阅读理解之猜测含义（单词、短语、句子）
Part 5 真题检测
2．C
【来源】2023年北京卷英语真题
【导语】本文为说明文。文章主要探讨了ALife是否也在不断地进化的问题。
词句猜测题。根据划线词上文“Artificial intelligence may be considered ALife’s cousin in that researchers in both fields are enamored by a concept called open-ended evolution (演化).(人工智能可能被认为是ALife的表亲，因为这两个领域的研究人员都被一个叫做开放进化的概念enamored)”可知，人工智能可能被认为是ALife的表亲，说明人工智能和ALife二者间有共同之处，可推测是因为这两个领域的研究人员都被一个叫做开放进化的概念所吸引，所以才有了这种观点。故划线词意为“吸引”。故选C。
5．C
【来源】2023年全国甲卷英语真题
【导语】本文是一篇记叙文，文章主要讲述了一位DIY高手Terri Boltonis的技能以及DIY项目可能会在女性群体中变成一种潮流趋势。
词句猜测题。根据文章第一段画线短语下文“Skilled at putting up shelves and piecing together furniture, she never pays someone else to do a job she can do herself. (她擅长摆架子和拼接家具，从不付钱给别人做她自己能做的工作)”可推知，此处指Terri Boltonis是一位DIY高手。C项“A specialist (一位专业人员)”最接近画线短语“a dab hand”的意思。故选C。
11．B
【来源】2023年全国乙卷英语真题
【导语】本文是一篇议论文。本文讨论了仅仅依靠书面文本来讲述世界历史的局限性，并强调了将物品纳入历史叙事以更好地理解无文字社会的重要性。
词句猜测题。根据划线单词上文“The Caribbean Taino, the Australian Aboriginals, the African people of Benin and the Incas, all of whom appear in this book, can speak to us now of their past achievements most powerfully through the objects they made: a history told through things gives them back a voice. When we consider contact (联系) between literate and non-literate societies such as these, all our first-hand accounts are necessarily twisted, only one half of a dialogue. (加勒比海的泰诺人、澳大利亚的土著人、贝宁的非洲人以及印加人，所有这些人都出现在这本书中，他们现在都可以通过他们制造的物品向我们讲述他们过去最强大的成就：通过物品讲述的历史给了他们一个声音。当我们考虑诸如此类的有文化社会和无文化社会之间的接触时，我们所有的第一手资料都必然是扭曲的，只有对话的一半。)”结合划线句“If we are to find the other half of that conversation, we have to read not just the texts, but the objects. (如果我们要找到对话的另一半，我们不仅要读文本，还要读物体。)”可知，我们对过去历史的了解，只是书写历史的人所想要让我们了解的历史，如果我们想要了解历史的另一半，我们不仅仅要读文本也要读对象。所以conversation指的是“历史”。故选B。
14．A
【来源】2023年新课标全国Ⅰ卷英语真题
【导语】本文是一篇说明文。文章主要介绍了数字极简主义生活方式的优点，倡导简单的数字生活方式。
词句猜测题。根据画线词下文“This process requires you to step away from optional online activities for thirty days. At the end of the thirty days, you will then add back a small number of carefully chosen online activities that you believe will provide massive benefits to the things you value. (这个过程要求你在30天内远离可选的在线活动。在30天结束的时候，你再加上一些你认为会给你所看重的东西带来巨大好处的精心挑选的在线活动)”可推知，画线词“declutter”的意思是“清理”，对在线活动进行清理和挑选。故选A。
19．A
【来源】2023年新课标全国Ⅱ卷英语真题
【导语】本文是一篇说明文。文章是对一本书的介绍，主要介绍了印刷书籍和阅读对人类的重要意义。
词句猜测题。根据画线词上文“artworks are selected and arranged in a way that emphasizes these connections between different eras and cultures. We see scenes of children learning to read at home or at school, with the book as a focus for relations between the generations. (艺术品的选择和排列方式强调了不同时代和文化之间的联系。我们看到孩子们在家里或学校学习阅读的场景，这本书是几代人之间关系的焦点)”以及“These scenes may have been painted hundreds of years ago, but they record moments (这些场景可能是数百年前绘制的，但它们记录了一些时刻)”可推知，此处指书籍是人类之间相互联系和理解的纽带，故与画线短语“relate to”意思最相近的为A项“理解、认识到”。故选A。
21．B
【来源】2023年浙江省1月高考英语真题
【导语】本文是一篇记叙文。文章讲述了作者如何在家庭中过零浪费的生活方式。
词句猜测题。根据划线部分前文“Chances are that if you’re looking to live a more sustainable lifestyle, not everyone around you will be ready to(如果你想过一种更可持续的生活方式，可能不是你周围的每个人都准备好)”及第二段中的“I’ve learned a few things along the way though, which I hope you’ll find encouraging if you’re doing your best to figure out how you can make the change in a not-always-supportive household.(在这个过程中，我学到了一些东西，我希望如果你在一个不总是支持你的家庭中尽最大努力去弄清楚如何做出改变，你会感到鼓舞)”可知，如果你想过一种更可持续的生活方式，可能不是你周围的每个人都准备好加入这一运动。由此推知，划线词组jump on that bandwagon与Join you in what you’re doing.(加入你正在做的事情)意思接近。故选B。
26．C
【来源】2023年浙江省1月高考英语真题
【导语】本文是一篇新闻报道，主要介绍的是在辩论中战胜人类的名为Project Debater的软件程序。
词句猜测题。根据第二段的“Brilliant though it is, Project Debater has some weaknesses. It takes sentences from its library of documents and prebuilt arguments and strings them together. This can lead to the kinds of errors no human would make.(尽管Project Debater很聪明，但它也有一些弱点。它从文档库和预先构建的参数中提取句子，并将它们串在一起。这可能会导致人类不会犯的错误。)”和“will no doubt be ironed out(毫无疑问会被解决)”可知，划线词所在句子表示“这样的错误会被纠正，被解决”，划线词wrinkles的意思是“错误”，和errors意思相近，故选C。
29．D 30．C 31．C
【来源】2022年6月普通高等学校招生全国统一考试（浙江卷）英语试题
【导语】本文是一篇记叙文。文章讲述了作者通过三个夏天的工作，开阔了视野，接受真实世界的多样性，不再是幼儿园里那个害怕的小女孩了。
推理判断题。根据第二段第二三句“For the past three summers, I have worked in a government agency in New York. New immigrants much like the little girl in the lunch line flooded our office seeking help. (过去的三个夏天，我一直在纽约的一家政府机构工作。新移民涌入我们的办公室寻求帮助，就像排队吃午餐的小女孩一样)”以及第一段第三句“A few years later, as I stood in the lunch line with my kindergarten class in a school in Brooklyn, I realized things were no longer that simple. (几年后，当我站在布鲁克林一所幼儿园的午餐队伍里时，我意识到事情不再那么简单了)”可知，当年的小女孩长大了，在纽约的一家政府机构工作，工作环境让她想到当年自己在幼儿园的午餐队伍排队的情境。故选C。
33．B
【来源】2022年6月普通高等学校招生全国统一考试（浙江卷）英语试题
【导语】这是一篇说明文。文章主要介绍了许多人认为工作到最大限度是成功的秘诀，但研究发现，适度的工作也会带来成果。所以要适度工作，工作时要有积极的情绪，这会让自己在工作中更有效率。
词句猜测题。根据划线单词下文“while his colleagues who chat over a relaxed conference-room meal get dirty looks from the corner office.(而他那些在会议室吃饭时闲聊的同事们则在角落办公室里得到不屑的目光。)”可知，while前后是对比关系，那些在会议室吃饭时闲聊的同事会得到别人不屑的目光，即被认为不努力工作，相反，那些在办公桌前吃午饭的年轻银行家可能被视为是一个努力工作以求成功的人，由此可知，划线单词go-getter，指的是那些努力工作以求成功的人，故选B。
38．A
【来源】2022年北京卷英语真题
【导语】本文是一篇议论文。主要论述了“量子计算真的会像它的宣传那样成功吗？”，计算机科学家克里斯·约翰逊和物理学家菲利普·泰勒分别阐明了自己的观点。
词义猜测题。根据第三自然段“But something about quantum computing makes it especially prone to hype, Johnson suggests, perhaps because “‘quantum’ stands for something cool you shouldn’t be able to understand.”（ 但约翰逊表明，量子计算的某些方面使得它特别 prone被炒作，可能是因为“量子”代表了一些你不应该理解的酷东西。”）”可知，本句中含有一个原因状语从句，因为““量子”代表了一些你不应该理解的酷东西”，所以它特别容易被炒作。故prone意为“易于……的”。A. Open.开放的；易受损害的；B. Cool. 酷的；C. Useful. 有用的；D. Resistant. 有抵抗力的。故选A。
42．D
【来源】2022年新高考全国Ⅱ卷英语真题
【导语】本文一篇说明文。为解决司机在开车时使用手机造成“分神”，引发交通事故的问题，纽约的一名立法者提出使用Textalyzer（短信监控器）的技术来监控司机在开车的时候是否使用了手机。
词义猜测题。根据句中的“We need something on the books that can change people's behavior.”（我们需要一些能改变人们行为的东西，）可知，something是能够改变人们的行为的事情。根据下文的“If the Textalyzer bill becomes law, he said, "people are going to be more afraid to put their hands on the cell phone.”（他说，如果Textalyzer法案成为法律，“人们会更害怕拿起手机。）可知，人们的行为会改变的条件是当Textalyzer法案成为法律。受到法律的约束和惩罚，司机们才不会在开车的时候使用手机。故something指代的是法律。故选D。
46．C
【来源】2022年新高考全国Ⅰ卷英语真题
【导语】本文是一篇说明文。文章主要介绍了旨在减少孤独，改善老年人的健康状况的项目。
词句猜测题。根据倒数第二段“Wendy Wilson, extra care manager at 60 Penfold Street, one of the first to embark on the project, said: “Residents really welcome the idea of the project and the creative sessions. We are looking forward to the benefits and fun the project can bring to people here.” (彭福街60号的额外护理经理Wendy Wilson是第一批参与该项目的人之一，她说：“居民们非常欢迎该项目的想法和创意会议。我们期待这个项目能给这里的人们带来好处和乐趣。”)”可知，Wendy Wilson是着手这项工程的人之一，也是做这个项目的创始人之一，因此可知，画线处embark on意为“开始着手做某事”，与C项“Begin (开始)”含义相近。故选C项。
49．C
【来源】2022年全国乙卷英语真题（含听力）
【导语】本文是一篇说明文。应用今天的“空中之眼”的技术，无人机能在保证铁路安全可靠的同时又能帮助铁路运营商每年节省数十亿欧元。
词义猜测题。根据后文“It is calculated that European railways alone spend approximately 20 billion euros a year on maintenance, including sending maintenance staff, often at night, to inspect and repair the rail infrastructure. (据统计，仅欧洲铁路公司每年在铁路维护上的花费就约为200亿欧元，其中包括经常在夜间派遣维修人员检查和维修铁路基础设施)”可知花在maintenance上的费用是用于“inspect and repair the rail infrastructure （检查和维修铁路基础设施”，由此可知“That includes huge savings in maintenance costs and better protection of railway personnel safety”是指大幅节省检修成本和更好地保护铁路人员安全，画线词和 C项：Inspection and repair(检修)含义相近。故选C。
A
【来源】2022年全国甲卷英语真题
【导语】这是一篇记叙文。文章主要介绍了71岁的Ginni Bazlinton从小就对旅行有着深深的热爱，渴望探险，不再跳舞和孩子们成家立业之后，她开始周游世界，并在2008年开始了前往南极洲的旅程。
词句猜测题。根据第三段第一句“After taking a degree at Chichester University in Related Arts, Ginni began to travel the world, eventually getting work teaching English in Japan and Chile.(在奇切斯特大学获得相关艺术学位后，Ginni开始周游世界，最终在日本和智利找到了教英语的工作。)”可知，此处是指做有挑战性的事情，所以take the plunge意为“尝试有挑战性的事情”。故选A。
57．D
【来源】2022年1月普通高等学校招生全国统一考试（浙江卷）英语试题
【分析】本文是一篇记叙文。文章讲述Merebeth从事的新工作。近十年来，她一直是一名自营宠物运输专家。
词义猜测题。根据第二段中“It has taken her to every state in the US except Montana, Washington and Oregon, she says proudly. If she wants to visit a new place, she will simply find a pet with transport needs there. She travels in all weathers.（她自豪地说，除了蒙大拿州、华盛顿州和俄勒冈州，她走遍了美国所有的州。如果她想去一个新的地方，她只需要找到一个有交通需要的宠物。 她风雨无阻地旅行）”，可知，划线词的意思是“渴望去不同的地方旅行”。故选D。
59．A 60．A 61．B 62．B
【来源】2021年新高考全国Ⅱ卷英语真题
【分析】这是一篇记叙文。讲述了作者为了保证两只老虎幼崽的存活，决定在家里全天候照顾它们。介绍了老虎在作者家生活的情况以及作者照顾老虎的感受。
词句猜测题。根据画线词上文“As they grew more mobile, we let them move freely around the house during the day, but when we were asleep we had to contain them in a large room, otherwise they'd ”（随着它们的活动越来越多，我们白天让它们在房子里自由活动，但当我们睡觉时，我们必须把它们关在一个大房间里，否则它们会）以及后文“We'd come down in the morning to find they'd turned the room upside down, and left it looking like a zoo.”（我们早上下楼时发现他们把房间弄得乱七八糟，让它看起来像个动物园。）可知，作者不得不把老虎们关在一个大房间里，否则它们就会调皮捣蛋，表现不好。早上下楼时发现他们把房间弄得乱七八糟，看起来像个动物园。故画线词意思是“表现不好”。故选A。
63．D 64．A 65．B
【来源】2021年北京市英语高考真题
【分析】这是一篇说明文，文章阐述了全球崩塌（global collapse）的概念。数百名科学家、作家和学者在去年12月发表的一封公开信中向全人类发出了警告：政策制定者和我们每个人必须直面“全球崩塌”的风险。文章具体阐释了学者们对这一概念的定义、理解和它的现实意义。
词义猜测题。根据该词所在的具体语境，第三段第一句“The call for public engagement with the unthinkable is especially germane in this moment of still-uncontrolled pandemic and economic crises in the world's most technologically advanced nations.”（呼吁公众对世界不确定性的关注，尤其与此时此刻的情况密切相关：此时此刻，在世界上技术最先进的国家，仍处于无法控制流行病和经济危机的泥潭中），下文也提到，一场病毒肆虐，一个国家社会停止了运转，大流行无法控制，经济下行，这样的事情在不久之前都是无法想象，不可思议（unthinkable）的，即世界充满了不确定性。而此时此刻呼吁人们对这种unthinkable加以关注，正是和此时此刻的世界实况密切相关。A. Scientific科学的；B. Credible可信的，可靠的；C. Original原来的，原创的；D. Relevant相关的，有重大关系的。根据上面的分析，仅有D符合语境，故选D。
66．D 67．A 68．A 69．C
【来源】2021年浙江卷英语真题（7月）
【导语】本文是一篇记叙文。文章主要讲述了电影制作人David Bond为了让孩子们远离屏幕，拍摄自己的旅行，并将自然当作一个品牌，推销给年轻人。
词义猜测题。根据本句“a film which charts the birth of the World Network, a group of organisations with the common goal of getting children out into nature.（这部电影charts世界网络的诞生，世界网络这个组织的共同目标是让孩子们走进大自然。），由“a film”可知，本句主语是一部电影，下文“the birth of the World Network (世界网络的诞生)”解释了这部电影的主旨。由此推知，划线词charts意为“记录、描绘”，与“records”意思一致。故选A项。
70．A 71．B 72．D 73．C
【来源】2021年全国甲卷英语真题
【导语】本文是一篇记叙文。文章主要讲述作者自己的经历，起初搬到伦敦很不适应，但是由于找到了玩滑板的地方，结识了玩滑板的朋友，因此很好的适应了。作者回到伦敦之后，经常去之前玩滑板的地方寻找自己的回忆，在与一个玩滑板的孩子打招呼的时候，终于找到了自己久违的熟悉感。
词句猜测题。根据画线词前文“A few minutes later, when I landed the trick, my friends beat their boards loud, shouting: “ Safe! Safe! Safe!”(几分钟后，当我学会这个技巧时，我的朋友们敲着他们的板子大声喊道：“做得好！做得好！做得好！)”以及后文“And that’s what mattered—landing tricks, being a good skater. (那才是真正重要的——滑板的落地技巧掌握了才是一名好的滑板玩家)”可知，作者掌握了滑板落地技巧，因此他的朋友大声欢呼，因此可以推出本句的Safe是赞美的含义。故选B。
74．B 75．A 76．C 77．B
【来源】2021年全国乙卷英语真题
【导语】本文是一篇说明文。文章主要介绍了澳大利亚使用固定电话的情况，并且表达了固定电话是非必需品的观点。
词句猜测题。根据第三段“Of those Australians who still have a landline, a third concede that it’s not really necessary and they’re keeping it as a security blanket — 19 percent say they never use it while a further 13 percent keep it in case of emergencies.(在那些仍然拥有固定电话的澳大利亚人中，三分之一的人concede这不是真正必须的，他们将其作为一种安全保障——19%的人说他们从未使用过固定电话，另有13%的人保留固定电话以防紧急情况)”可知，许多人认为固定电话并不是必须拥有的，有些人保留固定电话只是为了防止紧急情况，所以三分之一的人承认了固定电话的非必要性。由此推知，推测划线单词表示“承认”，与admit同义。故选A项。
88．A
【来源】2021年浙江省英语高考真题（1月份）
【导语】这是一篇说明文。文章主要介绍了科学家们通过跟踪和拍摄乌干达的黑猩猩群，翻译出了黑猩猩用来交流的手势含义。
词句猜测题。首先根据第三段中的“They’re the only thing that looks like human language in that respect.(在这方面，它们是唯一看起来像人类语言的东西)”可知，黑猩猩的手势交流很像我们人类语言的交流方式。但是根据最后一段中的“Moreover, the meanings seem to not go beyond what other animals convey with non-verbal communications.(此外，这些含义似乎并不超越其他动物通过非语言交流所传达的信息)”可知，黑猩猩手势的交流方式还是和我们语言的交流方式存在不同的，也就是“So, it seems the gulf remains.(所以，看来差异依然存在)”。由此可知，划线词gulf与difference意思接近。故选A。阅读理解之猜测含义（单词、短语、句子）
Part 1 题型详解：
猜测词义是高考的常考点之一，有时是让考生猜测单词的含义，有时是短语，有时甚至是推测某段中一个完整句子的含义，预测在2024年高考中仍是一个热门考点。
Part 2 常见设问方式：
What do the underlined words “......” mean in paragraph 2
Which of the following best explains “......” underlined in paragraph 3
What do the underlined words "......" refer to in the last paragraph
The underlined part "......" in Para. 2 probably means __________.
By saying “......” in Para. 2, the author means _______.
What does the underlined sentence in the last paragraph mean
Part 3 常见干扰项设置方式：
无中生有、望文生义
Part 4 解题方法指导:
猜测单词题要利用单词所在的句子，根据句子含义确定词义。
猜测短语题要利用出现短语的上文与其意义上的联系或下文进一步的叙述来猜测它的意思
猜测句子题要能识别错误选项只是某种程度的照抄
关注同义词替换、反义词、解释、举例等多种方法猜测单词、短语、句子含义。
Part 5 真题检测
2023年北京卷英语真题
What is life Like most great questions, this one is easy to ask but difficult to answer. The reason is simple: we know of just one type of life and it’s challenging to do science with a sample size of one. The field of artificial life-called ALife for short — is the systematic attempt to spell out life’s fundamental principles. Many of these practitioners, so-called ALifers, think that somehow making life is the surest way to really understand what life is.
So far no one has convincingly made artificial life. This track record makes ALife a ripe target for criticism, such as declarations of the field’s doubtful scientific value. Alan Smith, a complexity scientist, is tired of such complaints. Asking about “the point” of ALife might be, well, missing the point entirely, he says. “The existence of a living system is not about the use of anything.” Alan says. “Some people ask me, ‘So what’s the worth of artificial life ’ Do you ever think, ‘What is the worth of your grandmother ’”
As much as many ALifers hate emphasizing their research’s applications, the attempts to create artificial life could have practical payoffs. Artificial intelligence may be considered ALife’s cousin in that researchers in both fields are enamored by a concept called open-ended evolution (演化). This is the capacity for a system to create essentially endless complexity, to be a sort of “novelty generator”. The only system known to exhibit this is Earth’s biosphere. If the field of ALife manages to reproduce life’s endless “creativity” in some virtual model, those same principles could give rise to truly inventive machines.
Compared with the developments of Al, advances in ALife are harder to recognize. One reason is that ALife is a field in which the central concept — life itself — is undefined. The lack of agreement among ALifers doesn’t help either. The result is a diverse line of projects that each advance along their unique paths. For better or worse, ALife mirrors the very subject it studies. Its muddled (混乱的) progression is a striking parallel (平行线) to the evolutionary struggles that have shaped Earth biosphere.
Undefined and uncontrolled, ALife drives its followers to repurpose old ideas and generated novelty. It may be, of course, that these characteristics aren’t in any way surprising or singular. They may apply universally to all acts of evolution. Ultimately ALife may be nothing special. But even this dismissal suggests something：perhaps, just like life itself throughout the universe, the rise of ALife will prove unavoidable.
2．What does the word “enamored” underlined in Paragraph 3 most probably mean
A．Shocked. B．Protected. C．Attracted. D．Challenged.
2023年全国甲卷英语真题
Terri Bolton is a dab hand when it comes to DIY (do-it-yourself). Skilled at putting up shelves and piecing together furniture, she never pays someone else to do a job she can do herself.
She credits these skills to her late grandfather and builder Derek Lloyd. From the age of six, Terri, now 26, accompanied Derek to work during her school holidays. A day’s work was rewarded with 5 in pocket money. She says: “I’m sure I wasn’t much of a help to start with, painting the rooms and putting down the flooring throughout the house. It took weeks and it was backbreaking work, but I know he was proud of my skills.”
Terri, who now rents a house with friends in Wandsworth, South West London, says DIY also saves her from losing any deposit when a tenancy (租期) comes to an end. She adds: “I’ve moved house many times and I always like to personalise my room and put up pictures, so, it’s been useful to know how to cover up holes and repaint a room to avoid any charges when I’ve moved out.”
With millions of people likely to take on DIY projects over that coming weeks, new research shows that more than half of people are planning to make the most of the long, warm summer days to get jobs done. The average spend per project will be around 823. Two thirds of people aim to improve their comfort while at home. Two fifths wish to increase the value of their house. Though DIY has traditionally been seen as male hobby, the research shows it is women now leading the charge.
5．Which is closest in meaning to “a dab hand” in paragraph 1
A．An artist. B．A winner. C．A specialist. D．A pioneer.
2023年全国乙卷英语真题
If you want to tell the history of the whole world, a history that does not privilege one part of humanity, you cannot do it through texts alone, because only some of the world has ever had texts, while most of the world, for most of the time, has not. Writing is one of humanity’s later achievements, and until fairly recently even many literate (有文字的) societies recorded their concerns not only in writing but in things.
Ideally a history would bring together texts and objects, and some chapters of this book are able to do just that, but in many cases we simply can’t. The clearest example of this between literate and non-literate history is perhaps the first conflict, at Botany Bay, between Captain Cook’s voyage and the Australian Aboriginals. From the English side, we have scientific reports and the captain’s record of that terrible day. From the Australian side, we have only a wooden shield (盾) dropped by a man in flight after his first experience of gunshot. If we want to reconstruct what was actually going on that day, the shield must be questioned and interpreted as deeply and strictly as the written reports.
In addition to the problem of miscomprehension from both sides, there are victories accidentally or deliberately twisted, especially when only the victors know how to write. Those who are on the losing side often have only their things to tell their stories. The Caribbean Taino, the Australian Aboriginals, the African people of Benin and the Incas, all of whom appear in this book, can speak to us now of their past achievements most powerfully through the objects they made: a history told through things gives them back a voice. When we consider contact (联系) between literate and non-literate societies such as these, all our first-hand accounts are necessarily twisted, only one half of a dialogue. If we are to find the other half of that conversation, we have to read not just the texts, but the objects.
11．What does the underlined word “conversation” in paragraph 3 refer to
A．Problem. B．History. C．Voice. D．Society.
2023年新课标全国Ⅰ卷英语真题
The goal of this book is to make the case for digital minimalism, including a detailed exploration of what it asks and why it works, and then to teach you how to adopt this philosophy if you decide it’s right for you.
To do so, I divided the book into two parts. In part one, I describe the philosophical foundations of digital minimalism, starting with an examination of the forces that are making so many people’s digital lives increasingly intolerable, before moving on to a detailed discussion of the digital minimalism philosophy.
Part one concludes by introducing my suggested method for adopting this philosophy: the digital declutter. This process requires you to step away from optional online activities for thirty days. At the end of the thirty days, you will then add back a small number of carefully chosen online activities that you believe will provide massive benefits to the things you value.
In the final chapter of part one, I’ll guide you through carrying out your own digital declutter. In doing so, I’ll draw on an experiment I ran in 2018 in which over 1,600 people agreed to perform a digital declutter. You’ll hear these participants’ stories and learn what strategies worked well for them, and what traps they encountered that you should avoid.
The second part of this book takes a closer look at some ideas that will help you cultivate (培养) a sustainable digital minimalism lifestyle. In these chapters, I examine issues such as the importance of solitude (独处) and the necessity of cultivating high-quality leisure to replace the time most now spend on mindless device use. Each chapter concludes with a collection of practices, which are designed to help you act on the big ideas of the chapter. You can view these practices as a toolbox meant to aid your efforts to build a minimalist lifestyle that works for your particular circumstances.
14．What does the underlined word “declutter” in paragraph 3 mean
A．Clear-up. B．Add-on. C．Check-in. D．Take-over.
2023年新课标全国Ⅱ卷英语真题
Reading Art: Art for Book Lovers is a celebration of an everyday object — the book, represented here in almost three hundred artworks from museums around the world. The image of the reader appears throughout history, in art made long before books as we now know them came into being. In artists’ representations of books and reading, we see moments of shared humanity that go beyond culture and time.
In this “book of books,” artworks are selected and arranged in a way that emphasizes these connections between different eras and cultures. We see scenes of children learning to read at home or at school, with the book as a focus for relations between the generations. Adults are portrayed (描绘) alone in many settings and poses —absorbed in a volume, deep in thought or lost in a moment of leisure. These scenes may have been painted hundreds of years ago, but they record moments we can all relate to.
Books themselves may be used symbolically in paintings to demonstrate the intellect (才智), wealth or faith of the subject. Before the wide use of the printing press, books were treasured objects and could be works of art in their own right. More recently, as books have become inexpensive or even throwaway, artists have used them as the raw material for artworks — transforming covers, pages or even complete volumes into paintings and sculptures.
Continued developments in communication technologies were once believed to make the printed page outdated. From a 21st-century point of view, the printed book is certainly ancient, but it remains as interactive as any battery-powered e-reader. To serve its function, a book must be activated by a user: the cover opened, the pages parted, the contents reviewed, perhaps notes written down or words underlined. And in contrast to our increasingly networked lives where the information we consume is monitored and tracked, a printed book still offers the chance of a wholly private, “off-line” activity.
19．What do the underlined words “relate to” in paragraph 2 mean
A．Understand. B．Paint.
C．Seize. D．Transform.
2023年浙江省1月高考英语真题
Live with roommates Have friends and family around you Chances are that if you’re looking to live a more sustainable lifestyle, not everyone around you will be ready to jump on that bandwagon.
I experienced this when I started switching to a zero waste lifestyle five years ago, as I was living with my parents, and I continue to experience this with my husband, as he is not completely zero waste like me. I’ve learned a few things along the way though, which I hope you’ll find encouraging if you’re doing your best to figure out how you can make the change in a not-always-supportive household.
Zero waste was a radical lifestyle movement a few years back. I remember showing my parents a video of Bea Johnson, sharing how cool I thought it would be to buy groceries with jars, and have so little trash! A few days later, I came back with my first jars of zero waste groceries, and my dad commented on how silly it was for me to carry jars everywhere. It came off as a bit discouraging.
Yet as the months of reducing waste continued, I did what I could that was within my own reach. I had my own bedroom, so I worked on removing things I didn’t need. Since I had my own toiletries (洗漱用品), I was able to start personalising my routine to be more sustainable. I also offered to cook every so often, so I portioned out a bit of the cupboard for my own zero waste groceries. Perhaps your household won’t entirely make the switch, but you may have some control over your own personal spaces to make the changes you desire.
As you make your lifestyle changes, you may find yourself wanting to speak up for yourself if others comment on what you’re doing, which can turn itself into a whole household debate. If you have individuals who are not on board, your words probably won’t do much and can often leave you feeling more discouraged.
So here is my advice: Lead by action.
21．What do the underlined words “jump on that bandwagon” mean in the first paragraph
A．Share an apartment with you. B．Join you in what you’re doing.
2023年浙江省1月高考英语真题
A machine can now not only beat you at chess, it can also outperform you in debate. Last week, in a public debate in San Francisco, a software program called Project Debater beat its human opponents, including Noa Ovadia, Israel’s former national debating champion.
Brilliant though it is, Project Debater has some weaknesses. It takes sentences from its library of documents and prebuilt arguments and strings them together. This can lead to the kinds of errors no human would make. Such wrinkles will no doubt be ironed out, yet they also point to a fundamental problem. As Kristian Hammond, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Northwestern University, put it: “There’s never a stage at which the system knows what it’s talking about.”
What Hammond is referring to is the question of meaning, and meaning is central to what distinguishes the least intelligent of humans from the most intelligent of machines. A computer works with symbols. Its program specifies a set of rules to transform one string of symbols into another. But it does not specify what those symbols mean. Indeed, to a computer, meaning is irrelevant. Humans, in thinking, talking, reading and writing, also work with symbols. But for humans, meaning is everything. When we communicate, we communicate meaning. What matters is not just the outside of a string of symbols, but the inside too, not just how they are arranged but what they mean.
Meaning emerges through a process of social interaction, not of computation, interaction that shapes the content of the symbols in our heads. The rules that assign meaning lie not just inside our heads, but also outside, in society, in social memory, social conventions and social relations. It is this that distinguishes humans from machines. And that’s why, however astonishing Project Debater may seem, the tradition that began with Socrates and Confucius will not end with artificial intelligence.
26．What does the underlined word “wrinkles” in paragraph 2 refer to
A．Arguments. B．Doubts. C．Errors. D．Differences.
2022年6月普通高等学校招生全国统一考试（浙江卷）英语试题
Pasta and pizza were on everyone’s lunch menu in my native land of Italy. Everyone who had such a lunch was fair-skinned and spoke Italian. A few years later, as I stood in the lunch line with my kindergarten class in a school in Brooklyn, I realized things were no longer that simple. My classmates ranged from those kids with pale skin and large blue eyes to those with rich brown skin and dark hair. The food choices were almost as diverse as the students. In front of me was an array of foods I couldn’t even name in my native language. Fearing that I would pick out something awful, I desperately tried to ask the boy ahead of me for a recommendation. Unfortunately, between us stood the barrier of language.
Although my kindergarten experience feels like a century ago, the lessons I learned will stick in my mind forever. For the past three summers, I have worked in a government agency in New York. New immigrants much like the little girl in the lunch line flooded our office seeking help. I often had to be an interpreter for the Italian-speaking ones. As I served the role of vital communication link, I was reminded of my desperate struggle to converse before I learned English. I watched with great sympathy as elderly Italians tried to hold a conversation in Italian with people who did not speak the language. It suddenly became very clear to me how lucky I was to be fluent in two languages.
In New York, a multicultural city, students like me are blessed with a chance to work with a diverse population. In my English to Italian translations, I’ve learned about social programs that I didn’t know existed. This work expanded my mind in ways that are impossible inside the four walls of a classroom. Walking through the streets of Brooklyn today, I am no longer confused by this city’s sounds and smells. Instead, enjoy its diversity.
30．Who does “the little girl” in paragraph 2 refer to
A．An Italian teacher. B．A government official.
C．The author herself. D．The author’s classmate.
2022年6月普通高等学校招生全国统一考试（浙江卷）英语试题
Many people believe that working to the maximum is the secret to success, but research has found that moderation(适度) also gets results on the job.
In a study led by Ellen Langer of Harvard University, researchers asked people to translate sentences into a new a made-up language. Subjects who practiced the language moderately beforehand made fewer errors than those who practiced extensively or not at all. High levels of knowledge can make people too attached to traditional ways of viewing problems across fields the arts, sciences, and politics. High conscientiousness is related to lower job performance, especially in simple jobs where it doesn’t pay to be a perfectionist.
How long we stay on the clock and how we spend that time are under careful examination in many workplaces. The young banker who eats lunch at his desk is probably seen as a go-getter, while his colleagues who chat over a relaxed conference-room meal get dirty looks from the corner office. “People from cultures that value relationships more than ours does are shocked by the thought of eating alone in front of a computer”, says Art Markman, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas, Austin. Social interaction has been shown to lift mood(情绪) and get people thinking in new directions and in ways that could help improve any post-lunch effort.
Markman also promotes off-task time. “Part of being a good thinker is experiencing things that are seemingly unrelated to what you are working on at the moment but give you fresh ideas about your work,” he says. “Also, there is a lot of research showing that a positive mood leads to higher levels of productivity and creativity. So, when people do things to increase their life satisfaction, they also make themselves more effective at work.”
33．The underlined word “go-getter” in paragraph 3 refers to someone Who_______.
A．is good at handling pressure B．works hard to become successful
C．a has a natural talent for his job. D．gets on well with his co-workers
2022年北京卷英语真题
Quantum ( 量子 ) computers have been on my mind a lot lately. A friend has been sending me articles on how quantum computers might help solve some of the biggest challenges we face as humans. I’ve also had exchanges with two quantum-computing experts. One is computer scientist Chris Johnson who I see as someone who helps keep the field honest. The other is physicist Philip Taylor.
For decades, quantum computing has been little more than a laboratory curiosity. Now, big tech companies have invested in quantum computing, as have many smaller ones. According to Business Weekly, quantum machines could help us “cure cancer, and even take steps to turn climate change in the opposite direction.” This is the sort of hype ( 炒作 ) that annoys Johnson. He worries that researchers are making promises they can’t keep. “What’s new,” Johnson wrote, “is that millions of dollars are now potentially available to quantum computing researchers.”
As quantum computing attracts more attention and funding, researchers may mislead investors, journalists, the public and, worst of all, themselves about their work’s potential. If researchers can’t keep their promises, excitement might give way to doubt, disappointment and anger, Johnson warns. Lots of other technologies have gone through stages of excitement. But something about quantum computing makes it especially prone to hype, Johnson suggests, perhaps because “‘quantum’ stands for something cool you shouldn’t be able to understand.” And that brings me back to Taylor, who suggested that I read his book Q for Quantum.
After I read the book, Taylor patiently answered my questions about it. He also answered my questions about PyQuantum, the firm he co-founded in 2016. Taylor shares Johnson’s concerns about hype, but he says those concerns do not apply to PyQuantum.
The company, he says, is closer than any other firm “by a very large margin ( 幅度 )” to building a “useful” quantum computer, one that “solves an impactful problem that we would not have been able to solve otherwise.” He adds, “People will naturally discount my opinions, but I have spent a lot of time quantitatively comparing what we are doing with others.”
Could PyQuantum really be leading all the competition “by a wide margin”, as Taylor claims I don’t know. I’m certainly not going to advise my friend or anyone else to invest in quantum computers. But I trust Taylor, just as I trust Johnson.
38．What does the underlined word “prone” in Paragraph 3 most probably mean
A．Open. B．Cool. C．Useful. D．Resistant.
2022年新高考全国Ⅱ卷英语真题
Over the last seven years, most states have banned texting by drivers, and public service campaigns have tried a wide range of methods to persuade people to put down their phones when they are behind the wheel.
Yet the problem, by just about any measure, appears to be getting worse. Americans are still texting while driving, as well as using social networks and taking photos. Road accidents, which had fallen for years, are now rising sharply.
That is partly because people are driving more, but Mark Rosekind, the chief of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said distracted（分心）driving was "only increasing, unfortunately."
"Big change requires big ideas." he said in a speech last month, referring broadly to the need to improve road safety. So to try to change a distinctly modern behavior, lawmakers and public health experts are reaching back to an old approach: They want to treat distracted driving like drunk driving.
An idea from lawmakers in New York is to give police officers a new device called the Textalyzer. It would work like this: An officer arriving at the scene of a crash could ask for the phones of the drivers and use the Textalyzer to check in the operating system for recent activity. The technology could determine whether a driver had just texted, emailed or done anything else that is not allowed under New York's hands-free driving laws.
"We need something on the books that can change people's behavior,” said Félix W. Ortiz, who pushed for the state's 2001 ban on hand-held devices by drivers. If the Textalyzer bill becomes law, he said, "people are going to be more afraid to put their hands on the cell phone."
42．What does the underlined word "something" in the last paragraph refer to
A．Advice. B．Data. C．Tests. D．Laws.
2022年新高考全国Ⅰ卷英语真题
The elderly residents (居民) in care homes in London are being given hens to look after to stop them feeling lonely.
The project was dreamed up by a local charity (慈善组织) to reduce loneliness and improve elderly people’s wellbeing. It is also being used to help patients suffering dementia, a serious illness of the mind. Staff in care homes have reported a reduction in the use of medicine where hens are in use.
Among those taking part in the project is 80-year-old Ruth Xavier. She said: “I used to keep hens when I was younger and had to prepare their breakfast each morning before I went to school. ”
“I like the project a lot. I am down there in my wheelchair in the morning letting the hens out and down there again at night to see they’ve gone to bed.”
“It’s good to have a different focus. People have been bringing their children in to see the hens and residents come and sit outside to watch them. I’m enjoying the creative activities, and it feels great to have done something useful.”
There are now 700 elderly people looking after hens in 20 care homes in the North East, and the charity has been given financial support to roll it out countrywide.
Wendy Wilson, extra care manager at 60 Penfold Street, one of the first to embark on the project, said: “Residents really welcome the idea of the project and the creative sessions. We are looking forward to the benefits and fun the project can bring to people here.”
Lynn Lewis, director of Notting Hill Pathways, said: “We are happy to be taking part in the project. It will really help connect our residents through a shared interest and creative activities.”
46．What do the underlined words “embark on” mean in paragraph 7
A．Improve. B．Oppose. C．Begin. D．Evaluate.
2022年全国乙卷英语真题
Can a small group of drones (无人机) guarantee the safety and reliability of railways and, at the same time, help railway operators save billions of euros each year That is the very likely future of applying today’s “eyes in the sky” technology to make sure that the millions of kilometres of rail tracks and infrastructure (基础设施) worldwide are safe for trains on a 24/7 basis.
Drones are already being used to examine high-tension electrical lines. They could do precisely the same thing to inspect railway lines and other vital aspects of rail infrastructure such as the correct position of railway tracks and switching points. The more regularly they can be inspected, the more railway safety, reliability and on-time performance will be improved. Costs would be cut and operations would be more efficient (高效) across the board.
That includes huge savings in maintenance costs and better protection of railway personnel safety. It is calculated that European railways alone spend approximately 20 billion euros a year on maintenance, including sending maintenance staff, often at night, to inspect and repair the rail infrastructure. That can be dangerous work that could be avoided with drones assisting the crews’ efforts.
By using the latest technologies, drones could also start providing higher-value services for railways, detecting faults in the rail or switches, before they can cause any safety problems. To perform these tasks, drones for rail don’t need to be flying overhead. Engineers are now working on a new concept: the rail drones of the future. They will be moving on the track ahead of the train, and programmed to run autonomously. Very small drones with advanced sensors and AI and travelling ahead of the train could guide it like a co-pilot. With their ability to see ahead, they could signal any problem, so that fast-moving trains would be able to react in time.
49．What does “maintenance” underlined in paragraph 3 refer to
A．Personnel safety. B．Assistance from drones.
2022年全国甲卷英语真题
As Ginni Bazlinton reached Antarctica, she found herself greeted by a group of little Gentoo penguins (企鹅) longing to say hello. These gentle, lovely gatekeepers welcomed her and kick-started what was to be a trip Ginni would never forget.
Ever since her childhood, Ginni, now 71, has had a deep love for travel. Throughout her career (职业) as a professional dancer, she toured in the UK, but always longed to explore further. When she retired from dancing and her sons eventually flew the nest, she decided it was time to take the plunge.
After taking a degree at Chichester University in Related Arts, Ginni began to travel the world, eventually getting work teaching English in Japan and Chile. And it was in Chile she discovered she could get last-minute cheap deals on ships going to Antarctica from the islands off Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost tip of the South American mainland. “I just decided I wanted to go,” she says. “I had no idea about what I’d find there and I wasn’t nervous, I just wanted to do it. And I wanted to do it alone as I always prefer it that way.”
In March 2008, Ginni boarded a ship with 48 passengers she’d never met before, to begin the journey towards Antarctica. “From seeing the wildlife to witnessing sunrises, the whole experience was amazing. Antarctica left an impression on me that no other place has,” Ginni says. “I remember the first time I saw a humpback whale; it just rose out of the water like some prehistoric creature and I thought it was smiling at us. You could still hear the operatic sounds it was making underwater.”
The realization that this is a precious land, to be respected by humans, was one of the biggest things that hit home to Ginni.
52．Which of the following best explains “take the plunge” underlined in paragraph 2
A．Try challenging things. B．Take a degree.
C．Bring back lost memories. D．Stick to a promise.
2022年1月普通高等学校招生全国统一考试（浙江卷）英语试题
For nearly a decade now, Merebeth has been a self-employed pet transport specialist. Her pet transport job was born of the financial crisis(危机)in the late 2000s. The downturn hit the real estate (房地产)firm where she had worked for ten years as an office manager. The firm went broke and left her looking for a new job. One day, while driving near her home, she saw a dog wandering on the road, clearly lost. She took it home, and her sister in Denver agreed to take it. This was a loving home for sure, but 1, 600 miles away. It didn’t take long for Merebeth to decide to drive the dog there herself. It was her first road trip to her new job.
Merebeth’s pet delivery service also satisfies her wanderlust. It has taken her to every state in the US except Montana, Washington and Oregon, she says proudly. If she wants to visit a new place, she will simply find a pet with transport needs there. She travels in all weathers. She has driven through 55 mph winds in Wyoming, heavy flooding and storms in Alabama and total whiteout conditions in Kansas.
This wanderlust is inherited from her father, she says. She moved their family from Canada to California when she was one year old, because he wanted them to explore a new place together. As soon as she graduated from high school she left home to live on Catalina Island off the Californian coast, away from her parents, where she enjoyed a life of sailing and off-road biking.
It turns out that pet transporting pays quite well at about $30, 000 per year before tax. She doesn’t work in summer, as it would be unpleasantly hot for the animals in the car, even with air conditioning. As autumn comes, she gets restless—the same old wanderlust returning. It’s a call she must heed alone, though. Merebeth says, “When I am on the road, I’m just in my own world. I’ve always been independent-spirited and I just feel strongly that I must help animals.”
57．The word “wanderlust” in paragraph 2 means a desire to _________
A．make money. B．try various jobs.
C．be close to nature. D．travel to different places.
2021年新高考全国Ⅱ卷英语真题
I have worked as a keeper at the National Zoo, Paris for 11 years. Spot and Stripe are the first tiger cubs that have ever been born here. Globally, a third of Sumatran cubs in zoos don't make it to adulthood, so I decided to give them round-the-clock care at home.
I've got two children—the younger one, Kynan, was extremely happy about the tigers arriving - but all of us really looked forward to being part of their lives and watching them grow. I wasn't worried about bringing them into my home with my wife and kids. These were cubs. They weighed about 2.5 kg and were so small that there was absolutely no risk.
As they grew more mobile, we let them move freely around the house during the day, but when we were asleep we had to contain them in a large room, otherwise they'd get up to mischief. We'd come down in the morning to find they'd turned the room upside down, and left it looking like a zoo.
Things quickly got very intense due to the huge amount of energy required to look after them. There were some tough times and I just felt extremely tired. I was grateful that my family was there to help. We had to have a bit of a production line going, making up “tiger milk”, washing baby bottles, and cleaning the floors.
When Spot and Stripe were four months old, they were learning how to open doors and jump fences, and we knew it really was time for them to go. It was hard for us to finally part with them. For the first few days, Kynan was always a bit disappointed that the cubs weren't there.
I'm not sad about it. I'm hands-on with them every day at the zoo, and I do look back very fondly on the time that we had them.
60．What do the underlined words “get up to mischief” mean in paragraph 3
A．Behave badly. B．Lose their way. C．Sleep soundly. D．Miss their mom.
2021年北京市英语高考真题
Hundreds of scientists, writers and academics sounded a warning to humanity in an open letter published last December: Policymakers and the rest of us must engage openly with the risk of global collapse. Researchers in many areas have projected the widespread collapse as “a credible scenario(情景) this century”.
A survey of scientists found that extreme weather events, food insecurity, and freshwater shortages might create global collapse. Of course, if you are a non-human species, collapse is well underway.
The call for public engagement with the unthinkable is especially germane in this moment of still-uncontrolled pandemic and economic crises in the world's most technologically advanced nations. Not very long ago, it was also unthinkable that a virus would shut down nations and that safety nets would be proven so disastrously lacking in flexibility.
The international scholars’ warning letter doesn't say exactly what collapse will look like or when it might happen. Collapseology, the study of collapse, is more concerned with identifying trends and with them the dangers of everyday civilization. Among the signatories(签署者) of the warning was Bob Johnson, the originator of the “ecological footprint” concept, which measures the total amount of environmental input needed to maintain a given lifestyle. With the current footprint of humanity, “it seems that global collapse is certain to happen in some form, possibly within a decade, certainly within this century,” Johnson said in an email.
“Only if we discuss the consequences of our biophysical limits,” the December warning letter says, “can we have the hope to reduce their speed, severity and harm”. And yet messengers of the coming disturbance are likely to be ignored. We all want to hope things will turn out fine. As a poet wrote,
Man is a victim of dope(麻醉品)
In the incurable form of hope.
The hundreds of scholars who signed the letter are intent(执着) on quieting hope that ignores preparedness. “Let's look directly into the issue of collapse,” they say, “and deal with the terrible possibilities of what we see there to make the best of a troubling future.”
63．What does the underlined word “germane” in Paragraph 3 probably mean
A．Scientific. B．Credible.
C．Original. D．Relevant.
2021年浙江卷英语真题（7月）
We live in a town with three beaches. There are two parts less than 10 minutes’ walk from home where neighborhood children gather to play. However, what my children want to do after school is pick up a screen — any screen — and stare at it for hours. They are not alone. Today’s children spend an average of four and a half hours a day looking at screens, split between watching television and using the Internet.
In the past few years, an increasing number of people and organisations have begun coming up with plans to counter this trend. A couple of years ago film-maker David Bond realised that his children, then aged five and three, were attached to screens to the point where he was able to say “chocolate” into his three-year-old son’s ear without getting a response. He realised that something needed to change, and, being a London media type, appointed himself “marketing director from Nature”. He documented his journey as he set about treating nature as a brand to be marketed to young people. The result was Project Wild Thing, a film which charts the birth of the World Network, a group of organisations with the common goal of getting children out into nature.
“Just five more minutes outdoors can make a difference,” David Bond says. “There is a lot of really interesting evidence which seems to be suggesting that if children are inspired up to the age of seven, then being outdoors will be on habit for life.” His own children have got into the habit of playing outside now: “We just send them out into the garden and tell them not to come back in for a while.”
Summer is upon us. There is an amazing world out there, and it needs our children as much as they need it. Let us get them out and let them play.
68． Which of the following can replace the underlined word “charts” in paragraph 2
A．records B．predicts C．delays D．confirms
2021年全国甲卷英语真题
When I was 9, we packed up our home in Los Angeles and arrived at Heathrow, London on a gray January morning. Everyone in the family settled quickly into the city except me. Without my beloved beaches and endless blue—sky days, I felt at a loss and out of place. Until I made a discovery.
Southbank, at an eastern bend in the Thames, is the center of British skateboarding, where the continuous crashing of skateboards left your head ringing .I loved it. I soon made friends with the local skaters. We spoke our own language. And my favorite: Safe. Safe meant cool. It meant hello. It meant don’t worry about it. Once, when trying a certain trick on the beam(横杆), I fell onto the stones, damaging a nerve in my hand, and Toby came over, helping me up: Safe, man. Safe. A few minutes later, when I landed the trick, my friends beat their boards loud, shouting: “ Safe! Safe! Safe!” And that’s what mattered—landing tricks, being a good skater.
When I was 15, my family moved to Washington. I tried skateboarding there, but the locals were far less welcoming. Within a couple of years, I’d given it up.
When I returned to London in 2004, I found myself wandering down to Southbank, spending hours there. I’ve traveled back several times since, most recently this past spring. The day was cold but clear: tourists and Londoners stopped to watch the skaters. Weaving(穿梭)among the kids who rushed by on their boards, I found my way to the beam. Then a rail—thin teenager, in a baggy white T—shirt, skidded(滑)up to the beam. He sat next to me. He seemed not to notice the man next to him. But soon I caught a few of his glances. “I was a local here 20 years ago,” I told him. Then, slowly, he began to nod his head. “Safe, man. Safe.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Safe.”
71．What do the underlined words “Safe! Safe! Safe!” probably mean
A．Be careful! B．Well done! C．No way! D．Don’t worry!
2021年全国乙卷英语真题
When almost everyone has a mobile phone, why are more than half of Australian homes still paying for a landline (座机)
These days you’d be hard pressed to find anyone in Australia over the age of 15 who doesn’t own a mobile phone. In fact plenty of younger kids have one in their pocket. Practically everyone can make and receive calls anywhere, anytime.
Still, 55 percent of Australians have a landline phone at home and only just over a quarter (29%) rely only on their smartphones according to a survey (调查). Of those Australians who still have a landline, a third concede that it’s not really necessary and they’re keeping it as a security blanket — 19 percent say they never use it while a further 13 percent keep it in case of emergencies. I think my home falls into that category.
More than half of Australian homes are still choosing to stick with their home phone. Age is naturally a factor (因素)— only 58 percent of Generation Ys still use landlines now and then, compared to 84 percent of Baby Boomers who’ve perhaps had the same home number for 50 years. Age isn’t the only factor; I’d say it’s also to do with the makeup of your household.
Generation Xers with young families, like my wife and I, can still find it convenient to have a home phone rather than providing a mobile phone for every family member. That said, to be honest the only people who ever ring our home phone are our Baby Boomers parents, to the point where we play a game and guess who is calling before we pick up the phone (using Caller ID would take the fun out of it).
How attached are you to your landline How long until they go the way of gas street lamps and morning milk deliveries
75．What does the underlined word “concede” in paragraph 3 mean
A．Admit. B．Argue.
C．Remember. D．Remark.
2021年浙江省英语高考真题（1月份）
Researchers say they have translated the meaning of gestures that wild chimpanzees (黑猩猩) use to communicate. They say wild chimps communicate 19 specific messages to one another with a “vocabulary” of 66 gestures. The scientists discovered this by following and filming groups of chimps in Uganda, and examining more than 5,000 incidents of these meaningful exchanges.
Dr Catherine Hobaiter, who led the research, said that this was the only form of intentional communication to be recorded in the animal kingdom. Only humans and chimps, she said, had a system of communication where they deliberately sent a message to another group member.
“That’s what’s so amazing about chimp gestures,” she said. “They’re the only thing that looks like human language in that respect.”
Although previous research has shown that apes and monkeys can understand complex information from another animal’s call, the animals do not appear to use their voices intentionally to communicate messages. This was a significant difference between calls and gestures, Dr Hobaiter said.
Chimps will check to see if they have the attention of the animal with which they wish to communicate. In one case, a mother presents her foot to her crying baby, signaling: “Climb on me.” The youngster immediately jumps on to its mothers back and they travel off together. “The big message from this study is that there is another species (物种) out there. that is meaningful in its communication, so that’s not unique to humans,” said Dr Hobaiter.
Dr Susanne Shultz, an evolutionary biologist from the University of Manchester, said the study was praiseworthy in seeking to enrich our knowledge of the evolution of human language. But, she added, the results were “a little disappointing”.
“The vagueness of the gesture meanings suggests either that the chimps have little to communicate, or we are still missing a lot of the information contained in their gestures and actions,” she said. “Moreover, the meanings seem to not go beyond what other animal convey with non-verbal communication. So, it seems the gulf remains. ”
88．What does the underlined word “gulf” in the last paragraph mean
A．Difference. B．Conflict. C．Balance. D．Connection.
