But I’ll leave the economics to the experts. What bothers me about the death of the wallet is the change it represents in our physical environment. Everything about the look and feel of a wallet, the way the materials wear and tear and loosen with age, the plastic and paper and gold and silver, and handwritten phone numbers and printed cinema tickets, is the very opposite of what our world is becoming. The opposite of a wallet is a smartphone or an iPad. The rounded edges, cool glass, smooth and unknowable as a pebble. Instead of digging through pieces of paper, we move our fingers left and right. No more counting out coins. Show your wallet, if you still have one. It may not be here much longer.
28. What is happening to the wallet?
A. It is disappearing.
B. It is becoming costly.
C. It is being fattened.
D. It is changing in style.
29. How are businesses done in big modern stores?
A. Individually.
B. In the abstract.
C. Electronically.
D. Via a cash register.
30. What makes the author feel uncomfortable nowadays?
A. Saving money is becoming a thing of the past.
B. The pleasing Friday-night feeling is fading.
C. Earning money is getting more difficult.
D. Spending money is so fast and easy.
31. What can we infer from the passage about the author?
A. He is resistant to social changes.
B. He is against technological progress.
C. He feels reluctant to part with the traditional wallet.
D. He feels insecure in the ever-changing modern world.
D
We’ve been judging people based on the way they look for thousands of years. The ancient Greeks turned it into a science, “physiognomy”. As early as 500 BC, the mathematician Pythagoras would look carefully at young men’s faces to determine if they’d make a good student, not long after Aristotle wrote how large-headed people were mean. It was widely believed at the time that the animal a person resembled was a good judge of character.
By the Middle Ages it was well and truly mainstream. Professionals coined the phrase “stuck-up” to refer from the belief that those with upturned noses had an air of superiority, “high-brow” to refer to the high foreheads of nobles and “low-brow” to the less educated foreheads of the lower classes.
Back in 2016, we’re still doing it. We view those who resemble Labradors (拉布拉多犬) as warm, while those who resemble lions as more of a ruler. We think of those with “resting moody face” as more aggressive, those who are less attractive as sick and expect people who look familiar to share our values. Many of these judgments occur in as little as 50 milliseconds.
To get to understand and find out why having a babyface is so great, first we need to know what happens when we recognize an actual baby.
In fact, the features of babies and those universally considered “cute” are nothing more than a series of developmental accidents. Our eyes are already fully grown by the time we’re born but our heads aren’t. Similarly, our bodies do a lot more growing later on than our heads. Babies have more body fat than adults, chubby (肥嘟嘟的)cheeks, for example. The list goes on.
And regardless of whether you’re very maternal (慈爱的) or find babies really annoying, we’re unconditionally to respond to their features by turning into gentle baby-talking fools. Most importantly, gazing into their innocent faces makes us less aggressive and more generous and helpful.
So there you have it. Next time you find yourself staring affectionately into the eyes of a baby-faced friend, colleague or date, just remember, you may be the latest victim in a long-running systematic evolutionary trick.
32. What’s the passage mainly talking about?
A. The features of faces.
B. The science of judging people by face.
C. The trick of faces.
D. The importance of judging people from their looks.
33. What’s the meaning of the underlined word “coined” in paragraph 2?
A. made up
B. looked up
C. picked out
D. figured out
34. Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?
A. It is absolutely wise to judge people by the way they look.
B. “Stuck-up” refers to the high foreheads of nobles with an air of superiority.
C. People make judgments of life-and-death importance in as little as 50 milliseconds.
D. It’s believed that the features of babies are universally considered cute.
35. What message does the last paragraph suggest?
A. You are sure to be easily cheated by a babyfaced friend, colleague or date.
B. Unconsciously, you can’t help showing affection towards one with a babyface.
C. Many babyfaced people like to play tricks, which is obviously a result of evolution.
D. Staring into the eyes of a babyfaced friend may make you a victim of a trick.
第二节 （共 5 小题；每小题 2 分，满分 10 分）
根据短文内容，从短文后的选项中选出能填入空白处的最佳选项。选项中有两项为多余选项。
How long can human beings live? 36 However, 110 years is probably the longest that anyone could hope to live — if he or she is extremely healthy and lucky. Some scientists even say we can live as long as 130 years! 37 They wear out, and as a result, we get old and eventually die.
Even though we can’t live forever, we are living a longer life than ever before. In 1900, the average American life-span was only 47 years, but today it is 75 years!
38 Sixty-five may be out-of-date as the dividing line between middle age and old age. After all, many older people don’t begin to experience physical and mental decline until after age 75.
People are living longer because more people survive childhood. 39 Now that the chances of dying young are much lower, the chances of living long are much higher due to better diets and health care.
40 The changes in our population will have lasting effects on our social development and our way of life. Some people fear such changes will be for the worse, while some see chances, not disaster. Many men and women in their “golden years” are healthy, still active, and young in mind if not in age. With long lives ahead of older citizens, they need to stay active and devoted.
A. When does old age begin then?
B. On the whole, our population is getting older.
C. As the society grows old, we need the contributions of our older citizens.
D. Yet, the cells in the human body simply cannot continue to reproduce endlessly.
E. A recent research shows that cancer cells can multiply themselves like crazy at all times.
F. Most scientists studying old age think the human body is designed to live no longer than 120 years.
G. Before modern medicine changed the laws of nature, many children died of common childhood diseases.
第三部分 英语知识运用 （共两节，满分 45）
第一节 完形填空（共 20 小题；每小题 1.5 分，满分 30 分）
阅读下面短文，从短文后各题所给的四个选项（A、B、C 和 D）中，选出可以填入空白处的最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。