Two years ago, Rupert Murdoch’s daughter, Elisabeth, spoke of the “disturbing lack of integrity across so many of our institutions”. Integrity had collapsed, she argued, because of a collective acceptance that the only “sorting mechanism” in society should be profit and the market. But “it’s us, human beings who create the society we want, not profit”.
Driving her point home, she continued: “It’s increasingly apparent that the absence of purpose, of a moral language within government, media or business could become one of the most dangerous drivers for capitalism and freedom.” This same absence of moral purpose was wounding companies such as News International, she thought, making it more likely that it would lose its way as it had with widespread illegal telephone hacking.
As the hacking trial concludes – finding guilty one ex-editor of the News of the World, Andy Coulson, for conspiring to hack phones, and finding his predecessor, Rebekah Brooks, innocent of the same charge –the wider issue of lack of integrity still stands. Journalists are known to have hacked the phones of up to 5,500 people. This is hacking on an industrial scale, as was acknowledged by Glenn Mulcaire, the man hired by the News of the World in 2001 to be the point person for phone hacking. Others await trial. This long story still unfolds.
In many respects, the lack of moral purpose frames not only the fact of such widespread phone hacking but the terms on which the trial took place. One of the astonishing revelations was how little Rebekah Brooks knew of what went on in her newsroom, how little she thought to ask and the fact that she never inquired how the stories arrived. The core of her successful defence was that she knew nothing.
In today’s world, title has become normal that well-paid executives should not be accountable for what happens in the organizations that they run, and perhaps we should not be so surprised. For a generation, the collective doctrine(主义) has been that the sorting mechanism of society should be profit. The words that have mattered are efficiency, flexibility, shareholder value, business–friendly, wealth generation, sales, impact and, in newspapers, circulation. Words degraded to the margin have been justice, fairness, tolerance, proportionality and accountability.
The purpose of editing the News of the World was not to promote reader understanding, to be fair in what was written or to betray any common humanity. It was to ruin lives in the quest for circulation and impact. Ms Brooks may or may not have had suspicions about how her journalists got their stories, but she asked no questions, gave no instructions—nor received traceable, recorded answers.
1. According to the first two paragraphs, Elisabeth was upset by ________.| A．the consequences of the current sorting mechanism |
| B．companies’ financial loss due to immoral practices |
| C．governmental ineffectiveness on moral issues |
| D．the wide misuse of integrity among institutions |
| A．Glem Mulcaire may deny phone hacking as a crime |
| B．more journalists may be found guilty of phone hacking |
| C．Andy Coulson should be held innocent of the charge |
| D．phone hacking will be accepted on certain occasions |
| A．generally distorted values | B．unfair wealth distribution |
| C．an unpopular lifestyle | D．a strict moral code |
| A．The quality of writing is of primary importance. |
| B．Common humanity is central to news reporting. |
| C．Moral awareness matters in editing a newspaper. |
| D．Journalists need stricter industrial regulations. |
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【推荐1】It’s time to reevaluate how women handle conflict at work. Being overworked or over-committed at home and on the job will not get you where you want to be in life. It will only slow you down and hinder(阻碍) your career goals.
Did you know women are more likely than men to feel exhausted? Nearly twice as many women than men ages 18-44 reported feeling drained of energy, according to a recent study.
This may not be surprising given that this is the age range when women have children. It’s also the age range when many women are trying to balance careers and home. One reason women may feel exhausted is that they have a hard time saying “no.” Women want to be able to do it all—volunteer for school parties or cook delicious meals—and so their answer to any request is often “Yes, I can.”
Women struggle to say “no” in the workplace for similar reasons, including the desire to be liked by their colleagues. Unfortunately, this inability to say “no” may be hurting women’s health as well as their career.
At the workplace, men use conflict as a way to position themselves, while women often avoid conflict or strive to be the peacemaker, because they don’t want to be viewed as aggressive at work. For example, there’s a problem that needs to be addressed immediately, resulting in a dispute over who should be the one to fix it. Men are more likely to face that dispute from the perspective of what benefits them most, whereas women may approach the same dispute from the perspective of what’s the easiest and quickest way to resolve the problem—even if that means doing the boring work themselves.
This difference in handling conflict could be the deciding factor on who gets promoted to a leadership position and who does not. Leaders have to be able to assign tasks and manage resources wisely. Shouldering more of the workload may not earn you that promotion. Instead, it may highlight you inability to effectively make use of what you have.
1. What does the author say is the problem with women?| A．They are often unclear about the career goals to reach. |
| B．They are usually more committed at home than on the job. |
| C．They tend to be over-optimistic about how far they could go. |
| D．They tend to push themselves beyond the limits of their ability. |
| A．weak | B．unhappy | C．stressful | D．tired |
| A．That women usually avoid conflict and strive to be the peacemaker is because their men colleagues are more aggressive. |
| B．When there is an urgent problem to address, women are more likely to do the task as they usually respond quicker than man. |
| C．Men and women differ in their approach to resolving workplace conflicts in that women are more ready to compromise. |
| D．Men have more chances to be leaders because they are able take advantage of others and shoulder less workload. |
| A．A training course teaching women to say “no”. |
| B．A campaign for more women rights. |
| C．A debate on whether woman is capable of working on the job. |
| D．A sharing on how woman can balance work and family. |
【推荐2】On a recent visit to the Museum of Modern Art with a friend and her daughter, wandering through the museum’s exhibits, I was struck by how often my friend's 13-year-old daughter asked us to take photos of her with her smart phone in front of the artwork. Then, she gazed at the photos which she would then post on Instagram, Snapchat and all the rest. She was not the only person who was doing this; it seemed everyone was busy taking photos of themselves “experiencing” the museum.
This is by no means a criticism of my friend’s daughter or anyone else. What was concerning, at least to me, was that in between being photographed and posting, my friend’s daughter had no interest in the artwork, a fact which didn’t seem to matter or have anything to do with wanting to post herself as someone enjoying the experience.
When I was her age. I had no interest in going to museums either. Having no interest in art at her age (and any age) is completely normal. But what is disturbing is how much of a young person’s energy these days goes into creating an image of the life they’re living and the character they “are” in that life. While creating a self-image has always been a big part of growing up and figuring out our identity, social media seems to have changed the rules of the game. Social media has not just increased the pressure and possibility of creating, a self-generated (自我创造的) self-image, but also distorted (歪曲) the process through which we become who we are. Young people now seem to be creating an image of who they are in place of becoming who they are, posting their life rather than living it. The effort that goes into creating an identity and getting it noticed or “followed” has replaced the effort of actually getting interested in the life that they are posting.
Social media has turned life and its experiences into an exercise in narcissism (自我陶醉). No matter what the experience is actually about, it becomes about you, the person who is living it. A concert is not about the music, a restaurant not about the food, and a sports event not about the sport; it’s all about you, the doer, and what the event says about you. Life experiences are not lived directly so much as they are used as chances of announcing what kind of person you are. Life now is a product through which you promote your image, but with little connection to whether that screen image accurately reflects the inside you.
As a result, the more we use life to create an identity, the more distant from life we feel. Instead of being part of it, we feel as if we have to keep generating new life material, which will announce and establish us. In the meanwhile, the gap between us and life grows wider and wider.
I hope the next time you post your story, pause for a moment and experience where you are, feel what it feels like to live what you ‘re living without using life for your benefit, or for anything at all. Just live, without the narrative (叙述). While you may feel this practice is a threat to your identity, causing you to miss a chance to prove your value, in fact, the benefit will far outweigh any loss it brings.
1. According to the author, the fact that her friend’s daughter was not interested in the artwork is ________.| A．worrying | B．unsurprising |
| C．unchangeable | D．unbearable |
| A．Their desire for being well known. |
| B．Their increased focus on life. |
| C．The influence of social media |
| D．The pressure from their family and friends. |
| A．prevent them behaving properly |
| B．stand in the way of leading a true life |
| C．cause them to depend more on the remarks of others |
| D．damage their creativity in producing life material |
| A．trying to take control of your feelings |
| B．facing the threat to your identity bravely |
| C．improving your self-image through writing |
| D．experiencing what you’re doing practically |
【推荐3】Why stress and anxiety aren’t always bad
People generally think of stress and anxiety as negative concepts, but while both stress and anxiety can reach unhealthy levels, psychologists have long known that both are unavoidable - and that they often play a helpful, not harmful role in our daily lives, according to a presentation at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association.
“Many Americans now feel stressed about being stressed and anxious about being anxious,” said Lisa Damour, PhD, a private-practice psychologist who presented at the meeting.
Stress usually occurs when people operate at the edge of their abilities - when they push themselves or are forced by circumstances to stretch beyond their familiar limits, according to Damour.
“It’s important for psychologists to share our knowledge about stress with broad audiences that stress is a given in daily life, that working at the edge of our abilities often builds those capacities and that moderate levels of stress can actually have an inoculating (预防的) function, which leads to higher than average resilience (适应力) when we are faced with new difficulties,” she said.
Viewing anxiety as sometimes helpful and protective allows people to make good use of it. For example, Damour said she often tells the teenagers she works with in her practice to pay attention if they start to feel anxious at a party because their nerves may be alerting them to a problem.
“In other words, stress causes harm when it exceeds any level that a person can reasonably absorb or use to build psychological strength,” she said.
| A．Anxiety, too, gets some unnecessarily criticism, according to Damour |
| B．Unfortunately, by the time someone reaches out to a professional for help, stress and anxiety have already built to unhealthy levels |
| C．That doesn’t mean that stress and anxiety can’t be harmful, said Damour |
| D．Anyone feeling overwhelmed by stress should, if possible, take measures to reduce his or her stress |
| E．It’s also important to understand that stress can result from both bad and good events |
| F．Likewise, anxiety becomes unhealthy when its alarm makes no sense |
【推荐1】Based on a true story, the novel Safe as Houses by Eric Walters is an amazing book. It is about a 13—year—old girl named Elizabeth Hardy who babysits the McBride children David and Suzie. One rainy, stormy evening they walk home from school. When they arrive home, water floods (淹没) the backyard, cuts the power and floods roads, which stops Mr. and Mrs. McBride from coming home. Soon the flooding begins to invade the McBrides' home and Elizabeth, David, Suzie and their dog Daisy try very hard to escape and survive the flood,
My favorite character is David because I find him very funny and brave, and although he can be stubborn and rude at times, he is still a nice and friendly person. As much as I want to be like David I could never be like him. At least, I don't think I could ever do something as brave as he does.
I think Eric Walters does a great job in describing the characters and telling the story. I really feel like this all just happened in front of my eyes. Ever since I started reading Safe as Houses I never wanted to put the book down, and considering I was not a big fan of reading that did not happen very often. Safe as Houses changed my opinion in regard to reading and now I enjoy reading very much.
Eric Walters' writing career (生涯) all started in 1993 when Eric was teaching a grade 5 class. His students were not good readers and did not like reading, so Eric created a book called Stand Your Ground for his students and used some of the students' names to create the story. Ever since Eric published (出版) that book he has become a big time writer and has published many amazing different books like Camp X, Tiger Trap, Camp 30, We All Fall Down and Flyboy.
1. What happened on that particular evening?| A．A 13—year—old girl got lost. |
| B．A terrible rainstorm broke out. |
| C．Three children were trapped on the way home |
| D．The McBrides' home was completely destroyed by floods. |
| A．His creativity. | B．His great skill. |
| C．His personality. | D．His good behavior. |
| A．He is a man full of courage. |
| B．He used to enjoy reading very much. |
| C．He is very like David in Safe as Houses. |
| D．He has been greatly affected by Safe as Houses. |
| A．To record his students stories. | B．To encourage his students to read. |
| C．To state the importance of reading. | D．To teach his students they can be writers. |
【推荐2】I don't realize that I've been at college for nearly one and half year until now. Looking back into the last year, what shall I say? It consisted of both happiness and sadness. Life always goes like this, up and down, as is so exciting. Now when I recall the past, no matter how I felt at that time, they are all treasures for me.
That was the moon festival last year, which was also the first time we went out after we entered the college. It was said that the sea in Dalian was well-known and was also a wonderful place to watch the moon. After getting all the food and drinking ready, we four girls set off for the seaside. There were many people and we picked up a less crowded beach. At first, we enjoyed ourselves by drinking and eating. When the moon turned brighter, we played with the seawater. As a result, we were all drenched with water. Bathing in the moonlight, we ran and laughed. We seemed to land on another world, where was full of fresh air, laughter and love. The laughter is still echoing on my mind so far.
Life doesn't stay the same, occasionally having a particular taste. That is sadness. What impressed me deeply is a failure in a singing competition. It was the first time I had given a performance on such a large stage in front of so many people. I was so nervous that the whole song was performed out of tune. As you could imagine, I was greeted with boos from the audience. I still remembered how dismal I felt that moment and I sat alone crying at the seaside. After that, I talked to mother about it. She told me that it was not a failure; at least, I was brave enough to show myself publicly.
Everything has passed. I’ve stored them at the bottom of my heart. I am in the second grade already. Yet much needs me to challenge. On the way, there's both happiness and distress. However, I will go ahead just all the same.
1. The underlined word ''drenched'' in the second paragraph has a similar meaning with _______.| A．dried | B．wet |
| C．frozen | D．washed away |
| A．full of happiness | B．filled with sadness |
| C．made up of laughter and tears | D．not worth living |
| A．It was wonderful | B．It was disappointing |
| C．The passage doesn’t say | D．It was perfect |
| A．A friend in need is a friend indeed. |
| B．Do wrong once and you’ll never hear the end of it. |
| C．Where there is a will, there is a way. |
| D．Time and tide wait for no man. |
【推荐3】In Britain, business leaders are becoming increasingly concerned that growing numbers of new employees are unable to divide a real pie into eight equal slices.
There are so many examples of the shortage of basic literacy and numeration (读写和计算) skills among many school and university leavers.
A report from the Confederation of British Industry says the problem is so bad that one in three employers has to send staff for training to learn the English and maths they did not learn at school.
“Employers’ views on numeration and literacy are clear — people must read and write fluently and must be able to carry out basic mental arithmetic (算术).” Richard Lambert, director general of the CBI, said.
The CBI report, Working on the Three R’s, which was sponsored by the Department for Education, found that poor literacy was a problem in all fields, while poor numeration was of particular concern in the manufacturing and construction field.
One company manager complained of a “total lack of knowledge of timetables” among staff, which meant many were unable to carry out simple calculations.
A personnel manager for a construction firm said that many applicants were unable to construct a sentence and that grammar, and their handwriting and spelling were often “awful”. He also mentioned the case of an employee who became very expert at hiding his lack of literacy by getting his wife to write his reports for him. The problems are not limited to school leavers, but extend to higher levels of the education system, the CBI said.
1. What would be the best title for the text?| A．How to Divide a Pie into Eight Parts |
| B．How to Grasp Basic Literacy and Numeration Skills |
| C．British School Leavers Lack Basic Literacy and Numeration Skills |
| D．Train School Leavers to Learn English and Maths |
| A．literacy problems go beyond the education system. |
| B．an employee asked his mother to write reports for him |
| C．the schools were to blame for the lack of literacy skills |
| D．the applicants were poor students in school |
| A．offer ways to improve the school leavers’ basic skill |
| B．criticize the existing education system |
| C．present some information about school leavers |
| D．make comments on employment |
【推荐1】Some houses are designed to be smart. Others have smart designs. An example of the second type of house won an Award of Excellence from the American Institute of Architects.
Located on the shore of Sullivan’s Island off the coast of South Carolina, the award-winning cube-shaped beach house was built to replace one smashed to pieces by Hurricane Hugo a few years ago. Hugo struck Soutii Carolina, killing 18 people and damaging or destroying 36,000 homes in the state.
Before Hugo, many new houses built along South Carolina’s shoreline were poorly constructed, and enforcement of building codes wasn’t strict, according to architect Ray Huff, who created the cleverly-designed beach house. In Hugo’s wake, all new shoreline houses are required to meet stricter, better-enforced codes. The new beach house on Sullivan’s Island should be able to withstand a Category 3 hurricane with peak winds of 179 to 209 kilometers per hour.
At first sight, the house on Sullivan’s Island looks anything but hurricane-proof. Its redwood shell makes it resemble “a large party lantern” at night, according to one observer. But looks can be deceiving. The housed wooden frame is reinforced with long steel rods to give it extra strength.
To further protect the house from hurricane damage, Huff raised it 2.7 meters off the ground on timber (木材) pilings — long, slender columns of wood anchored deep in the sand. Pilings might appear insecure, but they are strong enough to support the weight of the house. They also elevate the house above storm surges. The pilings allow the surges to run under the house instead of running into it. “These swells of water come ashore at tremendous speeds and cause most of the damage done to beach-front buildings,” said Huff.
Huff designed the timber pilings to be partially concealed (隐藏) by the house’s ground-to-roof shell. “The shell masks the pilings so that the house doesn’t look like it’s standing with its pant legs pulled up,” said Huff. In the event of a storm surge, the shell should break apart and let the waves rush under the house, the architect explained.
1. The award-winning beach house is quite strong because ________.| A．it is strengthened by steel rods | B．it is made of redwood |
| C．it is in the shape of a shell | D．it is built with timber and concrete |
| A．withstand peak winds of about 200 km/hr |
| B．anchor stronger pilings deep in the sand |
| C．break huge sea waves into smaller ones |
| D．prevent water from rushing into the house |
| A．to strengthen the pilings of the house |
| B．to give the house a better appearance |
| C．to protect the wooden frame of the house |
| D．to slow down the speed of the swelling water |
| A．fancy-looking | B．waterproof |
| C．easily breakable | D．extremely strong |
【推荐2】British artist Amy Sharrocks collects nearly all kinds of water. In 2013 she set up the Museum of Water, a live piece of artwork that travels all over the world and invited people to donate water—from spit to melted snow—in a bottle and discuss what it means to them.
The program aims to understand why people treasure water and help prepare them for a drier future and climate，Ms. Sharrocks told an audience of climate experts, activists and museum curators(馆长). ''For example, we show them how to have three minute showers to better deal with water shortages，'' she said.
Amy is not alone as a matter of fact. As world leaders increasingly face up to the serious results of climate change，curators are planning a new wave of museums, which are devoted to what many consider a vital issue of the times. In 2015, a former lawyer Miranda Massie created the first United States museum which was entirely devoted to climate change in New York City. ''Climate change is affecting virtually every aspect of our lives，'' Ms. Massie said. ''But we can't fight the problem with topdown policies alone. We need the public to participate and museums are a way to open people's mind to what matters. ''
Bridget McKenzie, director of Flow Associates, wanted to raise awareness of the dilemma of the Pacific island nations, which are particularly vulnerable(易受伤害的) to rising sea level. So with her team she set up a ''ghost boat'' made of old fish nets at the University of Cambridge's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, and asked visitors what they would take with them if they were suddenly forced to leave their homes.
While museums can be a powerful way of communicating the effects of climate change, they should also practice what they spread and control their own emissions (排放物). ''Roughly half of cities' emissions come from energy use in buildings, '' said Elliot Goodger, a museums' association representative of the West Midlands in Britain，''museums have a duty to be energy efficient, for example, by using laser lighting for displays or improving their building materials. ''
1. Why did Amy Sharrocks set up the Museum of Water?| A．To help people get rid of water shortages. |
| B．To collect some special water worldwide. |
| C．To remind people to attach importance to water. |
| D．To warn people of the danger of a drier future. |
| A．Fighting climate change demands joint efforts. |
| B．More climate museums should be built in future. |
| C．Climate change is a matter of concern to the public. |
| D．Policy responses to climate change need improving. |
| A．What is valuable to people. |
| B．What causes sea level to rise. |
| C．Rising sea level puts people's homes at risk. |
| D．The Earth's climate change endangers fishing. |
| A．Take the initiative. |
| B．Lead by example. |
| C．Change their traditional functions. |
| D．Add climate topics to their programs. |
【推荐3】Having your nose in a book might seem a little anti-social at times—but reading could actually make you a kinder, more considerate person, a study has found. Readers were more likely to act in a socially acceptable manner, while those who preferred watching television came across as less friendly and less understanding of others’ views, researchers said.
123 participants in the study were quizzed on their preferences for books, TV and plays at Kingston University, London. They were then tested on how much they considered people’s feelings and whether they acted to help others. Researchers told the British Psychological Society conference in Brighton yesterday that fiction fans showed more positive social behavior.
Readers of drama and romance novels were also empathetic, while lovers of experimental books showed the ability to see things from different directions. Comedy fans scored the highest for relating to others. The study suggested reading allows people to see different points of view enabling them to understand others better.
The researchers added, “Exposure to fiction relates to a range of empathetic abilities. Engaging with fictional prose and comedy in particular could be key to improving people’s empathetic abilities.”
However, the authors warned the study did not prove cause-and-effect. So it could be that reading causes positive behavior, or it could be that thoughtful, well-mannered people are more likely to prefer reading. So it is a good idea to pick up a book to begin your travel with the author. Each author will show how they would react to certain situations through their characters. Everyone can view the same situation differently, and from 1,001 different angles. The more you read, the much better you can understand other peoples’ opinions.
1. Why did the writer mention the result of watching television?| A．The writer is a anti-social reporter. | B．The writer shows benefits of reading. |
| C．The writer is a considerate person. | D．The writer becomes socially acceptable. |
| A．The skills of communicating. | B．The time of reading books. |
| C．The places of getting new books. | D．The ways of expressing feelings. |
| A．Readers of drama. | B．Writers of romance novels. |
| C．Readers of comedy. | D．Readers of experiments. |
【推荐1】Every day Yang Hongwei takes the bus home from work, staring silently at the European-style villas(别墅), luxury cars and twinkling lights from the shopping center that he sees through the window.
Yang works for a software company in Zhongguancun. He dreams of such a life, away from poverty, and that hope has kept him in Beijing for three years since he graduated from university.
Soon Yang squeezes his way off the bus to the reality of his life: his home-a 10-square-metre room that costs 550 yuan or about one-fifth of his salary in rent every month. It’s very cold inside the house as it has no central heating system. He has to stand the long and cold winter. Determined to achieve his dream, Yang says he has changed jobs “numerous” times in the past three years and is considering quitting his present job.
Yang’s frustration over his life as a migrant(移民) is shared by many other graduates that have moved into big cities. Together they have come to be called the “ant tribe”, a term created by Chinese sociologists to describe the struggles of young migrants, who, armed with their diplomas, flood to big cities in hopes of a better life only to put up with low-paying jobs and poor living conditions. They share every similarity with ants. They live in colonies in crowded areas. They’re intelligent and hardworking, yet unknown and underpaid. The term, sociologists have said, also reflects their helplessness in a world governed by the law of the concrete jungle-only the strongest survive.
A survey in Ant TribeⅡ found nearly 30 percent of the “ants” are graduates of famous key universities-almost three times the percentage of 2009. Most have degrees in popular majors, such as medicine, engineering, economics and management. In addition, 7.2 percent of the “ants” have at least a master’s degree compared to 1.6 percent in 2009. Most said the economic recovery did not really improve their financial situations, and 66 percent said their incomes fell short of their expectations, the survey also found.
For two years, Lian Si, a post-doctoral fellow at the Center for Chinese and Global Affairs of Peking University, who has studied the phenomenon, led a team of more than 100 graduate students to follow the groups in university towns like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Wuhan and Xi’an. Lian evaluates the total population of the “ant community” in major cities at one million across China, with about 100,000 found in Beijing alone. Lian predicts that an increasingly challenging job market will see the ant tribe growing further in number. Another 6.3 million graduates are expected to join migrant workers and other job hunters in what promises to be a fierce labor competition.
The ant tribe’s embarrassing living situations have become a serious social issue, and the government should develop “second-and-third-tier cities” to attract more graduates from big cities. However, “ants” expect more study and training opportunities in big cities, which keeps them in positive mindsets despite their situations. As in the case of Yang, he is optimistic about getting a new job soon, having received eight interview offers in a week after sending out his resume. The prospect of landing a higher-paying job keeps him hopeful of moving out of the slum district(贫民区) soon. The sooner, the better.
1. Yang has worked in Beijing since graduation from university ______.| A．to live in a beautiful villa of European style |
| B．to have more opportunities to be promoted |
| C．to enjoy a busy life in a software company |
| D．to struggle for a better-off life in a big city |
| A．It refers to the group of low-income graduates living in embarrassing conditions. |
| B．It refers to the people who work hard like ants but are paid little. |
| C．It refers to the sociologists and scholars researching into some social phenomena. |
| D．It refers to some well-educated people who can’t survive in society. |
| A．“Ant tribe” has become too serious a social problem to solve. |
| B．It is the government’s duty to solve the problem of “ant tribe”. |
| C．Both the government and the graduates have the responsibility. |
| D．The existence of “ant tribe” has little influence on job markets. |
| A．the “ant tribe’s” dream and reality |
| B．a recent survey about the “ant tribe” |
| C．the “ant tribe’s” living conditions |
| D．a new urban lifestyle-”ant tribe” |
【推荐2】When prehistoric man arrived in new parts of the world, something strange happened to the large animals. They suddenly became extinct. Smaller species survived. The large, slow-growing animals were easy game, and were quickly hunted to extinction. Now something similar could be happening in the oceans.
That the seas are being overfished has been known for years. What researchers such as Ransom Myers and Boris Worm have shown is just how fast things are changing. They have looked at half a century of data from fisheries around the world. Their methods do not attempt to estimate the actual biomass (the amount of living biological matter) of fish species in particular parts of the ocean, but rather changes in that biomass over time. According to their latest paper published in Nature, the biomass of large predators (animals that kill and eat other animals) in a new fishery is reduced on average by 80% within 15 years of the start of exploitation. In some long-fished areas, it has halved again since then.
Dr. Worm acknowledges that the figures are conservative. One reason for this is that fishing technology has improved. Today's vessels (船)can find their prey using satellites and sonar, which were not available 50 years ago. That means a higher proportion of what is in the sea is being caught, so the real difference between present and past is likely to be worse than the one recorded by changes in catch sizes. In the early days, too, longlines (多钩长线) would have been more filled with fish. Some individuals would therefore not have been caught, since no baited hooks (带饵钩)would have been available to trap them, leading to an underestimate of fish stocks in the past. Furthermore, in the early days of longline fishing, a lot of fish were lost to sharks after they had been hooked. That is no longer a problem, because there are fewer sharks around now。
Dr. Myers and Dr. Worm argue that their work gives a correct baseline, which future management efforts must take into account. They believe the data support an idea current among marine biologists, that of the “shifting baseline". The idea is that people have failed to detect the massive changes which have happened in the ocean because they have been looking back only a relatively short time into the past. That matters because theory suggests that the maximum sustainable yield （产量）that can be cropped from a fishery comes when the biomass of a target species is about 50% of its original levels. Most fisheries are well below that, which is a bad way to do business.
1. The extinction of large prehistoric animals is noted to suggest that .| A．large animals were easily hurt in the changing environment |
| B．small species survived as large animals disappeared |
| C．large sea animals may face the same threat today |
| D．slow-growing fish outlive fast-growing ones |
| A．fishing technology has improved rapidly |
| B．the catch-sizes are actually smaller than recorded |
| C．the marine biomass has suffered a greater loss |
| D．the data collected so far are out of date |
| A．people should look for a baseline that can't work for a longer time |
| B．fisheries should keep the yield below 50% of the biomass |
| C．the ocean biomass should restore its original level |
| D．people should adjust the fishing baseline to changing situation |
【推荐3】With the coming of big data age, data science is supposed to be starved for, of which the adaption can point a profound change in corporate competitiveness. Companies, both born in the digital era and traditional world are showing off their skills in data science. Therefore, it seems to have been creating a great demand for the experts of this type.
Mr Carlos Guestrin, machine learning professor from University of Washington argues that all software applications will need in built intelligence within five years, making data scientists-people trained to analyze large bodies of information-key workers in this emerging “cognitive” technology economy. There are already critical applications that depend on machine learning, a subfield of data science, led by recommendation programs, fraud detection systems, forecasting tools and applications for predicting customer behavior.
Many companies that are born digital-particularly internet companies that have a great number of real-time customer interactions to handle-are all-in when it comes to data science. Pinterest, for instance, maintains more than 100 machine learning models that could be applied to different classes of problems, and it constantly fields requests from managers eager to use this resource to deal with their business problem.
The factors weighing on many traditional companies will be the high cost of mounting a serious machine-learning operation. Netflix is estimated to spend $ 150m a year on a single application and the total bill is probably four times that once all its uses of the technology are taken into account.
Another problem for many non-technology companies is talent. Of the computer science experts who use Kaggle, only about 1,000 have deep learning skills, compared to 100,000 who can apply other machine learning techniques, says Mr Goldbloom. He adds that even some big companies of this type are often reluctant to expand their pay scales to hire the top talent in this field.
The biggest barrier to adapting to the coming era of “smart” applications, however, is likely to be cultural. Some companies, such as General Electric, have been building their own
Silicon Valley presence to attract and develop the digital skills they will need.
Despite the obstacles, some may master this difficult transition. But companies that were built, from the beginning, with data science at their center, are likely to represent serious competition.
1. Which one is obstacle for many traditional companies to popularize learning operation?| A．Technological problem |
| B．Expert crisis |
| C．High cost |
| D．Customer interactions |
| A．Machine learning operations are costly in Netflix. |
| B．Machine learning plays an important role in existent applications. |
| C．Machine learning experts are not highly paid in some non-technology companies. |
| D．Machine learning models are not sufficient to solve business problems in Pinterest. |
| A．Data science: A forefront force in tech business |
| B．Corporate competition: An obstacle to the transition |
| C．Machine learning: A key to smart technology |
| D．Technique experts: A decisive factor of the coming era. |
| A．avoids | B．creates |
| C．solves | D．classifies |
