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Passage Three Questions 36 to 40 are based on the following passage.When I re-entered the full-time workforce a few years ago after a decade of solitary self-employment, there was one thing I was looking forward to the most: the opportunity to have work friends once again. It wasn’t until I entered the corporate world that I realized, for me at least, being friends with colleagues didn’t emerge as a priority at all. This is surprising when you consider the prevailing emphasis by scholars and trainers and managers on the importance of cultivating close interpersonal relationships at work. So much research has explored the way in which collegial ties can help overcome a range of workplace issues affecting productivity and the quality of work output such as team-based conflict, jealousy, undermining, anger, and more.Perhaps my expectations of lunches, water-cooler gossip and caring, deep-and-meaningful conversations were a legacy of the last time I was in that kind of office environment. Whereas now, as I near the end of my fourth decade, I realize work can be fully functional and entirely fulfilling without needing to be best mates with the people sitting next to you.In an academic analysis just published in the profoundly-respected Journal of Management, researchers have looked at the concept of “indifferent relationships”. It’s a simple term that encapsulates (概括) the fact that relationships at work can reasonably be non-intimate, inconsequential, unimportant and even, dare I say it, disposable or substitutable.Indifferent relationships are neither positive nor negative. The limited research conducted thus far indicates they’re especially dominant among those who value independence over cooperation, and harmony over confrontation. Indifference is also the preferred option among those who are socially lazy. Maintaining relationships over the long term takes effort. For some of us, too much effort.As noted above, indifferent relationships may not always be the most helpful approach in resolving some of the issues that pop up at work. But there are nonetheless several empirically proven benefits. One of those is efficiency. Less time chatting and socializing means more time working and churning (产出).The other is self-esteem. As human beings, we’re primed to compare ourselves to each other in what is an anxiety-inducing phenomenon. Apparently, we look down on acquaintances more so than friends. Since the former is most common among those inclined towards indifferent relationships, their predominance can bolster individuals’ sense of self-worth.Ego aside, a third advantage is that the emotional neutrality of indifferent relationships has been found to enhance critical evaluation, to strengthen one’s focus on task resolution, and to gain greater access to valuable information. None of that might be as fun as after-work socializing but, hey, I’ll take it anyway. 36. What did the author realize when he re-entered the corporate world?

35. What is the author’s expectation of schools?

34. What do we learn about low-income parents regarding school field trips?

33. What does the author suggest can help build community spirit?

32. What does the author think about school field trips?

Part Ⅲ Reading Comprehension (50%)Section A (30%)Directions: There are three passages in this section. Each passage is followed by five questions. For each of them there are four choices marked A), B), C) and D). Passage One Questions 26 to 30 are based on the following passage.“The dangerous thing about lying is people don’t understand how the act changes us,” says Dan Ariely, behavioural psychologist at Duke University. Psychologists have documented children lying as early as the age of two. Some experts even consider lying a developmental milestone, like crawling and walking, because it requires sophisticated planning, attention and the ability to see a situation from someone else's perspective to manipulate them. But, for most people, lying gets limited as we develop a sense of morality and the ability to self-regulate.Harvard cognitive neuroscientist Joshua Greene says, for most of us, lying takes work. In studies, he gave subjects a chance to deceive for monetary gain while examining their brains in a functional MRI machine, which maps blood flow to active parts of the brain. Some people told the truth instantly and instinctively. But others opted to lie, and they showed increased activity in their frontal parietal (颅腔壁的) control network, which is involved in difficult or complex thinking. This suggests that they were deciding between truth and dishonesty - and ultimately opting for the latter. For a follow-up analysis, he found that people whose neural (神经的) reward centres were more active when they won money were also more likely to be among the group of liars - suggesting that lying may have to do with the inability to resist temptation.External conditions also matter in terms of when and how often we lie. We are more likely to lie, research shows, when we are able to rationalise it, when we are stressed and fatigued or see others being dishonest. And we are less likely to lie when we have moral reminders or when we think others are watching. “We as a society need to understand that, when we don’t punish lying, we increase the probability it will happen again,” Ariely says.In a 2016 study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, Ariely and colleagues showed how dishonesty alters people’s brains, making it easier to tell lies in the future. When people uttered a falsehood, the scientists noticed a burst of activity in their amygdala. The amygdala is a crucial part of the brain that produces fear, anxiety and emotional responses - including that sinking, guilty feeling you get when you lie. But when scientists had their subjects play a game in which they won money by deceiving their partner, they noticed the negative signals from the amygdala began to decrease. Not only that, but when people faced no consequences for dishonesty, their falsehoods tended to get even more sensational. This means that if you give people multiple opportunities to lie for their own benefit, they start with little lies which get bigger over time. 26. Why do some experts consider lying a milestone in a child’s development?

Passage Two Questions 31 to 35 are based on the following passage.Schools are not just a microcosm (缩影) of society: they mediate it too. The best seek to alleviate the external pressures on their pupils while equipping them better to understand and handle the world outside-- at once sheltering them and broadening their horizons. This is ambitious in any circumstances, and in a divided and unequal society the two ideals can clash outright (直接地).Trips that many adults would consider the adventure of a lifetime-treks in Borneo, a sports tour to Barbados-appear to have become almost routine at some state schools. Parents are being asked for thousands of pounds. Though schools cannot profit from these trips, the companies that arrange them do. Meanwhile, pupils arrive at school hungry because their families can’t afford breakfast. The Child Poverty Action Group says nine out of 30 in every classroom fall below the poverty line. The discrepancy is startlingly apparent. Introducing a fundraising requirement for students does not help, as better-off children can tap up richer aunts and neighbours.Probing the rock pools of a local beach or practising French on a language exchange can fire children’s passions, boost their skills and open their eyes to life’s possibilities. Educational outings help bright but disadvantaged students to get better scores in A-level tests. In this globalised age, there is a good case for international travel, and some parents say they can manage the cost of a school trip abroad more easily than a family holiday. Even in the face of immense and mounting financial pressures, some schools have shown remarkable determination and ingenuity in ensuring that all their pupils are able to take up opportunities that may be truly life-changing. They should be applauded. Methods such as whole-school fundraising, with the proceeds (收益) pooled, can help to extend opportunities and fuel community spirit.But ￡3,000 trips cannot be justified when the average income for families with children is just over ￡30,000. Such initiatives close doors for many pupils. Some parents pull their children out of school because of expensive field trips. Even parents who can see that a trip is little more than a party or celebration may well feel guilt that their child is left behind.The Department for Education’s guidance says schools can charge only for board and lodging if the trip is part of the syllabus, and that students receiving government aid are exempt from these costs. However, many schools seem to ignore the advice; and it does not cover the kind of glamorous, exotic trips, which are becoming increasingly common. Schools cannot be expected to bring together communities single-handed. But the least we should expect is that they do not foster divisions and exclude those who are already disadvantaged. 31. What does the author say best schools should do?

30. What does the author say will happen when a liar does not get punished?

29. When are people less likely to lie?