Advertising in mass media is powerful. Right ads help create demands of products, campaign for political candidates or ideas and historically, even start wars. Detailed files the social media Companies build for each user, however, make advertising even more powerful by enabling advertisers to tailor their messages to individuals. These files even include your family size and whether you buy a lot of beer.
Consequently, social media has greater abilities to expose people to ideas as fast as they’ll individually accept them. The same ticks that can commend products to just the right person or suggest something addictive just when someone is most fragile can also suggest an extreme Conspiracy (阴谋) theory just when he is ready to consider it.
It’s increasingly common for friends and family to find themselves on opposite sides about important political issues. Many recognize social media as part of the problem, but how are these powerful customized advertising techniques contributing to the divisive landscape?
One important part is that people associated with foreign governments, without admitting that, take extreme positions in social media posts with the deliberate goal of sparking division and conflict. These extreme posts take advantage of the social media algorithms (算法), which are designed to heighten engagement Meanwhile, people seeking to influence others put things to more and more extreme positions. The result is apparent. Rather than most people having balanced views with fewer people holding extreme views, fewer and fewer people are in the middle.
What can be done? Skepticism about social media recommendations matters. Keep on a more deliberate path to information and avoid just clicking on whatever is recommended. Second, consider supporting efforts to require social media platforms to offer users a choice of algorithms for recommendations. Most importantly, invest more time in interacting with friends and family off social media. Probably, you’ll be far off a constructed track toward extremes.
1. What does the passage mainly talk about?| A．Social media can put people’s privacy at risk. |
| B．Advertisements in mass media can influence people a lot. |
| C．Social media advertisements can drive people to extremes. |
| D．Advertisements account for damaged relation among family and friends. |
| A．Advertising on TV to promote the sales of a new product. |
| B．Advertising on apps to sell tailored political ideas individually. |
| C．Advertising in the newspaper to publicize a government policy. |
| D．Advertising in elevators to raise the public awareness of safety. |
| A．Refuse to get exposed to all the social media. |
| B．Manage to master the social media algorithms. |
| C．Interact more with family and friends for their advice. |
| D．Hold a careful attitude to what is proposed by social media. |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】If you live in Tokyo or Toronto, you need a warm coat in winter. But you want one that is short, or black, or has a designer brand. The aim of advertising to change our ideas about things we want and we need.
Some ads for designer products use people’s vanity to sell a product. The ads try to create a personality for each brand. For example, one brand of watches is for people who like adventure, with ads featuring an auto racer or a pilot wearing them. Another brand of watches is for elegant and fashionable people, and the ads show wealthy travelers on a cruise ship. The watches look almost the same- only their image as different. When you buy that brand of watch, you are buying the image.
Many ads use people’s emotions to persuade us that we need the product. Think of a TV commercial that shows a woman out driving in a car on a rainy day, with her two small children. Suddenly, another car turns in front of her. The children are still smiling and laughing. The message is: This car will keep you safe.
Commercials for soft drinks often show people having a party, playing sports, or enjoying a day at the beach: Everyone in the ad is having a good time. The message is : If you buy this drink, you will have a good time too. Many ads like this are based on people’s desire for fun and enjoyment.
Knowing about psychology in advertising lets us make better decisions about the things we buy.
| A．Advertisements like this one use fear to sell products |
| B．You have to be careful not to be fooled by the ads on the Internet. |
| C．But the children may not realize that what they are viewing is unreal. |
| D．This is the reason that people spend much more money for a product. |
| E．After an ad is prepared, advertisers use psychology to make it more effective. |
| F．It helps us know the difference between what we want and what we really need. |
【推荐2】Cruises
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1. On which day is the activity the most important to the travel company?
| A．Day 2, | B．Day 3. |
| C．Day 4. | D．Day 5. |
| A．Flora-Molde, | B．Brenneysund-Svolvoer. |
| C．Troms-Stamsund. | D．Bod-Rrvik. |
| A．£25. | B．A free voyage. |
| C．An M&S Gift Card. | D．The bucket list experience. |
| A．required deposit. | B．£399. |
| C．£798. | D．£748. |
【推荐3】Seaside Escape
•2 Bedrooms, Sleeps 6, 2 Bathrooms
•2 Nights Minimum(最少量，最低限度)
Seaside Escape is made up of two town houses. The town houses are separate and private. Each house is well decorated and furnished, with fully equipped kitchens, two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a washing machine. Each town house also has a private garage, free WiFi Internet access, and two televisions.
We have a 50 × 25 foot swimming pool, with direct beach access only steps from your front door. You are only a ten-minute drive from Orlando International Airport.
House rules:
• Kid-friendly
• Pets not allowed
• Smoking not allowed
The Beach House 212
• 2 Bedrooms, Sleeps 6, 2 Bathrooms
• 3 Nights Minimum
Located on the beach in Cocoa Beach, this family-friendly town house has all the equipment of home and is newly furnished. It is a 45-minute drive to Orlando International Airport.
Newly acquired furniture will give you a high standard of comfort!
House rules:
• Kid-friendly
• Smoking not allowed
• We do “not” allow pets
The Dolphin suite
•1 Bedroom, 1 Bathroom, Sleeps 2
The Dolphin suite is small but very clean, comfortable, private and unique, perfect for a couple. It is very close to all the downtown restaurants and a 2-minute walk to our beautiful beach. About an hour’s drive from Orlando International Airport.
We supply beach towels and chairs. Just bring your sunscreen. Please message for any other questions you might have.
House rules:
• Adults only
• Pets allowed
• Smoking not allowed
The Shell Beach House
• 4 Bedrooms, 4 Bathrooms, Sleeps 12
Relax in this welcoming Beach House, just a one-minute walk to the beautiful beach. The Shell Beach House sleeps 10 comfortably and 12 at most.
The Shell Beach House has an ocean view sun terrace(阳台). It’s an outstanding spot for viewing the ocean, the stars, the sunrise, the rising full moon over the waves.
House rules:
• Kid-friendly
• Pets not allowed
• Smoking not allowed
• No loud parties, just normal fun and gatherings allowed.
1. According to the text, Seaside Escape ________.| A．can only accommodate(提供住宿) four gusts | B．has two garages in all |
| C．consists of two connected town houses | D．doesn’t have a swimming pool |
| A．The Dolphin suite is newly furnished. |
| B．The Shell Beach House doesn’t allow any gatherings. |
| C．The Beach House 212 can accommodate most guests. |
| D．Seaside Escape is nearer to the airport than the Dolphin suite. |
| A．They all allow kids. | B．They all forbid pets. |
| C．They all forbid smoking. | D．None of them is very close to the beach. |
【推荐1】Why stress and anxiety aren’t always bad
People generally think of stress and anxiety as negative concepts, but while both stress and anxiety can reach unhealthy levels, psychologists have long known that both are unavoidable - and that they often play a helpful, not harmful role in our daily lives, according to a presentation at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association.
“Many Americans now feel stressed about being stressed and anxious about being anxious,” said Lisa Damour, PhD, a private-practice psychologist who presented at the meeting.
Stress usually occurs when people operate at the edge of their abilities - when they push themselves or are forced by circumstances to stretch beyond their familiar limits, according to Damour.
“It’s important for psychologists to share our knowledge about stress with broad audiences that stress is a given in daily life, that working at the edge of our abilities often builds those capacities and that moderate levels of stress can actually have an inoculating (预防的) function, which leads to higher than average resilience (适应力) when we are faced with new difficulties,” she said.
Viewing anxiety as sometimes helpful and protective allows people to make good use of it. For example, Damour said she often tells the teenagers she works with in her practice to pay attention if they start to feel anxious at a party because their nerves may be alerting them to a problem.
“In other words, stress causes harm when it exceeds any level that a person can reasonably absorb or use to build psychological strength,” she said.
| A．Anxiety, too, gets some unnecessarily criticism, according to Damour |
| B．Unfortunately, by the time someone reaches out to a professional for help, stress and anxiety have already built to unhealthy levels |
| C．That doesn’t mean that stress and anxiety can’t be harmful, said Damour |
| D．Anyone feeling overwhelmed by stress should, if possible, take measures to reduce his or her stress |
| E．It’s also important to understand that stress can result from both bad and good events |
| F．Likewise, anxiety becomes unhealthy when its alarm makes no sense |
【推荐2】In colleges around the country, most students are also workers.
The reality of college can be pretty different from the images presented in movies and television. Instead of the students who wake up late, party all the time, and study only before exams, many colleges are full of students with pressing schedules of not just classes and activities, but real jobs, too.
This isn't a temporary phenomenon. The share of working students has been on the rise since the 1970s, and one-fifth of students work year round. About one-quarter of those who work while attending school have both a full-course load and a full-time job. The arrangement can help pay for tuition (学费) and living costs, obviously. And there's value in it beyond the direct cause: such jobs can also be critical for developing important professional and social skills that make it easier to land a job after graduation. With many employers looking for students with already-developed skill sets, on-the-job training while in college can be the best way to ensure a job later on.
But it's not all upside. Even full-time work may not completely cover the cost of tuition and living expenses. The study notes that if a student worked a full-time job at the federal minimum wage, they would earn just over $15,000 each year, certainly not enough to pay for tuition, room, and board at many colleges without some serious financial aid. That means that though they're sacrificing time away from the classroom, many working students will still graduate with at least some debt. And working full time can reduce the chance that students will graduate at all, by cutting into the time available for studying and attending classes.
There is little reward for attending but not finishing college. Students who wind up leaving school because of difficulty in managing work and class are likely to find themselves stuck in some of the same jobs they might have gotten if they hadn't gone at all. The difficulty of working too much while in school can create a cycle that pushes students further into debt without receiving any of the financial or career benefits.
1. According to the passage, the reality of college students is that _________.| A．they throw parties a lot | B．they stay up late every night |
| C．they pay no attention to exams | D．they work besides attending classes |
| A．keep | B．quit |
| C．get | D．lose |
| A．working students are more likely to finish college |
| B．students can cover their college expenses through working |
| C．students receive a huge reward for managing work and class |
| D．dropping out of college may not help students get career benefits |
| A．The Difficulties of Landing a Job |
| B．The Struggle of Work-School Balance |
| C．The Reward of Working While Studying |
| D．The Images of Working College Students |
【推荐3】Hardware in general, and smartphones in particular, have become a huge environmental and health problem in the Global South' s landfill sites(垃圾填埋场).
Electronic waste(e-waste) currently takes up 5 percent of all global waste, and it is set to increase rapidly as more of us own more than one smartphone, laptop and power bank. They end up in places like Agbogbloshie on the outskirts of Ghana's capital, Accra.It is the biggest e-waste dump in the world, where 10,000 informal workers walk through tons of abandoned goods as part of an informal recycling process.They risk their health searching for the precious metals that are found in abandoned smartphones.
But Agbogbloshie should not exist. The Basel Convention, a 1989 treaty aims to prevent developed nations from unauthorized dumping of e-waste in less developed countries. The E-waste industry, however, circumvents the regulations by exporting e-waste labelled as “secondhand goods” to poor countries like Ghana, knowing full well that it is heading for a landfill site.
A recent report found Agbogbloshie contained some of the most dangerous chemicals.This is not surprising: smartphones contain chemicals like mercury(水银), lead and even arsenic (砷 ) Reportedly, one egg from a free-range chicken in Agbogbloshie contained a certain chemical which can cause cancer and damage the immune system at a level that's about 220 times greater than a limit set by the European Food Safety Authority(EFSA), Most worryingly, these poisonous chemicals are free to pollute the broader soil and water system. This should concern us all, since some of Ghana's top exports are cocoa and nuts.
Some governments have started to take responsibility for their consumers' waste.For example, Germany has started a project that includes a sustainable recycling system at Agbogbloshie, along with a health clinic for workers.However, governments cannot solve the problem alone, as there is am almost limitless consumer demand for hardware, especially when governments’ green policies are focused on issues like climate change.
Only the manufacturers can fix this.A more economically sustainable and politically possible solution is through encouraging hardware manufacturers to make the repair, reuse and recycling of hardware profitable, or at least cost-neutral.
1. What can we infer from paragraph2?| A．Electronic products need improving urgently. |
| B．Electronic waste is too complex to get fully recycled. |
| C．Electronic waste requires more landfill sites across Ghana. |
| D．Electronic pollution is a burning question in Agbogbloshie. |
| A．Tightens |
| B．Abolishes |
| C．Avoids |
| D．Follows |
| A．The violation of EFSA’s standard |
| B．The lack of diversity in Ghana s exports. |
| C．The damage to chickens immune system |
| D．The threat of polluted food around the world |
| A．Manufacturers' developing a sustainable hardware economy. |
| B．Governments' adjusting their green policies about e-waste. |
| C．Reducing customers' demands for electronic products. |
| D．Letting governments take on the main responsibility. |
【推荐1】You want your children to do well in school. You want them to have nice friends and interesting hobbies and to not go out with strangers. You may even want them to be happy. But in this computer game, you can always start over with a new digital child if things don't work out as planned.
A new game in China puts players in control of those most fearsome of characters: Mom and Dad. The mission? Raise a son or daughter from kindergarten to college.
In a nation of famously demanding, scolding and, yes, sometimes loving mothers and fathers, the game, Chinese Parents, is a hit. Since its release in September, it has found a huge audience on Steam, an online marketplace run by the American game maker Valve Corporation. There are no official figures for how many people have downloaded the game but it has caused heated discussion online while earning tens of thousands of reviews.
Yang Gee Yelling, a founder of Moy wan Games, the independent studio that developed Chinese Parents, said he hoped to produce an English version this year. The success of the game, which costs $9. 99 to play, does not appear to be driven by people hoping to exact revenge for their own upbringings. Quite the opposite: Some fans have written that, by letting them experience childhood from their parents' perspective, it had moved them to tears.
"I used to not understand many things my mom made me do when I was little, "said Kang Shang hero, 19, a professional blogger in the northeastern city of Qinhuangdao. "But when I play the game and try to increase figures for my son so he can unlock more achievements and marry the prettiest girl in school, start to understand my parents more.
All the joys and trials of raising children are here. Players choose between pushing their digital generation to attain conventional success and allowing them some appearance of childhood innocence. They must give career guidance and tolerate (just barely) their teenager's first dates. Everything leads up to the gaokao, the highly competitive college entrance exam that decides the fortunes of so many young Chinese people.
1. What's the function of the first paragraph?| A．To attract readers to the topic. | B．To present the parents' expectations. |
| C．To arouse argument among readers. | D．To state clear fact. |
| A．It is produced as expected. |
| B．It has aroused heated discussions and received many comments online. |
| C．Many parents have been engaged in playing this computer game. |
| D．It is hoped that an English version of this computer game will come out this year. |
| A．Pessimistic. | B．Cautious. |
| C．Supportive. | D．Disgusted. |
| A．To introduce the computer game Chinese Parents. |
| B．To encourage children to play this computer game Chinese Parents. |
| C．To persuade parents to be strict with their children. |
| D．To let parents understand their children better. |
【推荐2】What would the world be if there were no hunger? It’s a question that the late (已故的) ecologist Donella Meadows would ask her students at Dartmouth College back in the 1970s. She set out to create a global movement. The result — an approach known as systems thinking — is now seen as essential in meeting big global challenges.
Systems thinking is crucial to achieving targets such as zero hunger and better nutrition. According to systems thinking, changing the food system — or any other network — requires three things to happen. First, researchers need to identify all the players in that system; second, they must work out how they relate to each other; and third, they need to understand and quantify the impact of those relationships on each other and on those outside the system.
Take nutrition for example. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization tracked 150 biochemicals in food and various databases, which revealed the relationships between calories, sugar, fat, vitamins and the occurrence of common diseases. But using machine learning and artificial intelligence, network scientists propose that human diets consist of at least 26,000 biochemicals and that the vast majority are not known. This shows that we have some way to travel before achieving the first objective of systems thinking — which, in this example, is to identify more constituent parts of the nutrition system.
A systems approach to creating change is also built on the assumption that everyone in the system has equal power and status. But the food system is not an equal one. There have been calls for a World Food and Nutrition Organization, so that legally binding policies can be applied to all its members. Another way to address power imbalances is for more universities to do what Meadows did and teach students how to think using a systems approach.
A team of researchers has done just that, through the Interdisciplinary Food Systems Teaching and Learning program. Students from disciplines including agriculture, ecology and economics learn together by drawing on their collective expertise in addressing real-world problems, such as how to reduce food waste. Since its launch in 2015, the program has trained more than 1,500 students from 45 university departments.
More researchers, policymakers and representatives from the food industry must learn to look beyond their direct lines of responsibility and embrace a systems approach, as the editors of Nature Food advocate in their launch editorial. Meadows knew that visions alone don’t produce results, but concluded that “we’ll never produce results that we can’t envision”.
1. The passage is mainly about ________.| A．how to conduct research efficiently |
| B．how to build a world food organization |
| C．an approach to solving real-world problem |
| D．an approach to applying scientific findings |
| A．artificial intelligence is more useful than traditional methods |
| B．achieving systems thinking requires identifying more components |
| C．we are unable to gain thorough understanding of our nutritious system |
| D．some biochemicals are related with the occurrence of common diseases |
| A．It is the only way of solving imbalance in our food system. |
| B．It aims to urge the governments to carry out its food policies. |
| C．It seeks to solve theoretical issues about food and nutrition |
| D．It has cultivated many interdisciplinary talents since its launch. |
| A．No results can be achieved if nobody is willing to take responsibility. |
| B．Vision is the first necessary step towards solving global challenges. |
| C．Vision is not as important as understanding the nature of problems. |
| D．Systems thinking is unrealistic, so concrete action should be taken. |
【推荐3】How the languages of the world appeared is largely a mystery. Considering that it might have taken thousands of years, it is attractive to see how deaf people can create novel sign languages unconsciously. Interestingly, children played an important role in the development of these novel languages. However, how exactly this happened has not been documented.
In a series of studies, researchers attempted to recreate exactly this process. Children were invited to stay in two different rooms and an online connection was set up between them.After a brief familiarization with the set- up, the researchers sneakily (偷偷地）turned off the sound and watched as the children found new ways of communicating that go beyond spoken language.
The children's task was to describe an image with different themes in a coordination game. With concrete things-like a hammer or a fork-children quickly found a solution by imitating the matching action, for example, eating, in a gesture. But the researchers repeatedly challenged the children with new, more abstract pictures. In the course of the study, the images to be described became more and more complex, which was also reflected in the gestures that the children produced. In order to communicate, the children invented separate gestures for actors and actions and began to combine them-thus creating a kind of small local grammar.
How does a language come into being? Based on the present study, the following steps appear reasonable: first, people create reference to actions and objects through signs that resemble things. The precondition for this is a common ground of experience between interaction partners. Partners also coordinate (配合）by imitating each other so that they use the same signs for the same things. The signs thus gain interpersonal and eventually common meaning. Over time, the relationships between the signs and things become more abstract and the meaning of the individual signs becomes more specific. Grammatical structures are gradually introduced when there is a need to communicate more complex facts. However, the most remarkable aspect of the current studies is that these processes can be observed under controlled circumstances and within 30 minutes.
1. How did the researchers carry out the experiment?| A．By making the communication in total silence. |
| B．By inferring to and copying the documented scene. |
| C．By observing children communicate face to face. |
| D．By listening secretly to the communication of children. |
| A．Show how to do different things with different tools. |
| B．Take several oral examinations on foreign languages. |
| C．Describe things to others without spoken languages. |
| D．Name some abstract objects which they have never seen. |
| A．Signs→Accepted meaning→Interpersonal meaning→Language |
| B．Interpersonal meaning→Accepted meaning→Signs→Language |
| C．Accepted meaning→Interpersonal meaning→Signs→Language |
| D．Signs→Interpersonal meaning→Accepted meaning→Language |
| A．The development of novel sign languages. |
| B．The first steps of the making of languages. |
| C．The role children play in creating languages. |
| D．The circumstances of languages coming into being. |
