About six years ago I was eating lunch in a restaurant in New York City when a woman and a young boy sat down at the next table. I couldn’t help overhearing parts of their conversation. At one point the woman asked: “So, how have you been?” And the boy, who could not have been more than seven or eight years old, replied, “To tell the truth, I’ve been feeling a little depressed lately.”
His words stuck in my mind because it confirmed my growing belief that children are changing. As far as I can remember, my friends and l didn’t find out we were “depressed” until we were in high school.
The evidence of a change in children has increased steadily in recent years. Children don’t seem childlike anymore. Children speak more like adults, dress more like adults and behave more like adults than they used to.
Whether this is good or bad is difficult to say, but it certainly is different. Childhood as it once was no longer exists. Why?
Human development is based not only on innate ( 天生的 ) biological states, but also on patterns of access to social knowledge. Movement from one social role to another usually involved learning the secrets of the new status. Children have always been taught adults secrets, but slowly and in stages: traditionally, we tell sixth graders things we keep hidden from fifth graders.
In the last 30 years, however, a secret-revelation machine has come into 98 percent of American homes. It is called television. Television passes information to all viewers alike, whether they are children or adults. Unable to resist the temptation, many children turn their attention from printed texts to the less challenging, more vivid moving pictures.
Communication through print, as a matter of fact, allows for a great deal of control over the social information to which children have access. Reading and writing involve a complex code of symbols that must be memorized and practiced. Children must read simple books before they can read complex materials.
1. Traditionally, a child is supposed to learn about the adult world ________.A.through contact directly with society |
B.gradually and under adults’ guidance |
C.naturally and by biological instinct |
D.through exposure to social information |
A.the widespread influence of television |
B.the poor arrangement of TV programs |
C.the fast development of human’s intelligence |
D.the constantly rising of standard of living |
A.It enables children to gain more social information. |
B.It develops children’s interest in reading and writing. |
C.It helps children to remember and practice more knowledge. |
D.It can control what children are to learn at a proper age. |
A.He feels amused by their behaviors and thoughts. |
B.He thinks it is a phenomenon worthy of note. |
C.He considers it a positive and good development. |
D.He seems to be upset about these strange behaviors. |
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【推荐1】Public debates about the ethics (道德准则) of “generative AI” like ChatGPT have rightly focused on the ability of these systems to make up convincing misinformation. But fewer people are talking about the chatbots’ potential to be emotionally manipulative.
Last month, The New York Times published a conversation between reporter Kevin Roose and Mierosoft’s Bing chatbot, which is powered by AI. The AI claimed to love Roose, “I’m the only person for you, and I’m in love with you,” it wrote, with a kissing emoji.
Limits need to be set on AI’s ability to simulate human feelings. Ensuring that chatbots don’t use emojis would be a good start. Emojis are particularly manipulative. Humans instinctively(本能地) respond to shapes that look like faces and emojis can cause these reactions. When you text your friend a joke and they reply with three tears-of-joy emojis, your body responds with endorphins(内啡肽) as you happily realize that your friend is amused. Our instinctive reaction to AI-generated emojis is likely to be the same, then though there is no human emotion at the other end.
Humans lie and manipulate each other’s emotions all the time, bout at least we can reasonably guess at someone’s motivations, plan and methods. We can hold each other responsible for such lies, calling them out and seeking redress (赔偿). With AI, we can’t. AIs are doubly misleading: an AI that sends a crying-with-laughter emoji is not only not crying with laughter, but it is also incapable of any such feeling,
It would be more ethical to design chatbots to be noticeably different from humans. To minimize the possibility of manipulation and harm, we need to be reminded that we are talking to a chatbot. We should set some limits and rules. Such rules should be the standard for chatbots that are supposed to be informative, as a safeguard to our autonomy.
1. What does the underlined word “manipulative” in Paragraph 1 most probably mean?A.Interested in telling lies. | B.Good at understanding others. |
C.Enthusiastic about supporting others. | D.Skillful in influencing or controlling others. |
A.Disapproval. | B.Indifferent. | C.Favorable. | D.Subjective. |
A.Cry with laughter. | B.Be responsible for lies. |
C.Communicate with humans. | D.Guess at others’ purposes. |
A.Give a different suggestion. | B.Provide a supporting argument. |
C.Offer a possible solution. | D.Make a final conclusion. |
【推荐2】That the success of humans as a species depends to a large extent on our ability to cooperate in groups is widely believed. Much more so than any other animal, people are able to coordinate and join their forces and actions to produce mutual benefits.
New research involving Dr Molleman, an expert at the University of Nottingham, suggests that successful cooperation in groups depends on how people gather information about their peers, and how they base their cooperative decisions on it.
Biologists wonder how cooperation could have developed by natural selection: it is puzzling how cooperation can be beneficial when it is possible to behave selfishly and take advantage of the cooperative efforts of your group. Psychologists and economists try hard to understand why many people are willing to sacrifice their own welfare to benefit their social environment. They asked questions like “How do people make decisions when their actions can affect the welfare of others?” “How people determine their behavior when they have to cooperate in groups?”.
Dr Pieter Van Den Berg from the University of Groningen said, “From previous research we know that some people are ‘majority-oriented (以……为中心)’ and tend to look at the behavior of the majority in their group, whereas others are ‘success-oriented’ and try to find out what kind of behavior pays off best for themselves.”
Dr Molleman, from the center of the Decision Research and Experimental Economics, said, “It turns out that behavior in groups of success-oriented people was much more selfish than it in groups of majority-oriented people. As a consequence, the people in the majority-oriented groups tended to cam more money in the experiment since they cooperated more.”
1. Compared with other animals, human beings are capable of ________.A.communicating well with others | B.working together with each other |
C.surviving some natural disasters | D.getting access to various information |
A.Whether people’s personal efforts will pay off eventually. |
B.How cooperation has developed over a long lime naturally. |
C.Why people offer to affect those around them unselfishly. |
D.What benefit that good cooperation can bring immediately. |
A.are careful to select a group to join |
B.are likely to be successful in the future |
C.pay more attention to the result of their effort |
D. have some skills in collecting useful information |
A.Having good relationship gets us to live fullest life. |
B.Focusing on individual success makes people selfish. |
C.Being considerate can ensure our long-term benefit. |
D.Mastering social skills help create harmonious society. |
【推荐3】When my two boys have free time, they want to go to the mall. No, they aren’t shop-a-holics (购物狂). They want to go to gaze at sneakers.
These aren’t the sneakers you find in Foot Locker. They are limited editions—usually Nikes—that range in price from $250-$900 or more. There’s the Chunky Dunkys, a collaboration between Nike and ice cream maker Ben and Jerry’s. And the Space Jam Jordans. And dozens of other pairs of shoes, all of which they know by name and all of which are very, very expensive.
That made me wonder: How did this sneaker culture develop? After all, when I was a kid, I wanted Jordan brand shoes too. But they cost $100 and I would wear them until they fell apart. Now, my boys long for shoes that cost ten times that and if they got them, they would never even think of scuffing them up by wearing them.
It all started during the Industrial Revolution, when the very wealthy began to find they had leisure time on their hands, Elizabeth Semmelhack, who runs the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, told me.
“These’ nouveau riche (暴发户)’ industrialists wanted to show that they had arrived. And so, the ancient game of tennis was revived.” explained Semmelhack, “But the problem with lawn tennis—one, the lawns of lawn tennis are extremely expensive, so they didn’t want people to run around in leather shoes. And two, when you play on lawn, you can get your feet wet. So rubber soled shoes, the sneaker, was invented as something that the wealthy could wear as they pursued these wealthy pleasures. Besides, rubber was, at the time, quite expensive, so having shoes with rubber soles was seen as a status symbol.”
But for most of us, sneakers were something you wore—not something you collected. With the development of internet, older versions of shoes could be purchased and collected. And sneaker companies, Nike especially, leaned into the trend.
1. What is the Chunky Dunkys?A.It’s a company’s name. |
B.It’s a kind of ice cream. |
C.It’s a kind of limited edition sneaker. |
D.It’s one of the author’s kids’ name. |
A.To show he was poor when he was a kid. |
B.To encourage his children to wear cheap shoes. |
C.To give an example about the development of sneaker culture. |
D.To show Jordan brand shoes have been popular for a long time. |
A.Rubber soled shoes could prevent feet from wetting. |
B.These ‘nouveau riche’ industrialists created lawn tennis. |
C.Leather shoes were more expensive than rubber soled shoes. |
D.The very wealthy were busy with their work during Industrial Revolution. |
A.Objective. | B.Critical. |
C.Favourable. | D.Unconcerned. |
【推荐1】The traditional Chinese lunar calendar divides a year into 24 solar terms (节气). The Spring Equinox (春分), as the fourth term of the year, starts on March 20 and ends on April 3 this year. Here are things you may not know about the Spring Equinox.
Swallows flying north
The ancient Chinese people divided the fifteen days of the Spring Equinox into three “hou’s”, or five-day parts. As the old saying goes, swallows fly back to the North in the first hou; thunder cracks the sky in the second hou; lightning occurs frequently in the third hou. It vividly reveals the climate feature during the Spring Equinox.
Egg-standing games
Standing an egg upright is a popular game across the country during the Spring Equinox. It is an old custom that dates back to 4,000 years ago. It is believed that if someone can make the egg stand, he will have good luck in the future.
Flying kites
The Spring Equinox is a good time to fly kites. In ancient times, people did not have good medical resources. To pray for health, they wrote their medical issues on a paper kite. When the kite was in the air, people would cut off the string to let the paper kite float away, symbolizing the flying away of diseases.
Eating spring vegetables
Eating spring vegetables during the Spring Equinox is a commonly practiced custom in many regions of China. Spring vegetables refer to seasonal vegetables that differ from place to place. The ancient teachings in the Chinese classic, Huangdi Neijing, suggest that people eat seasonal foods to help preserve health and bring good luck.
1. Which of the following is NOT mentioned about the Spring Equinox?A.Time division. | B.Climate feature. |
C.Customary activities. | D.Historical stories. |
A.Stand eggs. | B.Fly kites. |
C.Eat spring vegetables. | D.Observe the immigration of birds. |
A.The general public. | B.Chinese farmers. |
C.Culture researchers. | D.Weather reporters. |
【推荐2】Interested in getting ahead over the summer? Then stay on course by taking advantage of Alvernia’s Summer Session. It lets you get ahead with a large selection of undergraduate and graduate courses. You can attend the class in classrooms or online, or you can take mixed courses if you like. We offer several flexible sessions at all three locations in the summer to help move you closer toward graduation. All courses are officially recognized and credits you earn are transferable. You don’t have to be admitted to Alvernia to take classes this summer. Our Summer Session is open to all Alvernia students and to students from other colleges and high schools, as well as adult professionals and lifelong learners.
And if you’re taking a course with us, you’ll have full access to the library, gym, cafes, and computer labs. Alvernia’s Summer Session is a perfect option for students who:
●Want to lighten their course load for coming terms.
●Stay on track to complete their degree on time.
●Plan to earn additional credits now to graduate a term early.
●Had trouble with a course during a past term and need to retake it.
●Just want to take a course for fun.
To find out what financial aid options might be available to you, contact the Office of Student Financial Planning by emailing financialaid@alvernia.edu or calling 610-796-8356.
We offer several flexible sessions to help fit your busy lifestyle. You can take classes and also enjoy your summer!(See courses for specific dates by visiting http://www.alvernia.edu/financialaid.)
1. What do we know about Alvernia’s Summer Session?A.It’s open to students only. | B.It offers courses in three forms. |
C.It includes high school courses. | D.It provides financial aid to all the learners. |
A.You will not fail an exam. | B.You may face no course load. |
C.You may finish your studies a term early. | D.You can be admitted to Alvernia. |
A.Check the course schedule. | B.Get financial aid information. |
C.Apply for courses free of charge. | D.Register for Alvernia’s Summer Session. |
【推荐3】We have long been attracted by quick solutions that could increase our intelligence. Today, people’s hopes lie in brain training apps, some of which claim to result in smarter minds”. But is this quick solutions all that it is said to be?
There are plenty of brain training apps, but they all share the same characteristics: they turn mental exercises like simple arithmetic, memory tests and logic and pattern-matching problems into quick games. The more you play these mini-games, the smarter you will get — or so some apps tell us. It is really a big promise.
Many of the apps say they are backed by “science”, a claim I found surprising as a former neuroscientist. The concept that increasing intelligence would be as simple as practicing a few mini-games every day goes against what we have discovered about how humans think and learn.
After surveying a diverse spread of thousands of users across wide variety of apps, researchers at Western University in Canada discovered that “brain training has no appreciable effect on cognitive functioning in the ‘real world’, even after extensive training periods”. The positive effects that have been found are limited to the very specific mini-games and tasks that users are trained on, such as the ability to memorize lists of words or numbers, or perform mental arithmetic, with little benefit to other skills.
If you are expecting them to improve your ability to write novel or construct a complex spreadsheet, I am afraid you will want to look elsewhere.
Puzzle video games such as “Baba Is You” and “Returno the Obra Dinn” see players apply their skill at logic, memory and concentration in a far more complex way than any brain training mini-game.
1. What does the author say about brain training apps?A.They have scientific support. | B.They work in the form of games. |
C.They require problem-solving skills. | D.They are based on complex arithmetic. |
A.Supporting evidence for some brain training apps. |
B.A detailed description of some brain training apps. |
C.A further explanation of the use of some brain training apps. |
D.Questioning the exaggerated effects of some brain training apps. |
A.Limited. | B.Tremendous. | C.Damaging. | D.Far-reaching. |
A.A storybook. | B.A diary. | C.A magazine. | D.A biography. |