—Alice, you have won the first place!
—Pardon? I ______ I would fail the exam this time.
A. think B. thought C. have thought D. am thinking
Microsoft ended support for Windows XP after April 8, which _______a major operating system for some Chinese computer users, and advised users to upgrade to Windows 8.1.
A. remained B. remains C. is remaining D. is remained
The CCTV show Chinese Characters Dictation Competition has taken the country by storm, which is partly designed to arouse people’s _______ in the Chinese language.
A. response B. enthusiasm C. significance D. consequence
下图表为近几年中美两国电子商务发展比较及其将来几年的发展趋势。请根据图表信息，以 “E-commerce, an ever-increasing trend in China”为题，为某英语报写一篇稿子，内容须包括：
1、图表主要信息（用30个左右英语单词描述）；
2、中国电子商务增长的原因（经济稳步增长，人民收入提高，人口大于美国，网上购物方便）；
3、你的观点（可从保护和规范电子商务市场谈起）。
注意：
1、词数150左右，开头已经给出，但不计入词数；
2、作文中不得提及你所在的学校及本人姓名。
3、参考词汇：cybercrime网络犯罪；phishing网络钓鱼
E-Commerce Sales and Growth 2008-2016 (China vs US) |
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E-commerce, an ever-increasing trend in China
The chart shows China’s e-commerce sales started with only 20 billion USD in 2008, and
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请认真阅读下面短文，并根据所读内容在文章后表格中的空格里填上一个最恰当的单词。注意：请将答案写在答题纸上。
Talking to friends on WeChat, Wang Chenchen’s mood changes according to her friends’ replies. Long sentences are always heartwarming and happy emoticons indicate the other person’s good spirits. But one word replies like “OK”, “Oh” or “hehe” quickly kill the mood.
Over-reliance on online communication is causing division between people and social anxiety in this digital era. With social media bringing people closer together than ever before, a new set of online language norms also appears.
Connected or separated
Wang Chenchen, 20, an English major at the University of International Business and Economics says, “I tend to judge my friends by the quality and speed with which they comment on my updates on Weibo or WeChat.”
But to Chen Jie, 21, a biological engineering major at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wang’s evaluation system is problematic. “Everyone has their lifestyle and a certain way of using social media,” says Chen, who is always busy working in the laboratory and hardly has time for social media.
Ge Yan, a professor of communication at Shanghai Jiaotong University, says social media is causing fragmentation (碎片化) of communication. “People tend to judge their surroundings by the information available,” says Ge. “They also evaluate their friendships and others’ lifestyles based on fragmented pieces of information with which they construct a so-called reality.”
Need for emotion
According to Ge, such superficial communication helps encourage more interaction between people, but in terms of building solid interpersonal relationships it causes more harm than good. An online survey on Sina Weibo last month shows, “hehe” was the top conversation killer in 2013. “The words people hate all have one thing in common — a lack of emotion,” says Ge.
Zhang Wei, a professor of linguistics at Renmin University of China, thinks that such short expressions carry so little emotion that they separate people. Chatting online cannot convey the same emotions as communication in real life. This makes it difficult to understand the other person’s true intentions. “That’s why I always suggest talking face to face to resolve problems,” says Zhang. “Unfortunately the reality is that most people spend less time talking to each other in this way.”
Anxiety and insecurity
Zhang further explains that the reason why people’s mood is strongly affected by such unemotional words when communicating online is rooted in social anxiety. People feel insecure because of all kinds of pressures. It’s like a vicious circle — “Less time for face-to-face communication leads to more online communication, but online expressions of emotion are too changeable to provide the comfort needed,” says Zhang. “As a result, people become more anxious.”
Title | Conversation killers | |
Problems | People’s mood is easily affected by unemotional words while communicating online. In this digital era, people are feeling more separated, (1) ________ and insecure than ever before. | |
Reasons | People (2) ________ on online communication too much. Online talkers start to (3) ________ a new set of online language norms. | |
Name | (4)________ | What they say and think |
Wang Chenchen | An English major | I tend to judge a friend by how well and how (5) ________ they reply to my updates on Weibo or WeChat. |
Chen Jie | A biological engineering major | Wang’s evaluation system doesn’t hold water because different people have different (6) ________ and different ways of using social media. |
Ge Yan | Professor of communication | Incomplete (7) ________ can’t be used to evaluate people’s friendships, and superficial communication does harm to interpersonal relationships. People’s (8) ________ for short and careless replies like “hehe” arises from their lack of emotion. |
Zhang Wei | Professor of linguistics | Those unemotional expressions (9) ________ the gap between people. My (10) ________ is that people should talk face to face though busy. |
Hacking our senses to boost learning power
Some schools are pumping music, noises and pleasant smells into the classroom to see if it improves exam results. Could it work? Why do songs stick in our heads? What does your school smell like? Is it noisy or peaceful?
It might not seem important, but a growing body of research suggests that smells and sounds can have an impact on learning, performance and creativity. Indeed, some head teachers have recently taken to broadcasting noises and pumping smells into their schools to see whether it can boost grades. Is there anything in it? And if so, what are the implications for the way we work and study?
There is certainly some well-established research to suggest that some noises can have a harmful effect on learning. Numerous studies over the past 15 years have found that children attending schools under the flight paths of large airports fall behind in their exam results. Bridget Shield, a professor of acoustics (声学) at London South Bank University, and Julie Dockrell, from the Institute of Education, have been conducting studies on the effects of all sorts of noises, such as traffic and sirens (汽笛), as well as noise generated by the children themselves. When they recreated those particular sounds in an experimental setting while children completed various learning tasks, they found a significant negative effect on exam scores. “Everything points to a bad impact of the noise on children’s performance, in numeracy, in literacy, and in spelling,” says Shield. The noise seemed to have an especially harmful effect on children with special needs.
Whether background sounds are beneficial or not seems to depend on what kind of noise it is — and the volume. In a series of studies published last year, Ravi Mehta from the College of Business at Illinois and his colleagues tested people’s creativity while exposed to a soundtrack made up of background noises — such as coffee-shop chatter and construction-site drilling — at different volumes. They found that people were more creative when the background noises were played at a medium level than when volume was low. Loud background noise, however, damaged their creativity.
Many teachers all over the world already play music to students in class. Many are inspired by the belief that hearing music can boost IQ in later tasks, the so-called Mozart effect. While the evidence actually suggests it’s hard to say classical music boosts brainpower, researchers do think pleasant sounds before a task can sometimes lift your mood and help you perform well, says Perham, who has done his own studies on the phenomenon. The key appears to be that you enjoy what you’re hearing. “If you like the music or you like the sound — even listening to a Stephen King novel — then you do better. It doesn’t matter about the music,” he says.
So, it seems that schools that choose to prevent disturbing noises and create positive soundscapes could enhance the learning of their students, so long as they make careful choices. Yet this isn’t the only sense being used to affect learning. Special educational needs students at Sydenham high school in London are being encouraged to revise different subjects in the presence of different smells — grapefruit scents for maths, lavender for French and spearmint for history.
1.The four questions in the first paragraph are meant to ________.
A. create some sense of humour to please the readers
B. provide the most frequently asked questions in schools nowadays
C. hold the readers’ attention and arouse their curiosity to go on reading
D. declare the purpose of the article: to try to offer key to those questions
2.What does the conclusion of the studies of noise conducted by Bridget Shield and Julie Dockrell suggest?
A. Peaceful music plays an active role in students’ learning.
B. Not all noises have a negative impact on children’s performance.
C. We should create for school children a more peaceful environment.
D. Children with special needs might be exposed to some particular sounds.
3.Ravi Mehta’s experiment indicates that ________.
A. students’ creativity improves in a quiet environment
B. we may play some Mozart music while students are learning
C. a proper volume of background noises does improve creativity
D. noise of coffee-shop chatter is better than that of construction-site drilling
4.Towards the positive impact of appropriate background sound and smell on students’ learning and creativity, the author’s attitude is ________.
A. ambiguousB. doubtfulC. negativeD. supportive
5.Which of the following is most likely to follow up the research findings?
A. Experts’ research into other senses that can improve students’ grades.
B. More successful examples of boosting learning power by using music.
C. Suggestions for pumping lots of pleasant smells into school campuses.
D. Debates on whether noises can really have positive effect on students’ performance.
