“晓来谁染霜林醉？总是学子泪。”

岑越崎轻声叹气，举目看向图书馆窗外挺拔的白桦，金黄地落叶随风簌簌飘落，落在地上，为大地铺了层新毯。

秋意甚浓，但岑越崎无暇他顾。

系统又再一次发布了任务，学海无涯，他好想跳。

【任务2:请宿主在6h内完成本次阅读真题，并保证正答率高于60%。】

抬头瞄了眼时钟，岑越崎惊恐的发现不知何时已悄然过去两个小时，咬牙翻开试卷，强迫自己专注眼前密密麻麻的单词。

Imagine you're an alien sent to Earth to document（记录） the behaviour of the mammals inhabiting the planet. You stumble （踌躇）into a movie theatre that's showing the latest Hollywood horror film. Several dozen humans are gathered together in a dark, undecorated （未装饰的）room.

They're all staring at a rectangular（矩形的） area on which patterns of light change rapidly. They are clearly in a state of high arousal（兴奋）.

Their heart rate is elevated（加快）, they occasionally glance around nervously, and they sometimes jump collectively（全体的） in their seats, and emit（发出） high-pitched （尖锐的）warning calls.

Eventually, the lights come up and the rectangular screen（矩形屏幕） goes black.

The humans stand up and leave the room, chatting and laughing, and showing signs of pleasure.

Why do these humans voluntarily（自动的） expose themselves to what appears to be a deeply unpleasant experience? And why do they react（反应） so strongly to those patterns of light on a screen?

I am fascinated by the paradox（悖论） of horror - the strange fact that many people seek out scary entertainment. I think the answer to the puzzle lies in human nature.

My research suggests that we humans evolved to find pleasure in situations that allow us to experience negative emotions in a safe context.

You can see these elements of horror in children's games.

Take hide-and-seek for example, which is a simulation of a predator-prey interaction.

The kid hides and the □□ pretends to be a predator, searching for the child while howling like a dangerous beast.

This simulation（模拟） gives the child crucial （重要的）information about how to avoid becoming prey, and children tend to find that kind of activity deeply satisfying, presumably because it gives them a safe experience of a potentially catastrophic （大灾难）scenario（场景）.

They find it pleasurable（快乐的）, and pleasure is evolution's（演进） way of motivating us toward adaptive behaviour.

Horror is pleasurable to many people because it lets us play with negative emotions and develop coping strategies. We learn what it feels like to be truly afraid, and we learn how to handle negative emotion. How, then, does horror work?

My research suggests that horror works by exploiting （利用）an ancient set of biological defense （防卫）mechanisms - an evolved fear system, which we share with other animals.

But humans are uniquely imaginative, and we use our evolved imagination to travel into virtual worlds that are full of danger.

There are good reasons for watching a horror film, even if you're not a loyal horror fan.

If you make it through the film in one piece, you'll probably experience a strong sense of mastery（掌握）, a sense that you are able to make it through an appalling （可怕的）experience.

Anyway, watching a horror film makes you better at handling your own fear, and who knows when that will become critically relevant?

46.

The alien finds the audience in the movie theatre clearly in a state of__________

A) total mindfulness

B) extreme excitement

C) spiritual elevation

D) intense curiosity

47.

Why do many people seek out scary entertainment, according to the author's research?

A)They gain experience in overcoming horror in real life.

B)They find joy in going through simulated horrible experiences.

C)They have learned from hide-and-seek as kids the thrill involved.

D)They have evolved to gain pleasure in escaping life-threatening situations.

48.

What do children learn from hide-and-seek?

A)How to avoid falling prey to an attacker.

B) How to simulate a predator-prey interaction.

C) How to keep themselves from catastrophic errors.

D) How to turn a dangerous scenario into a safe one.

49.

Why is horror gratifying （取悦）to many people?

A)It reminds them of an ancient set of biological defence mechanisms.

B)It triggers their imagination to travel into dangerous virtual worlds.

C)It allows them to learn what fear feels like and how to tackle it.

D)It activates their evolved fear system and their unique fantasy.

50.

What will one experience if they watch a horror film through without being hurt?

A)strong sense of clear relevance.

B)A profound sense of good fortune.

C) A profound sense of intense relief.

D)A strong sense of being in control.

Key: BBACD

An awakening has been taking place in the physical world against the beauty model that has been dictated to us for years.

But in the digital arena, social media determines what is considered beautiful. The two opposing struggles are taking place in parallel.（同线进行着）

In the physical world, the struggle goes against the underlying pressure exerted （外露的）on women to conform to an unrealistic（不切实际的） beauty ideal.

As part of the struggle, various media outlets have presented women whose bodies don't correspond to the so-called（所谓的） ideal.

All those women who had previously been excluded （排除的）from the covers of magazines, television series and the public agenda, have become "legitimate."（合法）

At the same time, a group of influencers have begun to upload to social media photos of themselves without make- up, and even photos in which they highlight supposed flaws（缺点）.

Technology has reshaped our beauty ideal and is doing a great job communicating that message to the masses.

One of the bizarre（奇异的） legacies（遗产） of the past decade is the popularity of the "cyborg look," （半机械人）which illustrates （描绘）what Americans will look like in 2050.

The cyborg look spread rapidly.

Today, however, the Instagram face has become the new beauty ideal.

The internalization（内在化的） of accepted beauty norms is much more effective when there is active involvement in the learning process.

The active involvement of users is reflected in the gamified （游戏化）interaction offered by the social media platforms- the ability to like, write a comment, compare, share.

Once the desired （期望的）beauty ideal has been internalized（内化）， users are given tools or features to change their appearance to suit the accepted beauty ideal such as editing the image, choosing the ideal filter（滤镜）, the right background. A survey conducted in the United States revealed that more than 50% filter the images before posting（公布） them.

And you will not be surprised to hear that the majority of them are women.

One of the significant consequences of obsessive（强迫的） filtering is the emerging tendency to treat oneself as an object （物化）to be observed and valued, in the same way another person observes and judges from the side. The effect of the filters is already far beyond amiable amusement.

The filters and the entire game played on the networks affect the mental health of the users.

According to a study, apps like Instagram, Snapchat, and FaceTune allow users to achieve a level of perfection that was previously only observed in beauty magazines.

Even though humanity has always cherished beauty, in the last decade our obsession with looks has reached an unprecedented （空前的）peak（高峰）.

The time spent on social media creates an urge to achieve an impossible beauty ideal so powerful that the only thing that can fix it is not cosmetic（美容的） intervention, but mental health care.

1.

What do we learn about beauty in the digital arena（舞台）?

A)It dictates（决定） the taste of digital media.

B)It has been in the making for years.

C)It has ushered （带来）in a new awakening.

D)It is defined by social media.

2.

What does the passage say about beauty in the physical world?

A)Women are under constant pressure to keep up with beauty models

B)Women are encouraged to pursue a beauty ideal that has never existed.

C)A fight is going on to remove pressure on women to conform（符合） to an absurd beauty ideal.

D) Media outlets have begun to present as beauty models trendy women without any makeup.

3.

What do we learn from the passage about the Instagram face?

A)It is now regarded as the new beauty ideal.

B)It is what most women will go after in 2050.

C)It is being much talked about on social media.

D)It is a perfect illustration of the ultimate beauty.

4.

What has obsessive filtering resulted in?

A)A good many women striving to reach an impossible level of perfection.

B)An urge to turn the entire game played on the network to one's advantage.

C)A tendency to regard one's body as an object of observation and judgment.

D)An increasing number of women filtering their images before uploading them.

5.

What does the author want to emphasize at the end of the passage regarding Americans' obsession with looks?

A) Cosmetic （美容）surgery should be made more accessible to the masses.

B)Psychological intervention should be introduced to alleviate it.

C)Their time spent on social media should be strictly controlled.

D)Its root cause should be meticulously examined and analyzed.

Key: DCACB

One hundred thirty-five students, four teachers, one giant classroom: This is what 9th grade looks like at Westwood High School, in Mesa, Arizona's largest school system.

There, an innovative teaching model has taken hold, and is spreading to other schools in the district （区域）and beyond.

Five years ago, faced with high teacher turnover（流动） and declining （下降）student enrollment（登记）, Westwood's leaders decided to try something different.

Working with professors at Arizona State University's teachers college, they piloted（指导） a classroom model known as team teaching, which allows teachers to dissolve（消除） the walls that separate their classes across physical or grade divides.

The teachers share large groups of students ——sometimes 100 or more —— and rotate （轮换）between group instruction, one-on-one interventions, small study groups, or whatever the teachers as a team agree is a priority that day.

What looks at times like chaos is in fact a carefully orchestrated（精心安排） plan: Each morning, the Westwood teams meet to hammer out a personalized program for every student the team will focus on that day.

By giving teachers more opportunity to collaborate, Mesa's administrators （管理者）hoped to fill staffing gaps and boost teacher morale （士气）and retention.（保留）

Initial research suggests the gamble （赌博）could pay off.

"Teachers are doing fantastic things, but it's very rare a teacher walks into another room to see what's happening,-" said Andi Fourlis, superintendent （负责人）of Mesa Public Schools.

"Our profession is so slow to advance （发展）because we are working in isolation."

Of course, overhauling teaching approaches can't fix all the frustrations（挫折） teachers have, such as low pay, but early results from Mesa show team teaching may be helping to reverse （逆转）low morale.

In a survey of hundreds of the district's teachers, researchers found those who worked on teams reported greater job satisfaction, more frequent collaborations with colleagues, and more positive interactions with students. Another benefit of teams, teachers say, is that they can help each other improve their instruction.

During one planning session, English teacher Jeff Hall shared a performance （绩效）appraisal （评估）with a science teacher: Her recent lecture on something she called "the central dogma （教条）of biology" had bewildered （使困惑）him and their other teammates.

"If the science is too confusing for me, can you imagine the frustration you feel as kids?" Hall said.

But the science teacher, he said, wouldn't have known about the confusion on her own.

The model is not for everyone.

Some teachers approached （主动提出）about volunteering for a team have said they prefer to work alone.

Team teaching can also be a scheduling nightmare（噩梦）, especially at schools like Westwood where only some staff work in teams.

There are also thorny（棘手的） questions like how to evaluate four teachers on the performance of 135 students.

But for the time being（就目前而言）, it seems to be working（有效的）.

1.

What do we learn about team teaching from the passage?

A)It is generally conducted in classrooms without walls.

B)It allows students to choose teachers they favor most.

C)It prioritizes peer work over classroom instruction.

D)It is closely coordinated despite seeming confusion.

2.

What does initial research suggest regarding Westwood's innovative teaching model?

A)It could help raise teachers' pay.

B)It could turn out to be a success.

C)It could cut down overall costs.

D)It could end up like a gamble.

3.

What did superintendent Andi Fourlis say about the teaching profession?

A) Morale cannot be boosted until teaching models are overhauled（彻底改革）.

B)Teachers are simply too busy to visit classes of their colleagues.

C) Progress is slow due to lack of collaboration among teachers.

D) Teachers often do fantastic things without being noticed.

4.

What does the author want to show by citing English teacher Jeff Hall's experience?

A) English teachers and science teachers are complementary in performing their tasks.

B)A teacher of arts and letters is completely puzzled by what a science teacher teaches.

C)The new teaching model helps inform the teacher how their instruction is received（被吸收）.

D) Science teachers will hardly know the confusion they create without a performance appraisal.

5.

What does the author think is one of the difficult problems in implementing the new teaching model?

A)What to do with teachers working alone.

B)What to include in teaching schedules.

C) How to recruit（招募） volunteers for a team.

D) How to assess（评估） each teacher's performance.

Key: DBCCD

What is a super blood wolf moon?

A) Blue moons, rose moons, supermoons. what is “Catch This Weekend's AMAZING SUPERMOON,” one headline will announce. “ The Supermoon Isn't Actually A Big Deal And You're All Ruining Astronomy," another will complain（抱怨）.

B) The latest example is the super blood wolf moon eclipse （月食）which sounds like the name of an emotional song（情歌） I would have performed a modern dance routine to in 9th grade, but is, in fact, an astronomical event set to occur on January 20. As we'll explain below, there is nothing truly mysterious or otherwise special about this moon, and it will not look like a bloody wolf head in the sky or anything wild like that. We get these super lunar events by smashing（粉碎） together all the qualifiers（限定词） we've historically used to keep track of full moons throughout the year, and in the age of the internet we can get a little too enthusiastic.

C)Consider this your go-to resource for all moon-gazing news. Here's what you need to know about

the latest lunar event.

D) Look, it's okay if you don't know. There are probably loads of folks who walk around pretending（假装）they totally know why that thing in the sky seems to get bigger and smaller at regular intervals but who totally do not.

E) The moon orbits Earth, and it's tidally locked--that means it always shows us the same face,

instead of spinning （旋转）around like our planet does. That's why you can always see the man on the moon (or the moon rabbit, depending on your cultural preferences（文化偏好）) even as it spins（旋转） around us. But while the moon is big and bright in the sky when it's full, that's only because it's reflecting light from the sun. But the moon is always moving, so it's getting hit with sunlight at different angles. It's invisible to us during the new moon, because our satellite（卫星，即月球） is parked（停留） right between us and the sun; the so-called dark side of the moon is lit up like Las Vegas, but the side we can see is in shadow. A full moon happens when the earth is right between the sun and the moon, so sunlight hits the part we can see. And all the other phases are just the transition from one of those extremes to the other,

F) The moon isn't always exactly the same distance from Earth, because its orbit isn't perfectly

Circular（圆形的）. We call the closest point perigee (近地点), and the most distant point is apogee (远地点).2018's closest perigee and most distant apogee both happened in January, and the difference was about 30,000 miles.

G) The reason you care about this ordinary change in distance is that it tums a moon super. When a full moon happens close to perigee, it's going to look a bit bigger. Honestly, the difference is not that profound, but if you're in a position to photograph the supermoon next to something that shows the slight increase in scale, it can look pretty cool. January's super blood wolf moon eclipse is super because the date lines up with the closest the moon will get to us during January, but the moon won't actually be at its closest for the year until February’s supermoon, which you can expect plenty of undue excitement over,

H) Blood moons only occur during total lunar eclipses (which can happen a few times a year in any

given location). When the moon slips （滑动）through our shadow, we give it a reddish （微红的）coloring. The moon can also look orange whenever it's rising or setting, or if it hangs low in the horizon all night-the light bouncing off（反弹） of it has to travel through a thicker atmosphere there, which scatters （散射）more blue light away. But you'll probably only see that deep, sinister red during an eclipse.

I) A lot of headlines about moons are just ridiculous (you do not need to be particularly excited

about a blue moon, it just looks like a regular full moon), but you should definitely（肯定） roll out （滚下）of bed to look at a blood moon if one is going to be visible in your region, even though they're just lunar eclipses and not evidence of bloody battles between the sky gods.

J)In March of 2018, we had our second “blue moon” of the year, to much acclaim（赞誉）. And while that's not necessarily special in an oh-gosh-get-out-and-look-at-it way, it's certainly special: a blue moon is a nickname for when two full moons fall in the same calendar month, and we hadn't previously had two in one year since 1999. We won't have it happen again until 2037. Astronomer David Chapman explained that this is merely a peculiarity of our calendar; once we stopped doing things based on the moon and started trying to follow the sun and the seasons, we stopped having one reliable full moon per month. The moon cycle is 29.53 days long on average, so in most months we still end up with a single new moon and a single full one. But every once in a while, one month steals （偷）a full moon from another. In 2018 (and in 1999, and again in 2037) both January and March stacked full moons on the first and last nights of the month, leaving February in the dark.

K) Getting two blue moons a year is rare, but we have individual（个别的） blue moons every few years. Also, fun fact: not actually blue. A moon can indeed take on a moody（忧郁的） blue color, but this only happens when particles（粒子） of just the right size disperse （分散的）through the sky-and it has nothing to do with the moon's status as " blue.” Big clouds of ash from volcanic eruptions or fires can do the trick, but it doesn't happen often, and the stars would certainly have to align（排成一行） for two such rare instances to occur at once.

L) You may have heard that the super special second blue moon of 2018 was also a Paschal（复活节） moon.

This is true! That just means it was the first full moon of spring, which is often used to determine

the date of Easter Sunday. All of this is just calendar nonsense and we refuse to go into it further.

M) Sometimes you'll see a headline that promises a moon with so many qualifiers it makes your

head spin（头晕）. A super blue blood worm moon, perhaps? Or a super blood wolf moon? Lots of websites will tell you that “wolf moon” is the traditional name of the first full moon of the year in “Native American”cultures, which is kind of a weird（奇怪的） thing to claim given that there are 573 registered（注册的） Tribal Nations in the U.S. alone today, not to mention historically. The idea that hungry, howling wolves were such a universal constant in January that all of North America with its different cultures, geographies, and languages spontaneously （自发的）came up with the same nickname （绰号）is illogical.

N) Many cultures have traditional names for the full moon in a given month or season, so there's

quite a list to draw from if you're trying

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