Ada Palmer is a professor of European history at the University of Chicago. Her science-fiction series, Terra Ignota, was inspired by 18th-century philosophers such as Voltaire and Diderot. “I wanted to write a story that Voltaire might have written if Voltaire had be enable to read the last 70 years’ worth of science fiction and have all of those tools available (可获得的) for his use,” Palmer says in a radio program called Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Palmer says that Voltaire could actually be considered the first sci-fic writer, thanks to a place he wrote in 1752. “Voltaire has a short story called Micromégas, in which an alien from Saturn and an alien from a star near Sirius come to Earth. They are extremely big in size. They explore Earth and have trouble finding life forms because to them a whale is the size of a flea (跳蚤)”, she says. They eventually realize that the tiny little spot of wood on the ground is a ship, and it’s full of living things, including humans, and they make contact. So it’s a first-contact story.
Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein is often considered the first sci-fi novel. Voltaire was writing much earlier than Shelley, so should he have the title instead? It depends on your definition (定义) of science fiction. “Micromégas doesn’t involve technology,” Palmer says, “so if you define science fiction as depending upon technology—and being about, in the Frankenstein sense. Is man’s knowledge giving us access to powers beyond what we’ve had before? What does that mean?’—it isn’t asking that. But ‘aliens and first contact’ is a very significant science fictional element.”
So there’s no obvious answer to the question of who should be considered the first sci-fi writer. Palmer says it’s more important to ask the question than to arrive at any particular answer. “I don’t want to argue, ‘Yes, definitely, everybody’s histories of science fiction should start with Voltaire,” she says. “But I do want to argue that everybody’s histories of science fiction will be richer by discussing whether Voltaire is the beginning of science fiction, or whether it’s earlier or whether it’s later. Because that gets at the question of what science fiction is.”
1. What do we know about Micromégas according to the text?| A．It is widely accepted as a science-fiction story. |
| B．It has a big influence on today’s science fiction. |
| C．Its main characters have trouble finding humans. |
| D．Its content is about humans’ exploration of space. |
| A．One of his stories focuses on technology. | B．His story involves aliens from other planets. |
| C．He described human-alien contact in a story. | D．Her science fiction was inspired by his writing. |
| A．Its true origin. | B．What it can cover. |
| C．Its colourful expressions. | D．Why it is interesting. |
| A．Ada Palmer and science fiction. | B．Was Voltaire the first sci-fi author? |
| C．Technology’s role in science fiction. | D．What is science fiction really about? |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】Role models are important for inspiring scientists, but new research suggest that scientists who are known for their hard work are more encouraging than scientists who are viewed as naturally brilliant.
In a series of studies, researchers found that young people were more motivated by scientists whose success was connected with efforts than those whose success was because of natural intelligence, even if that scientist was Albert Einstein.
Danfei Hu, a doctoral student at the Pennsylvania State University, and Janet N. Ann, an assistant professor of Psychology at William Paterson University, said the findings—recently published in Basic and Applied Social Psychology—will help deal with the certain secret about what it takes to succeed in science.
According to the researchers, there is concern in the science community with the number of students who run after careers in science during school only to drop out of those career paths once they graduate from college. To help solve the problem, Hu and Ann wanted to research role models, who give the students specific goals, behavior or strategies they can follow.
The researchers performed studies with 176 and 162 participants in each study respectively. In the first study, all participants read the same story about common struggles a scientist met in his science career. However, half were told the story was about Einstein, while half were told it was about Thomas Edison. Although the stories were the same, participants were more likely to believe natural brilliance was the reason for Einstein’s success. In addition, the participants who believe the story was about Edison were more motivated to complete a series of maths problems.
“This proved that people generally seem to view Einstein as a genius, with his success commonly linked to extraordinary talent,” Hu said. “Edison, on the other hand, is known for failing more than 1,000 times when trying to create the light bulb, and his success is linked to his efforts.” Hu added, “Knowing that something great can be achieved through hard work and efforts, more students will step into the science career confidently.”
1. What kind of scientist is more encouraging?| A．Those who are famous around the world. |
| B．Those who are viewed as naturally brilliant. |
| C．Those who are famous for their hard work. |
| D．Those who are viewed as great inventors. |
| A．There are fewer role models for students to follow. |
| B．Some scientists cannot give students specific goals. |
| C．The students will drop out of school soon. |
| D．Fewer students will work on science. |
| A．They knew the problems were given by Edison. |
| B．They believed they could solve the problems by working hard. |
| C．They believed they were as intelligent as Einstein. |
| D．They knew they were to work together with Einstein and Edison. |
| A．Einstein Is Less Encouraging Than Edison |
| B．Edison’s Achievements Are Greater |
| C．How to Be a Great Scientist |
| D．Einstein’s Success Story |
【推荐2】In 2009 Daphna Joel, a neuroscientist at Tel Aviv University, decided to teach a course on the psychology of gender. She had long been interested in questions of gender, but as a scientist, her research had been mostly on the causes of certain abnormal behaviors. To prepare for the class, Joel spent a year reviewing much of the extensive and polarized literature on gender differences in the brain. The hundreds of papers covered everything from variations in the size of specific structures in rats to the possible roots of male aggression and female empathy（共情）in humans. At the beginning, Joel shared a popularly held assumption: sex differences would produce two different forms of brains - one female, the other male.
As she continued reading, Joel came across a paper against that idea. The study, published in 2001 by Tracey Shors and her colleagues at Rutgers University, concerned a detail of the rat brain: tiny protrusions(突出物)on brain cells, called dendritic spines, that regulate transmission of electrical signals. The researchers showed that when estrogen(雌激素)levels were elevated, female rats had more dendritic spines than males did. Shors also found that when male and female rats were subjected to the stressful event of having their tails shocked, their brain responded in opposite ways: males grew more spines; females ended up with fewer.
From this unexpected finding, Joel developed a hypothesis(假设)about sex differences in the brain that has stirred up debates in a field already steeped in it. Instead of thinking brain areas differ between females and males, she suggested that we should consider our brain as a "mosaic", arranged from a collection of variable, sometimes changeable, male and female features. That variability itself and the behavioral overlap between the sexes - aggressive females and empathetic males and even men and women who display both characteristics - suggest that brains cannot be divided into one of two distinct categories. That human brain in neither male nor female, Joel says. With her colleagues at Tel Aviv, the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany, and the University of Zurich, Joel tested her idea by analyzing MRI brain scans of more than 1,400 brains and demonstrated that most of them did indeed contain both male and female characteristic. "We all belong to a single, very similar population," she says.
When Joel's work was published in 2015 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, like-minded scientists considered it as a breakthrough. "The result is a major challenge to the long-held misconceptions," wrote Gina Rippon, a professor at Aston University in England. "My hope is it will be a game-changer for the 21st century."
1. Which of the following did Daphna Joel most probably agree with at the beginning?| A．Female brains were different from male brains. |
| B．The human brain shared something with the rats'. |
| C．Rats shouldn't be used for the purpose of research. |
| D．There wasn't enough literature on gender differences. |
| A．Rats' brains responded to stress in an expected way. |
| B．Dendritic spines in the brain helped regulate estrogen levels. |
| C．Electrical signals contribute to the growth of dendritic spines. |
| D．Male rats didn't always grow more dendritic spines than female ones. |
| A．There are more than two distinct categories of brains. |
| B．One's brain doesn't always stay the same all through his life. |
| C．People have either more female characteristics or more male ones. |
| D．It is necessary to explore the difference between male and female brains. |
| A．Is there a "female" brain? | B．Is the brain worth studying? |
| C．Is the human brain complicated? | D．Is that a challenge to the human brain? |
【推荐3】Up-skilling is the future - but it must work for everyone
Automation and job replacement will be one of the most significant challenges for the global economy of the coming decades. A 2017 Mckinsey report established that 375 million workers will need to switch occupational categories by 2030. The World Economic Forum suggests that by 2022, automation will replace 75 million jobs globally - but create 133 million new ones.
Research into the likelihood that a job will be impacted by digitization has largely focused on the "auto-matability" of the role and the following economic regional and political effects of this. What this research doesn't take into account is something more important for the millions of taxi drivers and retail workers across the globe: their likelihood of being able to change to another job that isn't automatable. Recent research suggests that the answer to this may be that the skills that enable workers to move up the ladder to more complex roles within their current areas might be less important than broader skills that will enable workers to change across divisions.
In July, Amazon announced that it would spend $700 million retraining around 30% of its 300,000 US workforce. While praiseworthy, it will be interesting to see the outcome. In the UK, the National Retraining Scheme has largely been led by employers, meaning that those on zero-hours contracts and part-time workers - often low-skilled --- will miss out. Governance will be a crucial element of ensuring that such schemes focus on individuals and life-long learning, rather than upskilling workers into roles that will soon also face automation.
According to the Mckinsey report, "growing awareness of the scale of the task ahead has yet to translate into action. Public spending on labour-force training and support has fallen for years in most member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development," which impacts more than just the low-skilled.
The global impact of automation is also put into relief by research demonstrating that, between 1988 and 2015, income inequality increased throughout the world. Billions of people do not have the essentials of life as defined by the UN Sustainable Development goals.
Alongside climate change, automation is arguably tech's biggest challenge. As with globalization, governments and employers -- and us workers -- ignore its potential consequences at risk to ourselves.
1. It can be known from Paragraph 2 that ________.| A．recent research has found ways to face automation |
| B．broad skills are of great significance in changing jobs |
| C．regional economy can affect the automatability of a job |
| D．it is even harder for workers to move up the social ladder |
| A．Supportive. | B．Critical | C．Doubtful | D．Sympathetic |
| A．Less spending on training | B．A slowdown of globalization |
| C．Social unrest and instability. | D．An increase in income inequality |
| A．argue the urgency of creating new jobs |
| B．compare globalization with automation |
| C．analyze the automatability of certain jobs |
| D．stress the important of upskilling workers |
【推荐1】One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible insect. He lay on his armor-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections. The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment. His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked.
“What’s happened to me?” he thought. It wasn’t a dream. His room, a proper human room although a little too small, lay peacefully between its four familiar walls. A collection of textile samples lay spread out on the table-Samsa was a travelling salesman-and above it there hung a picture that he had recently cut out of an illustrated magazine and housed in a nice, gilded frame. It showed a lady fitted out with a fur hat and fur scarf who sat upright, raising a heavy fur muff(暖手筒)that covered the whole of her lower arm towards the viewer.
Gregor then turned to look out the window at the dull weather. Drops of rain could be heard hitting the window, which made him feel quite sad. “How about if I sleep a little bit longer and forget all this nonsense,” he thought, but that was something he was unable to do because he was used to sleeping on his right, and in his present state couldn’t get into that position. However hard he threw himself onto his right, he always rolled back to where he was. He must have tried it a hundred times, shut his eyes so that he wouldn’t have to look at the floundering legs, and only stopped when he began to feel a mild, dull pain there that he had never felt before.
He thought, “What a heavy career it is that I’ve chosen! Travelling day in and day out. Doing business like this takes much more effort than doing your own business at home, and on top of that there's the curse of travelling, worries about making train connections, bad and irregular food, contact with different people all the time so that you can never get to know anyone or become friendly with them.” He felt a slight itch up on his belly; pushed himself slowly up on his back towards the headboard so that he could lift his head better; found where the itch was, and saw that it was covered with lots of little white spots which he didn’t know what to make of; and when he tried to feel the place with one of his legs he drew it quickly back because as soon as he
touched it he was overcome by a cold tremble.
He slid back into his former position. “Getting up early all the time,” he thought, “it makes you stupid. You’ve got to get enough sleep. Other travelling salesmen live a life of luxury. For instance, whenever I go back to the guest house during the morning to copy out the contract, these gentlemen are always still sitting there eating their breakfasts. I ought to just try that with my boss; I’d get kicked out on the spot. But who knows, maybe that would be the best thing for me. If I didn’t have my parents to think about I’d have given in my notice a long time ago, I’d have gone up to the boss and told him just what I think, tell him everything I would, let him know just what I feel. He’d fall right off his desk! And it’s a funny sort of business to be sitting up there at your desk, talking down at your inferiors from up there, especially when you have to go right up close because the boss is hard of hearing. Well, there’s still some hope; once I’ve got the money together to pay off my parents’ debt to him-another five or six years I suppose-that’s definitely what I’ll do. That’s when I’ll make the big change. First of all though, I’ve got to get up, my train leaves at five.”
| A．curse | B．disease | C．nightmare | D．fraud |
| A．struggling | B．painful | C．pitiful | D．trembling |
| A．remind the reader that Gregor has already turned into an insect |
| B．stress the disconnection between Gregors’ thoughts and his actual situation |
| C．present important details about what Gregor’s new body looks like |
| D．show that Gregor’s thoughts are focused on the changes to his body |
| A．He is angry. | B．He is eager to please. |
| C．He is depressed. | D．He is diligent. |
| A．Imagination is a dangerous thing. | B．People are fearful of change. |
| C．Dreams become our reality. | D．Man is a slave to work. |
| A．provide a solution to the conflict Gregor faces |
| B．foretell the conflict between Gregor and his boss |
| C．illustrate Gregor’s flexibility and ability to move on |
| D．emphasize Gregor’s extreme sense of duty |
【推荐2】“What if I told you that I murdered Basil?”
“You couldn’t murder anyone, Dorian. He probably fell into the Seine from a bus. By the way, where’s that wonderful portrait he did of you? Oh! I remember now. You told me years ago that you sent it to Selby Manor and that it got lost or stolen on the way. What a pity! I wanted to buy it. I wish I had now.” Lord Henry said.
“I never really liked it,” said Dorian.
“How have you kept your youth, Dorian? You must have some secret. I’m only ten years older than you are, and I’m wrinkled and old. Please, tell me your secret. To get back my youth, I’d do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.”
When Dorian arrived home that night, he sent his servant to bed, and sat down on the sofa in the library. Then he began to think about his life.
“I’ve been an evil influence on my friends, and I’ve ruined the lives of many good young people,” he thought, “Ah! Why did I pray for the portrait to grow old, and for me to stay young? I worshiped beauty and eternal youth, but they ruined me. It’s better not to think of the past. Nothing can change that. I must think of the future. James Vane is dead. Alan Campbell is dead, too. He shot himself one night in his laboratory.”
“I’m safe now,” he continued. “Basil painted the portrait that ruined my life. I can’t forgive him for that. Everything is the portrait’s fault.”
He began to wonder about the portrait. “If I’m good, maybe the portrait will become beautiful again,” he thought. “I’ll go and look.”
He took the lamp from the table and went upstairs. As he unlocked the door, he smiled. “Yes, I’ll be good,” he thought, “I won’t be frightened of this portrait any more.”
He went upstairs to the room and locked the door. Then he pulled the purple cloth off the portrait. He gave a cry of pain. The portrait was more horrible. His face looked more evil. There was new blood on the hand and on the feet.
Dorian trembled with fear. Dorian looked round the room and saw the knife that stabbed Basil Hallward. It was bright and shining.
“This knife killed the artist, and now it will kill the artist’s work,” he thought.
He grabbed the knife, and then he stabbed the portrait with it.
1. What do we know about Lord Henry from the passage?| A．He doubted slightly whether Dorian murdered Basil. |
| B．He would do whatever he could to get back his youth. |
| C．The portrait he wanted to buy was stolen by Selby Manor. |
| D．The truth about how Dorian kept his youth was hidden from him. |
| A．Dorian admitted he was badly affected by his friends. |
| B．Alan Campbell shot himself one night in his laboratory. |
| C．Dorian blamed his sufferings on the portrait and Basil. |
| D．Dorian wanted to kill himself so that the portrait could become normal. |
| A．Admired. | B．Deserved. | C．Maintained. | D．Ignored. |
| A．Because the portrait aroused too much curiosity of his friends. |
| B．Because the portrait reflecting his soul made him suffer great pain. |
| C．Because he was jealous of the portrait which would never grow old. |
| D．Because he thought the portrait would take his youth and beauty away. |
【推荐3】When the novelist Luis Alberto Urrea was 14 or 15, he took a trip deep into Mexico. He was born in Tijuana to a Mexican father and a white American mother before moving just across the border and eventually into the San Diego suburbs. But his father thought he was becoming “too American”, and took him on a 27-hour journey to Mazatian. Along the way, his father gave him a paperback copy of The Godfather and told him it would change his life. “I don’t think he was trying to make a case for us being criminals,” Urrea says, “but he really felt this incredible connection to the family and the traditions and the honor for the old country, as people were making their way in the U.S.”
In his new novel The House of Broken Angels, Urrea has written his own take on the Godfather story with a Mexican-American Don Corleone figure at its center. The story takes place over two days, as Big Angel de la Cruz buries his mother and celebrates his final birthday party on earth; he knows he’s dying, and he’s gathered his extended family around him for a noisy and lively goodbye.
The idea was inspired by the final birthday party of Urrea’s elder brother three years ago. “Everybody was jammed in his backyard, and there was a DJ and people dancing and consuming a serious amount of American junk food — they didn’t want Mexican food, they wanted KFC and pizza. I thought, where are the tacos, dude? And my brother sat in his little chair in the middle of it. People were coming to him and kneeling, and they would thank him and kiss his hand or touch his head and tell him all the ways he had changed their lives.”
Urrea’s brother died of cancer within two weeks at 74, and the heartbreaking event haunted the author. He considered writing a memoir(回忆录)about it—“I was thinking about Truman Capote, when he did those tiny books about Christmas and Thanksgiving.” But his wife encouraged him to aim bigger. When he found himself seated next to the writer Jim Harrison at a dinner event, he shared the story, and Harrison said, “Sometimes God hands you a novel. You have to write it.” Urrea thought to himself “Marching orders from Jim Harrison―this is good stuff. A kid from Tijuana doesn’t get that very often.”
The House of Broken Angels is a celebration of the Mexican-American family, but it also includes moments of frustration with this country’s treatment of the immigrant group. Before he got too sick to work, Big Angel worked in an office and drank coffee from a cup that read BOSS. “Yeah, the employees all got the message,” Urrea writes. “The Mexican-American was calling himself their boss.” In a grocery store, a woman screams at two of his family members that they’ll be kicked out of the country soon. “I had to bite down on the bitterness of my rage(愤怒), man!” Urrea says. “I was having some pretty serious response to Donald Trump’s confusing and empty talk. But you know, it may have shocked a lot of the United States to hear this kind of empty talk and this bald-faced racialism of politics all of a sudden, but to us, this stuff isn’t a surprise?”
“I really wanted to write a tribute to my brother, to my family and to us, but it’s also a love song to the country,” Urrea says. “I think people have this weird, horrible view... that immigrants are evil snakes. People don’t understand that immigration is truly a statement of love for this country, whatever the country represents. People want to be here and work.” And with persistence, they become the boss.
1. Why did Urrea’s father give him the book The Godfather?| A．He wanted Urrea to enjoy the 27-hour journey. |
| B．He thought the book had changed his own life. |
| C．He tried to show Urrea a real case of criminals. |
| D．He hoped Urrea would feel connected to Mexico. |
| A．Mexican traditions have been left behind |
| B．the people like American junk food best |
| C．it is difficult to buy the Mexican food |
| D．the tacos are popular with everyone there |
| A．Capote was good at writing tiny books |
| B．Capote’s books are about Christmas |
| C．he intended to write a memoir |
| D．he liked reading Capote’s books |
| A．Jim Harrison | B．Luis Alberto Urrea |
| C．Truman Capote | D．Big Angel de la Cruz |
| A．Big Angel himself was the boss of his office |
| B．Mexican immigrants were treated unfairly |
| C．Urrea’s family were kicked out of the country |
| D．Urrea heard Trump’s talk ahead of time |
| A．love for the Mexican-American family |
| B．life in the Mexican-American family |
| C．mixed feelings towards American people |
| D．mature reflection on Mexican traditions |
