【推荐1】A baby born today will be thirty-something in 2050. If all goes well, that baby will still be around in 2100, and might even be an active citizen of the 22^nd century. What should we teach that baby to help them survive and flourish in the world of 2050 and beyond? What kind of skills will they need in order to get a job, understand what is happening around them, and navigate their tough life?

At present, too many schools across the world focus on providing pupils with a set of predetermined skills, such as writing computer code in C++ and conversing in Chinese. Yet since we have no idea how the world and the job market will look in 2050, we don’t really know what particular skills people will need. We might invest a lot of effort in teaching kids how to write in C++ or to speak Chinese, only to discover sooner or later that AI will have been able to code software far better than humans, and that a new translation app will have enabled you to conduct a conversation in almost flawless Mandarin, Cantonese or Hakka, even though you only know how to say ni hao.

So what should we be teaching? Many experts argue that schools should downplay technical skills and emphasize general-purpose life skills: the ability to deal with change, to learn new things, and to preserve your mental balance in unfamiliar situations. In order to keep up with the world of 2050, you will above all need to reinvent yourself again and again.

To succeed in such a demanding task, you will need to work very hard on getting to know your operating system better—to know what you are and what you want from life. This is, of course, the oldest advice in the book: know thyself. This advice was never more urgent than in the mid-21^st century, because unlike in the days of Laozi or Socrates, now you have serious competition. Coca-Cola, Amazon and Facebook are all racing to hack you.

Right now, the algorithms (算法) are watching where you go, what you buy, and who you meet. Soon they will monitor all your steps, breaths and heartbeats. They are relying on big data and machine learning to get to know you better and better. And once these algorithms know you better than you know yourself, they could control and manipulate (操纵) you. In the end, authority will shift to them.

Of course, you might be perfectly happy giving up all authority to the algorithms and trusting them to make decisions for you and for the rest of the world. If, however, you want to maintain some control over your personal existence and over the future of life in general, you have to run faster than the algorithms. To run fast, don’t take much luggage with you. Leave all your illusions (幻想) behind. They are very heavy.

1. What does the underlined word “downplay” in paragraph 3 most probably mean?

A．Give too much emphasis on something.

B．Make people think that something is less important.

C．Offer your reasons why something is right or wrong.

D．Decide something in advance so that it does not happen.

2. According to the article, ___________ plays a vital role in children’s bright future.

A．imagination

B．adaptability

C．self-discipline

D．a good sense of balance

3. It’s important to know our operating system because ___________.

A．if we don’t, algorithms will hack all our devices.

B．it is an essential skill for us to succeed in the world of 2050.

C．we need to learn how algorithms work and make full use of them.

D．we need to outrun algorithms to keep some control over our personal life.

4. The article mainly talks about _________.

A．the importance of knowing yourself

B．the threats and dangers of technology

C．what kind of skills we might need in the future

D．some potential benefits algorithms would bring to humankind

【推荐3】There was a time not long ago when new science Ph.D.s in the United States were expected to pursue a career path in academia (学术界). But today, most graduates end up working outside academia, not only in industry but also in careers such as science policy, communications, and patent law. Partly this is a result of how bleak the academic job market is, but there’s also a rising awareness of career options that Ph.D. scientists haven’t trained for directly—but for which they have useful knowledge, skills, and experience. Still, there’s a huge disconnect between the way we currently train scientists and the actual employment opportunities available for them, and an urgent need for dramatic improvements in training programs to help close the gap. One critical step that could help to drive change would be to require Ph.D. students and postdoctoral scientists to follow an individual development plan (IDP).

In 2002, the U.S. Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology recommended that every postdoctoral researcher put together an IDP in consultation with an adviser. Since then, several academic institutions have begun to require IDPs for postdocs. And in June, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) Biomedical Research Workforce Working Group recommended that the NIH require IDPs for the approximately 32,000 postdoctoral researchers they support. Other funding agencies, public and private, are moving in a similar direction.

IDPs have long been used by government agencies and the private sector to achieve specific goals for the employee and the organization. The aim is to ensure that employees have an explicit tool to help them understand their own abilities and aspirations, determine career possibilities, and set (usually short-term) goals. In science, graduate students and new Ph.D. scientists can use an IDP to identify and navigate an effective career path.

A free Web application for this purpose, called myIDP, has become available this week. It’s designed to guide early-career scientists through a confidential, rigorous process of introspection（内省）to create a customized career plan. Guided by expert knowledge from a panel of science-focused career advisers, each trainee’s self-assessment is used to rank a set of career trajectories（轨迹）. After the user has identified a long-term career goal, myIDP walks her or him through the process of setting short-term goals directed toward accumulating new skills and experiences important for that career choice.

Although surveys reveal the IDP process to be useful, trainees report a need for additional resources to help them identify a long-term career path and complete an IDP. Thus, myIDP will be most effective when it’s embedded in larger career-development efforts. For example, universities could incorporate IDPs into their graduate curricula to help students discuss, plan, prepare for, and achieve their long-term career goals.

1. What do we learn about new science in the United States Ph.D.s today?

A．They lack the skills and expertise needed for their jobs.

B．They can choose from a wider range of well-paying jobs.

C．They often have to seek jobs outside the academic circle.

D．They are regarded as the nation’s driving force of change.

2. What does the author say about America’s Ph.D. training?

A．It includes a great variety of practical courses.

B．It is closely linked to future career requirements.

C．It should be re-oriented to careers outside academia.

D．It should be improved to better suit the job market.

3. Government agencies and the private sector often use IDPs to        .

A．bring into full play the expertise of their postdoctoral researchers

B．help employees capitalize on their abilities to achieve career goals

C．place employees in the most appropriate positions

D．recruit the most suitable candidates to work for them

4. What do me know about myIDP?

A．It is an effective tool for self-assessment for better career plans.

B．It enables people to look into various possibilities.

C．It is an integral part of the graduate curricula.

D．It can promise a long-term career path.

【推荐2】Tropical (热带的) birds deep in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest are shrinking and developing longer wings as they adapt to climate change but why is something of a mystery.

Researchers have studied data for 77 tropical bird species over the past 40 years and found that all of them had lost body mass. Some species have been losing nearly 2 percent of their weight per decade.

Birds and mammals of the same species are generally larger at higher latitudes. The leading explanation is that their smaller surface-area-to-volume ratio (比率) allows them to better conserve heat. The opposite would help smaller species in hot climates to cool and could explain why birds are getting smaller as the climate warms, says Vitek Jirinec at the Integral Ecology Research Center in California, who led the analysis.

In line with this, the mean temperature of the birds' habitat today is 1℃ warmer in the wet season and 1.6℃ warmer in the dry season compared with 1966. Weather patterns are also more extreme, with 13 percent more rain falling in the wet season and 15 percent less in the dry season, and the birds lost mass more sharply after extremely dry or wet seasons.

This could suggest that body mass loss is partly a short-term response to changes in their environment rather than entirely down to evolution. For instance, a lack of rainfall could cause a decline in the number of insects that the birds feed on, say the researchers.

But none of this can explain the team's other main finding. Wingspan has become significantly larger in one-third of the bird species over the past 40 years. “Mass is a generally good measure of body condition in birds,” says Jirinec. “If they are simply not getting enough to eat, you would expect them to lose weight. But why would they have more energy to grow their wings?”

1. Why are some birds larger at higher latitudes?

A．To preserve heat.	B．To find food better.
C．To fight against heat.	D．To adapt to climate change.

2. On what condition do birds shrink faster?

A．When they are hungry.	B．When there is less rain.
C．When they lose their habitat.	D．When they experience extreme seasons.

3. What remains to be settled by researchers?

A．Why tropical birds develop longer wings.	B．How Amazon rainforest is decreasing.
C．Why some birds are smaller in hot climates.	D．How temperature of the birds' habitat changes.

4. Where is the text probably taken from?

A．A personal diary.

B．A travel brochure.

C．A science magazine.

D．A science novel.

【推荐3】The secret of success

The recipe for succeeding in any given field is hardly a mystery: good ideas, hard work, discipline, imagination, perseverance and maybe a little luck. Oh, and let’s not forget failure which Dashun Wang and his colleagues at Northwestern University call “the essential prerequisite (先决条件) for success” in a new paper.

But not every failure leads to success, he adds. And what eventually separates the winners from the losers, the research shows, certainly is not persistence. One of the more interesting findings in the paper, published last October in Nature, is that the people who eventually succeeded and the people who eventually failed tried basically the same number of times to achieve their goals.

It turns out that trying again and again only works if you learn from your previous failures. The idea is to work smart, not hard. “You have to figure out what worked and what didn’t, and then focus on what needs to be improved instead of struggling around and changing everything,” says Wang. “The people who failed didn’t necessarily work less than those who succeeded. They could actually have worked more: it’s just that they made more unnecessary changes.”

As they explored “the mechanisms governing the dynamics of failure” and built their model. Wang’s team identified what they describe as previously unknown statistical signatures that separate successful groups from unsuccessful groups, making it possible to predict their final outcomes.

One such key indicator (besides keeping the stuff that works and focusing on what doesn’t) is the time between consecutive (连续的) failed attempts, which should decrease steadily. In other words, the faster you fail, the better your chances of success, and the more time between attempts, the more likely you are to fail again. “If someone has applied for a grant and they are three failures in,” Wang says, “if we just look at the timing between the failures, we will be able to predict whether they will eventually succeed or not.”

Working with such large-scale data, Wang and his colleagues were able to identify a critical point that was common to each of the hundreds of thousands of undertakings they had analyzed, a fork in the road where one path leads to a development region and one leads to a stagnation region.

“This diverging pattern of performance increases with each new attempt,” says Wang. Although in some cases it is apparent which region a person is in as early as the second attempt.

Wang points out that the existence of the tipping point cuts against the traditional explanations for failure or success, such as luck or a person’s work habits. “What we’re showing here is that even in the absence of such differences, you can still have very different outcomes,” he says. What matters is how people fail, how they respond to failure and where those failures lead.

1. It can be learned from Paragraph 2 that ________.

A．winners are more persistent than losers

B．failure is not important for success at all

C．more trying doesn’t necessarily breed success

D．winners and losers differ in how many times they tried

2. Wang and his colleagues believe that ________.

A．no one can obtain success without failure

B．the performance pattern is hard to identify

C．failure can sometimes help predict success

D．the critical point had been discovered by chance

3. The underlined phrase “a stagnation region” in Paragraph 6 refers to a region ________.

A．in its elementary stage	B．without progress
C．unknown to outsiders	D．beyond recognition

4. What is the conclusion of Wang’s research?

A．Winners try less than losers but gain more.

B．Perseverance is the utmost secret to success.

C．Working smart can turn failures into future successes.

D．Luck and work habits make little difference to the result.