This month, Germany’s transport minister, Alexander Dobrindt , proposed the first set of rules for autonomous vehicles(自主驾驶车辆）.They would define the driver’s role in such cars and govern how such cars perform in crashes where lives might be lost.
The proposal attempts to deal with what some call the “death valley” of autonomous vehicles: the grey area between semi-autonomous and fully driverless cars that could delay the driverless future.
Dobrindt wants three things: that a car always chooses property(财产）damage over personal injury; that it never distinguishes between humans based on age or race; and that if a human removes his or her hands from the driving wheel — to check email, say — the car’s maker is responsible if there is a crash.
“The change to the road traffic law will permit fully automatic driving,” says Dobrindt. It will put fully driverless cars on an equal legal footing to human drivers, he says.
Who is responsible for the operation of such vehicles is not clear among car makers, consumers and lawyers. “The liability(法律责任）issue is the biggest one of them all,” says Natasha Merat at the University of Leeds, UK.
An assumption behind UK insurance for driverless cars, introduced earlier this year, insists that a human “ be watchful and monitoring the road” at every moment.
But that is not what many people have in mind when thinking of driverless cars. “When you say ‘driverless cars”, people expect driverless cars.” Merat says “You know — no driver.”
Because of the confusion, Merat thinks some car makers will wait until vehicles can be fully automated without operation.
Driverless cars may end up being a form of public transport rather than vehicles you own, says Ryan Calo at Stanford University, California. That is happening in the UK and Singapore, where government-provided driverless vehicles are being launched.
That would go down poorly in the US, however. “The idea that the government would take over driverless cars and treat them as a public good would get absolutely nowhere here,” says Calo.
1. What does the phrase “death valley” in Paragraph 2 refer to?| A．A place where cars often break down. | B．A case where passing a law is impossible. |
| C．An area where no driving is permitted. | D．A situation where drivers’ role is not clear. |
| A．stop people from breaking traffic rules. | B．help promote fully automatic driving. |
| C．protect drivers of all ages and races. | D．prevent serious property damage. |
| A．It should get the attention of insurance companies. |
| B．It should be the main concern of law makers. |
| C．It should not cause deadly traffic accidents. |
| D．It should involve no human responsibility. |
| A．Singapore | B．the UK | C．the US | D．Germany |
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【推荐1】About five years ago, an American electrical engineer named Scott Brusaw and his wife Julie came up with the idea of putting solar panels on the ground rather than the roof. Then they began to develop the Solar Roadway specially for a new type of cars-eco-cars. The Solar Roadway is an intelligent road that provides clean renewable energy using power from the sun while providing safer driving conditions, along with power and data delivery. They predict that the Solar Roadway will pay for itself through the generation of electricity along with other forms of income and that the same amount of money that is being used to build and resurface current roads can be used to build the Solar Roadways.
Each Solar Road Panel measures roughly 4 meters and contains a microprocessor（微处理器）that monitors and controls the panel, while communicating with neighboring panels and the vehicles traveling overhead. The inventors suggest that this provides a communication device every 4 meters on every road which could be used for example to warn drivers of cars which are moving across a centre line and various other speed control problems. The top of the Solar Road panels is made of super-strong glass that would offer vehicles the tractions(抓地力) they need.
According to the inventors, the Solar Roadway creates and carries clean renewable electricity and therefore electric vehicles can be recharged at any conveniently located rest stop, or at any business that has paved Solar Road Panels in their parking lots.
The inventors say their Solar Roadway has many functions and advantages from main roads to driveways, parking lots, bike paths, sidewalks and runways. The Federal Highway Administration has given Brusaw $100,000 to develop the invention and Brusaw hopes to build a smart-road parking lot in the coming spring.
1. In the inventors’ opinion, the Solar Roadway ________.| A．is too expensive to build at present |
| B．costs no more money than current roads |
| C．can provide as many data as present computers |
| D．will bring them a large sum of money |
| A．the panels | B．the inventors | C．the researchers | D．the vehicles |
| A．providing safer driving conditions |
| B．helping drivers communicate with each other while driving |
| C．creating and carrying clean renewable electricity |
| D．warning drivers of various speed control problems |
| A．Solar-powered smart road of the future |
| B．The great changes on the roadway |
| C．The influence the Solar Roadway has on people |
| D．The Solar Road—a much faster road |
【推荐2】Not only does the use of plastic water bottles hurt your wallet, it also increases pollution and wastes energy and water. Only 23% of all plastic in America ends up in a recycling bin, meaning over $ 1 billion worth of plastic is treated as rubbish a year. Recently, Skipping Rocks Lab has invented a kind of water bottle called Ooho.
It is a convenient, clear water bottle that can either be drunken or eaten. To drink it, you can either peel off the membrane (薄膜) or tear a hole in the membrane with your teeth to pour the water into your mouth. To eat it, you simply put the whole bottle in your mouth. One problem the scientists have run into is how to ship large amounts of Ooho bubbles(水泡) without arriving with a very wet truck. However, they have attempted to package units of individual bubbles together inside a larger and thicker membrane. It is targeting large outdoor events, such as marathons, music festivals, and sporting events, where tons of plastic bottles are used, and frequently left behind as litter. And too much plastic is sure to do harm to the environment, which could account for their purpose of such a new invention.
The team has been working for the past two years to develop the technology and materials needed to produce Ooho; they have recently applied a patent for their new advancements. The price for an individual bubble or a unit of bubbles has not been set yet, but they cost about two cents to create a unit, which is cheaper than plastic bottles. It has appeared at events in London, San Francisco, Boston, at conferences, festivals, and so on.
Ooho is catching many people’s attention and has raised over $ 1 million and gained 1,000 investors in only three days. It is mostly being sold at events at the moment to keep the consumer’s interest while the production machine is getting up and running. It is quickly making a rise,so keep an eye out this year for these bottles of the future.
1. How is most plastic dealt with in America?| A．It’s sold. | B．It’s recycled. |
| C．It’s buried. | D．It’s wasted. |
| A．To make a profit for a company. | B．To protect the environtnent. |
| C．To make people eat as they drink. | D．To reduce the cost of plastic bottle. |
| A．It is easy and safe to ship it in large amounts. |
| B．It has become popular since it began to be sold. |
| C．It might be sold at a lower price than plastic bottles. |
| D．It cost the team a lot of money to develop the technology. |
| A．Ooho is to be a success in the future. |
| B．Ooho is being supported by smart people. |
| C．Ooho is taking the place of plastic bottles now. |
| D．Ooho is being produced to attract more investors. |
【推荐3】One day, gardeners might not just hear the buzz of bees among their flowers, but the whirr of robots, too. Scientists have managed to turn an unassuming drone (无人机) into a remote-controlled pollinator (授粉媒介) by attaching horsehairs coated with a special, sticky gel to its underbelly.
Animal pollinators are needed for the reproduction of 90% of flowering plants and one third of human food crops. Chief among those are bees — but many bee populations in the United States have been in steep decline in recent decades. Thus, the decline of bees isn't just worrisome because it could disrupt ecosystems, but also because it could disrupt agriculture and economy. People have been trying to come up with replacement techniques, but none of them are especially effective yet.
Scientists have thought about using drones, but they haven't figured out how to make free-flying robot insects that can rely on their own power source without being attached to a wire. “It’s very tough work,” said senior author Eijiro Miyako, a chemist at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology. His particular contribution to the field involves a gel, one he’d considered a mistake 10 years before and stuck in a storage cabinet. When it was rediscovered a decade later, it hadn’t dried up or degraded at all. “I was so surprised because it still had high viscosity,” Miyako said.
The chemist noticed that when dropped, the gel absorbed an impressive amount of dust from the floor. Miyako realized this material could be very useful for picking up pollen (花粉). He and his colleagues chose a drone and attached horsehairs to its smooth surface to mimic a bee’s fuzzy body. They coated those horsehairs in the gel, and then controlled the drones over lilies, where they would pick up the pollen from one flower and then deposit the pollen at another one, thus fertilizing it.
The scientists looked at the hairs under a scanning electron microscope and counted up the pollen grains attached to the surface and found that the drones whose horsehairs had been coated with the gel had about 10 times more pollen than those that had not been coated with the gel.
Miyako does not think such drones would replace bees altogether, but could simply help bees with their pollinating duties. There’s a lot of work to be done before that's a reality, however. Small drones will need to become more controllable and energy efficient, as well as smarter, with better GPS and artificial intelligence.
1. What does the underlined word “viscosity” in Para.3 probably mean?| A．Hardness. | B．Stickiness. |
| C．Flexibility. | D．Purity. |
| A．bees disrupt both agriculture and economy |
| B．scientists have invented self-powered robot insects |
| C．bees in the United States are on the edge of extinction |
| D．Miyako found the special feature of the gel by chance |
| A．its body is made like a bee’s |
| B．its GPS works more efficiently |
| C．some flowers are coated with the gel |
| D．horsehairs with the gel are attached to it |
| A．are not yet ready for practical use |
| B．may eventually replace bees in the future |
| C．are much more efficient than bee pollinators |
| D．can provide a solution to economic depression |
【推荐1】Progressives often support diversity missions as a path to equality and a way to level the playing field. But all too often such policies are an insincere form of virtue-signaling that benefits only the most privileged and does little to help average people.
A pair of bills sponsored by Massachusetts state Senator Jason Lewis and House Speaker Pro Tempore Patricia Haddad, to ensure "gender equality" on boards and commissions, provide a case in point.
Haddad and Lewis are concerned that more than half the state-government board are less than 40 percent female. In order to ensure that elite women have more such opportunities, they have proposed imposing government quotas（配额）. If the bills become law, state boards and commissions will be required to set aside 50 percent of board seats for women by 2022.
The bills are similar to a measure recently adopted in California, which last year became the first state to require gender quotas for private companies. In signing the measure, California Governor Jerry Brown admitted that the law, which clearly classifies people on the basis of sex, is probably unconstitutional.
The US Supreme Court frowns on sex-based classifications unless they are designed to address an "important" policy interest. Because the California law applies to all boards, even where there is no history of prior discrimination, courts are likely to rule that the law violates the constitutional guarantee of "equal protection".
But are such government mandates even necessary? Female participation on corporate boards may not currently mirror the percentage of women in the general population, but so what?
The number of women on corporate boards has been steadily increasing without government interference. According to a study by Catalyst, between 2010 and 2015 the share of women on the boards of global corporations increased by 54 percent.
Requiring companies to make gender the primary qualification for board membership will inevitably lead to less experienced private sector boards. That is exactly what happened when Norway adopted a nationwide corporate gender quota.
Writing in The New Republic, Alice Lee notes that increasing the number of opportunities for board membership without increasing the pool of qualified women to serve on such boards has led to a "golden skirt "phenomenon, where the same elite women occupy multiple seats on a variety of boards.
Next time somebody pushes corporate quotas as a way to promote gender equity, remember that such policies are largely self-serving measures that make their sponsors feel good but do little to help average women.
1. The author believes that the bills sponsored by Lewis and Haddad will __________.| A．help little to reduce gender bias. |
| B．pose a threat to the state government. |
| C．raise women's position in politics. |
| D．greatly broaden career options. |
| A．the harm from absolute board decision. |
| B．the importance of constitutional guarantees. |
| C．the pressure on women in global corporations. |
| D．the needlessness of government interventions. |
| A．the underestimation of elite women's role |
| B．the objection to female participation on boards. |
| C．the entry of unqualified candidates into the board. |
| D．the growing tension between labor and management. |
| A．Women's need in employment should be considered. |
| B．Feasibility should be a prime concern in policy making. |
| C．Everyone should try hard to promote social justice. |
| D．Major social issues should be the focus of the government. |
【推荐2】With a presidential campaign, health care and the gun control debate in the news these days, one can’t help getting sucked into the flame wars that are Internet comment threads. But psychologists say this addictive form of vitriolic (刻薄) back and forth should be avoided — or simply checked by online media outlets — because it actually damages society and mental health.
A perfect storm of factors come together to cause the rudeness and aggression seen in the comments’ sections of Web pages, said Markman, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. First, commenters are often nearly nameless, and thus, unaccountable for their rudeness. Second, they are at a distance from the target of their anger — be it the article they’re commenting on or another comment on that article — and people tend to go against distant abstractions more easily than living, breathing talkers. Third, it’s easier to be nasty in writing than in speech, hence the now somewhat out-of-date practice of leaving angry notes (back when people used paper), Markman said.
And finally, Edward Wasserman, Knight Professor in Journalism Ethics at Washington and Lee University, noted another cause of the vitriol: bad examples set by the media. “Unfortunately, mainstream media have made a fortune teaching people the wrong ways to talk to each other. People understandably conclude anger is the political vernacular (行话), that this is how public ideas are talked about,” Wasserman wrote in an article on his university’s website. “It isn’t.”
In Markman’s opinion, media outlets should cut down on the anger and hatred that have become the model in reader exchanges. “It’s valuable to allow all sides of an argument to be heard. To a greater degree, someone who is making a reasonable point but with an angry tone is hurting the nature of the argument, because they are promoting people to respond in a similar way,” he said.
For their part, people should seek out actual human beings to communicate with, Markman said — and we should make a point of including a few people in our social circles who think differently from us. “You’ll develop a healthy respect for people whose opinions differ from your own; the back-and-forth negotiation that goes on in having a conversation with someone you don’t agree with is a skill and it’s not easy to master it,” Markman said.
1. Why do psychologists encourage people to stop attacking each other online?| A．The social problems are too complex to figure out. |
| B．The online media outlets will review the comments. |
| C．The action does harm to society and individuals. |
| D．The Internet users are easily attached to hot topics. |
| A．People are cautious to make vitriolic remarks online. |
| B．The targets online are more likely to be commented on. |
| C．Understanding the literal meaning is easier than oral language. |
| D．An argument with an angry tone can promote its power. |
| A．To show different ways of expressing opinions. |
| B．To reveal the severe problems of the public media. |
| C．To raise the awareness of proper communication. |
| D．To urge people to carry out actual offline communications. |
【推荐3】Germany’s top court has ruled that parts of the country’s 2019 climate (气候) action law must be changed because they don’t do a good job of protecting young people. The result is a big victory for the nine young people who started the law suing (诉讼).
The court suing stresses an important part of the climate change: The change will impact greatly on young people far more than the adults. That’s because the effects of earth warming will become more serious over time. As young people become adults, they’ll be left to deal with many problems that today’s adults have ignored. The government’s failure to plan carefully was putting their future lives in danger.
In 2019, Germany passed a new law, promising that the country would be carbon neutral (碳中和) by 2050. The law made a detailed plan of action until 2030. But the law didn’t have any specific rules or plans for climate actions that would be taken between 2031 and 2050.
Last Thursday, the judges of Germany’s highest court agreed with the young people. They said that not taking climate action made the basic rights of young people to a good future in danger.
The young people had challenged the government’s law in four specific areas. The judges didn’t agree with all of the challenges. But having the court support even a part of their case is seen as a big victory. Neubauer is one of the young people who sued. She works with the climate action group Fridays For Future. Ms. Neubauer said, “Climate protection is our basic right. This is a huge win for the climate movement. It changes a lot.”
The court has given the German government until the end of 2022 to fix the law. The climate law will now need to have a much more detailed plan for the actions that will be taken after 2030 to cut Germany’s pollution, allowing it to become carbon neutral by 2050. Germany’s government has said that it will quickly begin working to make the needed changes.
1. Why did the nine young people sue the Germany government?| A．They faced a higher rate of losing jobs. |
| B．The government refused their law suing. |
| C．The local court ruled against the climate law. |
| D．They weren’t satisfied with the climate action law. |
| A．The adults nowadays are put under pressure. |
| B．The climate change will influence the young. |
| C．Earth warming is becoming out of control. |
| D．Humans feel uncertain about the future. |
| A．Improve the present law. |
| B．Win people’s wide support. |
| C．Take strict punishment measures. |
| D．Achieve carbon neutral in advance. |
| A．Business. | B．Health. |
| C．Education. | D．Environment. |
【推荐1】The Consumer Technology Association, formerly called The International Consumer Electronics Show, or CES, believes about 170, 000 people will attend the show. About one-third of them are reported to come from countries besides the United States.
More than 4, 000 businesses will show products used through the Internet such as gaming, self-driving cars, artificial intelligence（人工智能）and robotics. One of the biggest stars at CES this year is the voice-controlled digital （数字的）assistant. While the technology is not new, many companies will show off the latest digital assistants.
Equipment controlled by digital assistants, especially those turned on by voice, were already big sellers in 2017. This year, Google, Amazon and Apple are expected to release even more products to keep up with the rising demand.
Digital assistants are powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning technology. They are designed to learn users' preferences over time and then “think" and act on their own. Some of the biggest developments in technology have come in the area of home automation （自 动化）. Amazon Echo, Google Home, Apple's Home Pod and Microsoft's Cortana are a few examples of voice-controlled equipment. All include smart speakers that “talk" to users inside the house and can perform operations.
Experts with the Consumer Technology Association say sales of smart speakers are expected to nearly double in 2019.
The Internet-linked products can play music or find information when asked questions. They can also control equipment such as lighting, cameras, televisions and temperature controllers. Among new “smart" home products to be released at the CES are voice-controlled washing machines, refrigerators, showers and toilets. There is also much new physical fitness and health-related equipment on show. Some are designed to help people create the best personal fitness plans to reach their goals. Wearable health equipment is used to study and measure body conditions, while others help recognize signs of disease.
1. What will be shown at CES?| A．Books about robots. |
| B．International fashion. |
| C．Schools' teaching art. |
| D．Equipment related with the Internet. |
| A．To create music. |
| B．To treat all kinds of diseases. |
| C．To meet the increasing needs. |
| D．To make experiments in space. |
| A．By fax. |
| B．By voice. |
| C．By email. |
| D．By body language. |
| A．Art. |
| B．Health. |
| C．Education. |
| D．Technology. |
【推荐2】A Swiss radio station recently, carried out a social experiment on air, testing robot-created voices and content. The 13-hour experiment took place at the French language. station Couleur3. During the period, listeners heard the cloned voices of five human presenters. The station s programming also included music created by artificial intelligence ( AI) methods. The programming informed listeners about the experiment every 20 minutes. “AI is taking your favorite radio by storm,” a voice said. “Our voice clones and AI are here to unsettle, surprise and shake you. And for that matter, this text was also written by a robot.”
Recent AI developments have led to the creation of a series of tools that permit robots to lead different human activities. These tools belong to a group of systems known as “generative AI”. The tools use machine learning methods to train AI systems on huge amounts of data to produce human-quality results. One of the most highly publicized “generative AI” tools received wide attention by showing the ability to quickly produce written answers to questions at a level and quality similar to humans. However, the development of “generative AI” systems has led to some criticism of the technology. Critics have alerted people to the dangers of such systems. They say if used incorrectly, the systems can have economic, cultural and social harms.
The Swiss station’s chief, Antoine Multone, defended the project as a lesson on how to live with AI. Antoine said if we became ostriches(鸵鸟), we would put our heads in the sand, blindly worrying about the new technology. He thought when AI was coming, we should study the technology, so we could then properly put limits on it. He added that about90 percent of the listener reactions suggested the experiment was a good idea. But many said they found the human element missing and noted, “You can sense these are robots, and there are fewer surprises, less personality
1. Why was the experiment conducted at Couleur 3?| A．To test the texts the robot writes. |
| B．To test the vocal sounds the robot creates. |
| C．To test the capabilities of the human presenters. |
| D．To test the audience’s abilities of composing music. |
| A．Warned. | B．committed | C．Devoted | D．Applied. |
| A．Limit and prevent its progress |
| B．Take human elements out of it. |
| C．Take advantage of it without defense. |
| D．Research and make use of it sensibly. |
| A．Putting AI Voices on Radio. |
| B．Replacing Announcers with Robots |
| C．New. Technologies Changing Our Lives |
| D．Language barriers in the Development of AI |
【推荐3】For 18 years after her retirement, Deng Xiaolan volunteered to teach music in a rural village in Hebei province. Her inspirational teaching and the enthusiasm and talent of her pupils made the 44 children from Malan village and neighboring villages in Fuping county sing the Olympic anthem in Greek at the opening ceremony of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics on Feb 4.
Deng’s involvement with the rural children can be traced back to her parents. Her father Deng Tuo was the publisher of Jinchaji Daily, a newspaper which was based in Malan village in Fuping county, Hebei province, from 1939 to 1948. During the Japanese aggression, 19 Malan locals were killed for refusing to divulge information about the newspaper. Under the influence of her parents, who both had a passion for music, she learned the violin and singing when she was young. She joined the school band after entering Tsinghua University, and also taught her colleagues to play the violin after graduation.
In 2003, when Deng Xiaolan returned to the village to remember the persons who were killed by Japanese invaders, a group of local children also attended the ceremony. She wanted to sing a song together with the children in commemoration (纪念仪式), but none of the children knew the well-known songs she named.
“If the children couldn’t sing, then they wouldn’t know how to appreciate music. Life would be so pale if it doesn’t have music,” Deng said. “My parents lived and fought here when they were young, and they wanted the locals to live a happy life. So I thought if I had the chance, I must teach them to sing.”
Deng began to travel between Beijing and the village since 2004 to teach the children music. She collected instruments and also rebuilt the school houses by raising funds and using her own pension. As the children had no background in music, she had to teach them basic music theory.
Two years later, she established the Malan Band. Among more than 200 students taught by Deng, many left the mountainous village to receive university education, some of whom are studying art at university or have entered a career in art education.
1. What contributed to the 44 children sing at the opening ceremony?| A．They have a good command of Greek. |
| B．The Winter Olympics Committee chose them. |
| C．Deng’s inspirational deeds and talent of her pupils. |
| D．Deng Xiaolan taught them and helped them sign up. |
| A．She was a publisher of Jinchaji Daily. |
| B．She majored in music in Tsinghua University. |
| C．Her father was killed during Japanese aggression. |
| D．Her parents played an important role in her love of music. |
| A．make up | B．give away | C．take on | D．put on |
| A．devoted and caring. |
| B．Competent and humorous. |
| C．Creative and helpful. |
| D．Enthusiastic and strict. |
【推荐1】Last spring, I started a new exercise class. As someone who dislikes doing jumping jacks, burpees, and push-ups, I found the workouts surprisingly enjoyable, at least for a while. But after several months, I was overly familiar with the class routine, and my excitement had been replaced with boredom.
A 2016 study for the American Psychological Association estimated that 63 percent of us suffer from boredom regularly. And research shows that chronically(长期地) bored people tend to fall into depression, drug abuse and anxiety.
But boredom isn’t a character weakness. It’s a state caused by something called hedonic(享乐的) adaptations, or the tendency to get used to things over time. This explains why activities and even relationships that were initially satisfying can sometimes lose their appeal.
Humans are remarkably good at growing accustomed to changes in our lives, both positive and negative, according to Sonja Lyubomirsky, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside. This is a good thing when we are faced with adjusting to setbacks such as losing a loved one or a job. But becoming insensitive to positive events can prove harmful. Think about the last time you got a raise, bought a car, or moved. At first, these experiences can bring immense joy. But over time, they become part of the routine. We are ready for the next new thing to excite us.
While boredom can be a downer when it removes the pleasure from our lives, it can provide a sort of service. “If our emotional reactions didn’t weaken with time, we couldn’t recognize new changes that may signal rewards or threats,” Lyubomirsky says. In other words, we’d ignored cues signaling us to make important decisions about our relationships and safety.
It’s not unlike how our reactions change when we fall in love or experience loss. Being caught in the glow of happiness or the web of sadness can make us distracted or forgetful. We may miss signals that indicate whether we’re about to make a smart move or a disastrous one. The good news is that understanding the connection between hedonic adaptation and boredom can help us.
A study published in 2018 in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin showed that finding unusual ways to get along with familiar people, places, and things can make everyday experiences feel exciting. In other words, sometimes you’ve just got to shake things up!
1. The author talked about his new exercise class in Paragraph 1 to ______.| A．introduce the topic of boredom | B．show the negative effects of exercise |
| C．prove the significance of exercise | D．encourage people to work out regularly |
| A．Three in five people are bound to live with boredom. |
| B．Occasional boredom has no side effects at all. |
| C．Lasting boredom may affect people negatively. |
| D．63 percent of people are victims of anxiety disorder. |
| A．They possess some character weaknesses. |
| B．They adjust themselves to negative changes. |
| C．They get accustomed to previous happenings. |
| D．They have difficulty handling human relations. |
| A．Emotional reactions result in decision making. |
| B．Emotional reactions determine the social relationship. |
| C．Boredom leads to being distracted or forgetful. |
| D．Boredom helps the discovery of new changes. |
| A．the tiny excitement of familiarity | B．some fresh ideas for keeping life fresh |
| C．the reasons for accepting boredom | D．some methods to mix things up |
So far as the brain is concerned, it can work as well and swiftly at the end of eight or even twelve hours f efforts as at the beginning. The brain is totally tireless. So what makes us tired.
Some scientists declare that most of our fatigue come from our mental and emotional(情感的) attitudes. One of England’s most outstanding scientists. J. A. Hadfield,says,“The greater part of the fatigue from which we suffer is of mental origin. In fact,fatigue of purely physical origin is rare.” Dr. Brill, a famous American scientist, goes even further. He declares,“One hundred percent of the fatigue of a sitting worker in good health is due to emotional problems.”
What kinds of emotions make sitting workers tired?Joy?Satifaction?No!A feeling of being bored,anger,anxiety,tenseness,worry,a feeling of nt being appreciated---those are emotions that tire sitting workers.Hard work by itself seldom causes fatigue.We get tired because our emotions produce nervousness in the body.
1. What surprised the scientists a few years ago?
| A．Fatigue toxinscould hardly be found in a labour’s blood. |
| B．Albert Eistein didn’t feel worn out after a day’s work. |
| C．The brain could wrk for many hours without fatigue. |
| D．A mental worker’s blood was filled with fatigue toxins. |
| A．Challenge mental work. |
| B．Unpleasant emotions. |
| C．Endless tasks. |
| D．Physical labor. |
| A．He agrees with them. |
| B．He doubts them |
| C．He argues against them. |
| D．He hesitates to accept them. |
| A．have some good blood |
| B．enjoy their work |
| C．exercise regularly |
| D．discover fatigue toxin |
【推荐3】We like to think that the human mind is special. One sign of our superiority is self-awareness, which is generally seen as the peak of consciousness. Only a select group of species has passed the test of being able to recognise themselves in a mirror. Most, including elephants, apes and dolphins, are smart. But now a little fish, the cleaner wrasse has become the first fish ever to pass the mirror test——a classic experiment used to judge self-awareness in animals. What are we to make of this?
Admittedly^ the mirror test is a questionable way of probing （探究）the minds of other animals. But the finding does fit with a new idea that the ability to recognise oneself is more related to an animal’s lifestyle than to its brain size. Self-awareness is likely to occur in creatures whose survival is dependent on reading the minds of others. In fact, by this way of thinking, it is nothing more than an accidental by-product of evolution^ a simulation （模拟）created by the brain, or even just a hall of mirrors giving the illusion of complexity.
The cleaner wrasse lives on coral reefs and provides a service by biting parasites （寄 生虫）off the scales of bigger fish gently, a delicate relationship that may require insight into the minds of its clients. Such “theory of mind” has long been seen as another cornerstone of human mental superiority. The possibility that fish possess it is not, however, the only threat to our human exceptionalism （例外）.It may not be long before computers give us a run for our money , too.
Researchers have created a set of tests to look for theory of mind in artificial intelligence— and some systems are on the point of passing. No AIs have passed the tests yet, but one got extremely close. We probably don't need to worry about robots that can recognise themselves in mirrors. But we might want to be more open to the idea that human intelligence isn't quite as special as we like to think.
1. What can we learn from the mirror test?| A．Mammals have a more adaptive body system. |
| B．A species of fish is capable of self-recognition. |
| C．The human mind is just as special as expected. |
| D．Humans have reached the peak of consciousness. |
| A．is formed during evolution by chance | B．corresponds with the size of the brain |
| C．isn't a hall of mirrors but a simulation | D．reflects the typical mental complexity |
| A．bring us huge profits |
| B．cost us a lot of money |
| C．have great control over us |
| D．challenge our exceptionalism |
| A．Fish possess no level of intelligence. |
| B．Humans are not unique in intelligence. |
| C．AIs will be able to understand our thoughts. |
| D．Self-awareness is a big mystery of the mind. |
