國立清華大學 115 年 《英文》

A policewoman crouched inside a boxlike vehicle ____ the area looking for cars parked illegally, for meter violations, lapsed inspection stickers.

After Marco Polo’s trip to China where he learned the process of making noodles, its introduction into Europe underwent ____ and conformed to the culinary tastes of the people.

In close ____ to each other, people within Southeast Asian countries have held trade relations with one another.

Human beings are ____ visual animals. Though our other senses play a role in helping us to feel immersed in and to connect with place, it is gaze that most powerfully defines the boundaries of built space.

A number of jurisdictions in the United States have implemented an algorithm to determine bail ____ on the basis of predictions about the accused’s future.

While exports to the US ____ by 29% year-on-year, sales to markets elsewhere ballooned, including a 15% rise in exports to the EU and 9% jump to the UK compared with the same period a year earlier.

We can now learn more about one of the most controversial monarchs in European history, thanks to a trio of amateur cryptologists who unknowingly stumbled upon a treasure trove of long-lost letters by Mary, Queen of Scots and worked ____ to crack their code.

Economic ____ like hyperinflation, stock market crashes and unemployment spikes tend to affect people’s attitudes and choices for a long time, but people are particularly reactive to what happened recently.

While some of the shifts could unravel if political agendas reverse—and some of the cuts are still being ____ in court—university leaders are concluding that many of the changes made so far to research, diversity and campus culture are likely to last long after the President leaves office.

With its technological and economic ____, Japan is positioned to deliver affordable renewable energy, create green jobs, and hit climate targets that are necessary for a peaceful and stable future.

Reports of rising mental health issues among young people have drawn ____ about the impacts of frequent internet use and the spread of online games, smartphones, and social media.

At least three people have been killed and nine others injured as a knife-wielding attacker, aged 27, went on a ____ in Taipei, Taiwan, a country where brutal attacks of this kind are rare.

The Danish postal service will deliver its last letter on 30 December 2025, ending a more than 400-year-old tradition, because in the last 25 years, letter-sending has been in sharp decline in Denmark. But evidence suggests a resurgence in letter-writing among younger people could be ____.

The hormonal changes associated with menopause can affect physical, emotional, mental, and social well-being. The symptoms experienced during and following the menopausal transition vary ____ from person to person.

This was jazz of the highest order—challenging, yet accessible, ____ entertaining and arrestingly beautiful. Goosebumps were felt.

Choose ONE underlined part that contains ungrammatical use of English.

Robinson Crusoe, with its twin motifs of isolation and the imaginary voyage, provides broad outline of a character who encapsulates the freedom and detachment of the wanderer, the resourcefulness of the adventurer, and the amorality of the survivor.

Choose ONE underlined part that contains ungrammatical use of English.

Gasoline-powered vehicles had been around for more than a quarter-century by the start of the 1920, but not until that decade did they become a central factor in the everyday lives of ordinary Americans.

Choose ONE underlined part that contains ungrammatical use of English.

On June 2, 2016, Jamine Richards, founder of the Pasadena, California chapter of Black Lives Matter, was convicted in “felony lynching” and sentenced to ninety Days in prison and three years’ probation.

Choose ONE underlined part that contains ungrammatical use of English.

Human bodies and almost all animals are sustained by the air breathed, which nevertheless can kill when toxin-bearing. The air supply has grown increasingly polluting since the onset of the Industrial Revolution.

Choose ONE underlined part that contains ungrammatical use of English.

John Singleton Copley’s Watson and the Shark (1778) stands as the best known example of an eighteenth-century piece breaking with the tradition of relegating African Americans definitive servant roles, and even Copley’s painting stops short of casting the black man as heroic.

Choose ONE underlined part that contains ungrammatical use of English.

For those who fantasize of time traveling to witness the Gilded Age’s most sumptuous spectacles, Beaux-Arts architecture offers a tangible glimpse. The style originated in 19th-century France and eventually rose to prominence in the United States in metropolitan areas such as New York City and San Francisco.

Choose ONE underlined part that contains ungrammatical use of English.

At a site called East Farm in England, recent excavations revealed reddened silt, flint handaxes distorted by heat, and fragmented of a mineral—iron pyrite—that could have been used to make sparks on tinder.

Choose ONE underlined part that contains ungrammatical use of English.

While analysts expect that reviving Venezuela’s dilapidated oil industry will take huge investments and a lot of time, and they say even a small near-term output increase—followed by a larger rise over the longer run—could exacerbate the global imbalance and push prices further down.

Choose ONE underlined part that contains ungrammatical use of English.

The brain composed of billions of neurons—nerve cells that collect, process and send information—as well as a complex network of electrical circuits that allow these neurons to “talk” with one another. These connections are crucial, as neurons in the brain also can send messages to other parts of the body through the nervous system.

Choose ONE underlined part that contains ungrammatical use of English.

Every detail is carefully arranged to optimal the game-watching experience. Next to the field, there are eateries serving all kinds of Taiwanese cuisine as well as souvenir shops selling peripheral merchandise, giving the fans a chance to stock up on whatever they need.

Choose ONE underlined part that contains ungrammatical use of English.

In 2025, Brazil established a funding platform to protect existing forest areas called the Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF). It aims to ensure that maintaining tropical forests is valued more than destroys them, with financial rewards for those who have taken successful, verified steps to keep their forests up.

Choose ONE underlined part that contains ungrammatical use of English.

Although not as grisly as some battlefield crime scene photos, the motionless bodies of the soldier-killers face-down or contorted frozen as they fell, wearing commercial brand-name winter parkas, are just as dreadfully as any of the dead I’ve seen in battleground pictures.

Choose ONE underlined part that contains ungrammatical use of English.

A pair of father-and-son gunmen killed at least 15 people in a mass shooting at a Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, on Sunday. The attack is the first deadly mass shooting in Australia since 2022, when six people, including two police officers, had been shot in a suspected ambush.

Choose ONE underlined part that contains ungrammatical use of English.

The United States on Wednesday approved $11.1 billion in arms sales to Taiwan, the largest ever U.S. weapons package for the island, where is under increasing military pressure from China. The U.S. is bound by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself, though such arms sales are a persistent source of friction with China.

Choose ONE underlined part that contains ungrammatical use of English.

The Hague is considerably cyclable, with clearly separated bike lanes and, more importantly, attentive Dutch drivers who are used to share the roads. Most hotels will come with their own rent-a-bike service, but you can also rent a Dutch city bike at Haagse Stadsfietsen for as little as 10 euros ($11.60) per day.

【題組共用題幹】

Though The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936) was the first film he ever made, Pare Lorentz came to it with a strong belief in the persuasive power of cinema and its ability to make people face up to reality. As a film critic and co-author of Censored: The Private Life of the Movies (1930), he had frequently indicted Hollywood for “censoring” the public’s access to information about “tough contemporary facts.” Thus, when the Resettlement Administration (RA) asked him to make Americans aware of the necessity of its programmes, he leapt at the chance and convinced Rex Tugwell of the need, not for short public information films but for a new kind of “dramatic/informational/persuasive movie” that would be “worthy of commercial distribution.”

By 1934, the Dust Bowl extended from Texas to North Dakota, with reports that over 180 million acres had already been ruined for agricultural cultivation and that a further 775 million were at risk. Lorentz had already proposed a film about the appalling cost of this situation to Hollywood. Having been rebuffed, he only became more determined to use the RA’s support to command the public’s attention. As many film historians have noted, he succeeded in producing a seminal film, both “politically committed and aesthetically ambitious,” that shaped the American documentary tradition. Presenting The Plow as “a record of the land” and “a picturization of what we did with it,” the prologue immediately conveys a sense of collective national guilt. Each section is carefully orchestrated, with poetic narration delivered by operatic singer Thomas Chalmers and visuals edited to Virgil Thomson’s musical score to unite the film as a lyrical whole. Idyllic shots of tall waving grass show “the richness of the western plain lands before their abuse,” and serve as the measure of the ensuing disaster. Homesteaders, farmers and the frenzy of mechanized harvesting prompted by the agricultural profits available during the First World War, contribute in turn to an ever-expanding exploitation of the land. A dramatic montage juxtaposing tractors on the home front with tanks on the Western Front foreshadow the destruction which Lorentz soon marks with images of dead animals and bleached bones on parched, depleted soil. His most powerful footage, however, is of the violent dust storms themselves, blocking out the sun, bringing the terror of the “black blizzards” to “millions who had only read about what was happening far away on the Great Plains.”

Lorentz’s proposal of a film about the problem of the Dust Bowl ____.

【題組共用題幹】

Though The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936) was the first film he ever made, Pare Lorentz came to it with a strong belief in the persuasive power of cinema and its ability to make people face up to reality. As a film critic and co-author of Censored: The Private Life of the Movies (1930), he had frequently indicted Hollywood for “censoring” the public’s access to information about “tough contemporary facts.” Thus, when the Resettlement Administration (RA) asked him to make Americans aware of the necessity of its programmes, he leapt at the chance and convinced Rex Tugwell of the need, not for short public information films but for a new kind of “dramatic/informational/persuasive movie” that would be “worthy of commercial distribution.”

By 1934, the Dust Bowl extended from Texas to North Dakota, with reports that over 180 million acres had already been ruined for agricultural cultivation and that a further 775 million were at risk. Lorentz had already proposed a film about the appalling cost of this situation to Hollywood. Having been rebuffed, he only became more determined to use the RA’s support to command the public’s attention. As many film historians have noted, he succeeded in producing a seminal film, both “politically committed and aesthetically ambitious,” that shaped the American documentary tradition. Presenting The Plow as “a record of the land” and “a picturization of what we did with it,” the prologue immediately conveys a sense of collective national guilt. Each section is carefully orchestrated, with poetic narration delivered by operatic singer Thomas Chalmers and visuals edited to Virgil Thomson’s musical score to unite the film as a lyrical whole. Idyllic shots of tall waving grass show “the richness of the western plain lands before their abuse,” and serve as the measure of the ensuing disaster. Homesteaders, farmers and the frenzy of mechanized harvesting prompted by the agricultural profits available during the First World War, contribute in turn to an ever-expanding exploitation of the land. A dramatic montage juxtaposing tractors on the home front with tanks on the Western Front foreshadow the destruction which Lorentz soon marks with images of dead animals and bleached bones on parched, depleted soil. His most powerful footage, however, is of the violent dust storms themselves, blocking out the sun, bringing the terror of the “black blizzards” to “millions who had only read about what was happening far away on the Great Plains.”

According to the author, Lorentz’s dramatic montage that juxtaposed tractors on the home front with tanks on the Western Front ____.

【題組共用題幹】

Though The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936) was the first film he ever made, Pare Lorentz came to it with a strong belief in the persuasive power of cinema and its ability to make people face up to reality. As a film critic and co-author of Censored: The Private Life of the Movies (1930), he had frequently indicted Hollywood for “censoring” the public’s access to information about “tough contemporary facts.” Thus, when the Resettlement Administration (RA) asked him to make Americans aware of the necessity of its programmes, he leapt at the chance and convinced Rex Tugwell of the need, not for short public information films but for a new kind of “dramatic/informational/persuasive movie” that would be “worthy of commercial distribution.”

By 1934, the Dust Bowl extended from Texas to North Dakota, with reports that over 180 million acres had already been ruined for agricultural cultivation and that a further 775 million were at risk. Lorentz had already proposed a film about the appalling cost of this situation to Hollywood. Having been rebuffed, he only became more determined to use the RA’s support to command the public’s attention. As many film historians have noted, he succeeded in producing a seminal film, both “politically committed and aesthetically ambitious,” that shaped the American documentary tradition. Presenting The Plow as “a record of the land” and “a picturization of what we did with it,” the prologue immediately conveys a sense of collective national guilt. Each section is carefully orchestrated, with poetic narration delivered by operatic singer Thomas Chalmers and visuals edited to Virgil Thomson’s musical score to unite the film as a lyrical whole. Idyllic shots of tall waving grass show “the richness of the western plain lands before their abuse,” and serve as the measure of the ensuing disaster. Homesteaders, farmers and the frenzy of mechanized harvesting prompted by the agricultural profits available during the First World War, contribute in turn to an ever-expanding exploitation of the land. A dramatic montage juxtaposing tractors on the home front with tanks on the Western Front foreshadow the destruction which Lorentz soon marks with images of dead animals and bleached bones on parched, depleted soil. His most powerful footage, however, is of the violent dust storms themselves, blocking out the sun, bringing the terror of the “black blizzards” to “millions who had only read about what was happening far away on the Great Plains.”

In the sentence in the second paragraph, “he succeeded in producing a seminal film,” what does the word “seminal” most nearly mean?

【題組共用題幹】

Though The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936) was the first film he ever made, Pare Lorentz came to it with a strong belief in the persuasive power of cinema and its ability to make people face up to reality. As a film critic and co-author of Censored: The Private Life of the Movies (1930), he had frequently indicted Hollywood for “censoring” the public’s access to information about “tough contemporary facts.” Thus, when the Resettlement Administration (RA) asked him to make Americans aware of the necessity of its programmes, he leapt at the chance and convinced Rex Tugwell of the need, not for short public information films but for a new kind of “dramatic/informational/persuasive movie” that would be “worthy of commercial distribution.”

By 1934, the Dust Bowl extended from Texas to North Dakota, with reports that over 180 million acres had already been ruined for agricultural cultivation and that a further 775 million were at risk. Lorentz had already proposed a film about the appalling cost of this situation to Hollywood. Having been rebuffed, he only became more determined to use the RA’s support to command the public’s attention. As many film historians have noted, he succeeded in producing a seminal film, both “politically committed and aesthetically ambitious,” that shaped the American documentary tradition. Presenting The Plow as “a record of the land” and “a picturization of what we did with it,” the prologue immediately conveys a sense of collective national guilt. Each section is carefully orchestrated, with poetic narration delivered by operatic singer Thomas Chalmers and visuals edited to Virgil Thomson’s musical score to unite the film as a lyrical whole. Idyllic shots of tall waving grass show “the richness of the western plain lands before their abuse,” and serve as the measure of the ensuing disaster. Homesteaders, farmers and the frenzy of mechanized harvesting prompted by the agricultural profits available during the First World War, contribute in turn to an ever-expanding exploitation of the land. A dramatic montage juxtaposing tractors on the home front with tanks on the Western Front foreshadow the destruction which Lorentz soon marks with images of dead animals and bleached bones on parched, depleted soil. His most powerful footage, however, is of the violent dust storms themselves, blocking out the sun, bringing the terror of the “black blizzards” to “millions who had only read about what was happening far away on the Great Plains.”

Which of the following statements is correct about Pare Lorentz?

I. He was a film critic.
II. He was one of the authors of Censored: The Private Life of the Movies.
III. He produced a documentary concerning the Dust Bowl.

【題組共用題幹】

Though The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936) was the first film he ever made, Pare Lorentz came to it with a strong belief in the persuasive power of cinema and its ability to make people face up to reality. As a film critic and co-author of Censored: The Private Life of the Movies (1930), he had frequently indicted Hollywood for “censoring” the public’s access to information about “tough contemporary facts.” Thus, when the Resettlement Administration (RA) asked him to make Americans aware of the necessity of its programmes, he leapt at the chance and convinced Rex Tugwell of the need, not for short public information films but for a new kind of “dramatic/informational/persuasive movie” that would be “worthy of commercial distribution.”

By 1934, the Dust Bowl extended from Texas to North Dakota, with reports that over 180 million acres had already been ruined for agricultural cultivation and that a further 775 million were at risk. Lorentz had already proposed a film about the appalling cost of this situation to Hollywood. Having been rebuffed, he only became more determined to use the RA’s support to command the public’s attention. As many film historians have noted, he succeeded in producing a seminal film, both “politically committed and aesthetically ambitious,” that shaped the American documentary tradition. Presenting The Plow as “a record of the land” and “a picturization of what we did with it,” the prologue immediately conveys a sense of collective national guilt. Each section is carefully orchestrated, with poetic narration delivered by operatic singer Thomas Chalmers and visuals edited to Virgil Thomson’s musical score to unite the film as a lyrical whole. Idyllic shots of tall waving grass show “the richness of the western plain lands before their abuse,” and serve as the measure of the ensuing disaster. Homesteaders, farmers and the frenzy of mechanized harvesting prompted by the agricultural profits available during the First World War, contribute in turn to an ever-expanding exploitation of the land. A dramatic montage juxtaposing tractors on the home front with tanks on the Western Front foreshadow the destruction which Lorentz soon marks with images of dead animals and bleached bones on parched, depleted soil. His most powerful footage, however, is of the violent dust storms themselves, blocking out the sun, bringing the terror of the “black blizzards” to “millions who had only read about what was happening far away on the Great Plains.”

Based on the passage, which of the following statements is correct about The Plow That Broke the Plains?

I. It conveys a sense of collective national guilt.
II. It contains footage of the “black blizzards” themselves.
III. It contains shots of tall grass, which represent the abuse of the land.

【題組共用題幹】

Privilege is a right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage, or favor. There is racial privilege, gender (and identity) privilege, heterosexual privilege, economic privilege, able-bodied privilege, educational privilege, religious privilege and the list goes on and on. At some point, you have to surrender to the kinds of privilege you hold because everyone has something someone else doesn’t. The problem is, we talk about privilege with such alarming frequency and in such empty ways, we have diluted the word’s meaning. When people wield the word privilege it tends to fall on deaf ears because we hear that word so damn much the word has become white noise.

One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do is accept and acknowledge my privilege. This is something I am still working on. I’m a woman, a person of color, and the child of immigrants but I also grew up middle class and then upper middle class. My parents raised my siblings and I in a strict but loving environment. They were and are happily married so I didn’t have to deal with divorce or crappy intramarital dynamics. I attended elite schools. My master’s and doctoral degrees were funded. I got a tenure track position my first time out. My bills are paid. I have the time and resources for frivolity. I am reasonably well published. I have an agent so I have every reason to believe my novel will find a home. My life has been far from perfect but I have a whole lot of privilege. It’s somewhat embarrassing for me to accept just how much privilege I have.

It’s also really difficult for me to accept my privilege when I consider the ways in which I lack privilege or the ways in which my privilege hasn’t magically rescued me from a world of hurt. On my more difficult days, I’m not sure what’s more of a pain in my ass—being black or being a woman. I’m happy to be both of these things, but the world keeps intervening.

Which of the following best captures the author’s overall message about privilege?

【題組共用題幹】

Privilege is a right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage, or favor. There is racial privilege, gender (and identity) privilege, heterosexual privilege, economic privilege, able-bodied privilege, educational privilege, religious privilege and the list goes on and on. At some point, you have to surrender to the kinds of privilege you hold because everyone has something someone else doesn’t. The problem is, we talk about privilege with such alarming frequency and in such empty ways, we have diluted the word’s meaning. When people wield the word privilege it tends to fall on deaf ears because we hear that word so damn much the word has become white noise.

One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do is accept and acknowledge my privilege. This is something I am still working on. I’m a woman, a person of color, and the child of immigrants but I also grew up middle class and then upper middle class. My parents raised my siblings and I in a strict but loving environment. They were and are happily married so I didn’t have to deal with divorce or crappy intramarital dynamics. I attended elite schools. My master’s and doctoral degrees were funded. I got a tenure track position my first time out. My bills are paid. I have the time and resources for frivolity. I am reasonably well published. I have an agent so I have every reason to believe my novel will find a home. My life has been far from perfect but I have a whole lot of privilege. It’s somewhat embarrassing for me to accept just how much privilege I have.

It’s also really difficult for me to accept my privilege when I consider the ways in which I lack privilege or the ways in which my privilege hasn’t magically rescued me from a world of hurt. On my more difficult days, I’m not sure what’s more of a pain in my ass—being black or being a woman. I’m happy to be both of these things, but the world keeps intervening.

The author is most concerned that the word “privilege” ____.

【題組共用題幹】

Privilege is a right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage, or favor. There is racial privilege, gender (and identity) privilege, heterosexual privilege, economic privilege, able-bodied privilege, educational privilege, religious privilege and the list goes on and on. At some point, you have to surrender to the kinds of privilege you hold because everyone has something someone else doesn’t. The problem is, we talk about privilege with such alarming frequency and in such empty ways, we have diluted the word’s meaning. When people wield the word privilege it tends to fall on deaf ears because we hear that word so damn much the word has become white noise.

One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do is accept and acknowledge my privilege. This is something I am still working on. I’m a woman, a person of color, and the child of immigrants but I also grew up middle class and then upper middle class. My parents raised my siblings and I in a strict but loving environment. They were and are happily married so I didn’t have to deal with divorce or crappy intramarital dynamics. I attended elite schools. My master’s and doctoral degrees were funded. I got a tenure track position my first time out. My bills are paid. I have the time and resources for frivolity. I am reasonably well published. I have an agent so I have every reason to believe my novel will find a home. My life has been far from perfect but I have a whole lot of privilege. It’s somewhat embarrassing for me to accept just how much privilege I have.

It’s also really difficult for me to accept my privilege when I consider the ways in which I lack privilege or the ways in which my privilege hasn’t magically rescued me from a world of hurt. On my more difficult days, I’m not sure what’s more of a pain in my ass—being black or being a woman. I’m happy to be both of these things, but the world keeps intervening.

Why does the author describe her background at length?

【題組共用題幹】

Privilege is a right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage, or favor. There is racial privilege, gender (and identity) privilege, heterosexual privilege, economic privilege, able-bodied privilege, educational privilege, religious privilege and the list goes on and on. At some point, you have to surrender to the kinds of privilege you hold because everyone has something someone else doesn’t. The problem is, we talk about privilege with such alarming frequency and in such empty ways, we have diluted the word’s meaning. When people wield the word privilege it tends to fall on deaf ears because we hear that word so damn much the word has become white noise.

One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do is accept and acknowledge my privilege. This is something I am still working on. I’m a woman, a person of color, and the child of immigrants but I also grew up middle class and then upper middle class. My parents raised my siblings and I in a strict but loving environment. They were and are happily married so I didn’t have to deal with divorce or crappy intramarital dynamics. I attended elite schools. My master’s and doctoral degrees were funded. I got a tenure track position my first time out. My bills are paid. I have the time and resources for frivolity. I am reasonably well published. I have an agent so I have every reason to believe my novel will find a home. My life has been far from perfect but I have a whole lot of privilege. It’s somewhat embarrassing for me to accept just how much privilege I have.

It’s also really difficult for me to accept my privilege when I consider the ways in which I lack privilege or the ways in which my privilege hasn’t magically rescued me from a world of hurt. On my more difficult days, I’m not sure what’s more of a pain in my ass—being black or being a woman. I’m happy to be both of these things, but the world keeps intervening.

The author’s statement that acknowledging her privilege is “somewhat embarrassing” suggests that she ____.

【題組共用題幹】

Privilege is a right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage, or favor. There is racial privilege, gender (and identity) privilege, heterosexual privilege, economic privilege, able-bodied privilege, educational privilege, religious privilege and the list goes on and on. At some point, you have to surrender to the kinds of privilege you hold because everyone has something someone else doesn’t. The problem is, we talk about privilege with such alarming frequency and in such empty ways, we have diluted the word’s meaning. When people wield the word privilege it tends to fall on deaf ears because we hear that word so damn much the word has become white noise.

One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do is accept and acknowledge my privilege. This is something I am still working on. I’m a woman, a person of color, and the child of immigrants but I also grew up middle class and then upper middle class. My parents raised my siblings and I in a strict but loving environment. They were and are happily married so I didn’t have to deal with divorce or crappy intramarital dynamics. I attended elite schools. My master’s and doctoral degrees were funded. I got a tenure track position my first time out. My bills are paid. I have the time and resources for frivolity. I am reasonably well published. I have an agent so I have every reason to believe my novel will find a home. My life has been far from perfect but I have a whole lot of privilege. It’s somewhat embarrassing for me to accept just how much privilege I have.

It’s also really difficult for me to accept my privilege when I consider the ways in which I lack privilege or the ways in which my privilege hasn’t magically rescued me from a world of hurt. On my more difficult days, I’m not sure what’s more of a pain in my ass—being black or being a woman. I’m happy to be both of these things, but the world keeps intervening.

In the sentence “you have to surrender to the kinds of privilege you hold,” the word surrender is used to suggest that one must ____.

【題組共用題幹】

It was one of the most important revolutions in modern history—and yet no blood was spilled, no bombs were thrown and no monarch was beheaded. It took place in armchairs, in libraries, in coffee houses and in clubs. What happened was this: in the middle of the eighteenth-century, huge numbers of ordinary people began to read.

For the first couple of centuries after the invention of the printing press, reading remained largely an elite pursuit. But by the beginning of the eighteenth century, the expansion of education and an explosion of cheap books began to diffuse reading rapidly down through the middle classes and even into the lower ranks of society. Suddenly it seemed that everyone was reading everywhere: men, women, children, the rich, the poor. This transformation is sometimes known as the “reading revolution”. It was an unprecedented democratisation of information; the greatest transfer of knowledge into the hands of ordinary men and women in history.

In Britain only 6,000 books were published in the first decade of the eighteenth century; in the last decade of the same century the number of new titles was in excess of 56,000. Where readers had once read “intensively”, spending their lives reading and re-reading two or three books, the reading revolution popularised a new kind of “extensive” reading. People read everything they could get their hands on: newspapers, journals, history, philosophy, science, theology and literature.

Even more importantly, print changed how people thought. The world of print is orderly, logical and rational. In books, knowledge is classified, comprehended, connected and put in its place. Books make arguments, propose theses, develop ideas. “To engage with the written word”, the media theorist Neil Postman wrote, “means to follow a line of thought, which requires considerable powers of classifying, inference-making and reasoning.”

It is no accident, that the growth of print culture in the eighteenth century was associated with the growing prestige of reason, hostility to superstition, the birth of capitalism, and the rapid development of science. Other historians have linked the eighteenth century explosion of literacy to the Enlightenment, the birth of human rights, the arrival of democracy and even the beginnings of the industrial revolution. Now, we are living through the counter-revolution. More than three hundred years after the reading revolution ushered in a new era of human knowledge, books are dying. Studies suggest that reading is declining across developed societies, with fewer adults reading for pleasure and children’s reading reaching historically low levels.

What happened was the smartphone, which was widely adopted in developed countries in the second decade of the twenty-first century. Never before has there been a technology like the smartphone. Where previous entertainment technologies like cinema or television were intended to capture their audience’s attention for a period, the smartphone demands your entire life. Phones are designed to be hyper-addictive, hooking users on a diet of pointless notifications, inane short-form videos and social media rage bait.

If the reading revolution represented the greatest transfer of knowledge to ordinary men and women in history, the screen revolution represents the greatest theft of knowledge from ordinary people in history.

Which of the following best captures the main argument of the passage?

【題組共用題幹】

It was one of the most important revolutions in modern history—and yet no blood was spilled, no bombs were thrown and no monarch was beheaded. It took place in armchairs, in libraries, in coffee houses and in clubs. What happened was this: in the middle of the eighteenth-century, huge numbers of ordinary people began to read.

For the first couple of centuries after the invention of the printing press, reading remained largely an elite pursuit. But by the beginning of the eighteenth century, the expansion of education and an explosion of cheap books began to diffuse reading rapidly down through the middle classes and even into the lower ranks of society. Suddenly it seemed that everyone was reading everywhere: men, women, children, the rich, the poor. This transformation is sometimes known as the “reading revolution”. It was an unprecedented democratisation of information; the greatest transfer of knowledge into the hands of ordinary men and women in history.

In Britain only 6,000 books were published in the first decade of the eighteenth century; in the last decade of the same century the number of new titles was in excess of 56,000. Where readers had once read “intensively”, spending their lives reading and re-reading two or three books, the reading revolution popularised a new kind of “extensive” reading. People read everything they could get their hands on: newspapers, journals, history, philosophy, science, theology and literature.

Even more importantly, print changed how people thought. The world of print is orderly, logical and rational. In books, knowledge is classified, comprehended, connected and put in its place. Books make arguments, propose theses, develop ideas. “To engage with the written word”, the media theorist Neil Postman wrote, “means to follow a line of thought, which requires considerable powers of classifying, inference-making and reasoning.”

It is no accident, that the growth of print culture in the eighteenth century was associated with the growing prestige of reason, hostility to superstition, the birth of capitalism, and the rapid development of science. Other historians have linked the eighteenth century explosion of literacy to the Enlightenment, the birth of human rights, the arrival of democracy and even the beginnings of the industrial revolution. Now, we are living through the counter-revolution. More than three hundred years after the reading revolution ushered in a new era of human knowledge, books are dying. Studies suggest that reading is declining across developed societies, with fewer adults reading for pleasure and children’s reading reaching historically low levels.

What happened was the smartphone, which was widely adopted in developed countries in the second decade of the twenty-first century. Never before has there been a technology like the smartphone. Where previous entertainment technologies like cinema or television were intended to capture their audience’s attention for a period, the smartphone demands your entire life. Phones are designed to be hyper-addictive, hooking users on a diet of pointless notifications, inane short-form videos and social media rage bait.

If the reading revolution represented the greatest transfer of knowledge to ordinary men and women in history, the screen revolution represents the greatest theft of knowledge from ordinary people in history.

According to the passage, which of the following best describes the difference between intensive and extensive reading?

【題組共用題幹】

It was one of the most important revolutions in modern history—and yet no blood was spilled, no bombs were thrown and no monarch was beheaded. It took place in armchairs, in libraries, in coffee houses and in clubs. What happened was this: in the middle of the eighteenth-century, huge numbers of ordinary people began to read.

For the first couple of centuries after the invention of the printing press, reading remained largely an elite pursuit. But by the beginning of the eighteenth century, the expansion of education and an explosion of cheap books began to diffuse reading rapidly down through the middle classes and even into the lower ranks of society. Suddenly it seemed that everyone was reading everywhere: men, women, children, the rich, the poor. This transformation is sometimes known as the “reading revolution”. It was an unprecedented democratisation of information; the greatest transfer of knowledge into the hands of ordinary men and women in history.

In Britain only 6,000 books were published in the first decade of the eighteenth century; in the last decade of the same century the number of new titles was in excess of 56,000. Where readers had once read “intensively”, spending their lives reading and re-reading two or three books, the reading revolution popularised a new kind of “extensive” reading. People read everything they could get their hands on: newspapers, journals, history, philosophy, science, theology and literature.

Even more importantly, print changed how people thought. The world of print is orderly, logical and rational. In books, knowledge is classified, comprehended, connected and put in its place. Books make arguments, propose theses, develop ideas. “To engage with the written word”, the media theorist Neil Postman wrote, “means to follow a line of thought, which requires considerable powers of classifying, inference-making and reasoning.”

It is no accident, that the growth of print culture in the eighteenth century was associated with the growing prestige of reason, hostility to superstition, the birth of capitalism, and the rapid development of science. Other historians have linked the eighteenth century explosion of literacy to the Enlightenment, the birth of human rights, the arrival of democracy and even the beginnings of the industrial revolution. Now, we are living through the counter-revolution. More than three hundred years after the reading revolution ushered in a new era of human knowledge, books are dying. Studies suggest that reading is declining across developed societies, with fewer adults reading for pleasure and children’s reading reaching historically low levels.

What happened was the smartphone, which was widely adopted in developed countries in the second decade of the twenty-first century. Never before has there been a technology like the smartphone. Where previous entertainment technologies like cinema or television were intended to capture their audience’s attention for a period, the smartphone demands your entire life. Phones are designed to be hyper-addictive, hooking users on a diet of pointless notifications, inane short-form videos and social media rage bait.

If the reading revolution represented the greatest transfer of knowledge to ordinary men and women in history, the screen revolution represents the greatest theft of knowledge from ordinary people in history.

Which of the following is NOT a result of the reading revolution mentioned in the passage?

【題組共用題幹】

It was one of the most important revolutions in modern history—and yet no blood was spilled, no bombs were thrown and no monarch was beheaded. It took place in armchairs, in libraries, in coffee houses and in clubs. What happened was this: in the middle of the eighteenth-century, huge numbers of ordinary people began to read.

For the first couple of centuries after the invention of the printing press, reading remained largely an elite pursuit. But by the beginning of the eighteenth century, the expansion of education and an explosion of cheap books began to diffuse reading rapidly down through the middle classes and even into the lower ranks of society. Suddenly it seemed that everyone was reading everywhere: men, women, children, the rich, the poor. This transformation is sometimes known as the “reading revolution”. It was an unprecedented democratisation of information; the greatest transfer of knowledge into the hands of ordinary men and women in history.

In Britain only 6,000 books were published in the first decade of the eighteenth century; in the last decade of the same century the number of new titles was in excess of 56,000. Where readers had once read “intensively”, spending their lives reading and re-reading two or three books, the reading revolution popularised a new kind of “extensive” reading. People read everything they could get their hands on: newspapers, journals, history, philosophy, science, theology and literature.

Even more importantly, print changed how people thought. The world of print is orderly, logical and rational. In books, knowledge is classified, comprehended, connected and put in its place. Books make arguments, propose theses, develop ideas. “To engage with the written word”, the media theorist Neil Postman wrote, “means to follow a line of thought, which requires considerable powers of classifying, inference-making and reasoning.”

It is no accident, that the growth of print culture in the eighteenth century was associated with the growing prestige of reason, hostility to superstition, the birth of capitalism, and the rapid development of science. Other historians have linked the eighteenth century explosion of literacy to the Enlightenment, the birth of human rights, the arrival of democracy and even the beginnings of the industrial revolution. Now, we are living through the counter-revolution. More than three hundred years after the reading revolution ushered in a new era of human knowledge, books are dying. Studies suggest that reading is declining across developed societies, with fewer adults reading for pleasure and children’s reading reaching historically low levels.

What happened was the smartphone, which was widely adopted in developed countries in the second decade of the twenty-first century. Never before has there been a technology like the smartphone. Where previous entertainment technologies like cinema or television were intended to capture their audience’s attention for a period, the smartphone demands your entire life. Phones are designed to be hyper-addictive, hooking users on a diet of pointless notifications, inane short-form videos and social media rage bait.

If the reading revolution represented the greatest transfer of knowledge to ordinary men and women in history, the screen revolution represents the greatest theft of knowledge from ordinary people in history.

In the sentence “It was an unprecedented democratisation of information,” the word “democratisation” can be replaced by ____.

【題組共用題幹】

It was one of the most important revolutions in modern history—and yet no blood was spilled, no bombs were thrown and no monarch was beheaded. It took place in armchairs, in libraries, in coffee houses and in clubs. What happened was this: in the middle of the eighteenth-century, huge numbers of ordinary people began to read.

For the first couple of centuries after the invention of the printing press, reading remained largely an elite pursuit. But by the beginning of the eighteenth century, the expansion of education and an explosion of cheap books began to diffuse reading rapidly down through the middle classes and even into the lower ranks of society. Suddenly it seemed that everyone was reading everywhere: men, women, children, the rich, the poor. This transformation is sometimes known as the “reading revolution”. It was an unprecedented democratisation of information; the greatest transfer of knowledge into the hands of ordinary men and women in history.

In Britain only 6,000 books were published in the first decade of the eighteenth century; in the last decade of the same century the number of new titles was in excess of 56,000. Where readers had once read “intensively”, spending their lives reading and re-reading two or three books, the reading revolution popularised a new kind of “extensive” reading. People read everything they could get their hands on: newspapers, journals, history, philosophy, science, theology and literature.

Even more importantly, print changed how people thought. The world of print is orderly, logical and rational. In books, knowledge is classified, comprehended, connected and put in its place. Books make arguments, propose theses, develop ideas. “To engage with the written word”, the media theorist Neil Postman wrote, “means to follow a line of thought, which requires considerable powers of classifying, inference-making and reasoning.”

It is no accident, that the growth of print culture in the eighteenth century was associated with the growing prestige of reason, hostility to superstition, the birth of capitalism, and the rapid development of science. Other historians have linked the eighteenth century explosion of literacy to the Enlightenment, the birth of human rights, the arrival of democracy and even the beginnings of the industrial revolution. Now, we are living through the counter-revolution. More than three hundred years after the reading revolution ushered in a new era of human knowledge, books are dying. Studies suggest that reading is declining across developed societies, with fewer adults reading for pleasure and children’s reading reaching historically low levels.

What happened was the smartphone, which was widely adopted in developed countries in the second decade of the twenty-first century. Never before has there been a technology like the smartphone. Where previous entertainment technologies like cinema or television were intended to capture their audience’s attention for a period, the smartphone demands your entire life. Phones are designed to be hyper-addictive, hooking users on a diet of pointless notifications, inane short-form videos and social media rage bait.

If the reading revolution represented the greatest transfer of knowledge to ordinary men and women in history, the screen revolution represents the greatest theft of knowledge from ordinary people in history.

According to the passage, what is countered by the counter-revolution?

【題組共用題幹】

Many of us suffer from a wish to be special. We toil away in the unconscious belief that a special person is a better person, and a special life is a better life. Whether that specialness is conferred by the glamour of celebrity or social media likes, or by the dignified success of reaching the top of your profession, or by the glow of being anointed head girl, this craving to be raised above others, to be “the special one,” can lie at the heart of everything we do. This wish might be lurking under the making and breaking of your relationships, as you seek the person who will make you feel special, and reject the ones who don’t. It might hide in the extra hours you spend in the office to get something “just right” for your boss, rather than settling for good enough.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot since becoming a mother. I think it is very natural to want your child to feel special, perhaps more special than others, so they can develop self-confidence. But I don’t think real self-confidence comes from being elevated above others; it comes from knowing and being oneself and feeling loved for that in an ordinary way. It is not believing you are the best and striving to be that; it is understanding that you have value for being you. It is very easy to give a child, unconsciously, the impression that to be special, they need to try to be somebody else. Perhaps the most valuable gift you can give a child is the permission to be ordinary.

Trying to be special, to live a special life, can in reality take you further and further away from a better one. It is very easy to get caught up in who’s climbing the ladder on LinkedIn and lose sight of the precious moments of the life you are actually living. It is quite possible the better life that you’re trying to build by reading this article is already right in front of you; you just can’t see it because you’re trying to live a different one.

There is a disturbing vulnerability that comes with an unconscious wish to feel special. It means you can easily be drawn into relationships built on sand—falling in love not with the other person, who they are, but with yourself through their eyes. Someone who can make you feel like you are the most special person in the world—far more special than anyone else—can also just as easily make you feel like you are the dirt on the bottom of their shoe. And you might be inclined to believe that’s who you are, too.

It can be a huge relief to find a partner who can treat you in an ordinary way, as an ordinary person, as someone who does not need to be special and dazzling. At first, it might feel boring, if you’re used to the cycle of idealisation followed by denigration. But after a while, you might realise that boring is just a denigration of something far more precious. It might not always feel as exciting, but it can feel more real; it can feel like coming home.

Which of the following best captures the author’s main argument?

【題組共用題幹】

Many of us suffer from a wish to be special. We toil away in the unconscious belief that a special person is a better person, and a special life is a better life. Whether that specialness is conferred by the glamour of celebrity or social media likes, or by the dignified success of reaching the top of your profession, or by the glow of being anointed head girl, this craving to be raised above others, to be “the special one,” can lie at the heart of everything we do. This wish might be lurking under the making and breaking of your relationships, as you seek the person who will make you feel special, and reject the ones who don’t. It might hide in the extra hours you spend in the office to get something “just right” for your boss, rather than settling for good enough.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot since becoming a mother. I think it is very natural to want your child to feel special, perhaps more special than others, so they can develop self-confidence. But I don’t think real self-confidence comes from being elevated above others; it comes from knowing and being oneself and feeling loved for that in an ordinary way. It is not believing you are the best and striving to be that; it is understanding that you have value for being you. It is very easy to give a child, unconsciously, the impression that to be special, they need to try to be somebody else. Perhaps the most valuable gift you can give a child is the permission to be ordinary.

Trying to be special, to live a special life, can in reality take you further and further away from a better one. It is very easy to get caught up in who’s climbing the ladder on LinkedIn and lose sight of the precious moments of the life you are actually living. It is quite possible the better life that you’re trying to build by reading this article is already right in front of you; you just can’t see it because you’re trying to live a different one.

There is a disturbing vulnerability that comes with an unconscious wish to feel special. It means you can easily be drawn into relationships built on sand—falling in love not with the other person, who they are, but with yourself through their eyes. Someone who can make you feel like you are the most special person in the world—far more special than anyone else—can also just as easily make you feel like you are the dirt on the bottom of their shoe. And you might be inclined to believe that’s who you are, too.

It can be a huge relief to find a partner who can treat you in an ordinary way, as an ordinary person, as someone who does not need to be special and dazzling. At first, it might feel boring, if you’re used to the cycle of idealisation followed by denigration. But after a while, you might realise that boring is just a denigration of something far more precious. It might not always feel as exciting, but it can feel more real; it can feel like coming home.

The phrase “toil away” in the first paragraph most nearly means ____.

【題組共用題幹】

Many of us suffer from a wish to be special. We toil away in the unconscious belief that a special person is a better person, and a special life is a better life. Whether that specialness is conferred by the glamour of celebrity or social media likes, or by the dignified success of reaching the top of your profession, or by the glow of being anointed head girl, this craving to be raised above others, to be “the special one,” can lie at the heart of everything we do. This wish might be lurking under the making and breaking of your relationships, as you seek the person who will make you feel special, and reject the ones who don’t. It might hide in the extra hours you spend in the office to get something “just right” for your boss, rather than settling for good enough.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot since becoming a mother. I think it is very natural to want your child to feel special, perhaps more special than others, so they can develop self-confidence. But I don’t think real self-confidence comes from being elevated above others; it comes from knowing and being oneself and feeling loved for that in an ordinary way. It is not believing you are the best and striving to be that; it is understanding that you have value for being you. It is very easy to give a child, unconsciously, the impression that to be special, they need to try to be somebody else. Perhaps the most valuable gift you can give a child is the permission to be ordinary.

Trying to be special, to live a special life, can in reality take you further and further away from a better one. It is very easy to get caught up in who’s climbing the ladder on LinkedIn and lose sight of the precious moments of the life you are actually living. It is quite possible the better life that you’re trying to build by reading this article is already right in front of you; you just can’t see it because you’re trying to live a different one.

There is a disturbing vulnerability that comes with an unconscious wish to feel special. It means you can easily be drawn into relationships built on sand—falling in love not with the other person, who they are, but with yourself through their eyes. Someone who can make you feel like you are the most special person in the world—far more special than anyone else—can also just as easily make you feel like you are the dirt on the bottom of their shoe. And you might be inclined to believe that’s who you are, too.

It can be a huge relief to find a partner who can treat you in an ordinary way, as an ordinary person, as someone who does not need to be special and dazzling. At first, it might feel boring, if you’re used to the cycle of idealisation followed by denigration. But after a while, you might realise that boring is just a denigration of something far more precious. It might not always feel as exciting, but it can feel more real; it can feel like coming home.

In the sentence “falling in love not with the other person, who they are, but with yourself through their eyes,” the author is criticizing relationships in which people ____.

【題組共用題幹】

Many of us suffer from a wish to be special. We toil away in the unconscious belief that a special person is a better person, and a special life is a better life. Whether that specialness is conferred by the glamour of celebrity or social media likes, or by the dignified success of reaching the top of your profession, or by the glow of being anointed head girl, this craving to be raised above others, to be “the special one,” can lie at the heart of everything we do. This wish might be lurking under the making and breaking of your relationships, as you seek the person who will make you feel special, and reject the ones who don’t. It might hide in the extra hours you spend in the office to get something “just right” for your boss, rather than settling for good enough.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot since becoming a mother. I think it is very natural to want your child to feel special, perhaps more special than others, so they can develop self-confidence. But I don’t think real self-confidence comes from being elevated above others; it comes from knowing and being oneself and feeling loved for that in an ordinary way. It is not believing you are the best and striving to be that; it is understanding that you have value for being you. It is very easy to give a child, unconsciously, the impression that to be special, they need to try to be somebody else. Perhaps the most valuable gift you can give a child is the permission to be ordinary.

Trying to be special, to live a special life, can in reality take you further and further away from a better one. It is very easy to get caught up in who’s climbing the ladder on LinkedIn and lose sight of the precious moments of the life you are actually living. It is quite possible the better life that you’re trying to build by reading this article is already right in front of you; you just can’t see it because you’re trying to live a different one.

There is a disturbing vulnerability that comes with an unconscious wish to feel special. It means you can easily be drawn into relationships built on sand—falling in love not with the other person, who they are, but with yourself through their eyes. Someone who can make you feel like you are the most special person in the world—far more special than anyone else—can also just as easily make you feel like you are the dirt on the bottom of their shoe. And you might be inclined to believe that’s who you are, too.

It can be a huge relief to find a partner who can treat you in an ordinary way, as an ordinary person, as someone who does not need to be special and dazzling. At first, it might feel boring, if you’re used to the cycle of idealisation followed by denigration. But after a while, you might realise that boring is just a denigration of something far more precious. It might not always feel as exciting, but it can feel more real; it can feel like coming home.

Based on the passage, which of the following views on child-rearing would the author most likely agree with?

【題組共用題幹】

Many of us suffer from a wish to be special. We toil away in the unconscious belief that a special person is a better person, and a special life is a better life. Whether that specialness is conferred by the glamour of celebrity or social media likes, or by the dignified success of reaching the top of your profession, or by the glow of being anointed head girl, this craving to be raised above others, to be “the special one,” can lie at the heart of everything we do. This wish might be lurking under the making and breaking of your relationships, as you seek the person who will make you feel special, and reject the ones who don’t. It might hide in the extra hours you spend in the office to get something “just right” for your boss, rather than settling for good enough.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot since becoming a mother. I think it is very natural to want your child to feel special, perhaps more special than others, so they can develop self-confidence. But I don’t think real self-confidence comes from being elevated above others; it comes from knowing and being oneself and feeling loved for that in an ordinary way. It is not believing you are the best and striving to be that; it is understanding that you have value for being you. It is very easy to give a child, unconsciously, the impression that to be special, they need to try to be somebody else. Perhaps the most valuable gift you can give a child is the permission to be ordinary.

Trying to be special, to live a special life, can in reality take you further and further away from a better one. It is very easy to get caught up in who’s climbing the ladder on LinkedIn and lose sight of the precious moments of the life you are actually living. It is quite possible the better life that you’re trying to build by reading this article is already right in front of you; you just can’t see it because you’re trying to live a different one.

There is a disturbing vulnerability that comes with an unconscious wish to feel special. It means you can easily be drawn into relationships built on sand—falling in love not with the other person, who they are, but with yourself through their eyes. Someone who can make you feel like you are the most special person in the world—far more special than anyone else—can also just as easily make you feel like you are the dirt on the bottom of their shoe. And you might be inclined to believe that’s who you are, too.

It can be a huge relief to find a partner who can treat you in an ordinary way, as an ordinary person, as someone who does not need to be special and dazzling. At first, it might feel boring, if you’re used to the cycle of idealisation followed by denigration. But after a while, you might realise that boring is just a denigration of something far more precious. It might not always feel as exciting, but it can feel more real; it can feel like coming home.

In the sentence “boring is just a denigration of something far more precious,” what does the author most likely mean?