older people who have low expectations for a satisfying future may be more likely to live longer, healthier lives than those who see brighter days ahead, according to new research
"Our findings showed that being overly optimistic in predicting a better future was associated with a greater risk of disability and death within the following decade," said Frieder R. Lang, the leading researcher of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany." Pessimism(悲观) about the future may encourage people to live more carefully, taking health and safety measures."
Lang and colleagues examined data collected from 1993 to 2003 for the national German Socio-Economic Panel, an annual survey on approximately 40,000 people from 18 to 96 years old. The researchers divided the data according to age groups: 18 to 39 years old, 40 to 64 years old and 65 years old and above. Through mostly in-person interviews, the participants were asked to rate how satisfied they were with their lives and how satisfied they thought they would be in five years.
Five years after the first interview, 43 percent of the oldest group had underestimated(低估) their future life satisfaction, 25 percent had predicted accurately and 32 percent had overestimated (高估), according to the study. The researchers calculated that each increase in overestimating future life satisfaction was related to a 9.5 -percent increase in reporting disabilities and a 10- percent increase in risk of death。
Because a darker outlook on the future is often more realistic, older adults' predictions of their future satisfaction may be more accurate, according to the study. In contrast, the youngest group had the sunniest outlook。
"We argue, though, that the analysis may depend on age and available resources. These findings shed new light on how our perspectives can either help us take action or prevent us from taking action that can help improve our chances of a long, healthy life," Lang said.Based on the passage, the researchers____________.
| A．collected 13 years of nationwide data |
| B．calculated people's life satisfaction within five years |
| C．interviewed 40,000 people from 18 to 65 years old |
| D．divided the data into four age groups |
According to the study, older people predicted their life satisfaction more accurately because_________.
| A．they demanded less materially |
| B．they were more satisfied with their lives |
| C．they had a deeper insight into life |
| D．their outlook on the future was more realistic |
What is Frieder Lang's attitude towards the results of the study?
| A．Critical. | B．Doubtful. |
| C．Astonished. | D．Objective |
What can we learn from the passage?
| A．The researchers only took age into consideration. |
| B．Being pessimistic leads to a greater risk of disability and death. |
| C．The findings could help people to live a healthy life. |
| D．Most participants had overestimated their future life satisfaction. |
The passage most probably appears in the __________ section of a website.
| A．health and fitness | B．arts and life |
| C．public education | D．psychology help center |
On February 3, a Laysan albatross(信天翁), a large seabird, named Wisdom, which is 62 years old, hatched a healthy chick on a Pacific island near Hawaii,. It was the sixth year in a row this bird has hatched a chick. Wisdom’s species normally lives only 12 to 40 years, while she is able to hatch healthy chicks into her 60s.
At breeding time, the Laysan albatross will dig out a shallow nest in the ground. The female then lays a single egg. Both she and her mate will take turns incubating (孵) the egg until it hatches. More than seven out of every 10 Laysan albatrosses’ nests are on just one island -Midway Atoll. That’s Wisdom’s home.
But her species spends most of its time in the air. In fact, biologists observe that after learning to fly, these birds may not set foot on land for the next three to five years.
Albatrosses are powerful gliders (滑翔者), With their six-foot, nearly two-meter, wingspan, Laysan albatrosses can ride wind currents for hundreds of miles or more. Biologists now estimate that Wisdom has flown for an unusually large number of miles-between two million and three million. That is equivalent to traveling from Earth to the moon and back-four to six times! And in the months when these birds are not breeding, they stay in the air, and even sleep there.
Wild albatrosses often die long before they come close to Wisdom’s age. Some are eaten. Others starve, get sick or suffer life-threatening injuries from people’s fishing boats. Clearly, Wisdom is special. She may have raised as many as 35 chicks in her life.Which of the following is TRUE about albatrosses?
| A．The females are responsible for hatching the eggs. |
| B．They can fly hundreds of miles or more in the wind. |
| C．The females usually lay several eggs at a time. |
| D．Most of them normally live more than 40 years. |
What makes Wisdom so special?
| A．She spends most of its time in the air. |
| B．She has lived more than 100 years. |
| C．She hatched a healthy chick in her 60s. |
| D．She hasn’t set foot on land for three to five years. |
What is the main idea of Paragraph 2?
| A．Where Laysan albatrosses live. |
| B．How albatrosses produce babies. |
| C．How albatrosses make their nests. |
| D．Why Wisdom can give birth to babies in her 60s. |
What can be inferred from the text?
| A．Wisdom has outlived her species by at least two decades. |
| B．Most albatrosses sleep and breed on Midway Atoll. |
| C．Wisdom gives birth to babies every six years. |
| D．Albatrosses build their big nests on trees. |
Which of the following would be the best title for the text?
| A．Albatrosses-Powerful Gliders. |
| B．Laysan Albatrosses’ Paradise-Midway Atoll. |
| C．Endangered Birds-Laysan Albatrosses. |
| D．The Oldest Mother Bird-Wisdom. |