When you set a foot outside of your door to drop trash, go to a social event or go for a walk, thoughts like “I hope I don't see anyone I know” or “please don’ t talk to me” may run through your mind. I’ ve also said such things to myself. Sometimes the last thing you want to do is talk with someone, especially someone new.

Why do we go out of our ways to avoid people? Do we think meeting new people is a waste of time? Or are we just lazy, thinking that meeting someone new really is a trouble?

Communication is the key to life. We have been told that many times. Take the past generations, like our parents, for example. They seem to take full advantage of that whole “communication” idea because they grew up talking face to face while Generation-Y grew up staring at screens. We spend hours of our days sitting on Facebook. We send messages to our friends and think about all of the things we want to say to certain people that we don't have the courage to actually do in reality.

Nowadays, we are so caught up in our little circle of friends — our comfort zone. We love it that they laugh at our jokes, understand our feelings and can read our minds. Most importantly, they know when we want to be alone. They just get us.

Holding a conversation with someone new means agreeing with things that you don’t actually believe and being someone you think they want you to be — it is, as I said before, a trouble. It takes up so much energy, and at some point or another, it is too tiring.

But meeting new people is important. Life is too short, so meet all the people you can meet, make the effort to go out and laugh. Remember, Every “hello” leads to a smile — and a smile is worth a lot.

28．What do we learn about the author?

A．He likes to be alone.

B．He feels stressed out lately.

C．He's active in attending social events.

D．He's afraid of talking to others at times.

29．What's the problem of Generation-Y in the author’s eyes?

A．They rely on the Internet to socialize.

B．They are less confident in themselves.

C．They have difficulty in communicating.

D．They are unwilling to make new friends.

30．Why do many young people avoid meeting new people?

A．They think it troublesome.

B．They are busy with their study.

C．They fear to disappoint their old friends.

D．They want to take time to do meaningful work.

31．Why does the author write the text?

A．To tell about the importance of friends.

B．To give tips on how to meet new people.

C．To encourage people to meet new people.

D．To introduce the disadvantages of Generation-Y.

 We’ve all been there: in a lift, in line at the bank or on an airplane, surrounded by people who are, like us, deeply focused on their smartphones or, worse, struggling with the uncomfortable silence.

What’s the problem? It’s possible that we all have compromised conversational intelligence. It’s more likely that none of us start a conversation because it’s awkward and challenging, or we think it’s annoying and unnecessary. But the next time you find yourself among strangers, consider that small talk is worth the trouble. Experts say it’s an invaluable social practice that results in big benefits.

Dismissing small talk as unimportant is easy, but we can’t forget that deep relationships wouldn’t

even exist if it weren’t for casual conversation. Small talk is the grease(润滑剂) for social communication, says Bernardo Carducci, director of the Shyness Research Institute at Indiana University Southeast. ＂Almost every great love story and each big business deal begins with small talk,＂ he explains. ＂The key to successful small talk is learning how to connect with others, not just communicate with them.＂

In a 2014 study, Elizabeth Dunn, associate professor of psychology at UBC, invited people on their way into a coffee shop. One group was asked to seek out an interaction(互动) with its waiter; the other, to speak only when necessary. The results showed that those who chatted with their server reported significantly higher positive feelings and a better coffee shop experience. ＂It’s not that talking to the waiter is better than talking to your husband,＂ says Dunn. ＂But interactions with peripheral(边缘的) members of our social network matter for our well-being also.＂

Dunn believes that people who reach out to strangers feel a significantly greater sense of belonging, a bond with others. Carducci believes developing such a sense of belonging starts with small talk. ＂Small talk is the basis of good manners,＂ he says.

100．What phenomenon is described in the first paragraph?

A．Addiction to smartphones.

B．Inappropriate behaviours in public places.

C．Absence of communication between strangers.

D．Impatience with slow service.

101．What is important for successful small talk according to Carducci?

A．Showing good manners.                             B．Relating to other people.

C．Focusing on a topic.                                   D．Making business deals.

102．What does the coffee-shop study suggest about small talk?

A．It improves family relationships.                  B．It raises people’s confidence.

C．It matters as much as a formal talk.              D．It makes people feel good.

103．What is the best title for the text?

A．Conversation Counts                                  B．Ways of Making Small Talk

C．Benefits of Small Talk                                D．Uncomfortable Silence

    In a recent series of experiments at the University of California, researchers studied toddlers’ thinking about winners and losers, bullies (欺凌) and victims.

In the first experiment, toddlers (学步儿童) watched a scene in which two puppets (木偶) had conflicting goals: One was crossing a stage from right to left, and the other from left to right. The puppets met in the middle and stopped. Eventually one puppet bowed down and moved aside, letting the other one pass by. Then researchers asked the toddlers which puppet they liked. The result: 20 out of 23 toddlers picked the higher-status puppet — the one that did not bow or move aside. It seems that individuals can gain status for being dominant (占优势的) and toddlers like winners better than losers.

But then researchers had another question: Do toddlers like winners no matter how they win? So, researchers did another experiment very similar to the one described above. But this time, the conflict ended because one puppet knocked the other down and out of the way. Now when the toddlers were asked who they liked, the results were different: Only 4 out of 23 children liked the winner.

These data suggest that children already love a winner by the age of 21-31 months. This does not necessarily mean that the preference is inborn: 21 months is enough time to learn a lot of things. But if a preference for winners is something we learn, we appear to learn it quite early.

Even more interesting, the preference for winners is not absolute. Children in our study did not like a winner who knocked a competitor down. This suggests that already by the age of 21-31 months, children’s liking for winners is balanced with other social concerns, including perhaps a general preference for nice or helpful people over aggressive ones.

In a time when the news is full of stories of public figures who celebrate winning at all costs, these results give us much confidence. Humans understand dominance, but we also expect strong individuals to guide, protect and help others. This feels like good news.

245．One of the purposes of the experiments is to ________.

A．teach toddlers how to gain higher status

B．offer toddlers a chance to watch a scene

C．observe the process of toddlers’ solving a conflict

D．find out toddlers’ attitude toward winners and losers

246．The toddlers regarded bowing and moving aside as a sign of ________.

A．obeying rules

B．gaining status

C．giving in to the other

D．showing good manners

247．What does the second experiment tell us about toddlers?

A．They are excellent learners.

B．They are always changeable.

C．They show mercy to the loser.

D．They value kindness over winning.

248．What does the author think of the results of the series of experiments?

A．Disappointing.                                           B．Encouraging.

C．Unexpected.                                              D．Controversial.

    “Without trust,” writes Rachel Botsman, “society cannot survive, and it certainly cannot thrive."

Clearly, we are in trouble. Two-thirds of people surveyed last year in 28 countries expressed low levels of trust in "mainstream institutions" of business, government and media.

In “Who Can You Trust?” Botsman, an Oxford lecturer offers a timely and accessible framework for understanding what trust is, how it works, why it matters and how it is evolving. It is an important guidance to the obstacles and opportunities we face as a society if we are to repair and redefine trust.

Through human history, trust has evolved in three basic stages: Local trust was enough when people lived in small communities and everybody knew everybody else; industrialization and urbanization required institutional trust so that people could trust complete strangers running governments, corporations, and standards for international trade, commerce and finance. We are now living through a massive global .shift of trust from institutions to individuals: distributed trust facilitated by high-tech platforms, many of which are run by the private sector.

This shift is caused by several factors. First, accountability is unequal. Rich, powerful and well-connected individuals have been able to accumulate vast quantities of often undocumented wealth by avoiding tax and anti-bribery laws, while ordinary people are likely to be caught and punished for lawbreaking. Second, people in power are no longer seen to deserve greater respect as the details of their lives are exposed.

Botsman does not prescribe how we deal with that. But if the old ways of giving and cancelling trust such as voting, markets and consumer choice are no longer functioning, then we must change or replace them. Systems must be "driven democratically and rationally," become more "transparent, inclusive, and accountable" and, most important, be designed to "put people first," which profit-driven platforms have failed to do sufficiently.

Tech executives are responding to the trust crisis mainly with promises of more and better technology. But Batsman warns that the responsibility for ensuring that the robots being used are trustworthy lies with the human beings who design and use them. We have not thought through how we hold those people accountable, let alone their robots. She warns against a natural tendency "to become over-reliant on machines." Ideally machines should be programmed to "understand" their own limitations and even seek human help or intervention.

A growing number of people hope that new trust mechanisms can be established through the use of exciting new technologies such as the blockchain（区块链）. In essence, blockchains are digital public ledgers of transactions that cannot be changed, thereby creating greater transparency and accountability and making corruption much harder.

However, Botsman warns that the blockchain is no panacea for human trust. Whether blockchain systems lead to more accountable governance and a more just global economy will depend on their design and the intentions of those who build them. There is no app for fixing trust.

"Who Can You Trust?" does make a clear case for why it is important for the companies, governments and other institutions to be much more transparent and subject themselves to new mechanisms that can credibly hold them accountable. It is the only way they can hope to earn and maintain trust in the future.

41．Which of the following orders of trust evolution is right?

A．institutional trust→ industrialized trust→ individual trust

B．urbanized trust→ local trust→ institutional trust

C．local trust→ institutional trust→ distributed trust

D．local trust→ urbanized trust →individual trust

42．What can we conclude from the passage?

A．Profit-driven platforms pay no attention to the importance of people.

B．It is the people who design and use technology that count in restoring trust.

C．New technologies, such as the blockchain can prevent corruption from happening.

D．People should rely on new technologies to create transparency and accountability.

43．What do the underlined words “no panacea" mean?

A．not a Herculean task                                   B．a hard nut

C．not a cure-all medicine                               D．a catch -22

44．What's the author's attitude toward the possibility of using technology to restore trust?

A．Supportive                                                B．Negative

C．Indifferent                                                D．Skeptical

请阅读下面图画及文字,并按照要求用英语写一篇150词左右的文章。

［写作内容］

1.用约30个词概括上面图文所反映的社会现象。

2.谈谈尊重他人的重要性。

3.举例说明在生活中你是如何尊重他人的。

（写作要求）

1. 写作过程中不能直接引用原文语句；

2. 作文中不能出现真实姓名和学校名称;

3.不必写标题。

［评分标准］

内容完整，语言规范，语篇连贯，词数适当。

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