What the Next Era of Globalization Will Look Like
Editor: You talk in the book about how fragile many global supply chains have become. Why would a less globalized, more localized supply chain tend to be more resilient?
Rana: Well, for starters, you have proximity (亲近).
Also, I would say when I think of resiliency, I think of sustainability. And well before the pandemic or the war in Ukraine, companies were actually already starting to think about localization for all kinds of reasons.
Finally, you are starting to have environmental concerns where companies are being asked to consider, “Okay, how many units of carbon are you expending to tote X product to Y location?” All of this was sort of pushing that notion of localization for resiliency.
Editor:
Rana: I don’t see them as an either-or proposition; I see them as ideas that work hand in hand. Let me give you an example: Right after the pandemic hits, everybody goes into lockdown, suddenly nobody’s eating out. Restaurants are closed; grocery stores have huge lines in front of them. And yet there are no products on the shelves. You can’t find tomato sauce, you can’t find juice. There are all these strange gaps that start to appear. And you might say, “Well, why is that?”
| A．Whereas when you have more localized systems, you just don’t have those sorts of problems of hauling things halfway around the world. |
| B．In markets where you did have more localized agriculture or greater use of community farm programs or farmers markets, you didn’t have that problem. |
| C．You write that monopoly (垄断)is a source of weakness, because it means companies and consumers rely on a single source. |
| D．One of the messages in my book that I’m really trying to get across is place matters: The world is not flat; the world is bumpy(颠簸的). |
| E．One of which is that the sort of cheap capital for cheap labor model between the U. S. and Asia didn’t really work. |
| F．An efficient market theory would say that prices of commodities always reflect all available information about the supply and demand. |
相似题推荐
Most American schools follow a traditional nine-month calendar. Students get winter and spring breaks and about ten weeks of summer vacation. Some schools follow a year-round calendar. They hold classes for about eight weeks at a time, with a few weeks off in between. The National Association for Year-Round Education says there were fewer than three thousand such schools at last count. They were spread among forty-six of the fifty states.
But many experts point out that the number of class days in a year-round school is generally the same as in a traditional school. Lead researcher Paul von Hippel said, "Year-round schools don't really solve the problem of the summer learning setback. They simply spread it out across the year."
Across the country, research shows that students from poor families fall farther behind over the summer than other students. Experts say this can be prevented. They note that many schools and local governments offer programs that can help.
But calling them "summer school" could be a problem. The director of the summer learning center at Johns Hopkins, Ron Fairchild, said research with groups of different parents in Chicago and Baltimore found that almost all strongly disliked the term summer school”. In American culture, the idea of summer vacation is connected to beliefs about freedom and the joys of childhood. The parents welcomed other terms like "summer camp," "enrichment," "extra time" and "hands-on learning."
1. According to the first paragraph the summer learning gap.
| A．helps children to gain weight |
| B．leads children to work harder |
| C．improves children’s memories |
| D．affects children’s regular studies |
| A．perform better and have more learning gains |
| B．have much less time for relaxation every year |
| C．have generally the same number of class days |
| D．hold more classes with more free weeks off |
| A．Students from poor families often fall behind after the vacation. |
| B．Year-round schools can solve the problem of the learning gap. |
| C．There are schools in each state following a year-round calendar. |
| D．Nothing can help the students who fall behind after the vacation. |
| A．They cherish the children’s rights of freedom very much. |
| B．They are worried about the quality of the “summer school”. |
| C．They want their children to be forced to make up the gap. |
| D．They can’t afford to the further study during vacation. |
| A．Opening Summer Camps |
| B．Forbidding Summer Schools |
| C．Spreading Year-Round Education |
| D．Minding the Summer Learning Cap |
【推荐2】We often think of ourselves as our body, mind, and emotions. However, we also often talk about a person’s soul. Is there any scientific basis for the soul? Surprisingly, there is. Each unique personality a person has, the feeling and identity of the self beyond age, and our inevitable subjective experience as an individual make a scientific foundation for the soul.
Despite the constant change in the links between our brain cells, we remain the same personality. This is most obvious in the case of mentally ill patients or people who have experienced memory loss. Science journalist Michael Lemonick told the story of Lonni Sue, who suffered brain damage and was left unable to recall her past or to form new memories. Lemonick thought that Lonni Sue, when she lost her memories, lost her self. But once he got to know her, as well as people who knew her before and after her injury, Lemonick discovered that herself had not been destroyed. She was still cheerful in a way that made people around her feel better, and she was still creative and playful. So, despite memory loss, we still have the essence of our personality. Basically, no matter what happens to our brain, our unique personality seems to shine through.
Besides one’s personality being present despite memory loss, the soul of a person can be identified through one’s consciousness. Though we commonly identify with our body and what we see in the mirror, we also have a sense that we are not a certain age—as our sense of self usually depends less on age and rather on our subjective feeling of who we are.
Lastly, each person is inevitably subjective about his or her experience. Despite humans being very similar to each other in DNA, our view on reality is very different from individual to individual.
The soul of a person is challenging to prove scientifically. However, with each person’s personality being unique, the behavioral quality of thinking of the self beyond age, and our inevitable subjective experience, we can say that the soul has some basis in science. These realities of our behavior, character, and perception might not be tested, but they are very difficult to deny.
1. The author tells the story of Lonni Sue to show ________.| A．the stability of people’s personality |
| B．strange behaviors of mentally ill patients |
| C．the chance for the mentally ill to form new memories |
| D．the changes of the people who suffered brain damage |
| A．Past memory. | B．Changeable belief. |
| C．Optimistic attitude. | D．Important nature. |
| A．Our body, mind and emotions tell who we are. |
| B．The soul of a person changes as he or she grows old. |
| C．Scientific research has already proved what makes up our soul. |
| D．Our soul depends on our personality, consciousness and experience. |
| A．Beyond identity |
| B．Beyond memory |
| C．Beyond age |
| D．Beyond nature |
【推荐3】Our brains are “programmed” to learn more from people we like—and less from those we dislike. This has been shown by researchers in cognitive neuroscience (认知神经科学) in a series of experiments.
Memory serves a vital function, enabling us to learn from new experiences and update existing knowledge. We learn both from individual experiences and from connecting them to draw new conclusions about the world. This way, we can make inferences about things that we don’t necessarily have direct experience of. This is called memory integration and makes learning quick and flexible.
To examine what affects our ability to learn, and make inferences, Ines Bramao, associate-professor of psychology at Lund University, along with his co-workers, set up experiments where participants were tasked with remembering and connecting different objects. It could be a bowl, ball, spoon, scissors, or other everyday objects. It turned out that memory integration was influenced by who presented it. If it was a person the participant liked, connecting the information was easier compared to when the information came from someone the participant disliked. The participants provided individual definitions of “like” and “dislike” based on aspects such as political views, majors, eating habits, favorite sports, hobbies, and music.
The findings can be applied in real life, according to the researchers. Ines explained: “Suppose a politician argues for raising taxes to benefit healthcare. Later, you visit a healthcare center and notice improvements have been made. If you side with the politician that wanted to improve healthcare through higher taxes, you’re likely to credit the improvements to the tax increase, even though the improvements might have had a completely different cause.”
There’s already vast research describing that people learn information differently depending on the source and how that characterizes polarization and knowledge resistance. “What our research shows is how these significant phenomena can partly be traced back to fundamental principles that govern how our memory works,” says Ines. We tend to form new connections and update knowledge from information presented by groups we favor.
1. Which of the following can best replace the underlined word “programmed” in Paragraph 1?| A．Enhanced. | B．Organized. | C．Desire-driven. | D．Nature-decided. |
| A．It’s easier to absorb favorable information. |
| B．It’s beneficial to focus on everyday objects. |
| C．Presenters matter in connecting information. |
| D．Life experiences affect people’s inferences. |
| A．By introducing a concept. |
| B．By making an assumption. |
| C．By employing an expert’s words. |
| D．By referring to another experiment. |
| A．How brains function in learning | B．Who impacts memory integration |
| C．How brains learn from experiences | D．What improves long-term memory |
【推荐1】Invented by French teenager Louis Braille in 1824, Braille has enabled blind kids worldwide to learn to read and write. However, the system of raised dots, representing letters and numbers, can be hard for younger students to learn. As a result, parents and educators are increasingly avoiding this system, which is taught using special textbooks, in favor of online learning programs. Now，Denmark's LEGO Foundation hopes to change the trend with the help of braille bricks（ 盲文积木）.
The braille bricks are similar to original building blocks. However, the bricks with numbers and letters printed on the bottom allowed blind and sighted players to build together. Though the bricks can be stacked together to form a crossword game or attached to one another to form words, they are unlike the regular ones. Therefore, the company recommends placing the bricks side-by-side. Each set of about 250 pieces includes letters A-Z, the numbers 0 -9, as well as basic symbols like the “plus” and “minus” signs. Special pieces are also included so kids can play word and math games.
Blind kids have dreams about their future just as sighted children. They have the same desire to explore the world and socialize through play. In the Foundation, children can learn best through play and, in turn, develop their skills, such as creativity and communication. With this project, the foundation is bringing a playful and inclusive approach to learning braille to children.
Kids are not the only ones benefiting from LEGO's invention this year. It can benefit adults as well. For those not into gaming, there is “Lego Art”. The art enables adults to create pop art “posters” by arranging these bricks on a canvas（画布）. The offering includes Andy W arhol's Marilyn Monroe，Marvel Studio's Iron Man, and The Beatles. Each set comes with the appropriate music, interviews, and background information, providing fans with an unforgettable experience as they create their masterpieces.
1. Why do educators avoid teaching in braille?| A．Braille becomes out of date in reality. |
| B．Braille is difficult for blind kids to master. |
| C．They are not good at it at all. |
| D．The special textbooks are expensive. |
| A．Piled. | B．Crashed. |
| C．Pushed. | D．Crossed. . |
| A．Pursue their hobbies. | B．Form their habits. |
| C．Develop their skills. | D．Play for fun. |
| A．They can play games together with their kids. |
| B．They can get more information from those bricks. |
| C．They can create some artworks based on the offering. |
| D．They can impress themselves with a wonderful scene. |
【推荐2】The age of adulthood is by definition arbitrary. If everyone matured at the same, fixed rate, it wouldn’t be a human process. Indeed, maturation happens at varying speeds across different categories within the same individual, so I’d say I was easily old enough to vote at 16, but nobody should have given me a credit card until I was 32, and I’ve got the county court judgment to prove it.
However, we broadly agree that there’s a difference between a child and an adult, even if we might argue about the transition point. So the political theorist David Runciman’s view that six-year-olds should be allowed to vote goes against any standard argument about the age of civic responsibility. Nobody would say that a six-year-old could be held criminally responsible, could be sent to war, could be capable of consent, could be given responsibility for anything. So allowing them the vote—along with, unavoidably, seven-year-olds who are even sillier, if anything—is quite an amusing proposal.
Runciman’s argument is that this is the only way to rebalance political life, which is currently twisted in favor of the old, who don’t (he added) ever need to demonstrate mental capacity, even long after they’ve lost it.
The first part of his case is self-evident: pensions are protected while children’s centers are closed, concepts such as sovereignty(最高权威) are prioritized over the far more urgent business of the future: climate change. Nostalgia(怀念) for a past the young wouldn’t even recognize plays a central role, which is completely unfair.
Most of the arguments against giving six-year-olds a vote are that children would end up voting for something damaging and chaotic, if someone made unrealistic promises to them, which could never be realized. Well, it’s not children’s fault.
Having said that, children do tend towards the progressive, having a natural sense of justice (which kicks in at the age of six months, psychologists have shown, by creating scenes of great unfairness to babies, and making them cry) and an underdeveloped sense of self-interest. My kid, when he was six, made quite a forceful case against private property, on the basis that, since everybody needed a house, they shouldn’t cost money, because nobody would want anyone else not to have one. Also, food should be free. It was a kind of pre-Marx communism, where you limit the coverage of the market to only those things that you wouldn’t mind someone else not having.
On that particular day, when we were registered as voters, my kid was quite far to the left of me, but in the normal run of things, we’re united, which brings us to the point of the problem: children obey you on almost nothing, but they do seem to believe in your politics until they’re adolescent. So giving kids the vote is really just a way of giving parents extra votes. And what can stop us having even more children, once there’s so much enfranchisement(选举权) in it for us?
Now, if parents could be trusted to use their influence wisely, and hammer into children the politics it will take to assure a better future, then I wouldn’t necessarily have a problem with that, apart from, obviously, that culture is already wildly twisted towards parents, and I can imagine a few non-parents boiling with fierce anger. But that’s not worth talking about anyway, because parents can’t be trusted, otherwise we’d all already vote Green(绿党).
In short: no, six-year-olds should not get the vote; but while we’re here, if any votes come up in the near future, which will have an impact on the next five decades of British political life, alongside EU migrants, 16-year-olds certainly should be enfranchised.
1. The author refers to his age of adulthood to prove that ___________.| A．people mature at different rates in various aspects |
| B．there’s a common standard for the age of adulthood |
| C．a credit card is more difficult to get than the vote |
| D．certain rights are granted at different stages of life |
| A．they don’t think a child can grow into adulthood earlier |
| B．they are uncertain whether children can assume responsibility |
| C．they believe children are far from mature in many ways |
| D．they know the age to get the vote is not to be questioned |
| A．A cultural preference for the old. |
| B．The imbalance in political life. |
| C．Inequalities of opportunity. |
| D．Public ignorance of children’s abilities. |
| A．children are good-natured and like to help people in need |
| B．children are simple-minded and can fall for an adult’s trick |
| C．children are innocent and don’t want to be involved in politics |
| D．children are in favor of a just society and tend to be idealistic |
| A．twisted culture | B．misuse of rights |
| C．parents’ objections | D．unusual maturation |
| A．Allowing children the vote is not altogether absurd. |
| B．There is a difference between adults and children. |
| C．Parents should introduce politics to their children. |
| D．The definition of adulthood is quite controversial. |
【推荐3】Say you’re sitting around with some friends playing video games and someone mentions a game that happens to be one of your favorites. “Oh, that game’s easy. So not worth the time,” one of your friends says. The others agree. Although you enjoy the game quite a lot, not wanting to argue with them, you go along with the crowd.
You have just experienced what is commonly referred to as peer pressure（同伴压力）, also called peer influence. You will adopt a certain type of behavior, dress, or attitude in order to be accepted as part of a group of your “peers”. As a teen, you are likely to have experienced the effect of peer pressure in a number of different areas.
We are all influenced by our peers at any age. For teens, as school and other activities take you away from home, you may spend more time with your friends than with your family. As you become more independent, your peers naturally play a greater role in your life.
According to Dr. Casey from Cornell University, teens are very quick and accurate in making decisions on their own and in situations where they have time to think. However, when they make decisions in the heat of the moment or in social situations, their decisions are often influenced by factors like peers. In a recent study, teen volunteers played a video driving game, either alone or with friends watching. The researchers discovered that the number of risks teens took more than doubled when their friends were watching, compared with when they played alone. This shows that teens may find it more difficult to control risky behavior when their friends are around, or in situations where they are extremely angry.
Just as people can influence us to make unwise choices, they can also influence us to make good ones. A teen might join in a volunteer project because his or her friends are doing it, or get good grades because his or her friends think getting good grades is important. In fact, friends often encourage each other to study, or try out for sports.
While we are always influenced by those around us, the decision to act or not is up to us. So when it comes to decision making, the choice is up to you.
1. According to the passage, Dr. Casey probably agrees that teens ________.| A．like to play driving games with their friends |
| B．prefer situations where they have time to think |
| C．may take more risks when their friends are around |
| D．are slow in making decisions when they are on their own |
| A．When teens avoid possible risks. |
| B．When teens trust their judgment. |
| C．When teens lose control over their anger. |
| D．When teens give consideration to situations. |
| A．Teens are eager to be different from their peers. |
| B．Peer pressure does more harm than good to teens. |
| C．Peer pressure has effects on both teens and adults. |
| D．Teens think it challenging to get good grades at school. |
| A．Peer Pressure: Is It Necessary to Deal with It? |
| B．Peer Pressure: Is It Possible to Get Away from It? |
| C．Peer Pressure: Its Benefits to Teens and Friend Making |
| D．Peer Pressure: Its Influence on Teens and Decision Making |
