【推荐2】China Merchants Bank Co Ltd has teamed up with ride-hailing major Didi Kuaidi to provide automobile financing and expand its reach in China's booming mobile payment industry.
The two have inked a comprehensive partnership, which includes a strategic investment by the former in the latter. Under the partnership, CMB will become the first bricks-and-mortar bank that can offer in-app credit card payments to Didi users. At present, users of Didi can only choose third-party payment solutions like WeChat Payment and Alipay to pay cab fares.
Zhao Ju, vice-president of CMB, said the cooperation with Didi was an important step in its mobile Internet finance strategy. “CMB's mobile payment is going to enter a new chapter by leveraging Didi Kuaidi's vast user base," he said.
According to a report by China Internet Network Information Center earlier this month, Didi holds 87.2 percent of China's private car hailing market. The company said it has received 1.43 billion car-hailing requests on its platforms in 2015, which means 1.43 billion payments were made via smartphones.
CMB is expected to use Didi to reach the core users of China's mobile payment market. Jean Liu, president of Didi, said many of the expats prefer payment by credit card rather than Alipay or WeChat. "The new partnership will help improve service quality and customer loyalty," she said. The investment makes CMB part of Didi's existing investors, including Tencent Holdings Ltd, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and China Investment Corporation. Both of the companies declined to reveal the actual amount of the investment.
Liu, who showed up on Tuesday for the first time in public after her treatment for breast cancer, said the cooperation with CMB is for the long run and "the capital investment is only part of it".
Under the partnership, CMB and Didi will cooperate on a wide range of initiatives on financial services and online-to-offline cooperation. Apart from the in-app credit card payments, the two companies are going to launch joint credit cards in late February and automobile financing services for Didi's car owners. CMB's branches across China are expected to help Didi recruit more drivers.
"There is a lot of room for imagination in our partnership," Li said, adding in future people may use their CMB credit card reward points to pay for the ride on Didi.
Li Chao, an analyst with iResearch Consulting Group, said the partnership may not significantly boost CMB's mobile payment business. "Didi has educated the market for three years and its customers have formed the habit of paying by WeChat or Alipay. So I think CMB can only turn a very smart proportion of Didi users into its payment customer," he said. "But the move shows that China's traditional banking industry is finally thinking out of the box and looking for outside partners in Internet finance competition," he said.
Statistics from Big-Data Research showed that more than 90 percent of China's 9.3 trillion yuan ($1.41 trillion) worth of third party mobile payment market is donated by Alibaba and Tencent.
1. Which of the following sentences is true about Didi Kuaidi ?

A．The users of Didi can pay cab fare in cash.

B．At present, Didi holds the largest market of China's private car hailing business.

C．With several years of development, the users of Didi have abandoned the third-party payment.

D．CMB will become the most important investor of Didi.

2. Which of the following is not the purpose of CMB’s cooperation with Didi? .

A．CMB is expected to use Didi to reach the core users of China's mobile payment market.

B．Through the cooperation with Didi, CMB will help improve service quality and customer loyalty.

C．CMB will launch joint credit cards with Didi to expand its service.

D．CMB will turn a very large proportion of Didi users into its payment customer.

3. What can be inferred from the passage?

A．CMB's mobile payment is going to enter a new chapter.

B．China's traditional banking industry is facing fierce Internet finance competition.

C．CMB and Didi will have a online-to-offline cooperation.

D．Mobile payment market is donated by Alibaba and Tencent.

4. What’s Li Chao’ attitude towards the partnership between CMB and Didi?

A．cautious	B．positive
C．indifferent	D．disapproving

5. The main idea of this passage is that ___________.?

A．CMB develops partnership with Didi Kuaidi.

B．CMB is looking for outside partners in Internet finance competition.

C．Didi Kuaidi is going to enter a new chapter.

D．Alibaba and Tencent dominate the mobile payment market.

【推荐3】You’re stuck in a sea of standstill traffic when it begins: hunger pangs, the kind that release a steady stream of fast food fantasizing. With your grumbling stomach growing louder, your options are limited: You can wait a few hours for the roadways to clear or leave your car idling（挂空挡）on the highway while you set off on foot (please don’t do this).

Now Burger King, is betting that hungry drivers will welcome a third option: a direct-to-driver delivery concept the company has labeled the “Traffic Jam Whooper.” Reached by email, Gustavo Lauria, co-founder of the advertising agency We Believers, which developed the vehicle delivery concept, said the new approach allows the burger chain to gain advantage on a time of day in which the city’s terrible traffic typically slows business. “This was an opportunity for Burger King to generate new profits out of those hungry drivers”, Lauria added.

Lauria claims Burger King is the first fast food brand to deliver food to people in the middle of a traffic jam. In Mexico City, the company said, delivery drivers are already receiving an average of 7, 000 orders per day, mostly to homes and offices. To make the traffic jam delivery process possible, Burger Kings Mexico app activates the service after identifying crowded areas in Mexico City during periods of high traffic. Customers can only place an order if the app determines that the driver will be locked in traffic for at least 30 minutes and they are within a 1. 8-mile distance of a Burger King restaurant, the company said.

Early on, Lauria wrote, the act was met with disbelief. The challenges were complex: making sure real-time data of geographic location was accurate enough, and the creation of a hands-free way to take orders on cellphones in a country that has adopted serious punishment for drivers who use cellphones behind the wheel.

Though the company did not offer a timeline, Burger King says it expects to roll out the Traffic Jam Whopper in other overcrowded cities, such as Los Angeles, Sao Paulo and Shanghai.

1. What does the “Traffic Jam Whopper” (paragraph 2) refer to?

A．A proposal intended to ease the traffic jam during peak hours.

B．A practice which allows drivers to have food delivered directly to their cars.

C．A platform which makes it convenient for drivers to order food via cellphones.

D．An association monitoring whether drivers are observing traffic rules strictly.

2. Burger King is launching the Traffic Jam Whopper mainly to ________.

A．promote its business culture	B．make a shift in its sales pattern
C．achieve an increase in its profit	D．popularize its business into more cities

3. What can be inferred from the passage?

A．The Traffic Jam Whopper poses a threat to the safety of cyclists.

B．Drivers will be allowed to type on their cellphones during traffic jams.

C．Technological barriers may block the traffic jam delivery process.

D．Drivers can instantly choose to activate Burger Kings app at will.

【推荐1】I’ve been writing for most of my life. The book Writing Without Teachers introduced me to one distinction and one practice that has helped my writing processes tremendously. The distinction is between the creative mind and the critical mind. While you need to employ both to get to a finished result, they cannot work in parallel no matter how much we might like to think so.

Trying to criticize writing on the fly is possibly the single greatest barrier to writing that most of us encounter. If you are listening to that 5th grade English teacher correct your grammar while you are trying to capture a fleeting (稍纵即逝的) thought, the thought will die. If you capture the fleeting thought and simply share it with the world in raw form, no one is likely to understand. You must learn to create first and then criticize if you want to make writing the tool for thinking that it is.

The practice that can help you past your learned bad habits of trying to edit as you write is what Elbow calls “free writing”. In free writing, the objective is to get words down on paper non-stop, usually for 15-20 minutes. No stopping, no going back, no criticizing. The goal is to get the words flowing. As the words begin to flow, the ideas will come from the shadows and let themselves be captured on your notepad or your screen.

Now you have raw materials that you can begin to work with using the critical mind that you’ve persuaded to sit on the side and watch quietly. Most likely, you will believe that this will take more time than you actually have and you will end up staring blankly at the pages as the deadline draws near.

Instead of staring at a blank start filling it with words no matter how bad. Halfway through your available time, stop and rework your raw writing into something closer to finished product. Move back and forth until you run out of time and the final result will most likely be far better than your current practices.

1. When the author says the creative mind and the critical mind “cannot work in parallel ” in the writing process, he means ______ .

A．one cannot use them at the same time	B．they cannot be regarded as equally important
C．they are in constant conflict with each other	D．no one can be both creative and critical

2. What prevents people from writing on is ______ .

A．putting their ideas in raw form	B．ignoring grammatical soundness
C．attempting to edit as they write	D．trying to capture fleeting thoughts

3. What is the chief objective of the first stage of writing?

A．To organize one’s thoughts logically.	B．To get one’s ideas down.
C．To choose an appropriate topic.	D．To collect raw materials.

4. One common concern of writers about “ free writing ” is that ______ .

A．it overstresses the role of the creative mind	B．it does not help them to think clearly
C．it may bring about too much criticism	D．it takes too much time to edit afterwards

5. In what way does the critical mind help the writer in the writing process?

A．It allows him to sit on the side and observe.	B．It helps him to come up with new ideas.
C．It saves the writing time available to him.	D．It improves his writing into better shape.

【推荐2】Marco Springmann and his colleagues, at the Oxford Martin School’s Future of Food Programme, built computer models that predicted what would happen if everyone became vegetarian by 2050. The results indicate that if the world went vegan (严格的素食主义者), the greenhouse gas emissions declines would be around 70%.

In the US, for example, an average family of four emits more greenhouse gases because of the meal they eat than from driving two cars---but it is cars, not steaks, that regularly come up in discussions about global warming.

Food, especially livestock (牲畜，家畜) also takes up a lot of room. 68% of agricultural land in the world is used for livestock. When these lands become grasslands and forests, they would capture carbon dioxide and further ease climate change.

However, if the whole world went vegan, there would be negative effects too. First, it is necessary to keep livestock for environmental purposes. “I’m sitting here in Scotland where the Highlands’ environment is very man-made and based largely on grazing by sheep,” says Peter Alexander, a researcher in socio-ecological systems modeling at the University of Edinburgh. “If we took all the sheep away, the environment would look different and there would be a potential negative impact on biodiversity.”

Plus, meat is an important part of history, tradition and cultural identity. Numerous groups around the world give livestock gifts at weddings, celebratory dinners such as Christmas with turkey or roast beef.

And nowadays, moderation in meal-eating’s frequency and portion size is key to solving these conflicts. “Certain changes would encourage us to make healthier and more environmentally friendly dietary decisions,” says Springmann, “like putting a higher price lag on meat and making fresh fruits and vegetables cheaper.”

In fact, clear solutions already exist for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the livestock industry. What is lacking is the will to carry out those changes.

1. What can we infer from the underlined sentence in the second paragraph?

A．Driving cars is more dangerous than eating steaks in the US.

B．Our dietary choices affecting climate change is often underestimated.

C．People compare the greenhouse gas emissions of the cars and steaks.

D．Cars affect the global warming more seriously than the steaks.

2. Which saying can best show the author’s attitude to livestock?

A．It is hard to please all.

B．Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

C．One cannot see the wood for the trees.

D．Everything is a double-edged sword.

3. Where is this text most likely from?

A．A biology textbook.	B．A health magazine.
C．A scientific journal.	D．An educational review.

【推荐3】For centuries, people have kept large amounts of cash at home during difficult times. But during the coronavirus (冠状病毒) crisis, things are different. Metal coins and paper money can be a source of worry rather than hope.

The fear is that these objects, possibly touched by thousands of people, could provide a way for the coronavirus to spread. Public officials and health experts have said that the risk is small. Still, some businesses refuse to accept cash and some countries have suggested that their citizens should stop using it altogether.

Zachary Cohle is an economics professor at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. “In many areas, cash was already beginning to disappear due to the increased risk of robbery, the ease of Internet ordering, and the ubiquity (无处不在) of cell phones,” he said. “Sweden, Finland, Norway, Canada and others have slowly reduced cash use to the point where using it in large amounts seems unusual. Britain and Australia are expected to become cashless countries. And in China, cash use has dropped as electronic payment services have increased over the past ten years.”

“Cash ist Fesch” is a common saying in Austria and southern Germany. The words mean cash is beautiful. But since the virus outbreak, shops that have remained open there, like grocery stores, have encouraged people to pay with cards. And Germany’s central bank said 43 percent of Germans recently paid for goods and services with a card. The Bank of Japan estimates that cash makes up 53 percent of household assets (家庭资产). But the threat of the coronavirus could move the country toward going cashless, said Hiroki Maruyama, head of the nonprofit Fintech Association of Japan. He added, “The culture is slowly changing.”

However, cash use is still common in places like West and Central Africa, where many are too poor to pay for the cost of banking services. Dorothy Harpool teaches at Wichita State University’s W. Frank Barton School of Business. Harpool thought some people would rethink their use of cash during the crisis, but she said the world would not be cashless until everyone and every country has a reliable   way to use the Internet.

1. Why is cash regarded as a source of worry?

A．Cash may carry viruses after being used.	B．Cash can’t be used during the crisis.
C．It’s risky to keep a lot of cash at home.	D．Some countries refuse to accept cash.

2. What is paragraph 3 mainly about?

A．The disadvantages of paying in cash.	B．The introduction to cashless countries.
C．The present situation of cash use worldwide.	D．The increasing using of electronic payment.

3. What do we know from the example of Germany and Japan?

A．Shops in Germany only take cash because it’s beautiful.

B．Less than half of the Germans still like to pay goods in cash.

C．More than half of the Japanese prefer to put cash in the bank.

D．The Japanese are changing their traditional attitudes to cash.

4. Why is it impossible for the world to be cashless according to Harpool?

A．The virus crisis will last for a long time.

B．The Internet can not be used in all the countries.

C．The habit of paying in cash is hard to change.

D．People in Africa can’t afford the banking services.

【推荐1】Lately, it’s felt like technological change has entered an incredible speed. Companies like OpenAI and Google have unveiled new Artificial Intelligence systems with incredible capabilities, making what once seemed like science fiction an everyday reality. It's an era that is raising big, existential questions for us all, about everything from the future of human existence to the future of human work.

“Things are changing so fast,”says Erik Brynjolfsson, a leading, technology-focused economist based at Stanford University. As he notes, this new wave of technological change looks like it could be pretty different. Unlike before, experienced and skilled workers benefited mostly from AI technology. In this new wave, it’s the less experienced and less skilled workers who benefit the most.“And that might be helpful in terms of closing some of the inequality that previous technologies actually promoted,” Brynjolfsson says. So one benefit of intelligence machines is-maybe-they will improve the know-how and smarts of low performers, thereby reducing inequality.

But it’s also possible that Al could lower the profit of the experienced, smart, or knowledgeable ones.AI could reduce inequality by bringing the bottom up, and it could also reduce inequality by bringing the top and middle down.

Of course, as Erik put, it’s also possible that Al could end up increasing inequality even more. For one, it could make the Big AI companies, which own these powerful new systems, wildly rich. It could also empower business owners to replace more and more workers with intelligent machines. And it could kill jobs for all but the best of the best in various industries, who keep their jobs because maybe they're superstars or because maybe they have seniority.

The effects of AI, of course, are still very much being studied and these systems are evolving fast, so this is just an assumption. This machine intelligence could upend much of the previous thinking on which kinds of jobs will be affected by automation.

1. What do the underlined words “the know-how and smarts” mean in paragraph 2?

A．Experience and intelligence.	B．Skills and potential.
C．Capacity and experience.	D．Outlook and talents.

2. Who will gain more in this new AI era?

A．The senior with high rank.

B．The inexperienced with low competence

C．The learned with great credit.

D．The poor with practical skills.

3. Which statement will Erik probably agree with?

A．The fast development of AI will promote the division of inequality.

B．AI Giants will be the dominator in the future world of new AI systems.

C．The best of all walks of life will survive the competition against AI systems.

D．Lower rank workers with little knowledge are bound to be abandoned by employers.

4. Which of the following is the best title for the text?

A．The Fast Growth of the Artificial Intelligence

B．The Influence of the AI Inequality

C．The Impact of the Artificial Intelligence

D．The Future of the AI Generation