“岑越崎，最近在忙什么呢？整天早出晚归看不到你人。”舍友魏呈问道。
“忙着备考啊，还是六级。”他答道，缓缓收拾书包，计划等会上完课再去图书馆学习一会。
魏呈啧了一声，没表态，大概不大相信岑越崎的实力。
再怎么备考也抵不住基础差啊，就他那个四级都能挂四次将将擦线过的成绩还想过六级？
被某膨胀券炸懵了吧。
岑越崎只是笑了笑，没再解释。
但是！
他！
已经！
不是！
原来的那个他了！
单词书都背了大半，还有什么能阻挡他过六级？
心里暗暗憋了口气，他拿出练习册再次投身于学习之中。
Could you get by without using the internet for four and a half years?
That's exactly what singer and actress Selena Gomez has done in a bid to improve her mental health.
She has spoken extensively（广泛的） about the relationship between her social media usage and her mental wellbeing（健康）, recalling feeling like "an addict" when she became Instagram's most followed user in 2016.
"Taking a break from social media was the best decision that I've ever made for my mental health" , says she."The unnecessary hate and comparisons went away once I put my phone down." Ditching（丢掉） the web at large, however, is a far more subtle（微妙的） and complicated prospect（前景）.
The increasing digitisation （数字化）of our society means that everything from paying a gas bill to plotting a route to a frie- nd's house and even making a phone call is at the mercy of your internet connection.Actively opting out of using the internet becomes a matter of privilege.（特权）
Ms Gomez's multi-millionaire （百万富翁）status has allowed her to take the "social" out of social media, so she can continue to leverage （利用）her enormous fame while keeping the trolls at bay.（网络喷子）
The fact that she's still the second most-followed woman on Instagram suggests it's entirely possible to maintain a significant web profile（网络形象、人设） to promote various projects - by way of a dedicated （专门）team - without being exposed to the cruel comments, hate mail and □□ or death threats.
It goes without saying that this is fundamentally （根本的）different from how the rest of us without beauty deals and films to publicise use the likes of Instagram, TikTok and Twitter, but even the concept of a digital detox requires having a device and connectivity to choose to disconnect from.
The UK's digital divide has worsened over the past two years, leaving poorer families without broadband connections in their homes.
Digital exclusion（排斥） is a major threat to wider societal equality in the UK, so witnessing companies like Facebook championing the metaverse（虚拟世界） as the next great frontier （边界）when school children are struggling to complete their homework feels particularly irritating.
Consequently（因此）, it's worth bearing（忍受） in mind that while deleting（删除） all social media accounts will undoubtedly make some feel infinitely （极其）better, many other people benefit from the strong sense of community that sharing platforms can breed.
Internet access will continue to grow in importance as we edge further towards web 3.0, and greater resources and initiatives （积极性）are needed to provide the underprivileged （贫穷）with the connectivity（联通性） they desperately （极度）need to learn, work and live.
It's crucial that people who feel that social media is having a detrimental （不利的）effect on their mental health are allowed to switch off（关闭） - and for those living in digital exclusion to be able to switch on（打开） in the first place.
1.What do we learn about singer and actress Selena Gomez in the past four and a half years?
A)She has had worsening mental problems.
B)She has won Instagram's most followers.
C)She has refrained（克制） from using social media.
D) She has succeeded in a bid（出价） on the internet.
2.Why does actively opting out of using the internet become a matter of privilege?
A)Most people find it subtle （微妙的）and complicated to give up using the internet.
B)Most people can hardly ditch the web while avoiding hate and comparisons.
C)Most people can hardly get by without the internet due to growing digitisation.
D) Most people have been seriously addicted to the web without being aware of it.
3.Why does the author say "witnessing companies...feels particularly irritating" (Lines 3-4, Para. 6)?
A)The UK digital divide （数字鸿沟）would further worsen due to the metaverse.
B)The concept of the metaverse is believed to be still quite illusory.（虚幻的）
C) School children would be drawn farther away（拉离） from the real world.
D) Most families in the UK do not have stable broadband（宽带） connections.
4.What is worth bearing in mind （牢记）concerning social media platforms?
A) They are conducive （有益）to promoting societal equality.
B)They help many people feel connected with others.
C) They provide a necessary device for a digital detox. （戒瘾所）
D) They create a virtual community on the internet.
5.What does the author think is really important for those living in digital exclusion?
A)Having access to the internet.
B)Edging further towards web 3.0.
C)Getting more educational resources.
D) Opening more social media accounts.
Key: C-C-A-B-A
Research is meant to benefit society by raising public awareness and creating products and innovations that enhance development.
For research to serve its full purpose, the results must leave the confines（界限） of research laboratories and academic journals（期刊）.
Findings effectively communicated can go a long way to serve the interests of the public. They can help address（解决） social injustices（不公平） or improve treatments offered to patients.
Many researchers seem to be content with （满意）sharing the results of their studies in academic journals or at conferences.（会议）
But few journals allow everybody to read the findings.
Even articles freely available are usually written in academic language incomprehensible （无法理解）to the average reader. For researchers in the tenure-track（终身教职） system, their main goal is winning tenure（教职）, which in part can be achieved by getting a number of papers （论文）published in prominent journals.
Pressures like this mean community-level outreach （拓展）is not prioritised.
Many researchers lack the writing skills to describe their results to a general audience.
They may also worry about whether the public will understand their findings, or about findings being used to influence controversial（有争议的） policies.
These concerns cause some researchers to shy away from communicating their findings outside the academic community.
Propagating （传播）research findings beyond academic publications is particularly crucial for addressing certain social discrepancies.（差异）
It can help families, communities, healthcare providers, policymakers, government agencies and other stakeholders （利益相关者）to understand and respond to crises that plague（危机） society. The benefits of sharing findings flow both ways.
Engaging with other researchers and the public can lead to unexpected new connections and new ideas that could suggest fruitful （富有成效的）new directions for research.
To benefit both researchers and the communities, the need to find innovative, accessible （可理解的）ways to share the work cannot be overstated.（强调）
Institutions and funding organisations should support more researchers to publish in open access journals so that the public doesn't have to pay to read them.
Institutions and researchers should invest in partnerships that expand capacity for sharing results more broadly. Furthermore, ethics （伦理）committees should make it mandatory （强制的）for researchers to share their results with the public. Every research participant should opt in or out of receiving results, as part of the process of giving informed consent（同意）.
There could be misunderstanding of the findings presented by the researcher because of technical terms.But this can be resolved by researchers engaging（雇佣） the services of professional writers or communication officers to help with translating their study into more accessible language and share it widely with media outlets and the public.
Sharing results with the people who are most affected by them makes us better researchers and ensures that our work can be used to improve people's lives.Institutions and collaborators （合作者）must recognise the value of doing so.
1.How can research serve its full purpose according to the author?
A)With researchers being aware of public interests.（公共利益）
B)With its findings published in prominent journals.
C)With researchers creating products that enhance social development.
D) With its findings properly communicated beyond the academic circle.
2.Why do ordinary readers find it difficult to access the results of researchers' studies?
A) They cannot understand the academic language used for reporting these results.
B)They feel intimidated（害怕的） by the jargon（行话） researchers use to describe their findings.
C) They do not attend conferences where these results are freely available.
D) They have few chances to locate the journals that publish these findings.
3.What is one of the reasons some researchers won't prioritise communicating their findings to the public?
A) They can thrive on the papers published.
B)Their top consideration is to win tenure.
C)Their main goal is gaining recognition in their field.
D) They have to struggle to reach out to the community.
4.How can sharing findings benefit researchers themselves?
A)By helping them to identify new research directions.
B)By enabling them to understand crises plaguing（危机） society.
C)By enabling them to effectively address social discrepancies. （差异）
D)By helping them to forge ties with government agencies.
5.Why are researchers advised to engage the services of professional writers or communication officers?
A) To satisfy ethics committees' mandatory requirements of researchers.
B) To translate their study into languages accessible to readers overseas.
C) To make their publications correctly understood by the public.
D) To render their findings acceptable by prominent journals.
Key: D-A-B-A-C
One of the great successes of the Republican Party （共和党）in recent decades is the relentless （不间断的）propagation （宣传）of a simple formula（公式） for economic growth: tax cuts.
The formula doesn't work, but that has not affected its popularity.
And while the cult of tax cuts has attracted many critics, it lacks for obvious rivals（竞争）.
Democratic politicians（民主党政客） have tended to campaign（竞选） on helping people left behind by economic growth. When Democrats do talk about encouraging economic growth, they often sound like Republicans. This is not just a political problem for Democrats; it is an economic problem for the United States.
The nation needs a better story about the drivers of economic growth.
The painful lessons of recent decades point to a promising candidate: higher wages.
Raising the wages of American workers ought to （应该）be the priority of economic policymakers.
We'd all be better off paying less attention to quarterly（季度） updates on the growth of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP) and focusing instead on the growth of workers' paychecks.（薪酬）
Set aside, for the moment, the familiar argument for higher wages: fairness.
The argument here is that higher wages can fuel （刺激）the engine of economic growth.
Perhaps the most famous illustration（例证） of the benefits is the story of Henry Ford's decision in 1914 to pay $5 a day to workers on his Model T assembly lines.
He did it to increase production - he was paying a premium to maintain a reliable workforce. The unexpected benefit was that Ford's factory workers became Ford customers, too.
The same logic still holds: Consumption（消费） drives the American economy, and workers who are paid more can spend more.
Mainstream（主流） economists insisted that it is impossible to order（命令） up a sustainable increase in wages because compensation （报酬）levels reflect the unerring judgment of market forces.
The conventional wisdom held that productivity growth was the only route to higher wages. Through that lens（角度）, efforts to negotiate （谈判）higher wages were counterproductive.
Minimum-wage laws would raise unemployment because there was only so much money in the wage pool, and if some people got more, others would get none.
It was in the context （背景）of this worldview that it became popular to argue that tax cuts would drive prosperity. Rich people would invest, productivity would increase, wages would rise. In the real world, things are more complicated.
Wages are influenced by a tug of war between employers and workers, and employers have been winning. One clear piece of evidence is the widening gap between productivity growth and wage growth since roughly1970.
Productivity has more than doubled; wages have lagged（远远落后） far behind.
A focus on wage growth would provide an antidote（解药） to the attractive simplicity（简单） of the belief in the magical power of tax cuts.
1.Why does the formula of tax cuts remain popular though ineffective?
A)Its critics' voice has not been heard throughout the country.
B) There seem to be no other options available to replace it.
C)The cult of tax cuts has been relentlessly propagated by all policymakers.
D) There appears to be a misunderstanding of the formula among the public.
2.What does the author think is a more effective measure for driving economic growth in the U.S.?
A) Aiding people left behind by economic growth.
B)Prioritizing the growth of the nation's GDP.
C) Increasing the compensation （报酬）for labor.
D) Introducing even more extensive tax cuts.
3.What is the logic underlying the author's viewpoint?
A)The growth of workers' paychecks （工资）ultimately boosts the nation's economy.
B)Paying a premium（溢价） to maintain a reliable workforce attracts more customers.
C) Consumption stimulates the desire for higher wages.
D) Familiar arguments for higher wages are outdated.
4.What is the basis for higher wages according to the conventional wisdom?
A) Fairness in distribution.
B) Increase in productivity.
C)The priority of economic policymakers.
D)The unerring （正确的）judgment of market forces.
5.What do we learn about things in the real world in America for the past 50 years or so?
A) People have failed to see a corresponding increase in wages and in productivity.
B) People have been disheartened by the widening（扩大） gap between the haves and have-nots.
C) People have witnessed a tug（拖拽） of war between Republicans and Democrats over tax cuts.
D) People have seen the link disappearing between productivity and workers' well-being.（福利）
Key: B-C-A-B-A
Psychologists have long been in disagreement as to whether competition is a learned or a genetic component（组成） of human behavior.
Whatever it is, you cannot but recognize the effect competition is exerting in academics and many other areas of contemporary life.
Psychologically speaking, competition has been seen as an inevitable consequence of human drives.
According to Sigmund Freud（弗洛伊德 ）, humans are born screaming for attention and full of organic drives （有机动力）for fulfillment in various areas.
Initially, we compete for the attention of our parents.
Thereafter, we are at the mercy（宽容） of a battle between our base impulses for self-fulfillment and social and cultural norms（规范） which prohibit （禁止）pure indulgence.（放纵）
Current work in anthropology（人类学） has suggested, however, that this view of the role of competition in human behavior may be incorrect.
Thomas Hobbes, one of the great philosophers of the seventeenth century, is perhaps best remembered for his characterization（描述） of the "natural world," that is, the world before the imposition（强加） of the will of humanity, as being"nasty（肮脏 ）, brutish（野蛮）, and short."
This image of the pre-rational（前理性） world is still widely held（接受）, reinforced by Charles Darwin's highly influential work, The Origin of Species, which established the doctrine （主义）of natural selection.
This doctrine, which takes for granted that those species best able to adapt to and master the natural environment in which they live will survive, has suggested that the struggle for survival is an inherent（固有的） human trait which determines a person's success.
Darwin's theory has even been summarized as "survival of the fittest（适者生存）" - a phrase Darwin himself never used - further highlighting competition's role in success.
As it has often been pointed out, however, there is nothing in the concept of natural selection that suggests that competition is the most successful strategy for "survival of the fittest."
Darwin asserted （宣称）in The Origin of Species that the struggles he was describing should be viewed as metaphors（隐喻） and could easily include dependence and cooperation.
Many studies have been conducted to test the importance placed on competition as opposed to other values, such as cooperation - by various cultures, and generally conclude that Americans uniquely praise competition as natural, inevitable, and desirable.
In 1937, the world-renowned anthropologist Margaret Mead published Cooperation and Competition among Primitive（原始的） Peoples, based on her studies of several societies that did not prize（崇尚） competition, and, in fact, seemed at times to place a negative value on it.
One such society was the Zuni Indians of Arizona, and they, Mead found, valued cooperation far more than competition.
After studying dozens of such cultures, Mead's final conclusion was that competitiveness is a culturally created aspect of human behavior, and that its prevalence（流行） in a particular society is relative to how that society values it.
1.What does the author think is easy to see in many areas of contemporary life?
A)The disagreement on the inevitability of competition.
B)The consequence of psychological investigation.
C)The effect of human drives.
D)The impact of competition.
2.According to psychology, what do people strive to do following the initial stage of the life?
A) Fulfill individual needs without incurring（招致）adverse effects of human drives.
B) Indulge（满足） in cultural pursuits while keeping their base impulses at bay.
C) Gain extensive（广泛） recognition without exposing pure indulgence.
D) Satisfy their own desires while observing social conventions.
3.What do we learn about the "natural world" characterized by Thomas Hobbes?
A)It gets misrepresented by philosophers and anthropologists.
B)It gets distorted（歪曲） in Darwin's The Origin of Species.
C)It is free from the rational intervention（干预） of humans.
D) It is the pre-rational world rarely（很少） appreciated nowadays.
4.What can we conclude from Darwin's assertion in The Origin of Species?
A) All species inherently（天生的） depend on others for survival.
B) Struggles for survival do not exclude （不排斥）mutual support.
C) Competition weighs as much as cooperation as a survival strategy.
D)The strongest species proves to be the fittest in natural selection.
5.What conclusion did Margaret Mead reach after studying dozens of different cultures?
A)It is characteristic of humans to be competitive.
B) Americans are uniquely opposed to cooperation.
C) Competition is relatively more prevalent （流行的）in Western societies.
D) People's attitude towards competition is actually culture-bound.
Key: D-D-C-B-D
Spiders make their presence felt in late August and through early autumn.
This is the mating （□□）season of some of the most common varieties, when male house spiders come out of hidden corners to look for females, and garden spiders reach □□ size and spin their most dazzling webs.
Yet while the spider is a familiar fixture of nursery poems（童谣） or songs and Halloween decorations, its relationship with humans is complicated.
Fear of spiders is common and has serious impacts on the lives of sufferers. Its prevalence（流行） appears unrelated to any rational assessment of risk. Spiders in the UK are almost all harmless.
Farmland species perform valuable ecosystem services, by preying （捕获）on insects that are our competitors for crops. But they are a constant source of human anxieties - with a cultural association with witches （女巫）and wickedness（邪恶） dating back to the middle ages.
Does this perhaps explain, in part, the lack of data about how spiders are faring in our age of ecological crisis? British butterflies are the most studied group of insects in the world, due to the long tradition of collecting and observing them.
But spider conservationists point out that it was only in the 1980s that the classification of house spiders was properly sorted out.
And while information about insect populations is gathered by experiments that measure the numbers hitting windscreens or traps, there have been few attempts to count spiders.
The huge reductions in the numbers of flying insects can only mean a reduction in spiders' food supply.
A recent landmark（里程碑） study identified a 75% fall in insect populations between 1989 and 2016, with pesticide （杀虫剂）use thought to be to blame along with the destruction of wild areas for development. This means the overall picture for spiders is worrying, as it is for most creatures.
But conservationists are most concerned about those varieties that are threatened due to habitat loss and fragmentation, which makes it impossible for them to migrate.（迁移）
Of around 650 spider species regularly recorded in the UK, the majority thrive（繁荣） in marshes （沼泽）and wasteland.
Conservation efforts, often led by determined individuals, have helped some species to recover by reintroducing（再引进） them to new areas.
With rewilding（再野生化） now firmly on the environmental policy agenda, the hope is that in future, spiders will be enabled to migrate by themselves, adapting to climate change by moving along wildlife corridors.（走廊）
It seems unlikely that spiders will ever attract the same level of human enthusiasm as bees, birds or butterflies, in spite of their unique status as nature's spinners.（纺织者）
But as they reveal themselves in all their splendour（显赫） this autumn, it would be a good thing if more animal lovers recognised the ways in which spiders are simply terrific.（极好的）
1.What do we learn about spiders in the UK since the middle ages?
A) They have been generally misconceived.
B) They have adversely impacted crop growth.
C) They have been a constant reminder of bad luck.
D) They have made their presence felt when spinning webs.
52. What have spiders been associated with in the UK for centuries?
A) Harm.
B) Evil.
C) Suffering.
D) Aggression.
53. What partly accounts for the reduction in spiders' food supply?
A) The long tradition of collecting insects.
B) Fast reproduction of their competitors.
C) Chemicals used for killing insects
D) The extinction of alot of wildlife.
54. What does the passage say is conservationists' biggest worry?
A) A variety of spiders are threatened due to pollution of marshes and wasteland.
B) Certain species of spiders are endangered due to loss of their natural homes.
C) An increasing number of spiders are being killed by deadly pesticides.
D) More and more spider species are found losing their ability to migrate.（移居）
55. What wish does the author express close to the end of the passage?
A) More people would recognise spiders' unique status in the ecosystem.
B) People would show greater enthusiasm for spiders than for butterflies.
C) There would be sufficient corridors for spiders to move along.
D)There would be more people appreciating spiders' splendour.（光彩）
Key：ABCBD
Journal editors decide what gets published and what doesn't, affecting the careers of other academics and influencing the direction that a field takes.
You'd hope, then, that journals would do everything they can to establish a diverse editorial board, reflecting a variety of voices, experiences, and identities.
Unfortunately, a new study in Nature Neuroscience （神经科学）makes for disheartening（使人沮丧的） reading.
The team finds that the majority of editors in top psychology and neuroscience journals are male and based in the United States: a situation that may be amplifying （放大的）existing gender inequalities in the field and influencing the kind of research that gets published.
Men were found to account for 60% of the editors of psychology journals.
There were significantly（显著的） more male than female editors at each level of seniority, and men made up the majority of editors in over three quarters of the journals.
Crucially, the proportion（占比） of female editors was significantly lower than the overall proportion of women psychology researchers.
The differences were even starker （更明显）in the neuroscience journals: 70% of editors were male, and men held the majority of editorial positions in 88% of journals.
In this case, the proportion of female editors was not significantly lower than the proportion of female researchers working in neuroscience - a finding that reveals enduring gender disparities （不同）in the field more broadly.
Based on their results, the team concludes that "the ideas, values, and decision-making biases of men are overrepresented in the editorial positions of the most recognized academic journals in psychology and neuroscience."
Gender inequality in science is often attributed to（归因于） the fact that senior academics are more likely to be male because historically science was male-dominated: it's argued that as time goes on and more women rise to senior roles, the field will become more equal.
Yet this study showed that even the junior roles in psychology journals tended to be held disproportionately by men, despite the fact that there are actually more female than male junior psychology faculty.（全体□□）This implies （意味着）that a lack of female academics is not the problem.
Instead, there are structural reasons（结构性问题） that women are disadvantaged in science.
Women receive lower salaries and face greater childcare demands, for instance, which can result in fewer publications and grants（资助） - the kinds of things that journals look for when deciding who to appoint.
Rather than simply blaming the inequality of editorial boards on tradition, we should be actively breaking down these existing barriers.
A lack of diversity among journal editors also likely contributes to psychology's WEIRD（奇怪的） problem.
If journal editors are largely men from the United States, then they will probably place higher value on papers that are relevant to Western, male populations, whether consciously or not.
1.What would we expect an editorial board of an academic journal to exhibit in view of its important responsibilities?
A) Insight. （洞察力）
B) Expertise.（专业性）
C) Integrity. （完整性）
D) Diversity.
2.What do we learn from the findings of a new study in Nature Neuroscience?
A)The majority of top psychology and neuroscience journals reflect a variety of voices, experiences and identities.
B)The editorial boards of most psychology and neuroscience journals do influence the direction their field takes.
C)The editorial boards of the most important journals in psychology and neuroscience are male-dominated.
D)The majority of editors in top psychology and neuroscience journals have relevant backgrounds.
3.What fact does the author highlight concerning the gender differences in editors of psychology journals?
A)There were quite a few female editors who also distinguished（卓越的） themselves as influential psychology researchers.
B)The number of female editors was simply disproportionate to that of women engaged in psychology research.
C)The proportion of female editors was increasingly lower at senior levels.
D) There were few female editors who could move up（升到） to senior positions.
4.What can we infer from the conclusion drawn by the team of the new study on the basis of their findings?
A) Women's views are underrepresented in the editorial boards of top psychology and neuroscience journals.
B) Male editors of top psychology and neuroscience journals tend to be biased against their female colleagues.
C) Male researchers have enough representation in the editorial boards to ensure their publications.
D) Female editors have to struggle to get women's research articles published in academic journals.
5.What does the author suggest we do instead of simply blaming the inequality of editorial boards on tradition?
A) Strike a balance between male and female editors.
B)Increase women's employment in senior positions.
C) Enlarge the body of female academics.
D) Implement overall structural reforms.
Key: D-C-B-A-D
