Up-skilling is the future - but it must work for everyone
Automation and job replacement will be one of the most significant challenges for the global economy of the coming decades. A 2017 Mckinsey report established that 375 million workers will need to switch occupational categories by 2030. The World Economic Forum suggests that by 2022, automation will replace 75 million jobs globally - but create 133 million new ones.
Research into the likelihood that a job will be impacted by digitization has largely focused on the "auto-matability" of the role and the following economic regional and political effects of this. What this research doesn't take into account is something more important for the millions of taxi drivers and retail workers across the globe: their likelihood of being able to change to another job that isn't automatable. Recent research suggests that the answer to this may be that the skills that enable workers to move up the ladder to more complex roles within their current areas might be less important than broader skills that will enable workers to change across divisions.
In July, Amazon announced that it would spend $700 million retraining around 30% of its 300,000 US workforce. While praiseworthy, it will be interesting to see the outcome. In the UK, the National Retraining Scheme has largely been led by employers, meaning that those on zero-hours contracts and part-time workers - often low-skilled --- will miss out. Governance will be a crucial element of ensuring that such schemes focus on individuals and life-long learning, rather than upskilling workers into roles that will soon also face automation.
According to the Mckinsey report, "growing awareness of the scale of the task ahead has yet to translate into action. Public spending on labour-force training and support has fallen for years in most member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development," which impacts more than just the low-skilled.
The global impact of automation is also put into relief by research demonstrating that, between 1988 and 2015, income inequality increased throughout the world. Billions of people do not have the essentials of life as defined by the UN Sustainable Development goals.
Alongside climate change, automation is arguably tech's biggest challenge. As with globalization, governments and employers -- and us workers -- ignore its potential consequences at risk to ourselves.
1. It can be known from Paragraph 2 that ________.| A．recent research has found ways to face automation |
| B．broad skills are of great significance in changing jobs |
| C．regional economy can affect the automatability of a job |
| D．it is even harder for workers to move up the social ladder |
| A．Supportive. | B．Critical | C．Doubtful | D．Sympathetic |
| A．Less spending on training | B．A slowdown of globalization |
| C．Social unrest and instability. | D．An increase in income inequality |
| A．argue the urgency of creating new jobs |
| B．compare globalization with automation |
| C．analyze the automatability of certain jobs |
| D．stress the important of upskilling workers |
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【推荐1】We discuss the issue of when to help a patient die, which was not talked about openly and little was written about it.
The best way to bring the problem into focus is to describe two patients whom I cared for. The first, formerly a nurse, had an automobile accident. And there she was: in coma, on a breathing machine. One day, her husband and son came to see me. They told me their wife and mother was obviously going to die; she was a nurse and had told her family that she never wanted this kind of terrible death, being maintained by machines. I told them that while I respected their view, there was nothing deadly about her situation. The kidney(肾) failure she had was just the kind for which the artificial (人造的) kidney was most effective. While possibly a bit reassured, they were disappointed. Here was the head surgeon seemingly determined to keep everybody alive, no matter what.
Within a few days the patient awoke from her coma. About six months later, the door of my office opened and in walked a gloriously fit woman. After some cheery words of appreciation, the father and son asked to speak to me alone. As soon as the door closed, both men became quite tearful. All that came out was, “We want you to know how wrong we were.”
The second patient was an 85-year-old lady whose hair caught fire while she was smoking. She arrived with a deep burn; I knew it would surely be deadly. At the time, there was a class discussing medical ethics(道德). The instructor asked me if I had any sort of ethical problem I could bring up for discussion. I described the case and asked the students their opinion. After the discussion, I made a remark that was, when looking back, a serious mistake. I said, “I’ll talk with the nurses before we decide.” The instructor and the students were shocked: “You mean this is a real patient?” The teacher of ethics was not accustomed to being challenged by actuality.
A day or two later, when the lady was making no progress and was suffering terribly, we began to back off in treatment. Soon she died quietly and not in pain. As a reasonable physician, you had better move ahead and do what you would want done for you. And don’t discuss it with the world first. There is a lesson here for everybody. Assisting people to leave this life requires strong judgment and long experience to avoid its misuse.
1. Why were the first patient’s husband and son disappointed at first?| A．Their wife and mother was going to die. |
| B．The doctor didn’t do as they asked to. |
| C．Their wife and mother had to receive an artificial kidney. |
| D．The doctor scolded them for their cruelty. |
| A．how to help patients end their lives |
| B．the importance of saving patients’ lives |
| C．whether it is ethical to keep a patient alive on a breathing machine |
| D．the case about an old lady |
| A．He had never discussed helping a patient in real life to die. |
| B．He thought it was cruel to assist the old lady to die. |
| C．He was not accustomed to talking about ethnical problems. |
| D．He felt he was challenged by the author. |
| A．discuss it with the others first |
| B．make sure there is no other choice left |
| C．be required to do so first by the patient |
| D．give the patient enough medicine |
| A．Cruel. | B．Determined. |
| C．Professional. | D．Considerate. |
【推荐2】A shortage of semiconductors (半导体) has helped firms such as Nvidia, whose chips (芯片) power everything from video gaming to machine learning and data centres. But boom time for sellers means misery for buyers. Carmakers, whose products have become computers on wheels, are among the victims. Analysts say the industry might build around 5 million fewer cars this year, all for want of the chips. Apple and Microsoft have also warned that they will be affected.
The shortage is the result of a sudden rise in demand. Chipmaking has been enjoying strong growth for decades as computers have stepped into every corner of society. But there was a strong upward trend during the pandemic. Locked-down consumers shopped online, had meetings remotely, and killed time with video-streaming and videogaming.
The crisis has had three consequences, two encouraging and one less so.
The first is an investment boom. Big producers such as Intel, Samsung and TSMC are planning to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on extra capacity (产能) over the next few years. As in many markets, high prices are the best cure for high prices.
The second is that the chip industry’s customers are adapting. too. When demand fell early in the pandemic, carmakers cut their orders with chipmakers. Following Tesla, Volkswagen has announced plans to develop driver-assistance chips in-house.
Unwelcome effect has been a sudden rise of techno-nationalism. America is planning to hand out billions of dollars to attract chipmakers back from East Asia. Europe wants to double its share of global production, to 20%，by 2030. Even Britain has declared the fate of a small chip factory in Wales to be a matter of national security.
Chips have come to occupy what used to be called the “commanding heights” of an economy, in the way that car factories did in the 20th century. But as last century’s governments discovered, subsidies (补贴) lend 10 oversupply. Personally, the chip shortage is mostly a self-solving problem. Governments should resist the temptation to scc themselves as saviours (救星).
1. What is the main cause of the sudden shortage of chips according to the passage?| A．Economic crisis | B．The outbreak of the pandemic. |
| C．Governments’ control. | D．Great demand in online products. |
| A．Hot investment in chips. | B．Carmakers’ adaptation to the market. |
| C．Arise of techno-nationalism. | D．Realization of technological globalization. |
| A．Markets are the cure for the chip shortage. |
| B．Government subsidies will lead to waste. |
| C．The government should rescue the market. |
| D．Car factories in the 20th century were on the rise. |
| A．Chip Shortage—A Self-solving Problem |
| B．Techno-nationalism—A War without Smoke |
| C．Challenges—Promises of New Opportunities |
| D．High Prices—the Best Cure for High Prices |
At school the children are taught to add up and subtract (减法) but, extraordinarily, are not routinely shown how to open a bank account — let alone how to manage their finances in an increasingly complex and demanding world.
Today the parenting website Mumsnet and the consumer campaigner Martin Lewis have joined forces to launch an online application to make financial education a compulsory element of the school curriculum in England. Children from five to 16 should be taught about everything from pocket money to pensions, they say. And that was exactly the plan preserved in the Children, Schools and Families bill that was shelved by the government in the so-called “wash-up” earlier this month — the rush to legislation before parliament was dismissed. Consumer and parent groups believe financial education has always been one of the most frustrating omissions of the curriculum.
As the Personal Finance Education Group (Pfeg) points out, the good habits of young children do not last long. Over 75% of seven- to 11-year-olds are savers but by the time they get to 17, over half of them are in debt to family and friends. By this age, 26% see a credit card or overdraft (透支) as a way of extending their spending power. Pfeg predicts that these young people will “find it much harder to avoid the serious unexpected dangers that have befallen many of their parents’ generation unless they receive good quality financial education while at school.”
The UK has been in the worst financial recession (衰退) for generations. It does seem odd that — unless parents step in — young people are left in the dark until they are cruelly introduced to the world of debt when they turn up at university. In a recent poll of over 8,000 people, 97% supported financial education in schools, while 3% said it was a job for parents.
1. The passage is mainly about _____________.
| A．how to manage school lessons |
| B．how to deal with the financial crisis |
| C．teaching young people about money |
| D．teaching students how to study effectively |
| A．the author complains about the school education |
| B．pupils should not be taught to add up and subtract |
| C．students have been taught to manage their finances |
| D．laws on financial education have been effectively carried out |
| A．instruct the pupils to donate their pocket money |
| B．promote the connection of schools and families |
| C．ask the government to dismiss the parliament |
| D．appeal for the curriculum of financial education |
| A．it is easy to keep good habits long |
| B．teenagers spend their money as planned |
| C．parents are willing to pay the debt for their kids |
| D．it will be in trouble if the teenagers are left alone |
| A．stress the necessity of the curriculum reform |
| B．show the seriousness of the financial recession |
| C．make the readers aware of burden of the parents |
| D．illustrate some people are strongly against the proposal |
【推荐1】Elizabeth Spelke, a cognitive (认知的) psychologist at Harvard, has spent her career testing the world's most complex learning system-the mind of a baby. Babies might seem like no match for artificial intelligence (AI). They are terrible at labeling images, hopeless at mining text, and awful at video games. Then again, babies can do things beyond the reach of any AI. By just a few months old, they’ve begun to grasp the foundations of language, such as grammar. They’ve started to understand how to adapt to unfamiliar situations.
Yet even experts like Spelke don’t understand precisely how babies — or adults, for that matter — learn. That gap points to a puzzle at the heart of modern artificial intelligence: We're not sure what to aim for.
Consider one of the most impressive examples of AI, Alpha Zero, a programme that plays board games with superhuman skill. After playing thousands of games against itself at a super speed, and learning from winning positions, Alpha Zero independently discovered several famous chess strategies and even invented new ones. It certainly seems like a machine eclipsing human cognitive abilities. But Alpha Zero needs to play millions more games than a person during practice to learn a game. Most importantly, it cannot take what it has learned from the game and apply it to another area.
To some AI experts, that calls for a new approach. In a November research paper, Francois Chollet, a well-known AI engineer, argued that it’s misguided to measure machine intelligence just according to its skills at specific tasks. “Humans don’t start out with skills; they start out with a broad ability to acquire new skills,” he says. “What a strong human chess player is demonstrating is not only the ability to play chess, but the potential to fulfill any task of a similar difficulty.” Chollet posed a set of problems, each of which requires an AI programme to arrange colored squares on a grid (格栅) based on just a few prior examples. It’s not hard for a person. But modern machine-learning programmes-trained on huge amounts of data — cannot learn from so few examples.
Josh Tenenbaum, a professor in MIT's Center for Brains, Minds & Machines, works closely with Spelke and uses insights from cognitive science as inspiration for his programmes. He says much of modern AI misses the bigger picture, comparing it to a cartoon about a two-dimensional world populated by simple geometrical (几何形的) people. AI programmes will need to learn in new ways — for example, by drawing causal inferences rather than simply finding patterns. “At some point — you know, if you’re intelligent — you realize maybe there's something else out there,” he says.
1. Compared to an advanced AI programme, a baby might be better at _______________.| A．labeling images | B．identifying locations |
| C．playing games | D．making adjustments |
| A．Stimulating. | B．Measuring. | C．Beating. | D．Limiting. |
| A．AI is good at finding similar patterns |
| B．AI should gain abilities with less training |
| C．AI lacks the ability of generalizing a skill |
| D．AI will match humans in cognitive ability |
| A．What is exactly intelligence? |
| B．Why is modern AI advanced? |
| C．Where is human intelligence going? |
| D．How do humans tackle the challenge of AI? |
【推荐2】It’s common knowledge that the woman in Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous painting seems to look back at viewers, following them with her eyes no matter where they are in the room. But this common knowledge turns out wrong.
A new study finds that the woman in the painting is actually looking out at an angle of 15.4° off to the viewer’s right — well outside the range that people normally believe when they think someone is looking right at them. In other words, said the study author, Horstmann, “She’s not looking at you.”
This is ironic (讽刺), because the entire phenomenon of a person’s gaze (凝视) in a photograph or painting seeming to follow the viewer is called the “Mona Lisa effect”, which is absolutely real. If a person is illustrated or photographed looking straight ahead, even people viewing the portrait from an angle will feel they are being looked at. As long as the angle of the person’s gaze is no more than about 5 degrees off to either side, the Mona Lisa effect occurs.
Horstmann and his co-author were studying this effect for its application in the creation of artificial-intelligence avatars (虚拟头像) when Horstmann took a long look at the “Mona Lisa” and realized she wasn’t looking at him.
To make sure it wasn’t just him, the researchers gathered 24 people to view images of the “Mona Lisa” on a computer screen. They set a ruler between the viewer and the screen and asked the participants to note which number on the ruler intersected (相交) Mona Lisa’s gaze. To calculate the angle of Mona Lisa’s gaze as she looked at the viewer, they moved the ruler farther from or closer to the screen during the study. Consistently, the researchers found, participants judged that the woman in the “Mona Lisa” portrait was not looking straight at them, but slightly off to their right.
So why do people repeat the belief that her eyes seem to follow the viewer? Horstmann isn’t sure. It’s possible, he said, that people have the desire to be looked at, so they think the woman is looking straight at them. Or maybe the people who first coined the term “Mona Lisa effect” just thought it was a cool name.
1. It is generally believed that the woman in the painting “Mona Lisa” ________.| A．attracts the viewers to look back |
| B．seems mysterious because of her eyes |
| C．fixes her eyes on the back of the viewers |
| D．looks at observers wherever they stand |
| A．The Mona Lisa effect does not really exist. |
| B．The mystery of the woman’s smile in the painting. |
| C．The angle of the gaze in Mona Lisa effect. |
| D．Mona Lisa effect does not occur with Mona Lisa. |
| A．confirm Horstmann’s belief |
| B．create artificial-intelligence avatars |
| C．calculate the angle of Mona Lisa’s gaze |
| D．show how the Mona Lisa effect can be applied |
| A．Horstmann thinks it cool to coin the term “Mona Lisa effect”. |
| B．The Mona Lisa effect contributes to the creation of artificial intelligence. |
| C．Feeling being gazed at by Mona Lisa may be caused by the desire for attention. |
| D．The position of the ruler in the experiment will influence the viewers’ judgement. |
【推荐3】Have you ever wondered how astronauts clean their clothes in space? You may find the answer surprising—they do not.
They wear their clothes until they cannot take the dirt and smell anymore. Then, they throw them away.
NASA wants to change that—if not at the International Space Station (ISS), then the moon and Mars. This would mean the end to throwing away lots of dirty clothes every year. Up to now, they simply had to put them with other waste in old supply ships to burn up in the atmosphere. NASA is working with the U. S. company, Procter & Gamble (P&G), to learn how best to clean astronauts’ clothes in space. They could use the clothes for months or even years, just like on Earth.
NASA says rocket storage space is small and costly. So, why waste it on new clothes if they could keep their old clothes looking and smelling fresh? An astronaut needs 68 kilograms of clothes in space per year. The clothes would use a lot of storage space, especially on a three-year Mars mission.
There are also the problems of health and comfort.
Space station astronauts exercise two hours every day to fight the effects of weightlessness on their bodies. Leland Melvin, a former NASA astronaut, says their exercise clothing becomes so unpleasant that they use a new set every week, and that while NASA and the other space station partners have researched ways to lengthen wear time with special clothes, that is not a long-term solution.
In its first experiment, P&G will send up detergent(洗涤剂) made just for space in December. Scientists will then see how the compounds in the detergent react to six months of weightlessness. Next May, they will send stain-removal pens and cloths to the ISS for testing by astronauts. At the same time, P&G is developing a washer-dryer machine that could operate on the moon or even Mars. It would use small amounts of water and detergent. Such a machine could also be useful in dry places here on Earth.
1. What problem in space do NASA and P&G aim to solve?| A．Lack of detergents. | B．Lack of comforts. |
| C．Lack of space. | D．Lack of fund. |
| A．Exercise in space is physically demanding. |
| B．Lengthening wear time of clothes in space is practical. |
| C．The cooperation between NASA and P&G is workable. |
| D．New clothes are of benefit compared to used clothes. |
| A．Send detergent into space. |
| B．Send stain-removal pens and cloths into space. |
| C．Develop a washer-dryer machine using little water. |
| D．Operate a machine on the moon or even Mars. |
| A．Science. | B．Education. | C．Culture. | D．Politics. |
【推荐1】Australian experts have expressed concerns that too many millennials(千禧一代）are hoping to use their social media accounts to build their careers.
Their concerns follow the sudden rise in "insta-celebrities" who make money by posting sponsored photos online. For the lucky few who are not only talented photographers but also good-looking and business-savvy(有商业头脑的)，making money off social media isn't impossible.
Instagram is flooded with social media professionals paid to promote products and services. However, social scientist Dr Lauren Rosewarne, from the University of Melbourne, says that in reality, there are far fewer people making money off the platforms than one may think.
She said many young Australians were getting sucked in by the appeal of making money on platforms like Instagram, describing it as "totally unrealistic" and extremely difficult to do.
"Young people are hoping to be famous in numbers that were simply not there 20 years ago," Rosewarne told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation(ABC) on Saturday. "There are some people who can make fortunes out of monetizing(使具有货币性质)their Instagram posts, but that is not the norm."
She said it was up to parents and schools to discourage students from seeking Insta-fame, as many believe it is a possible career choice. "There's the warning for parents; this is not a normal or even common occurrence that you can monetize your Instagram account."
Meanwhile Toni Eager from Australian National University said social problems could arise from spending too much time with social media.
"Where do the insta-celebrities go ... to separate the life people see on Instagram from their actual normal life?" Eager said. "All of a sudden, people own your private life."
1. Why is there a sudden rise in "insta-celebrities"?| A．Many young people want to be photographers. |
| B．Many people see it as a shortcut to making money. |
| C．People want to socialize by sharing photos online. |
| D．Instagram offers young people more career choices. |
| A．benefiting from something |
| B．becoming involved in something |
| C．taking advantage of something |
| D．being satisfied with something |
| A．Young people today are more business-savvy than ever. |
| B．Young people are becoming less interested in Internet fame. |
| C．Instagram is not a good platform to promote new products. |
| D．It's a bad idea for young people to try earning money on Instagram. |
| A．An over-reliance on Instagram. |
| B．A loss of personal privacy. |
| C．Less interaction with people in real life. |
| D．The desire to monetize one's Instagram account. |
【推荐2】Men are as likely as women to suffer from postnatal (产后的) depression, a study shows. One in ten fathers — the same ratios as mothers — are found to suffer before or after birth. By the time their child reaches 12 weeks, as many as one in four are feeling down.
The symptoms observed in the American study are not thought to be hormonal — as they are in women — and are instead probably a response to the pressures of fatherhood. These include the expense of having children, changed relationship with partners and fear of paternal (父亲的) responsibility. In the early weeks, the lack of sleep and extra domestic chores also take the toll.
The study put the overall rate of depression among new fathers at 10.4 percent — double the estimated 4.8 percent for all men in any 12-month period. Around 8 percent were affected in the 12 weeks before and after birth, according to the Eastern Virginia Medical School Research. The study found parents were more likely to be down if their partner was too.
It is estimated that around one in ten women suffers postnatal depression, even if they have never had mental health problems. Without treatment the condition can last for months. Although most women have a few days of “Baby Blues” shortly after birth, postnatal depression can kick in up to six months later. Experts say that paternal depression is serious because it can have “substantial emotional, behavioural and developmental” effects on children.
1. The “Baby Blues” effect among fathers may be caused by the following except _____.| A．domestic chores |
| B．fatherhood pressure |
| C．paternal responsibility |
| D．hormone imbalance |
| A．Cost a lot of money. |
| B．Take the lead. |
| C．Have a bad effect. |
| D．Have no links. |
| A．Therapy for Depression |
| B．Father Getting Baby Blues |
| C．Effects of Father Blues |
| D．Postnatal Recovery |
【推荐3】Described as the world’s most environmentally friendly protein（蛋白质）, Solein is made by applying electricity to water to release bubbles of carbon dioxide and hydrogen. Living microbes (微生物) are then added to the liquid to feed on the carbon dioxide and hydrogen bubbles and produce the Solein, which is then dried to make the powder. It’s a chemical change process similar to beer brewing. The dried Solein has a protein content of 50 percent and looks and tastes just like wheat flour.
“It is a completely new kind of food, a new kind of protein, different to all the food on the market today in how it is produced as it does not need agriculture.” Dr Pasi Vainikka, the chief manager of Solar Foods told The Guardian. The process used to produce Solein—changing hydrogen and carbon dioxide is amazing, as the wonder food can be produced anywhere in the world. It’s also 10 time-efficient than photosynthesis (光合作用), and 10 to 100 times more environment and climate-friendly in water use than animal or plant-based food production.
“Solein also contains all the essential amino acid (氨基酸),but because it is produced using carbon and electricity, it does not require large amounts of land to produce, ” the Solar Foods website explains. “Another unique characteristic of Solein is that it is able to take carbon directly from carbon dioxide without needing a source of sugar.”
While Solar Foods does not expect Solein to challenge conventional protein production methods in the next two decades, it does expect it to become a “new harvest” for humanity, which is significant considering so far we have only relied on plants and animals for sustenance. The Helsinki-based company plans to open its first Solein factory at the end of 2021 and increase production to two billion meals per year by 2022.
1. Why is Solein described as environmentally friendly?| A．Because it is man-made by using electricity. |
| B．Because it contains all the nutrition people need. |
| C．Because it is made consuming less land and energy. |
| D．Because it is produced from water and carbon dioxide. |
| A．It’ll have a rewarding future. |
| B．It’ll reach consumers in 2020. |
| C．It’ll challenge traditional protein production. |
| D．It’ll be a complete replacement for plants and animals. |
| A．survival | B．food |
| C．material | D．support |
| A．A textbook. | B．A novel. |
| C．A magazine. | D．A brochure. |
So，why would I want to tune my piano？There are many reasons for tuning your own piano.
·It is a very pleasant thing to do.
·You can make up to $80 each time tuning other people's pianos.
·There are millions of pianos in the world and thousands of new ones are being sold every day.There are not enough piano tuners available to tune them all.
·You can provide a valuable service for friends，family and others.
·You can teach yourself very cheaply and then develop it into a parttime or fulltime business.
You may have thought that only a trained expert could do this，someone who had devoted years of study and developed a sense of perfect pitch(音高)．In the past，tuning a piano was as much an art form as it was a technology exercise，but now the balance is swaying(摇动) more towards the technology and the final result is as good or even better than tuning by ear.
A few simple tools and a laptop computer with tuning software are all that are required.The real secret is the tuning software，which makes the whole process extremely easy.It means you do not have to train your ears but just look at the laptop screen to know when the piano string is in tune.
I have put together an ebook in my website with all the information you need to get started tuning your own piano, where to get the free software and where to buy the tools.
I hope I have inspired you to think about piano tuning and actually give it a go.You will find it a very rewarding and pleasant activity even if it remains just a hobby.
1. The writer asks two questions in the first paragraph to ________.
| A．show his doubt on the topic |
| B．ask readers to answer the questions clearly |
| C．encourage readers to make comments on the topic |
| D．attract readers to more information on this topic |
2. According to the passage，why should you learn to tune pianos?
| A．To offer help to piano tuners. |
| B．To save money and earn money as well. |
| C．Because it can help you make a piano yourself. |
| D．Because it can help you learn how to play the piano. |
3. What makes piano tuning easier now?
| A．Advanced technology. |
| B．More effective training. |
| C．More chances of practicing. |
| D．Traditional tuning methods. |
4. If you want to get the tuning software and tools，you can ________.
| A．get them for free from the piano sellers |
| B．buy them from the writer's online shops |
| C．make them yourself according to the passage |
| D．surf the writer's website for the information |
5. In the last paragraph，the writer mainly wants to show that ________.
| A．one must be active to play the piano |
| B．piano tuning will be popular in the future |
| C．it's valuable to take piano tuning as a hobby |
| D．it's difficult to tune pianos without professional training |
【推荐2】If you had asked me then if I would accept a job as a restaurant critic for The New York Times. or any establishment publication, I would have replied, without a second thought, “Of course not!” And not just because I did not want to think of myself as an ambitious sort Working in restaurants was honest labor, anyone could see that. Writing about them for the mainstream press was not; it felt like joining the enemy.
But renewing was fun. so much fun that when mainstream publishers started paying me for my opinions, I didn't do the decent thing. Before I knew it, I had stopped cooking Professionally.
Then I stopped cooking altogether. “She's joined the leisure class.” my friend said.
I disarmed (消解怒气)) my critics by inviting them along; nobody I knew could afford to eat out and nobody refused. We went with equal amounts of guilt and pleasure, with a feeling that we were trespassing (侵入))on the playgrounds of the rich.
We didn't belong in starchy restaurants. We knew it, and when we climbed out of my rent - a - wreck, splendid in years from the Salvation Army, everybody else knew it, too. We always got the worst table. And then, because I didn't own a credit card, I had to pay in cash. The year turned into two and three, and more. I got a credit card. I got good clothes. I was writing for increasingly prestigious (声誉高的)publications. Meanwhile, a voice inside me kept whispering, “How could you?”
The voice is still there, yakking (喋喋不休)away. When I receive weekly letters from people who think it is indecent to write about $100 meals while half the world is hungry, the voice yaks right along, “They're absolutely right, you elitist pig is hisses”. And when it asks. “When are you going to grow up and get a real job?” it sounds a lot like my mother.
And just about then is when I tell the voice to shut up. Because when my mother starts idling me that all I'm doing with my life is telling rich people where to eat, I realize how much the world has changed.
Yes, there are still restaurants where rich people go to remind themselves that they are different from you and me. But there are fewer and fewer of them. As American food has come of age. American restaurants have changed. Going out to eat used to be like going to the opera; today, it is more like going to the movies.
And so everyone has become a critic. I couldn't be happier. The more people pay attention to what and how they eat, the more accustomed they become to their own senses and the world around them.
When I remember that conversation with M. F. K. Fisher, I wish I had not been quite so gentle. When I rerun the loop in my mind, I turn to her and say this: “No, you are wrong. A. J. Liebling had it right. All it really takes to be a restaurant critic is a good appetite.”
1. How did the author feel about the job as a restaurant critic at the very beginning?| A．She didn't think much of it |
| B．She was the ambitious one for it. |
| C．It was not suitable for a cook like her. |
| D．It was not easy to work for the mainstream press. |
| A．A strong desire to be invited to eat out like the rich. |
| B．A mixed feeling of guilt and pleasure about eating out. |
| C．A mixed feeling of guilt and pleasure going into private property. |
| D．A special treat to be able to go into private property for fun. |
| A．She stayed in the career as a cook for years. |
| B．She kept on writing as a restaurant critic for years. |
| C．It was years before she quit the career as a cook. |
| D．It was years before her application for a credit card got approved. |
| A．worthwhile | B．critical | C．unacceptable | D．imperfect |
| A．They have places for both the rich and the poor. |
| B．They have varieties of means for entertainment. |
| C．They have become too expensive to be available. |
| D．They have become affordable to common people, |
| A．The writer is getting tired of the job. |
| B．good appetite makes a good critic. |
| C．There is no need for restaurant critics at all. |
| D．Eating out is no longer a privilege the rich have. |
【推荐3】Faster, cheaper, better-technology is one field many people rely upon to offer a vision of a brighter future. But as the 2020s dawn, optimism is in short supply. The new technologies that dominated the past decade seem to be making things worse. Social media were supposed to bring people together, but they are better known for leaking privacy. E-commerce, ride-hailing (网约车) and the gig economy (零工经济) may be convenient, but they are charged with underpaying workers, worsening inequality and blocking the streets with vehicles.
Today's pessimistic mood is centered on smart phones and social media, which took off a decade ago. Yet concerns that particular technologies might be doing more harm than good have arisen before. The 1920s witnessed a criticism against cars, which had earlier been seen as an answer to the problems caused by horse-drawn vehicles which filled the streets with noise and animal waste and caused accidents. And industrialization was criticized in the 19th century by Romantics who worried about the replacement of skilled workers, the robbing of the countryside and the suffering of factory hands.
However, that pessimism can be overdone. Too often people focus on the drawbacks of a new technology while taking its benefits for granted. Worries about screen time should be weighed against the much more substantial benefits of convenient communication and the instant access to information and entertainment that smartphones make possible. A further danger is that Luddite (反对技术进步者) efforts to avoid the short-term costs associated with a new technology will end up denying access to its long-term benefits-something Carl Benedikt Frey, an Oxford academic, calls a "technology trap". Fears that robots will steal people's jobs may discourage their use. Yet in the long run countries that wish to maintain their standard of living as their workforce ages and shrinks will need more robots, not fewer.
Any powerful technology can be used for good or ill. It is the choices people make about it that shape the world. Perhaps the real source of anxiety is not technology itself, but growing doubts about the ability of societies to hold this debate, and come up with good answers. So as the decade turns, put aside the pessimism for a moment. To be alive in the tech-obsessed 2020s is to be among the luckiest people who have ever lived.
1. What phenomenon is described in Paragraph 1?| A．The seriousness of social inequality. |
| B．The rapid development of technology. |
| C．Problems brought by personal privacy leaks. |
| D．Worries about the influence of new technologies. |
| A．Negative. | B．Uncertain. | C．Sympathetic. | D．Enthusiastic. |
| A．A lack of good jobs in the job market. |
| B．An increase in the number of Luddites. |
| C．A decrease in the number of skilled workers. |
| D．An interruption to the advancement of a new technology. |
| A．Pessimism vs Progress | B．Technology vs Civilization |
| C．2020s: The Age of Technology | D．Robots: Our Future Caretakers |
