Before the age of the smartphone, photographers had to learn how to use high-tech cameras and photographic techniques. Not everyone had cameras, and it took skill and a good eye to capture and create a great photograph. Today, with the huge range of camera apps on our smartphones, we’re all amateur photographers, and pretty good ones at that, since the quality of smartphone images now nearly equals that of digital cameras.
The new ease of photography has given us a tremendous appetite for capturing the magical and the ordinary. We are obsessed with documenting everyday moments, whether it’s a shot of our breakfast, our cat or the cat’s breakfast. And rather than collect pictures in scrapbooks, we share, like, and comment on them with friends and strangers around the globe. Even photojournalists are experimenting with mobile phones because their near invisibility makes it easier to capture unguarded moments. And the Internet allows them to avoid traditional media, to act as their own publishers reaching huge audiences via social media sites such as Instagram. A photograph taken in New York can get a response from someone in Lagos within seconds of being uploaded.
In the past, magazines published unforgettable photos of important people and global events that captured our imaginations. These photos had the power to change public opinion and even the course of history. But if there are fewer memorable images today, it’s not because there are fewer good images. It’s because there are so many, and no one image gets to be special for long.
As people everywhere embrace photography and the media make use of citizen journalists. professional standards appear to be shifting. Before digital images, most people trusted photographs to accurately reflect reality. Today, images can be altered in ways the naked eye might never notice. Photo journalists are trained to accurately represent what they witness. Yet any image can be altered to create an “improved” picture of reality. The average viewer is left with no way to assess the accuracy of an image except through trust in a news organization or photographer.
The question of the accuracy of images gets even trickier when photojournalists start experimenting with camera apps - like Hipstamatic or Instagram—which encourage the use of filters(滤镜). Images can be colored,brightened, faded, and scratched to make photographs more artistic, or to give them an antique look. Photographers using camera apps to cover wars and conflicts have created powerful images—but also controversy. Critics worry that antique-looking photographs romanticize war, while distancing us from those who fight in them.
Yet photography has always been more subjective than we assume. Each picture is a result of series of decisions—where to stand, what lens to use, what to leave in and what to leave out of the frame. Does altering photographs with camera app filters make them less true? There’s something powerful and exciting about the experiment the digital age has forced upon us. These new tools make it easier to tell our own stories - and they give others the power to do the same. Many members of the media get stuck on the same stories, focusing on elections, governments, wars, and disasters,and in the process, miss out on the less dramatic images of daily life that can be as revealing.
Who knows? Our obsession with documentation and constantly being connected could lead to dramatic change in our way of being. Perhaps we are witnessing the development of a universal.
Who knows? Our obsession with documentation and constantly being connected could lead to dramatic change in our way of being. Perhaps we are witnessing the development of a universal visual language, one that could change the way we relate to each other and the world. Of course, as with my language, there will be those who product poetry and those who make shopping lists.
1. According to the author, there are fewer memorable photographs today because ________.| A．the quality of many images is still poor |
| B．there are so many good images these days |
| C．traditional media refuse to allow amateur photos |
| D．most images are not appealing to a global audience |
| A．indicate it’s a word cited fro m another source |
| B．stress that the picture of reality is greatly improved |
| C．draw audience attention to a word worth considering |
| D．show it’s arguable whether the picture is truly improved |
| A．The daily life pictures are very expressive themselves. |
| B．Photographs of the digital age are more subjective than before. |
| C．Photos altered by filters of camera apps are too subjective to be true. |
| D．Many members of the media value daily life images over major social events. |
| A．Camera Apps Bury Authenticity |
| B．Photography Redefined: A Visual Language |
| C．S mart-phone: Killer of Professional Photography |
| D．The Shifting Standards of Professional Photography |
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【推荐1】Terns (燕鸥) may change their flight plans based on a sense of coming typhoons, escaping the influence of the storms but still benefiting from feeding opportunities.
Researchers examined information recorded on six terns from Okinawa, Japan, to learn more about the birds’ migrations (迁移) over many years. The terns flew across part of the Philippine Sea’s “typhoon highway” to get to the islands of Borneo and Sulawesi and varied their leaving times—often obviously waiting to leave until a large typhoon was about to cross their projected path.
“They seem to be able to predict (预测) it,” says Jean Baptiste Thiebot, a post doctoral fellow at the National Institute of Polar Research in Japan and lead author of the new study, which was published in June in Marine Biology. The study offers few clues about how terns might do this, but other research suggests some migrating birds notice infrasonic (次声的) weather signals or observe changing clouds.
The terns Thiebot studied typically avoided the typhoons themselves. But these storms can churn (剧烈搅动) food to the ocean surface, so the immediate results may help the hungry travelers. “They might actually use the typhoon to know when to leave for their migrations each year”, Thiebot says. In the unusually quiet 2017 season, with no sign of a strong typhoon, the birds started their journeys later and flew without stops. Thiebot would like to see this pattern confirmed in a larger study. He also worries that increasing typhoon frequency could affect birds’ prediction accuracy (准确), possibly getting them caught in dangerous weather.
Robert Gill, a retired research wildlife biologist, says that although the study’s sample (标本) size is small, it adds to scientists’ overall understanding of migration. “They are able to predict better than the best weather forecasters we have, ” Gill says, “but they’ve also had tens of thousands, if not millions of years to hone that skill.”
1. What did the terns do after getting to the islands of Borneo and Sulawesi?| A．They varied their projected path. |
| B．They stayed there for the exact time to leave. |
| C．They stayed awake to find feeding chances. |
| D．They churned food to the ocean surface. |
| A．They might not notice strong typhoon signals. |
| B．They didn't find enough food. |
| C．They were caught in dangerous weather. |
| D．They wanted to fly without stops. |
| A．Teach. | B．Develop. |
| C．Offer. | D．Share. |
| A．The influence of typhoons. | B．A new approach to forecasting weather. |
| C．The process of terns’ migrations. | D．Terns' ability to predict typhoon. |
【推荐2】Mutual cooperation in which humans cooperate with wild animals is extremely rare. One such system involves the greater honeyguide, a small African bird that leads humans to sources of honey. Once a nest is found, the human honey hunters break into it to obtain honey and bee worms, and the birds benefit from consuming beeswax in the now-exposed honey comb. Both the birds and the humans use specialized sounds to communicate their availability to participate in this cooperative interaction.
The two areas studied by Spottiswoode and Wood are northern Mozambique, where the honey hunters are from the Yao cultural group, and northern Tanzania, where the honey hunters are from the Hadza culture. The Yao communicate with honeyguides using a short and high-pitched sound followed by a low sound “brrrrhm”, whereas the Hadza use a melodic whistle. Thus, signal and response both vary geographically.
Spotiswoode and Wood propose that the geographic variation they have identified in this mutualism is the product of cultural codevelopment. To qualify as cultural, the cooperative behaviors would have to be acquired through social learning from individuals of the same species. Social learning, however, is less of a given on the honeyguide side. Instead, what is required of honeyguides is another form of vocal learning—comprehension learning—in which the meaning of a signal is learned. Comprehension learning is common in birds. Whether social learning is involved, however, is not so obvious.
Honeyguides put in considerable effort helping their human partners find food and are faithfully rewarded by being given food in return. In some human cultures, honey hunters purposefully leave out honeycomb to reward honeyeaters, but in others the hunters go, to great length to deny the birds any reward, by collecting, burying, or burning any honeycomb exposed when they destroy a nest. The reason given for these act s is that keeping the birds hungry causes them to continue guiding.
A promising question for future research is whether geographic differences in human cultural preferences for rewarding or not rewarding honeyguides affect the preferences of individual birds for guiding versus taking advantage of the guiding of others.
1. What is the purpose of mentioning the two areas in Paragraph 2?| A．To prove that honey hunting is very popular in their culture. |
| B．To explain that birds can understand various human cultures. |
| C．To illustrate the differences between the Yao and the Hadza. |
| D．To show that communication methods differ in geography. |
| A．To let them realize human’s power. | B．To make them keep providing help. |
| C．To cause them to burn honeycomb. | D．To use the honeycomb themselves. |
| A．Honeyguides have already had strong skills of social learning. |
| B．Honeyguides have a genetic tendency to guide humans for honey. |
| C．Humans and honeyguides have a mutually beneficial relationship. |
| D．Human honey hunters will lose their jobs without honeyguides. |
| A．The impact of human cultural preferences on honeyguide behavior. |
| B．The further study on the cultural differences in human preferences. |
| C．The ecologically rewarding consequences of honeyguide behavior. |
| D．The influence of honeyguide behavior on human cultural practices. |
【推荐3】It’s the harvest (收获) season in many parts of the world, but on the farm of Harper Adams University in the U.K., it is robots- not humans that are doing all the heavy lifting.
At Hands Free Hectare, an experimental farm run by a group of researchers, about 5 tons of spring barley (大麦) have been harvested from the world’s first robotically tended farm. Everything from start to finish, including seeding, fertilizing (施肥), collecting patterns and harvesting, has been done by unmanned equipment, according to the researchers. The team behind the project thinks that robotic technology could improve production in agriculture, which would be necessary if the world’s growing population is to be fed in coming years.
The researchers dealt with this problem by using agriculture machines available on the market and software that is used to guide autopilot drones(无人机). The rescarchers bought several small-size agricultural machines, including a tractor and a combine (联合收割机), a machine for harvesting crops. “The first stage was to make them radio controlled,” said Jonathan Gill, a head researcher, who led the project. “This was our first step towards the driverless goal. From that point. we moved on to preprogram all the actions that needed to be performed into the driverless system.” To monitor the field and take patterns of the plants, the researchers developed special grippers (夹持器) attached to the autopilot drones. As the drones fly above the field, the grippers can cut off some patterns and take them to the researchers.
The scientists said the robotic technology could enable future farmers to more exactly use fertilizers and farm chemicals, but also lead to improvements in soil quality. Currently, many farmers rely on very large and heavy machines. They cover large areas of ground quickly, but it comes with mistakes. In the future, farmers would make use of smaller robotic tractors and harvesters.
The Harper Adams University team plans to use the robotically harvested spring barley to make limited “hands-free” beer that will be offered to the projects supporters as a symbol of thanks.
1. What do the robotic machines do on the experimental farm?| A．Most heavy lifting among the process of farming. |
| B．All the farming work from seeding to harvesting. |
| C．Operating the large machine to harvest spring barley. |
| D．Cooperating with a combine to make a plan. |
| A．Improve the quality of spring barley |
| B．Make harvest done without using machines. |
| C．Save money for the local government each year. |
| D．Increase production in agriculture to feed more people. |
| A．The agriculture machines come with some mistakes. |
| B．The researchers made needed machines by themselves. |
| C．The agriculture machines were controlled by the radio. |
| D．The researchers learned advanced agricultural knowledge. |
| A．Making some presents with it for local scientists. |
| B．Baking cakes to sell on the market. |
| C．Advertising it as a successful symbol. |
| D．Making beer for the project’s supporters. |
【推荐1】The US space agency NASA has revealed an astonishing picture revealing new secrets of the Earth’s home galaxy (星系), the Milky Way. The sun is just one of hundreds of billions of stars that form the huge shape of our galaxy. Our solar system sits in an outlying region but the new image focuses on the centre of the Milky Way, a “noisy” area because of all the crowded stars. Light from this region takes about 26,000 years to reach Earth. For comparison, light takes just eight minutes to reach us from the sun.
The researchers use the data collected by two telescopes that see the sky in ways that are very different from the visible light our eyes can see to form the new image. Most of the data comes from 370 different pictures taken over the past 20 years by NASA’s Chandra X Observatory. This satellite telescope detects X-rays out in space. X-rays are a from of radiation that is sent out when violent events heat matter to temperatures of millions of degrees. Other data comes from the MeerKAT telescope in South Africa, which can detect radio waves from space. These waves have much less energy than X-rays. They are usually produced by cooler material, such as huge clouds of gas between the stars.
The brightest sources include neutron stars which are the cores of huge stars that ran out of fuel and collapsed to city-sized balls of super hot matter. Many neutron stars and black holes jet out gases that appear in the picture as purple streaks (斑纹). Powerful magnetic fields in the area cause the jets to bend as they get further from their source. Astronomer Dr Daniel Wang, who has worked on the image over the past year, said the new picture described “a violent or energetic ecosystem”.
1. What can be learned about the Milky Way?| A．The center of it remains unknown. |
| B．The sun isn’t located in the center of it. |
| C．Its center is very peaceful. |
| D．Its center features fewer stars. |
| A．The collection of space data. |
| B．The function of the MeerKAT telescope. |
| C．The differences of space waves. |
| D．The formation of the new image. |
| A．They will absorb surrounding materials. |
| B．They will form super big matter. |
| C．They get bent if away from their source. |
| D．They are likely to explode when superheated. |
| A．Our galaxy’s violent heart | B．An attempt to travel in outer space |
| C．Radio waves from outer space | D．Stars’ purple streaks |
【推荐2】Cities are the planet’s largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions (排放), so they offer the greatest opportunity to tackle climate change. Hitting net zero emissions by 2050, a target set at the COP26 summit, could be achieved more quickly using city digital twins—working virtual replicas (复制品) that help track, manage and reduce environmental damage rapidly.
The United Nations says cities, the most suitable subjects, which occupy less than two percent of the Earth’s surface, are major contributors to climate change, consuming almost 80 percent of the world’s energy and producing more than 60 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. Urban areas are forecast to grow by another 2.5 billion people by 2050.
Digital twins look and behave identically in their real-world physical environments. Similar technologies have been in use since NASA’s Apollo moon mission in 1969, where computers and machine replicas were used to test and monitor spacecraft. Virtual 3D city models link to networks of sensors that collect data from buildings, transport, air quality and energy use, to see where emissions can be cut and efficiency improved.
The UK is planning a kind of national digital twins that will connect digital replicas managing buildings, factories, and the other infrastructure nationwide. And that could lead to entire virtual world online, part of a virtual reality space proposed by tech companies.
Research shows that digital twins can save cities more than $280 billion globally by 2030 through more efficient urban planning. A provider of digital twins, Cityzenith, believes that net zero deadlines could be achieved 15 years early if the world’s 100 biggest cities use the technology to remove carbon. “They are the perfect tool for managing and accelerating the energy transition,” said CEO Michael Jansen. “We could get to net zero emissions globally by 2035.”
In the US, the Digital Twin Consortium is working to standardize how digital twins are built and share data. Big tech companies around the world have developed software for replicating cities, including a district of Berlin, the island nation of Singapore, and the entire city of Shanghai in China.
1. What are city digital twins used to do?| A．Decorate cities. | B．Change cities’ climate. |
| C．Popularize urban technology. | D．Reduce urban carbon emissions. |
| A．They occupy most of the Earth’s surface. |
| B．They consume little of the world’s energy. |
| C．They produce little of solid waste pollution. |
| D．They contribute most to the greenhouse effect. |
| A．To prove the accuracy of network data. |
| B．To explain the practical use of digital twins. |
| C．To tell us the importance of the space tasks. |
| D．To show the difficulty of urban construction. |
| A．They are promising. | B．They are unrecognizable. |
| C．They lack research funding. | D．They have reached a standard level. |
【推荐3】If you have ever got unhappy at your petrol bill and dreamed of a car that runs on fresh air, your wishes are about to be answered.
French car giant PSA Peugeot Citroen believes it can put an air-powered car on the road by 2016. Its scientists say it will knock 45 per cent of fuel bills for an average driver. And when driving in towns and cities costs could be reduced by as much as 80 per cent because the car will be running on air for four-fifths of the time.
Air power would be used for city use, running below 43 miles an hour and available for 60 to 80 per cent of the time in city driving. By 2020, the car could be achieving an average of 117 miles a gallon, the company predicts.
For more than two years, 100 top scientists and engineers have been working on the air-powered car in top-secret conditions at Peugeot’s research and development center at Velizy, just south of Paris.
The engine system will be able to be fixed on any normal family car without changing its shape or size or reducing the boot size, provided the spare wheel is not stored there. From the outside, an air-powered car will look similar to an ordinary car. A spokesman said, “we are not talking about strange machines. These are going to be in everyday cars.”
The company said that as well as being more innocuous and cheaper to run，the air system created no extra dangers in an accident.
Drivers never run the risk of running out of compressed air late at night on a country road because the car will be fitted with an artificial brain.
1. What is the passage mainly about?| A．A car company. |
| B．An air-powered car. |
| C．The speed of a new car. |
| D．The way to save petrol. |
| A．most of the fuel cost will be saved |
| B．about half of the fuel cost will be saved |
| C．it can be driven completely on the fresh air |
| D．the faster the speed is, the more money will be saved |
| A．its shape will be changed |
| B．its size will become larger |
| C．its boot size will become smaller |
| D．the spare wheel won’t be in the boot |
| A．harmful | B．green | C．helpless | D．fast |
【推荐1】Here come four new books with great poetry, from which the novices are to get inspired by the imaginative and celebratory poems when they start to take an eager look at this new and unknown field.
Cloud Soup
Bake a weird cake, pay a visit to the deep and take a closer look at the clouds in this fun collection of poems by Kate Wakeling, with unusual illustrations by Elina Braslina. Their previous collection, Moon Juice, won the CLiPPA Best Children’s Poetry Award, and this sequel is just as funny and imaginative.
Shaping the World: 40 Historical Heroes in Verse
This collection, chosen by Liz Brownlee, brings together 40 brilliant “shape poems” inspired by some of the remarkable people who have shaped our world. Inside, you’ll find poems about Greta Thunberg, Rosa Parks and Albert Einstein—each with a biography, a quote and a fascinating fact.
Take Off Your Brave
Be surprised and inspired by this book of poems written by four-year-old Nadim, with artwork by Yasmeen Ismall. Taking you inside a child’s world of glitter, magic boxes and rainbows, this book proves that poetry is for everyone and might inspire you to try writing some poems yourself!
My Sneezes Are Perfect
This thought- provoking collection of poems was written by Rakhshan RizWan with Yusuf Samee, a mother-and-son team and illustrated by Benjamin Philips. Bringing together observations, meditations and memories, it explores sorts of things, including animals, family, food and what it’s like moving to a new country.
1. Who has ever won a prize for writing poetry?| A．Kate Wakeling. | B．Liz Brownlee. |
| C．Nadim. | D．Rakhshan RizWan. |
| A．The life of celebrities. | B．The making of a great poet. |
| C．The migration to a new country. | D．The exploration to the deep ocean. |
| A．Poetry beginners. | B．Ambitious parents. |
| C．History lovers. | D．School teachers. |
【推荐2】The production of coffee beans is a huge, profitable business, but, unfortunately, full-sun production is taking over the industry and bringing about a lot of damage. The change in how coffee is grown from shade-grown production to full-sun production endangers the very existence of, certain animals and birds, and even disturbs the world’s ecological balance.
On a local level, the damage of the forest required by full-sun fields affects the area’s birds and animals. The shade of the forest trees provides a home for birds and other special (物种) that depend on the trees’ flowers and fruits. Full-sun coffee growers destroy this forest home. As a result, many species are quickly dying out.
On a more global level, the destruction of the rainforest for full-sun coffee fields also threatens (威胁) human life. Medical research often makes use of the forests' plant and animal life, and the destruction of such species could prevent researchers from finding cures for certain diseases. In addition, new coffee-growing techniques are poisoning the water locally, and eventually the world's groundwater.
Both locally and globally, the continued spread of full-sun coffee plantations (种植园) could mean the destruction of the rainforest ecology. The loss of shade trees is already causing a slight change in the world's climate, and studies show that loss of oxygen-giving trees also leads to air pollution and global warming. Moreover, the new growing techniques are contributing to acidic (酸性的) soil conditions.
It is obvious that the way much coffee is grown affects many aspects of life, from the local environment to the global ecology. But consumers do have a choice. They can purchase shade-grown coffee whenever possible, although at a higher cost. The future health of the planet and mankind is surely worth more than an inexpensive cup of coffee.
1. What can we learn about full-sun coffee production from Paragraph 4?| A．It limits the spread of new growing techniques. |
| B．It leads to air pollution and global warming. |
| C．It slows down the loss of shade trees. |
| D．It improves local soil conditions. |
| A．entertain | B．advertise | C．instruct | D．persuade |
| A．An agricultural magazine. |
| B．A medical journal. |
| C．An engineering textbook. |
| D．A tourist guide. |
【推荐3】Is the end of homework near? As new powerful artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT take the Internet by storm, teachers concerned with AI-driven cheating are questioning their teaching and assessment methods.
ChatGPT, the most powerful AI language model ever developed by the company OpenAI, remembers the thread of your dialogue，using previous questions and answers to inform its next responses. Deriving its answers from huge volumes of information on the Internet, it is fine-tuned using both supervised and reinforcement learning. It is capable of generating natural-sounding text on demand in just a few seconds. The quality of the copy it produces is sufficient to impress teachers in secondary and higher education, and even researchers.
The use of AI tools in copy-writing has sparked an outcry around the world. In the United States，public schools in New York and Seattle have decided to block ChatGPT from their devices and WiFi networks. In France, the prestigious Sciences Po university in Paris has also just announced a strict ban on its use. But experts question whether bans like these are really effective. On one hand, students will always be able to access tools like ChatGPT through other means than school devices. On the other hand, some question the relevance of blocking access to a digital tool whose use is likely to grow in the professional world in the coming years.
Amelie Cordier, a lecturer in artificial intelligence at Lyon University, notes that students haven’t waited for ChatGPT to try to escape the chore of homework — whether by photocopying the library encyclopedia, copy-pasting content from Wikipedia or enlisting their parents’ help. “What is ultimately very important in the learning process is not so much the subject on which you learn, it’s the methodology that you learn to develop around that subject,” Cordier said.
1. Why does the author raise a question in paragraph 1?| A．To arouse the readers’ interest. |
| B．To show the popularity of ChatGPT. |
| C．To present the creativity of artificial intelligence. |
| D．To reveal the negative effects of artificial intelligence. |
| A．Its language model. | B．Its working theory. |
| C．Its design inspiration. | D．Its development process. |
| A．Students can always employ AI tools in other ways. |
| B．Teachers and researchers are impressed by ChatGPT. |
| C．The bans have been announced only in the US and France. |
| D．AI tools have already been widely applied in professional fields. |
| A．Parents’ help. | B．The system of methods. |
| C．The library encyclopedia. | D．The content from Wikipedia. |
