Skeptical bosses will likely have their doubts reinforced (加深) by the same survey, which shows that 43 percent of workers say they’ve watched TV or a movie while “working” remotely, while 35 percent have done housework，and 28 percent have cooked dinner.
It is true, however，that working at home makes people much more efficient (高效的)， because it allows workers to take care of annoying housework while still getting their jobs done. It’s much faster, for example, to shop for groceries at a quarter to three than to stand in line during the after-work rush.
The fact that such practices remain officially unaccepted reflects how far we haven't come as a society from the days when we expected every full-time worker to be supported by a full-time homemaker.
More broadly the Wakefield survey suggests that employers may be missing a low-cost way to give workers something of value. Sixty-four percent of those survey participants who have worked remotely would rather give up some bonus in order to get even one day a week working from home. Under such circumstances, smart firms need to find ways to let their employees have enough flexibility to manage their time efficiently.
1. Why do some employers hesitate to allow remote working?
| A．They fear losing control of their workers. |
| B．They want to stick to their routine practice. |
| C．They have little trust in modem technology. |
| D．They are used to face-to-face communication. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Favorable. | C．Reserved. | D．Disapproving. |
| A．Shorten their office hours. |
| B．Give employees a pay raise. |
| C．Adopt flexible work patterns. |
| D．Reduce their staff’s workload. |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】Anyone who commutes (通勤) by car knows that traffic jams are an unavoidable part of life. But humans are not alone in facing potential backups.
Ants also commute —between their nest and sources of food. The survival of their colonies depends on doing this efficiently.
When humans commute, there’s a point at which cars become dense (稠密) enough to slow down the flow of traffic, causing jam. Motsch, a mathematician in Arizona State University, and his colleagues wanted to know if ants on the move could also get stuck. So they regulated traffic density by constructing bridges of various widths between a colony of Argentine ants and a source of food. Then they waited and watched. “The goal was to try to find out at what point they are going to have a traffic jam.” said Sebastien Motsch.
But it appears that that never happened. They always managed to avoid traffic jam. The flow of ants did increase at the beginning as ants started to fill the bridge and then levelled off at high densities. But it never slowed down or stopped, even when the bridge was nearly filled with ants.
The researchers then took a closer look at how the behavior of individual ants impacted traffic as a whole. And they found that when ants sense overcrowding, they adjust their speeds and avoid entering high-density areas, which prevents jams. These behaviors may be promoted by pheromones, chemicals that tell other ants where a trail is. The ants also manage to avoid colliding (碰撞) with each other at high densities, which could really slow them down. The study is in the journal eLife.
Can ants help us solve our own traffic problems? Not likely, says Motsch. That’s because when it comes to getting from point A to point B as fast as possible, human drivers put their own goals first. Individual ants have to be more cooperative in order to feed the colony. But the research could be useful in improving traffic flow for self-driving cars, which can be designed to be less like selfish humans— and more like ants.
1. What does the underlined word “this” in para.2 refer to?| A．Surviving. | B．Avoiding jams. |
| C．Finding food. | D．Commuting. |
| A．By controlling the widths of their path. |
| B．By finding out the dense points. |
| C．By regulating their numbers. |
| D．By observing closely. |
| A．they follow a special route |
| B．they level off at high densities |
| C．they depend on their natural chemicals to adjust their speeds |
| D．they never stop or slow down on the way in the whole process |
| A．Traffic Jams | B．Unavoidable? Not for Ants! |
| C．Survival of an Ant Colony | D．Difference between Human and Ants |
【推荐2】Rising temperatures driven by the climate crisis are cutting the sleep of people across the world, the largest study to date has found.
The researchers used data from sleep-tracking wristbands (手环) used by 47,000 people over 7 months and across 68 countries. The analysis revealed that due to increasing night-time temperatures, the average global citizen is losing 44 hours of sleep a year.
However, lost sleep affects some groups much more than others. The sleep loss per degree of warming is about a quarter higher for women than men, twice as high for those over 65 years old and three times higher for those in less affluent nations, where people have less access to cooling features.
Previous studies have shown that rising temperatures damage health, including increasing heart attacks, mental health crises, and accidents and injuries. Poor sleep has also been shown to have these effects, and the researchers say their new study suggests that disturbed sleep may be a key mechanism by which heat causes these health impacts. The researchers say their data shows no signs of people being able to adapt to hotter nights.
“In this study, we provide the first planetary-scale (世界范围的) evidence that warmer than average temperatures cut human sleep,” said Kelton Minor, who led the research. “It’s very likely the effect is more serious.” Minor added that the research had important implications for policymakers, who need to ensure cities, towns and buildings are well adapted to heat in order to reduce the health impacts.
The data used in the study came mainly from richer nations. The wristbands also tended to be worn by people less prone (易于遭受) to sleep disturbance by warmer temperatures. “Lower-income people are underrepresented in the data and we’re well aware of that,” said Minor. He said more research was needed, particularly in places that are already among the hottest in the world.
1. Which is NOT mentioned about the study in paragraph 2?| A．How the data was collected. |
| B．How many respondents were involved. |
| C．The duration of the study. |
| D．The purpose of the study. |
| A．Thickly populated. | B．Badly polluted. |
| C．Wealthy. | D．Equal. |
| A．They cause car accidents. |
| B．They reduce people’s sleep time. |
| C．They result in extreme weather events. |
| D．They limit people’s adaptation ability. |
| A．The study adopted a new research method. |
| B．Some cities have taken firmer action to fight the heat. |
| C．Policymakers have doubts about the study. |
| D．Heat’s impacts may be worse than estimated. |
| A．Its findings. | B．Its limitations. |
| C．Its applications. | D．Its significance. |
【推荐3】You can tell a lot about people's general state of mind based on their social media feeds. Are they always tweeting about their biggest annoyances or posting pictures of particularly cute kitties? In a similar fashion, researchers are turning to Twitter for clues about the overall happiness of entire geographic communities.
What they're finding is that regional variation in the use of common phrases produces predictions that don't always reflect the local state of well being. But removing from their analyses just three specific terms — good, love and LOL — greatly improves the accuracy of the methods.
“We're living in a crazy COVID-19 era. And now more than ever, we're using social media to adapt to a new normal and reach out to the friends and family that we can't meet face-to-face.” Kokil Jaidka studies computational linguistics at the National University of Singapore. “But our words aren't useful just to understand what we, as individuals, think and feel. They're also useful clues about the community we live in.”
One of the simpler methods that many scientists use to analyze the data involves correlating words with positive or negative emotions. But when those records are compared with phone surveys that assess regional well-being, Jaidka says, they don't paint an accurate picture of the local zeitgeist.
Being able to get an accurate read on the mood of the population is no laughing matter.
“That's particularly important now, in the time of COVID, where we're expecting a mental health crisis and we're already seeing in survey data the largest decrease in subjective well-being in 10 years at least, if not ever.”
To find out why, Jaidka and her team analyzed billions of tweets from around the United States. And they found that among the most frequently used terms on Twitter are LOL, love and good. And they actually throw the analysis off. Why the disconnect?
“Internet language is really a different beast than regular spoken language. We've adapted words from the English vocabulary to mean different things in different situations.” says Jaidka. “Take, for example, LOL. I've tweeted the word LOL to express irony, annoyance and sometimes just pure surprise. When the methods for measuring LOL as a marker of happiness were created in the 1990s, it still meant laughing out loud.”
"There are plenty of terms that are less misleading," says Jaidka. "Our models tell us that words like excited, fun, great, opportunity, interesting, fantastic and those are better words for measuring subjective well-being."
1. The researchers turn to social media feeds to________.| A．help with the analysis of people's subjective well-being |
| B．locate the most-frequently used words |
| C．prove the disconnect between language and emotions |
| D．make the prediction method more effective |
| A．It didn't reflect the mood of the entire geographic community |
| B．It didn't match the assessment result of the phone surveys. |
| C．It didn't consider the features of Internet language. |
| D．It didn't take the regional variations into account. |
| A．Face-to-face communication is needed to ensure happiness. |
| B．Internet use is to blame for the decrease in subjective well-being. |
| C．Internet language should be abandoned as a source of scientific analysis. |
| D．Less misleading words should be used in assessing subjective well-being. |
【推荐1】It was a ruling that had consumers seething with anger and many a free trader crying foul. On November 20th the European Court of Justice decided that Tesco, a British supermarket chain, should not be allowed to import jeans made by America’s Levi Strauss from outside the European Union and sell them at cut-rate prices without getting permission first from the jeans maker. Ironically, the ruling is based on an EU trademark directive that was designed to protect local, not American, manufacturers from price dumping. The idea is that any brand-owning firm should be allowed to position its goods and segment its markets as it sees fit: Levi’s jeans, just like Gucci handbags, must be allowed to be expensive.
Levi Strauss persuaded the court that, by selling its jeans cheaply alongside soap powder and bananas, Tesco was destroying the image and so the value of its brands-which could only lead to less innovation and, in the long run, would reduce consumer choice. Consumer groups and Tesco say that Levi’s case is specious. The supermarket argues that it was just arbitraging the price differential between Levi’s jeans sold in America and Europe-a service performed a million times a day in financial markets, and one that has led to real benefits for consumers. Tesco has been selling some 15,000 pairs of Levi’s jeans a week, for about half the price they command in specialist stores approved by Levi Strauss. Christine Cross, Tesco’s head of global non-food sourcing, says the ruling risks “creating a Fortress Europe with a vengeance”.
The debate will rage on, and has implications well beyond casual clothes (Levi Strauss was joined in its lawsuit by Zino Davidoff, a perfume maker). The question at its heart is not whether brands need to control how they are sold to protect their image, but whether it is the job of the courts to help them do this. Gucci, an Italian clothes label whose image was being destroyed by loose licensing and over-exposure in discount stores, saved itself not by resorting to the courts but by ending contracts with third-party suppliers, controlling its distribution better and opening its own stores. It is now hard to find cut-price Gucci anywhere.
Brand experts argue that Levi Strauss, which has been losing market share to hipper rivals such as Diesel, is no longer strong enough to command premium prices. Left to market forces, so-so brands such as Levi’s might well lade away and be replaced by fresher labels. With the courts protecting its prices, Levi Strauss may hang on for longer. But no court can help to make it a great brand again.
1. Which of the following is not true according to Paragraph 1?| A．Consumers and free traders were very angry. |
| B．Only the Levi’s maker can decide the prices of the jeans. |
| C．The ruling has protected Levi’s from price dumping. |
| D．Levi’s jeans should be sold at a high price. |
| A．responsible for oneself | B．having too many doubts |
| C．not as it seems to be | D．raising misunderstanding |
| A．Gucci has successfully saved its own image. |
| B．It has changed its fate with its own effort. |
| C．Opening its own stores is the key to success. |
| D．It should be the court’s duty to save its image. |
| A．Hie rivals are competitive |
| B．it fails to command premium prices |
| C．market forces have their own rules |
| D．the court fails to give some help |
| A．biased | B．indifferent |
| C．puzzling | D．objective |
【推荐2】Costa Rica has a long-standing commitment (投入) to the environment.
In the 1940s, more than three-quarters of the country was covered in mostly rainforests and other woodlands. Then, between the 1940s and 1980s, heavy, uncontrolled logging (伐木) led to serious deforestation (滥伐).
Robert Blasiak, a researcher at the University of Tokyo, said, “Taking a closer look at what Costa Rica has achieved in the past 30 years may be just the driving force needed to make real change all over the world.”
That is exactly what the Costa Rican leaders hope to achieve.
| A．That is exactly what we’ve been doing. |
| B．By 1983, only 26% of the country had forest cover. |
| C．It has dealt with the problem of deforestation effectively. |
| D．They want to encourage other nations to follow their example. |
| E．It is not just advanced for its time but is also incomparable in the world. |
| F．These payments are funded by the country and through international donations. |
| G．The country has established programs for landowners taking part in reforestation. |
【推荐3】An author who surveyed 600 millionaires has claimed that she found the secrets of getting rich. Sarah Stanley Fallaw, the author of The Next Millionaire Next Door: Enduring Strategies for Building Wealth, got her findings after she surveyed American millionaires in 2015 and 2016. The book is a follow-up to her father's research in the 1998 bestseller The Millionaire Next Door, which Thomas J. Stanley wrote with William D. Danko.
Stanley Fallaw argues that resilience (抗逆力) in the face of refusal and strict goal setting are important to building wealth. "To build wealth, to build one's own business, to ignore critics and media and neighbors, you must have the ambition to keep pursuing your goals past refusal and pain," wrote Stanley Fallaw in the new book, according to Business Insider. She added, "Millionaires and other economically successful Americans who decide to climb the corporate ladder (企业晋升制度), or struggle to create a financial independence lifestyle early do so by pushing on without stop."
Stanley Fallaw stresses the importance of setting goals and sticking to them, especially for budgeting. She says that living modestly even as your income grows will allow you to devote a greater percentage of your income towards savings and building wealth. "Most millionaires we interviewed stressed the great freedom that comes from spending below their means," Stanley Fallaw writes.
The author says that the temptation (诱惑) to keep up with the spending habits of the people around can be highly harmful to building wealth. Particularly in the age of social media, when lavish (浪费的) vacations and new purchases are broadcast for the world to see, the perseverance (坚持) to live thriftily (节俭地) is important, Stanley Fallaw argues.
1. How does Sarah Stanley Fallaw find the secret of getting rich?| A．According to her own life experiences. |
| B．By doing surveys on the American millionaires. |
| C．Following her father's book The Millionaire Next Door. |
| D．Following her father's partner William D. Danko's advice. |
| A．Sticking to your goals. | B．Living a thrift (节俭) life. |
| C．Paying attention to others' critics. | D．Persevering through failure. |
| A．To spend below their means. |
| B．To follow others' spending habits. |
| C．To keep away from lavish vacations. |
| D．To avoid the temptation of new purchases. |
| A．What People Should Read | B．Why We Need Strict Goals |
| C．When People Will Become Millionaires | D．How Millionaires Get Rich |
【推荐1】According to a new US study, couples who expect their children to look after them in old age should hope they have daughters because daughters are twice as loving as sons generally.
The research by Angelina Grigoryeva, from Princeton University, found that, while women provide as much care for their elderly parents as they can manage, men do as little as they can get away with and often leave it to female family members.
Her analysis of the family networks of 26, 000 old Americans concluded that gender （性别）is one of the most important things that decide whether or not people will actively care for their elderly parents.
In a paper presented at the annual conference of the American Sociological Association in San Francisco, she concludes that simply having a sister makes men likely provide less care. Using data from the University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study, a study which has been recording those people over 50s for the last decade, she analyzed that women provide an average of 12. 3 hours a month of care for elderly parents while men offer only 5. 6 hours.
“Sons reduce their relative caregiving efforts when they have a sister, while daughters increase theirs when they have a brother.”
“This suggests that sons pass on parent caregiving responsibilities to their sisters.”
In the UK, the 2011 Census showed that there are now around 6.5 million people with caring responsibilities, a figure which has risen by a tenth in a decade.
But many are doing so at the risk of their health. The census showed that those who provide 50 hours or more of care a week while trying to hold down a fulltime job are three times more likely to be struggling with ill health than their working counterparts who are not carers.
1. According to the passage, what’s the key factor to decide if people will actively care for the old?| A．Education. | B．Gender. | C．Career. | D．Income. |
| A．having a sister makes men less likely to look after their parents |
| B．sons are twice as likely as daughters to care for parents in old age |
| C．sons are unwilling to leave caregiving responsibilities to their sisters |
| D．sons and daughters seem to give equal care to their parents |
| A．People should give up their jobs to care for the elderly. |
| B．Many care providers work longer hours than others. |
| C．Many care providers have potential health problems. |
| D．People shouldn’t pass on caring responsibilities to others. |
| A．explaining social networks of careers |
| B．describing people’s experiences |
| C．analyzing various researches and data |
| D．comparing different gender |
【推荐2】Have you ever wondered what goes through your mind when you choose where to sit in a new classroom? Or in a waiting room full of strangers? Or on a bus? Researchers have found out some interesting facts.
Girls sit by girls and boys sit by boys. Adults sit together and young people choose another young people to sit near. But it goes further than this. We even choose to sit near someone who looks like us. People with glasses are more likely to sit near other people with glasses. People with long hair sit closer to other people with long hair.
We seem to believe that people with similar habits or hobbies will share similar experiences and we are more likely to be accepted by people like ourselves, or even, we think we may be safer with people who look like us. Sometimes that’s true but it’s a pity if we always stay with the same people, the same group. The danger in always staying in our comfort zone is that we just recycle the same opinions, the same tastes and the same ideas. We lose the chance to learn something new, find out interesting things, hear funny stories and discover differences.
When we always stay with the same people, how can we break down the barriers which prevent us from getting to know people with different ideas? And how can we avoid the ignorance? If you want to live in a society that opens to changes, new things and different opinions, be the cat among the pigeons.
Move out of your comfort zone. Go and sit next to someone different. And don‘t just sit there in silence. Say hello. Ask a question. Start a conversation. That’s how we make friends. That’s how we learn about people. That’s how we open our minds to new ideas. That’s how we live an exciting life.
1. From the passage, we know that people prefer sitting by someone who________| A．is like themselves | B．has a sense of humor |
| C．is open-minded | D．lives an exciting life |
| A．Remain comfortable and special | B．find out more interesting things |
| C．be accepted easily and feel safe | D．discover differences among themselves |
| A．Paragraph 1 | B．Paragraph 2 | C．Paragraph 3 | D．Paragraph 4 |
| A．联系 | B．隔阂 | C．纽带 | D．熟悉 |
| A．To tell us not to talk with strangers. |
| B．To introduce ways to learn about the world. |
| C．To explain how people communicate with foreigners. |
| D．To encourage us to get along with different people. |
【推荐3】It’s common knowledge that the woman in Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous painting seems to look back at observers, following them with her eyes no matter where they stand in the room. But this common knowledge turns out wrong.
A new studying that the woman in the painting is actually looking out at an angle that’s 15.4 degrees off to the observer’s right-well outside of the range that people normally believe when they think someone is looking right at them. It other words, said the study author, Horstmann, “She’s not looking at you.” This is somewhat ironic, because the entire phenomenon of a person’s gaze (凝视) in a photograph or painting seeming to follow the viewer is called the “Mona Lisa effect”. That effect is absolutely real. Horstmann said. If a person is illustrated or photographed looking straight ahead, even people viewing the portrait from an angle will feel they are being looked at. As long as the angle of the person’s gaze is no more than about 5 degrees off to either side, the Mona Lisa effect occurs.
Horstmann and his co-author were studying this effect for its application in the creation of artificial-intelligence avatars (虚拟头像) when Horstmann took a long at the “Mona Lisa” and realized she wasn’t looking at him. To make sure it wasn’t just him, the researchers asked 24 people to view images of the “Mona Lisa” on a computer screen.
So why do people repeat the belief that her eyes seem to follow the viewer? Horstmann isn’t sure. It’s possible, he said, that people have the desire to be looked at, so they think the woman is looking straight at them. Or maybe the people who first coined the term “Mona Lisa effect” just though it was a cool name.
1. What is generally believed about the woman in the painting “Mona Lisa”?| A．She attracts the viewers to look back. | B．She seems mysterious because of her eyes. |
| C．She fixes her eyes on the back of the viewers. | D．She looks at the viewers wherever they stand. |
A． | B． | C． | D． |
| A．To confirm Horstmann’s belief. |
| B．To create artificial-intelligence avatars. |
| C．To calculate the angle of Mona Lisa’s gaze. |
| D．To explain how the Mona Lisa effect can be applied. |
| A．Horstmann thinks it’s cool to coin the term “Mona Lisa effect”. |
| B．The Mona Lisa effect contributes to the creation of artificial intelligence. |
| C．Feeling being gazed at by Mona Lisa may be caused by the desire for attention. |
| D．The position of the viewer in the experiment will influence the viewers’ judgement. |
【推荐1】Things To Do in Los Angeles on Labor Day weekend, September 18-20, 2020
Families will find fun things to do with your kids this weekend from September 18th to 20th. Make some art, visit a museum, enjoy a drive-in movie, and more!
Bowers Museum
2002 N. Main St., Santa Ana, CA 92706
The Bowers Museum is now open and ready to safely welcome your family. Current exhibitions include Inside the Walt Disney Archives: 50 Years of Preserving the Magic, a 10,000-square-foot traveling exhibit that features more than 400 objects. Timed tickets will be required. Make your reservation online.
The Virtual Orange County Children’s Book Festival
3857 Birch Street, Suite 414, Newport Beach, CA 92660
The Virtual Orange County Children’s Book Festival begins on Monday, September 14th and continues until Saturday, September 26th. A variety of activities are planned including story times, illustrating demonstrations, interactive activities, discussion panels, and much more. Check the website for a complete schedule of events.
Sawdust Art Festival: An Outdoor Marketplace
935 Laguna Canyon Rd., Laguna Beach, CA 92651
The Sawdust Art Festival: An Outdoor Marketplace opens this weekend on Saturday, September 19th from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm. The Outdoor Marketplace will be open on weekends only, and advance tickets are required. Families will have the opportunity to safely shop, watch live art demonstrations, and enjoy outdoor dining and live music. Tickets are available online. Admission is $10 for adults and free for kids 12 and under.
Drive-In Movies at the Mall: The Princess Bride
500 Lakewood Mall, Lakewood, CA
Enjoy a drive-in screening of The Princess Bride at the Lakewood Center Mall on Saturday, September 19th. The movie starts at 8:00 pm and the parking lot is not accessible until 7:00 pm. A free goody bag will be provided to each car. Tickets are available online.
1. Which of the following does NOT require tickets?| A．Bowers Museum. |
| B．Sawdust Art Festival. |
| C．Drive-In Movies at the Mall. |
| D．The Virtual Orange County Children’s Book Festival. |
| A．Appreciate live music. | B．See drive-in movies. |
| C．Enjoy dining indoors. | D．Watch free art demonstrations. |
| A．6:25 pm, September 19th. | B．7:25 pm, September 19th. |
| C．9:00 pm, September 19th. | D．8:25 pm, September 19th. |
【推荐2】British scientists monitoring the symptoms(症状) of COVID-19 say a loss of the sense of smell and an inability to taste food should be added to the list of well-known indicators(指标) of COVID-19, which include a high temperature, sore throat, and persistent(持续的) dry cough.
The scientists made the discovery after analyzing data collected through an app. The data was gleaned from interactions between 1.8 million users and the app between March 24 and March 31.The team looked at the information harvested from the app and developed a mathematical model that was able to conclude which symptoms in combination were the best at predicting who would subsequently test positive for the disease. The total basket of symptoms included fever, persistent cough, fatigue, diarrhea, abdominal pain, loss of appetite, and loss of smell and taste.
"When combined with other symptoms, people with loss of smell and taste appear to be three times more likely to have contracted COVID-19 according to our data, and should therefore self-isolate for seven days to reduce the spread of the disease," Tim Spector, the King's College professor who led the study, told the Reuters news agency.
However, the team said that a loss of smell and taste can also be an indicator of other infections(感染), such as a common cold, so not everyone with those symptoms will have COVID-19.
They said a high fever and persistent cough remain the most important indicators of COVID-19 and the loss of smell and taste should only be noted if they are in combination with other symptoms. So far, Public Health England and the World Health Organization said more research is needed.
1. The list of well-known indicators of COVID-19 does not include _______.| A．high temperature | B．persistent dry cough |
| C．a loss of the sense of hearing | D．sore throat |
| A．People who have lost the sense of smell and taste should self-isolate for 7 days. |
| B．His team developed a mathematical model to find out the positive cases. |
| C．A loss of smell and taste can also be an indicator of other infections. |
| D．A loss of smell and taste alone can be used as an indicator of COVID-19. |
| A．The data was collected through an app within two weeks. |
| B．People who can’t smell or taste must have contracted COVID-19. |
| C．A loss of smell and taste should be considered as one of the indicators of contracting the virus. |
| D．Patients of COVID-19 are more likely to lose the sense of smell than those with a common cold. |
| A．A common cold and COVID-19. |
| B．Why we lost the ability of smell and taste. |
| C．What we should do during the COVID-19 pandemic. |
| D．New probable symptoms of COVID-19. |
【推荐3】Over the last few years, cartoon pictograms have become an important part of how many people communicate. In recent years, there has been a push to include more diversity in emoticons, like adding new options for a variety of skin tones in smiley faces.
But when people from the Te Puia Maori cultural center in Rotorua, New Zealand, looked at existing emojis, they realized there was an opportunity to create some that reflected their country’s native cultures. They designed more than 150 emoticons that have named “Emotikis.” The pictograms include traditional objects from Maori culture. The set even includes a number of animated emoji gifs.
But while the Maori emojis may be designed with fun in mind, Kiri Atkinson-Crean, Te Puia spokesperson, says they give Maori youth a way to communicate with each other online using signifiers from their own culture.
“All they could use were expressions and symbols from other countries—we wanted to give them an opportunity to express themselves through another form of this language with Maori culture Emotikis,” said Atkinson-Crean.
Even so, there is more to texting than emoticons. Many languages are inexpressible with the limited symbols available for most smartphone keyboards, and many of those languages are at risk of disappearing.
In Canada, there are more than 60 different native languages spoken by First Nations people, but many of these languages are at risk of disappearing. During the late 19th century, government policies tore First Nations children from their parents in order to forcibly absorb them into Euro-Canadian and Christian culture. Raised in state-run schools, they were forbidden to speak their native languages.
Native groups have advocated for years to have their languages officially recognized by Canada. To protect their languages, they’re also turning to technology for solutions. For example, the FirstVoices Keyboard is a free app for iPhone and Android smartphones that allows anyone to write in more than 100 native languages from around the world.
Many native languages require characters that weren’t available on smartphone, tablets and the like. So Alex Wadsworth, who developed the FirstVoice Keyboard, programmed in these characters and then applied his keyboards to use for text messaging and writing emails. “You can text an elder now,” says Wadsworth.
1. Why did the Te Puia Maori cultural center designed Emotikis?| A．To preserve their culture. | B．To keep up with the world. |
| C．To enrich the life of Maori youth. | D．To help Maori youth communicate easily. |
| A．They are popular in Canada. | B．They will endanger native language. |
| C．They are too limited to express fully. | D．They include many symbols from different countries. |
| A．They were once forbidden in many schools. |
| B．Many of them disappeared from literary usage. |
| C．They were once officially recognized by Canada. |
| D．Many of them served as a bridge to learn English. |
| A．It is designed for elders. | B．It offers many languages. |
| C．It has been advocated officially. | D．It can be bought on smartphone. |
