We can’t remember clearly since when we started to take our mobiles to a dinner table. This happens a lot, especially when we eat out. Once a dish comes, instead of  lifting our chopsticks（筷子）, we take out our mobiles and click. Later, we         

post the photos onto Weibo or Wechat, waiting to be “liked.” Then we check our mobiles from time to time during the meal, to see whether we get “liked” or not. We just cannot leave our mobiles for simply a meal. Does that sound familiar（熟悉的） to you? Do you do that often? If not, how do you feel when others do that when having dinner with you?

A recent study suggests that what we are used to doing is not that good. Spending time taking photos of food makes the food less pleasant(令人愉快的). To test this, some researchers did an experiment. Some people were asked to take photos before they could enjoy food. It turned out that the more photos they took,     . So, why not stop taking photos and just enjoy the food ahead of you?

Besides（除…之外） the scientific result, there are also some other bad influences of taking photos of food before meals. After posting the photos onto the Internet, one will be unable to control himself and check his mobile many times. “Does everyone accept my photo? I hope a lot of people like it!” It seems like your mobile secretly calls your name all the time, even when you are with real people.

So, next time you go out to have dinner with your family or friends, how about not taking photos of food? Let the food be delicious as it is and share your life with people around you. Trust me, it will be a wonderful time.

The government in China ended his one-child policy and let families have two children instead in 2015.

A Chinese Communist Party statement gave a number of reasons for the change in policy. The statement said the change is meant to balance population development, stop a falling birth rate(出生率)and strengthen the country’s labor force(劳动力). China, with the largest population in the world, started the one-child policy in 1980. But the government allowed only a small number of couples to have two children. For example, some families in the countryside could have two children, if the first-born is a girl.

In 2013, the Chinese government gave other couples a chance to have two children if one of them was an only child.

Jiang Quanbao, a teacher and population expert, explained how Chinese families react(反应) to the newest policy. “Too many young people in the cities are no longer interested in having a second child,” he said. “People in the countryside are more interested. But some of them are already allowed to have two children.” At the end of 2014, China had a population of 1.37 billion people. A total of 800 million of them have jobs. But the labor market need of labor by the year 2050. With the two-child policy, an increase in births can solve this problem.

Boys and girls, what do you think of the two-child policy? Do you want to have a new-born brother or sister?

Without proper planning, tourism(旅游业) can cause problems. For example, too many tourists can crowd public places that are also enjoyed by the inhabitants of a country. If tourists create too much traffic, the inhabitants become annoyed and unhappy. They began to dislike tourists and to treat them impolitely. They forget how much tourism can help the country’s economy. It is important to think about the local people and how tourism affects them. Tourism should help a country keep the customs and beauty than attract tourists. Tourism should also advance the wealth and happiness of local inhabitants.

Too much tourism can be a problem. If tourism grows too quickly, people must leave other jobs to work in the tourism industry（产业）. This means more other parts of the country’s economy（经济）can suffer.

On the other hand, if there is not enough tourism, people can lose jobs. Businesses can also lose money. It costs a great deal of money to build large hotels, airports, first-class roads, and other support facilities（设施）needed by tourist attractions.

For example, a major international class tourism hotel can cost as much as 50 thousand dollars per room to build. If this room is not used most of the time, the owners of the hotel lose money.

Building a hotel is just a beginning. There must be many support facilities as well, including roads to get to the hotel, electricity, sewers to handle waste and water. All of these support facilities cost money. If they are not used because there are not enough tourists, jobs and money are lost.

For some people, music is no fun at all. About 4% of the population is what scientists call “amusic”. People who are amusic are born without the ability to enjoy musical notes. Amusic people often cannot tell the differences between two songs. 

  As a result, songs sound like noise to an amusic. Many amuics compare the sound of music to pieces of metal hitting each other. Life can be hard for amusics. In fact, most people cannot understand what it feel like be amusic. Just going to a restaurant or a shopping center can be uncomfortable or even painful. That is why many amusics have to stay away from places where there is music. However, this can result in social loneliness. “I used to hate parties,” says Margaret, a seventy-year-old woman who only recently discovered that she was amusic. By studying people like Margaret, scientists are finally learning how to identify(辨别) this unusual condition. 

  Scientists say that the brains of amusics are different for those of people who can enjoy music. The difference is complex(复杂的), and it is not connected with poor hearing. Amusics can understand other non-musical sounds well. They also have no problems understanding common speech. Scientists compare amusics to people who just can’t see certain colors. 

  Many amusics are happy when their condition is finally diagnosed(诊断). For years, Margaret felt embarrassed about her problem music. Now she knows that she is not alone. That makes it easier for her to explain. “When people invite me to a concert, I just say ”No, thanks. I’m amusic.’” says Margret. 

We all know that life without emojis would be extremely boring．Therefore，it is only fitting that the editors of the well-known oxford English Dictionary chose —the face with the tears of joy as its ‘Word of the Year’ for 2015．

The company that announced its unusual word choice on November 16th said that it was picked over several other traditional choices．Among them were ‘refugee’，‘sharing economy’ and ‘on fleek’．However，it was this simple emoji that resonated with the editors because it appeared to best describe the spirits, mood, and concerns of 2015．

They also thought that this was a good year to pay homage to the emoji. For though they have been around since the late 1990’s，the use of the digital signs and the word that describes them，has increased sharply this year．Besides，emojis are now used by people of all ages，not just teenagers．

Also, though the word comes from the Japanese language—e(picture)，moji(character or letter)，the digital signs can be understood by everyone regardless of the language they speak．Therefore it only makes sense to acknowledge their importance to global communication．

As to how they selected from the thousands of emojis that are available，the company says that they partnered with a leading mobile technology company SwifiKey to determine the most popular emoji．It turns out that ‘tears of joy’ is the most used icon. According to SwiffKey，made up 17％of all emojis used in the U．S．A and a surprising 20％in the United Kingdom!

Though this is the first time the Oxford University Press has selected an image for its‘word of the year’．it is not the first time they have tried to combine modem lingo into their 150-year-old publication．In 2013，in recognition of the growing popularity of self-portraits，the editors selected ‘selfie’, for the‘Word of the Year’！

Question 11-15 Multiple Choice Questions

There are four choices for each question. Refer to the passage and choose the correct answer.

In modern society there is a great deal of argument about competition. Some value it highly, believing that it is responsible(负责任) for social progress. Others say that competition is bad; that it sets one person against another; that it leads to unfriendly relationship between people.

 I have taught many children who held the belief that their self-worth depended on how well they performed at tennis and other skills. For them, playing well and winning are often life-and-death affairs(事件). The development of many other human qualities is sadly forgotten.

 However, while some seem to be lost in the desire(渴望)to succeed, others take an opposite attitude. In a culture which values only the winner and pays no attention to the common players, they are strongly against competition. Most of them are young people who have suffered under competitive pressures from their parents or society. Teaching these youngsters, I often observe(观察) in them a desire to fail. They seem to find failure by not trying to win or achieve success. By not trying, they always have an excuse: " I may have lost, but it doesn't matter because I really didn't try." What is not usually accepted by themselves is the belief that if they had really tried and lost, that would mean a lot. Such a loss would be a measure(估量) of their worth. Clearly, this belief is the same as that of true competitors who try to prove themselves. Both are based on the mistaken belief that one's self-worth depends on how well one performs in the competition. Both are afraid of not being valued. We can discover a new meaning in competition only as this kind of fear begins to disappear.

Computers are useful machines. They can help people a lot in their everyday life. For example, they can help people save much time, and they can help people work out many problems they can’t do easily. Our country asks everyone to learn to use computers except the old people.

Today more and more families own computers. Parents buy computers for their children.

They hope computers can help them improve (提高) their studies in school. Yet many of the children use computers to play games, to watch video or to sing Karaoke, instead of studying. So many teachers and parents complain (抱怨) that computers can not help children to study but make them fall behind. So computers are locked by parents in the boxes.

In some other countries, even some scientists hate computers. They say computers let millions of people lost their jobs or bring them a lot of trouble.

Will computers really bring trouble to people or can they bring people happiness? It will be decided by people themselves.

One day Peng Xianzhe learned he would go to the Mashan School in Guizhou. The 16-year-old boy tried to imagine how serious the drought was for the students at that school. However, he realized it was more serious than he had imagined when he saw the sign“DON’T wash clothes with water，or you will be punished（惩罚）.”

Because of drought, the school has been short of water for a long time. Each student has only one bottle of water every day for washing and drinking. The drought has made the poor students much poorer.

Peng is a student from Beijing Chaoyang Foreign Language School. He took part in the school’s Rain & Bow Project from April 2 to 10.

The project idea came from Peng’s principal（负责人）. One day, she heard a sad story about Li Guoxian, a poor girl in the Mashan School，who stopped going to school because of drought. The principal started this project to help the school. In one day, 3，000 students made over 10，000 donations of water，books and clothes.

Peng and other four students went to the Mashan School and gave the donations with five teachers. They visited poor families, made surveys and had classes at the school.

Ding Zhentao，16，was worried about the school’s poor learning environment. “The blackboards and playground are too shabby to use，”Ding said.“Besides, there really aren’t enough teachers. A teacher has to teach both history and English, and even the cook is a class teacher.”

Although life isn’t easy, students at the school have a positive attitude(积极的态度）towards life and they are quite willing to learn. That’s what moved 16-year-old Chen Shi most.

“They sang their songs together as usual before class every afternoon. After class, the students asked us to tell them things about Beijing and our studies,” Chen said.“You can see the passion(热情）in them. I believe it will make a difference. Their futures will be bright.”

根据短文内容，选择正确答案。

I think it is safe to say that snakes are not popular among most people. It would be hard to find a person who is neutral (中立的), or simple doesn't care one way or the other. What I wonder is why something even without legs causes such great fear.

    Snakes are quite useful, but that doesn't seem to matter. Snakes help control the population of mice. Without snakes, perhaps we would find mice everywhere. Most of us, however, would rather see a mouse than a snake.

    The poison argument is a strong one. Some snakes are poisonous(有毒的), and this causes people's death. However, the poisonous snakes are only a small number. We can't say all the snakes are bad just because of a few dangerous ones.

    And what do we do with the people who really like snakes? They like snakes even more strongly than we dislike them. These people learn about them, find them out, and watch them carefully. Why? The only reason I can think of is that these people are open-minded. They are able to put aside differences and welcome the snake as a friend.

    Whatever the reason for our like or dislike, snakes do something good in the circle of life. They would prefer to be left alone, and that is what we should do. If you're lucky, you might not run across more than a few of them in a lifetime. That would be fine with most of us.