From 2008 to 2013, American households lost $l1 trillion in real estate, savings, and stocks. More than half of all U. S. workers either lost their jobs or were forced to take cuts in hours or pay during the recession. The worst may be behind them now, but the shocking losses of the past few years have reshaped nearly every facet of their lives—how they live, work, and spend—even the way they think about the future.

For Cindy, the recession began when her husband was relocated to Rhinelander, Wisconsin, by his company, forcing the family to move in a hurry. The couple bought a new house but were unable to sell their two-bedroom home in Big Lake, Minnesota. With two mortgages(抵押借款) and two young children to care for,  Cindy couldn't imagine how to stretch her husband's paycheck to keep her family fed.

Then she stumbled upon an online community called Blotanical, a forum for gardeners, many with an interest in sustainability. “The more I read and discussed these practices, the more I realized this would help not only our budget but also our health,” she says.

Cindy admits that before the recession, she was a city girl with no interest in growing her own dinner. “I grew flowers mostly—I didn’t think about plants that weren’t visually interesting.” But to stretch her budget, she began putting in vegetables and fruit—everything from strawberry beds to apple trees—and as her first seedlings grew, her spirits lifted. She no longer thinks of gardening and making her own jams as just a money saver; they’re a genuine pleasure. “It’s brought us closer together as a family, too,” she says. Her kids voluntarily pitch in with(主动帮助) the garden work, and the family cooks together instead of eating out. The food tastes better —it's fresher and organic —and the garden handily fulfills its original purpose: cost cutting. Now she spends about $200 to $300 a month on groceries, less than half of the $650 a month that she used to lay out.

After discovering how resourceful she can be in tough times, Cindy is no longer easily discouraged. “It makes me feel proud to be able to say I made it myself,” she says. “I feel accomplished, and I'm more confident about attempting things I've never done before. Now she avoids convenience stores and has begun learning to knit, quilt, and make her own soap. “I don't think I would have ever begun this journey if it weren’t for the recession,” she says. “I have a feeling that from now on, it will affect my family’s health and happiness for the better.”

21. We learn from the first paragraph that the recession______.

A. had great impact on Americans’ work and life.

B. affected Americans in certain occupations.

 C. had only brought huge losses in savings and stocks.

D. is over with some of the losses recovered.

22. What made the family's financial situation even worse was that they_______.

A. moved to Rhinelander in a hurry.          B. had two children to raise.

C. didn't know anyone in Rhinelander.             D. couldn't sell their home in Big Lake.

23. In addition, Cindy views gardening as a genuine pleasure because gardening _______.

A. helped her cut living costs almost by half.

B. enabled her to make her own jams.

C. built up family ties and kids’ enthusiasm.

D. enabled her to know more about plants.

24. What does Cindy think of the difficult times she has gone through?

A. It gave the couple and their kids a tough lesson.

B. It gave her confidence and optimism.

C. It would come again and affect the family.

D. It left a lasting psychological impact on the family.

　  When it’s five o’clock, people leave their office. The length of the workday, for many workers, is defined by time. They leave when the clock tells them they’re done.

　　These days, the time is everywhere: not just on clocks or watches, but on cell-phones and computers. That may be a bad thing, particularly at work. New research shows on that clock-based work schedules hinder morale（士气）and creativity.

　　Clock-timers organize their day by blocks of minutes and hours. For example: a meeting from 9 am to 10 a.m., research from 10 a.m. to noon, etc. On the other hand, task-timers have a list of things they want to accomplish. They work down the list, each task starts when the previous task is completed. It is said that all of us employ a mix of both these types of planning.

　　What, then, are the effects of thinking about time in these different ways? Does one make us more productive? Better at the tasks at hand? Happier? In experiments conducted by Tamar Avnet and Anne-Laure Sellier, they had participants organize different activities—from project planning, holiday shopping, to yoga—by time or to-do list to measure how they performed under “clock time” vs “task time.” They found clock timers to be more efficient but less happy because they felt little control over their lives. Task timers are happier and more creative, but less productive. They tend to enjoy the moment when something good is happening, and seize opportunities that come up.

　 The researchers argue that task-based organizing tends to be undervalued and under-supported in the business culture. Smart companies, they believe, will try to bake more task-based planning into their strategies.

　　This might be a small change to the way we view work and the office, but the researchers argue that it challenges a widespread characteristic of the economy: work organized by clock time. While most people will still probably need, and be, to some extent, clock-timers, task-based timing should be used when performing a job that requires more creativity. It’ll make those tasks easier, and the task-doers will be happier.

25. What does the author think of time displayed everywhere?

　 A. It makes everybody time-conscious.

　 B. If may have a negative effect on creative work.

　 C. It is a convenience for work and life.

　 D. It clearly indicates the fast pace of modern life.

26. What did Tamar Avnet and Anne-Laure Sellier find in their experiments about clock-timers?

　 A. They seize opportunities as they come up.

　 B. They always get their work done in time.

　 C. They tend to be more productive.

　 D. They have more control over their lives.

27. What do the researchers say about today’s business culture?

　 A. It does not support the strategies adopted by smart companies.

　 B. It aims to bring employees’ potential and creativity into full play.

　 C. It places more emphasis on work efficiency than on workers’ lives,

　 D. It does not attach enough importance to task-based practice.

28. What do the researchers suggest?

　 A. Task-based timing is preferred for doing creative work.

　 B. It is important to keep a balance between work and life.

　 C. Performing creative jobs tends to make workers happier.

　 D. A scientific standard should be adopted in job evaluation.

Overwhelmed by more information than we can possibly hold in our heads, we're increasingly handing off the job of remembering to search engines and smart phones. Google is even reportedly working on eyeglasses that could one day recognize faces and supply details about whoever you're looking at. But new research shows that outsourcing our memory ─ and expecting that information will be continually and instantaneously available ─is changing our cognitive habits.

    Research conducted by Betsy Sparrow, an assistant professor of psychology at Columbia

University, has identified three new realities about how we process information in the Internet age. First, her experiments showed that when we don't know the answer to a question, we now think about where we can find the nearest Web connection instead of the subject of the question itself. A second revelation is that when we expect to be able to find information again later on, we don't remember it as well as when we think it might become unavailable. And then there is the researchers' final observation: the expectation that we'll be able to locate information down the line leads us to form a memory not of the fact itself but of where we'll be able to find it.

    But this handoff comes with a downside. Skills like critical thinking and analysis must develop in the context of facts: we need something to think and reason about, after all. And these facts can't be Googled as we go; they need to be stored in the original hard drive, our long-term memory. Especially in the case of children, “factual knowledge must precede skill,” says Daniel Willingham, a professor of psychology, at the University of Virginia ─ meaning that the days of drilling the multiplication table and memorizing the names of the Presidents aren't over quite yet. Adults, too, need to recruit a supply of stored knowledge in order to situate and evaluate new information they encounter. You can't Google context.

    Last, there's the possibility, increasingly terrifying to contemplate, that our machines fail us. As Sparrow puts it, “The experience of losing our Internet connection becomes more and more like losing a friend.” If you're going to keep your memory on your smart phone, better make sure it's fully charged.

29. Google's eyeglasses are supposed to _____.

A. improve our memory                           B. function like memory.

C. help us see faces better.                            D. work like smart phones.

30. According to the passage, the underlined words “cognitive habits” refers to ______.

A. how we deal with information.             B. functions of human memory.

C. the amount of information.                 D. the availability of information.

31. Which of the following statements about Sparrow's research is CORRECT?

A. We remember people and things as much as before.

B. We remember more Internet connections than before.

C. We tend to remember location rather than the core of facts.

D. We pay equal attention to location and content of information.

32. What is the implied message of the author?

A. Web connections aid our memory.        B. People differ in what to remember.

C. People keep memory on smart phones.      D. People need to exercise their memory.

We have a crisis on our hands. You mean global warming? The world economy? No, the decline of reading. People are just not doing it anymore, especially the young. Who's responsible? Actually, it's more like, What is responsible? The Internet, of course, and everything that comes with it ─Facebook, Twitter. You can write your own list.

There's been a warning about the imminent death of literate civilization for a long time. In the 20th century, first it was the movies, then radio, then television that seemed to spell doom for the written world. None did. Reading survived; in fact it not only survived, it has flourished. The world is more literate than ever before ─ there are more and more readers, and more and more books.

The fact that we often get our reading material online today is not something we should worry over. The electronic and digital revolution of the last two decades has arguably shown the way forward for reading and for writing. Take the arrival of e-book readers as an example. Devices like Kindle make reading more convenient and are a lot more environmentally friendly than the traditional paper book.

As technology makes new ways of writing possible, new ways of reading are possible. Interconnectivity allows for the possibility of a reading experience that was barely imaginable before. Where traditional books had to make do with photographs and illustrations, an e-book can provide readers with an unlimited number of links: to texts, pictures, and videos. In the future, the way people write novels, history, and philosophy will resemble nothing seen in the past.

On the other hand, there is the danger of trivialization. One Twitter group is offering its followers single-sentence-long “digests” of the great novels. War and Peace in a sentence? You must be joking. We should fear the fragmentation of reading. There is the danger that the high-speed connectivity of the Internet will reduce our attention span ─ that we will be incapable of reading anything of length or which requires deep concentration.

In such a fast-changing world, in which reality seems to be remade each day, we need the ability to focus and understand what is happening to us. This has always been the function of literature and we should be careful not to let it disappear. Our society needs to be able to imagine the possibility of someone utterly in tune with modern technology but also able to make sense of a dynamic, confusing world.

In the 15th century, Johannes Guttenberg's invention of the printing press in Europe had a huge impact on civilization. Once upon a time the physical book was a challenging thing. We should remember this before we assume that technology is out to destroy traditional culture.

33. The following are all cited as advantages of e-books EXCEPT ______.

A. multimodal content                       B. environmental friendliness

C. convenience for readers               D. imaginative design

34. According to the passage, people need knowledge of modern technology and ______ to survive in the fast-changing society.

A. good judgment                              B. high sensitivity

C. good imagination                                  D. the ability to focus

35. What is the main idea of the passage?

A. Technology pushes the way forward for reading and writing.

B. Interconnectivity is a feature of new reading experience.

C. Technology is an opportunity and a challenge for traditional reading.

D. Technology offers a greater variety of reading practice.

   Lost in the Post

    How would you feel if the letter you penned carefully and posted to your favorite star ended up in the recycling bin? That's where unopened fan mail sent to singer Taylor Swift was found in Nashville.   36  

Swift’s management said it was an accident, but dealing with piles of letters is a burden for most public figures. According to the BBC reporter Jon Kelly, at the height of his fame, Johnny Depp was said to receive up to 10,000 letters a week.   37  

The dawn of the digital age in which public figures with a Twitter account can be messaged directly has made the process easier. The White House says it deals with 20,000 messages addressed to President Barack Obama each day.

Some celebrities don’t want letters. In 2008, Beatles drummer Ringo Starr said that he would throw them out because he was too busy.  38   Robert Pattinson, star of the Twilight films, claims that he reads tons and tons of letters from fans, which takes up almost all his free time.

Many artists, however, outsource (外包) the task of opening, reading and replying. Sylvia “Spanky” Taylor, 58, has run a service in California that does just that since 1987.   39    Most letters are simply declarations of affection and admiration, she says. A few ask for money. A small number contain threats which require her to contact the celebrity’s security team and law enforcement.

The biggest problem for Taylor is working out how to deal with the correspondence(通信). Presents such as soft toys are sent to local hospitals, and most of the letters just get shredded and recycled.

   40    For some, this is enough, according to Lynn Zubernis, an expert at West Chester University. She says that the relationship between fan and celebrity may exist only in the mind of the former but it comes from a deeply-rooted human need for community.

A. Others do attempt to get through it themselves.

B. In fact, there is no alternative to deal with the problem.

C. How could he have enough time to skim through these letters one by one?

D. Typically, correspondence is acknowledged by a photo with a printed “signature”.

E. Accordingly, the correspondence problem has been difficult for the computer to automate.

F. She and her staff deal with up to 20,000 items of mail a month on behalf of 26 celebrities.

G. This incident has caused a wide public concern about how the public figures deal with the letters or mails from the fans.