Smartphones are our constant companions. For many of us, their glowing screens are a ubiquitous (十分普遍的) presence, drawing us in with endless distractions. They are in our hands as soon as we wake, and command our attention until the final moments before we fall asleep.
Steve Jobs would not approve.
In 2007, Jobs took the stage and introduced the world to the iPhone. If you watch the full speech, you will be surprised by how he imagined our relationship should be with this iconic invention. This vision is so different from the way most of us use these devices now.
In his remarks, Jobs spent an extended amount of time demonstrating how the device utilized (应用) the touch screen before detailing the many ways Apple engineers had improved the age-old process of making phone calls. It’s the best iPod we’ve ever made,” Jobs exclaimed at one point. “The killer app is making calls,” he later added. Both lines drew thunderous applause.
The presentation confirms that Jobs imagined a simpler iPhone experience than the one we actually have more than a decade later. For example, there was no App Store when the iPhone was first introduced, and this was by design. Jobs was convinced that the phone’s carefully-designed native features were enough. He did not seek to completely change the rhythm of users’ daily lives. He simply wanted to take experiences we had already found important－listening to music, placing calls, generating directions－and make them better.
The minimalist (简约主义者) vision for the iPhone Jobs offered in 2007 is unrecognizable today－and that is a shame.
Under what I call the “constant companion model,” we now see our smartphones as always-on portals (通道) to information. We have become so used to it over the past decade that it is easy to forget the novelty (新奇之处) of the device. It seems increasingly clear to me that Jobs probably got it right from the very beginning: Many of us would be better-off returning to his original minimalist vision for our phones.
Practically speaking, to be a minimalist smartphone user means only using your device for a small number of features that do things of value to you. Otherwise, you simply put it away outside of these activities. This approach dethrones (废黜) this device from the position of a constant companion down to a luxury object, such as a fancy bike, that gives you great pleasure when you use it but does not dominate your entire day.
Early in his 2007 keynote, Jobs said, “Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone.” What he didn’t add, however, was the follow-up promise: “Tomorrow we’re going to reinvent your life.” The smartphone is fantastic, but it was never meant to be the foundation for a new form of existence.
If you return this innovation to its original role, you will get more out of both your phone and your life.
1. The underlined word “it” in the last but two paragraphs probably refers to .| A．information | B．the smartphone |
| C．the always-on portal | D．the constant companion model |
| A．It allowed the users to have access to the internet. |
| B．It was actually an iPod that could make phone calls. |
| C．It was installed with applications by third-party developers. |
| D．It could fulfill people’s desire to multitask in their daily lives. |
| A．expect to reinvent his life with the device |
| B．buy the latest model of iPhone and see it as a luxury |
| C．remove all the unnecessary applications from the device |
| D．spend more time working than playing with his device |
| A．tell readers why Steve Job created the iPhone |
| B．remind readers not to be addicted to their smartphones |
| C．show readers that smartphones can greatly change our lives |
| D．encourage readers to block internet access on their smartphones |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】Microsoft announced this week that its facial-recognition system is now more accurate in identifying people of color, touting (吹嘘）its progress at tackling one of the technology’s biggest biases (偏见).
But critics, citing Microsoft’s work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, quickly seized on how that improved technology might be used. The agency contracts with Microsoft for cloud-computing tools that the tech giant says is largely limited to office work but can also include face recognition.
Columbia University professor Alondra Nelson tweeted, “We must stop confusing ‘inclusion’ in more ‘diverse’ surveillance (监管）systems with justice and equality.”
Facial-recognition systems more often misidentify people of color because of a long-running data problem： The massive sets of facial images they train on skew heavily toward white men. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology study this year of the face-recognition systems designed by Microsoft, IBM and the China-based Face++ found that facial-recognition systems consistently giving the wrong gender for famous women of color including Oprah Winfrey, Serena Williams, Michelle Obama and Shirley Chisholm, the first black female member of Congress.
The companies have responded in recent months by pouring many more photos into the mix, hoping to train the systems to better tell the differences among more than just white faces. IBM said Wednesday it used 1 million facial images, taken from the photo-sharing site Flickr, to build the “world’s largest facial data-set” which it will release publicly for other companies to use.
IBM and Microsoft say that allowed its systems to recognize gender and skin tone with much more precision. Microsoft said its improved system reduced the error rates for darker-skinned men and women by “up to 20 times,” and reduced error rates for all women by nine times.
Those improvements were heralded（宣布）by some for taking aim at the prejudices in a rapidly spreading technology, including potentially reducing the kinds of false positives that could lead police officers misidentify a criminal suspect.
But others suggested that the technology's increasing accuracy could also make it more marketable. The system should be accurate, “but that’s just the beginning, not the end, of their ethical obligation,” said David Robinson, managing director of the think tank Upturn.
At the center of that debate is Microsoft, whose multimillion-dollar contracts with ICE came under fire amid the agency’s separation of migrant parents and children at the Mexican border.
In an open letter to Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella urging the company to cancel that contract, Microsoft workers pointed to a company blog post in January that said Azure Government would help ICE “accelerate recognition and identification.” “We believe that Microsoft must take an ethical stand, and put children and families above profits,” the letter said.
A Microsoft spokesman, pointing to a statement last week from Nadella, said the company’s “current cloud engagement” with ICE supports relatively anodyne（温和的）office work such as “mail, calendar, massaging and document management workloads.” The company said in a statement that its facial-recognition improvements are “part of our going work to address the industry-wide and societal issues on bias.”
Criticism of face recognition will probably expand as the technology finds its way into more arenas, including airports, stores and schools. The Orlando police department said this week that it would not renew its use of Amazon. com’s Rekognition system.
Companies ”have to acknowledge their moral involvement in the downstream use of their technology,”
Robinson said. “The impulse is that they’re going to put a product out there and wash their hands of the consequences. That’s unacceptable.”
1. What is “one of the technology’s biggest biases” in Paragraph 1?| A．Class bias. | B．Regional difference. |
| C．Professional prejudice. | D．Racial discrimination. |
| A．Justice and equality have been truly achieved. |
| B．It is due to the expansion of the photo database. |
| C．It has already solved all the social issues on biases. |
| D．The separation of immigrant parents from their children can be avoided. |
| A．Data problems. | B．The market value. |
| C．The application field. | D．A moral issue |
| A．Skeptical. | B．Approval. |
| C．Optimistic. | D．Neutral. |
| A．companies had better hide from responsibilities |
| B．companies deny problems with its technical process |
| C．companies should not launch new products on impulse |
| D．companies should be responsible for the new product and the consequences |
| A．The wide use of Microsoft system | B．Fears of facial-recognition technology |
| C．The improvement of Microsoft system | D．Failure of recognizing black women |
【推荐2】AlphaZero--an Updated Model of AI
Soon after Garry Kasparov, the former world chess champion, lost his rematch against IBM’s Deep Blue in 1997, the short window of human-machine chess competition slammed shut forever. Unlike humans, machines keep getting faster, and today a smartphone chess app can be stronger than Deep Blue. However, as people see with the new AlphaZero system, machine dominance has not ended the historical role of chess as a laboratory of cognition.
Much as airplanes don’t flap their wings like birds, machines don’t produce chess moves like humans do. Based on a generic algorithm (算法), AlphaZero incorporates deep learning and other AI techniques like Monte Carlo tree search to play against itself to develop its own chess knowledge. Unlike the traditional program Stockfish, which employs many preset evaluation functions as well as opening and endgame moves, AlphaZero starts out knowing only the rules of chess, with no preset human strategies. In a few hours, it plays more games against itself than have been recorded in human chess history. It teaches itself the best way to play, reevaluating the relative values of the pieces. It quickly becomes strong enough to win 28, draw 72, and lose none in a victory over Stockfish. Since AlphaZero can program itself, this superior understanding allows it to outclass the world’s top traditional program despite calculating far fewer positions per second. It’s the typical example of the cliché, “work smarter, not harder”.
AlphaZero shows that machines can be the experts, not merely expert tools. Explainability is still an issue—it’s not going to put chess coaches out of business just yet. But the knowledge it produces is information humans can learn from. AlphaZero is surpassing humans in a profound and useful way, and researchers are working on transferring the knowledge acquired from AlphaZero to other fields.
Machine learning systems aren’t perfect. Even though great progresses have been achieved, AI algorithms are still struggling on open problems such as computer vision, natural language understanding... There will be cases where an AI will fail to detect exceptions to its rules. Therefore, as Kasparov writes, “We must work together to combine our strengths. I know better than most people what it’s like to compete against a machine. Instead of raging against them, it’s better if we’re all on the same side.”
Questions 1-5: Judge if the following statements agree with the information given in the passage.
Choose A for TRUE if the statements agree with it; choose B for FALSE if the statements don’t agree with it; choose C for NOT GIVEN if the information the statements carry is not mentioned anywhere in the passage.根据文章内容判断下列表述。如果表述与文章内容一致，选 A 项；表述与文章内容不一致，选 B 项；文章中未提及的信息，则选 C 项。
Questions 6-9: Choose the correct headings for Paragraphs 1-4 from the box. Note that there are two choices more than you need.请为文章的四段匹配小标题，从A—F中选择。（提示：6个选项中有2项是多余的）
A. The proper attitude to AI
B. The history of AlphaZero
C. The limitations of machines
D. The influences of AlphaZero
E. The working theory of AlphaZero
F. The fast development of machines
1. Machine dominance plays an important role in cognition study.
2. AlphaZero knows opening and endgame moves before playing.
3. AlphaZero develops chess strategies by playing against itself.
4. Chess coaches have already been laid off throughout the world.
5. Sometimes artificial intelligence may not discover exceptions to its rules.
6. Paragraph 1
7. Paragraph 2
8. Paragraph 3
9. Paragraph 4
10. The author uses the underlined sentence in the last paragraph to ______.
| A．argue for the advantages of AI over humans |
| B．inform readers of machine dominance in chess |
| C．advise people to work together to fight against AI |
| D．call on people to combine strengths with the machines |
【推荐3】Teachers say the digital age has had a good influence and a not-so-good influence on this generation of American teenagers. More than 2,000 middle and high school teachers took an online survey. Researchers also spoke with teachers in focus groups.
Three-quarters of the teachers said the Internet and digital search tools have had a "mostly positive" effect on their students research habits and skills. But 87 percent agreed that these technologies are creating an "easily distracted generation with short attention spans (持续时间) " .And 64 percent said the technologies "do more to distract students than to help them academically(学业上) " . Many students think "doing research" now means just doing a quick search on Google.
The Pew Internet Project did the survey with the College Board and the. National Writing Project. Most of the teachers came from Advanced Placement classes, which provide college-level work for high school students.
Judy Buchanan is director of the National Writing Project and a co-author of the report. Ms. Buchanan says digital research tools are helping students learn more, and learn faster. Teachers really welcome these tools because they are ways to make some of learning exciting and engaging.Young people welcome these tools. And the goal is to really help them become creators of content,and meaningful content, and not just sort of consumers.
But one problem the survey found is that many students are lacking in digital literacy. In other words, they trust too much of the information they find on the Internet. Another problem the survey found is blamed on something that might not seem like a problem at all: being able toquickly find information online.
Teachers say the result is a reduction in the desire and ability of their students to work hard to find answers. They say students are depending too much on search engines and do not makeenough use of printed books or libraries. Many teachers are also concerned that the Internet makes it easy for students to copy work done by others instead of using their own abilities.
1. The purpose of the online survey is to____| A．convince teachers of the Internet good influence |
| B．spread knowledge about the Internet search tools |
| C．influence teachers viewpoints towards the digital age |
| D．get teachers opinions about the digital age influence on youngsters |
| A．It results in students bad research habits and skills. |
| B．It brings too much negative information to the students. |
| C．It distracts students attention instead of helping them academically. |
| D．It develops their interest in doing research through the technologies. |
| A．Supportive. | B．Negative. | C．Critical. | D．Doubtful. |
| A．The Internet is changing everybody's life. |
| B．Teachers welcome the digital age in general. |
| C．The Internet has more disadvantages than advantages. |
| D．Solutions to the lack of digital literacy should be found. |
【推荐1】The traditional news media in America has been having a rough time in the last few years. According to a recent survey, more Americans have a negative (43%) than a positive (33%) view of the news media, and are finding it harder to be well informed because it is getting harder to determine which news is accurate.
The problem is preference. While ideally the media should be objective and hold power to account, in reality we know that most news outlets belong to a certain party and have their own agenda to advance. Whether state-owned or run by some shady tax-avoiding billionaire, getting “the masses” to view the world from a certain perspective has always been a priceless power to wield.
So why is trust in the media so low? Well, according to the same survey, 8 out of 10 Americans believe that the news media are critical to their democracy. The gap between these noble expectations of an honest, objective media and the performance that they actually deliver is large. Times when the mask slips and examples of media manipulation(操纵)are exposed are hugely damaging to trust, and people naturally turn to social media for others, even-easier-to-manipulate sources. Thus we are in the current state in which we find ourselves:confused and mistrustful.
People have been posting examples of how media can use different techniques of deception, to trick you into seeing exactly what they wanted you to see. As you will discover, perspective really is everything! It will goes to show that a healthy dose of skepticism goes a long way, and getting your news from a wide range of different sources is your best bet to a more rounded view of the world we live in. Social media is good in that respect, but bad in terms of regulation, trolling and people shouting horrible things at each other. The good old traditional news media really is needed as a forum for reasonable debate and expert opinion, but they gotta stop with the manipulation already!
1. What does para2 want to convey?| A．People have prejudice for media |
| B．The media can take control of the party |
| C．The media have acted as a tool to mask the truth |
| D．The media have a priceless power |
| A．People should not have faith in what the media says because some news are not true. |
| B．People should not be too curious about things around |
| C．People should refer to social media rather than traditional media if wanting to know the truth of news. |
| D．The spirit of suspect and diverse sources are good ways to help people recognize the truth of the world. |
| A．①→②③→④ | B．①→②③④ |
| C．①②③→④ | D．①②→③→④ |
| A．Where’s trust in the media. |
| B．Why people’s trust in the media falls. |
| C．How people treat trust in the media. |
| D．What’ s trust in the media |
【推荐2】In the fog of uncertainty about how new technology will change the way we work, policymakers around the world have flocked to the same idea. No matter what the future brings, they say confidently, we will need to upskill the workforce in order to cope.
The view sounds reassuringly sensible. If computers are growing smarter, humans will need to learn to use them to humans’ advantage. Otherwise, they may run the risk of being replaced by computers.
Research published by the Social Mobility Commission shows that workers with degrees are over three times more likely to participate in training as adults than workers with no qualifications. That creates a virtuous circle for those who did well at school, and vicious circle for those who did not. If the robots are coming for both the accountants and the taxi drivers, you can bet the bean counters will be more able to retrain themselves out of danger.
It is no good criticizing employers for directing investments at their highly skilled workers. They are simply aiming for the highest return they can get. And, for some types of lower-paid work, it is not always true that technological progress requires more skills. The UK’s latest Employment and Skills Survey, which is performed every five years, suggests the use of literacy and numeracy skills at work has fallen since 2012, even as the use of computers has increased. The trouble is, when the computer makes your job easier one day, it might make it unnecessary the next. Many of those affected by automation will need to switch occupations, or even industries.
It is time to revisit older ideas. The UK once had an energetic culture of night schools, for adults to attend after their day jobs. These institutions have been disappearing due to funding cuts. But a revival of night schools could be exactly what the 21st century needs.
It is still not clear whether the impact of new technology on the labour market will come in a trickle or aflood. But in an already unequal world, continuing to reserve all the lifeboats for the better-off would be a dangerous mistake.
| A．Employers also invest more in better educated workers by launching employer-sponsored cmployee education programs. |
| B．According to an Oxford University study, nowadays employers are more likely to hire the first-year apprentices. |
| C．Rather than just “upskilling” in a narrow way, people could choose to learn an entirely new skill or trade. |
| D．But the truth is, the people who are being “upskilled” in today’s economy are the ones who need it the least. |
| E．People can effectively train or upskill themselves to meet their specific professional needs. |
| F．But a retailer or warehouse company is not going to retrain its staff to help them move to a different sector. |
【推荐3】In our information-driven society, shaping our worldview through the media is similar to forming an opinion about someone solely based on a picture of their foot. While the media might not deliberately deceive us, it often fails to provide a comprehensive view of reality.
Consequently, the question arises: Where, then, shall we get our information from if not from the media? Who can we trust? How about experts- people who devote their working lives to understanding their chosen slice of the world? However, even experts can fall prey to the allure of oversimplification, leading to the “single perspective instinct” that hampers (阻碍) our ability to grasp the intricacies (错综复杂) of the world.
Simple ideas can be appealing because they offer a sense of understanding and certainty. And it is easy to take off down a slippery slope, from one attention-grabbing simple idea to a feeling that this idea beautifully explains, or is the beautiful solution for, lots of other things. The world becomes simple that way.
Yet, when we embrace a singular cause or solution for all problems, we risk oversimplifying complex issues. For instance, championing the concept of equality may lead us to view all problems through the lens of inequality and see resource distribution as the sole panacea. However, such rigidity prevents us from seeing the multidimensional nature of challenges and hinders true comprehension of reality. This “single perspective instinct” ultimately clouds our judgment and restricts our capacity to tackle complex issues effectively. Being always in favor of or always against any particular idea makes you blind to information that doesn’t fit your perspective. This is usually a bad approach if you would like to understand reality.
Instead, constantly test your favorite ideas for weaknesses. Be humble about the extent of your expertise. Be curious about new information that doesn’t fit, and information from other fields. And rather than talking only to people who agree with you, or collecting examples that fit your ideas, consult people who contradict you, disagree with you, and put forward different ideas as a great resource for understanding the world. If this means you don’t have time to form so may opinions, so what?
Wouldn’t you rather have few opinions that are right than many that are wrong?
1. What does the underlined word “allure” in Para.2 probably mean?| A．Temptation. | B．Tradition. | C．Convenience. | D．Consequence. |
| A．They meet people’s demand for high efficiency. |
| B．They generate a sense of complete understanding. |
| C．They are raised and supported by multiple experts. |
| D．They reflect the opinions of like-minded individuals. |
| A．Simplifying matters releases energy for human brains. |
| B．Constant tests on our ideas help make up for our weakness. |
| C．A well-founded opinion counts more than many shallow ones. |
| D．People who disagree with us often have comprehensive views. |
| A．Embracing Disagreement: Refusing Overcomplexity |
| B．Simplifying Information: Enhancing Comprehension |
| C．Understanding Differences: Establishing Relationships |
| D．Navigating Complexity: Challenging Oversimplification |
Good to hear from you again. Your e-mail came in just as I was chatting with another friend, Jeff. I wish I had better advice.
You know, after I left the Shenandoah Valley, my next job was in Rocky Mount. The two other sportswriters on staff, Travis and Jeff, were in their mid-20s too. Honestly, we’d come to Rocky Mount to leave Rocky Mount. We complained about our shop and envied the Charlotte Observer and the Raleigh News & Observer. What resources they had! Writers who covered only one team didn’t have to lay out pages. Talk about living the dream. If we could just get to one of those places! Then we could go somewhere else!
Travis, Jeff, and I bonded over our desire to part ways. We ate dinner together and went out to cover our games and came back to help send the final pages to the printer. On the best nights, we’d grab the news editors and play Wiffle ball, laughing and joking until almost sunrise.
We all left there within a year, as intended. Jeff became one of the most well-known NASCAR writers in the country, with almost 200,000 Twitter followers. Now he’s got his own media company that’s doing quite well. In 2017, Jeff and I went to a Charlotte Knights game, and Jeff said something about Rocky Mount that I won’t forget. “I didn’t appreciate it then, but honestly, when I look back, it’s probably the best time I’ve ever had in my career.”
Maybe success isn’t measured in achievements, or “being happy with who you are”. Goals and personal peace are selfish markers, and I don’t mean to imply selfishness is a bad thing, not at all. Selfishness is the axis of humankind, from cavemen to astronauts to saints on earth. Individual accomplishments bring worldwide accomplishments. But all of the accomplishments may not leave you feeling successful, right?
The point is, maybe success is a smaller calculation, something more like what Jeff hinted at. Maybe success is having the wherewithal (所需的物资) to be grateful at the precise moment you have something to be grateful for.
Thank you for writing, old friend.
Mike
1. When Mike went to the Rocky Mount, ________.| A．he appreciated life there |
| B．he lived the dream there |
| C．he intended to land a better job elsewhere |
| D．he got a job with all resources he longed for there |
| A．A printer. | B．A reporter. |
| C．A player. | D．An editor. |
| A．Mike believes selfishness is part of human nature. |
| B．We feel happy when we are calculating small numbers. |
| C．Mike disagrees with Jeff’s comment on their life in Rocky Mount. |
| D．Individual accomplishments are unrelated to worldwide accomplishments. |
| A．what happiness is | B．what success is |
| C．how to achieve more | D．how to land a better job |
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 study finds 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. In 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.
This is important for human interaction with on-screen characters. If you want someone off to the right side of a room to feel that a person on-screen is looking at him or her, you don’t cut the gaze of the character to that side-surprisingly, doing so would make an observer feel like the character isn’t looking at anyone in the room at all. Instead, you keep the gaze straight ahead.
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 look 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. They set a ruler between the viewer and the screen and asked the participants to note which number on the ruler intersected(和……相交) Mona Lisa’s gaze. To calculate the angle of Mona Lisa’s gaze as she looked at the viewer, they moved the ruler farther from or closer to the screen during the study. Consistently, the researchers found, participants judged that the woman in the “Mona Lisa” portrait was not looking straight at them, but slightly off to their right.
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 thought it was a cool name.
1. It is generally believed that the woman in the painting “Mona Lisa”___________.| A．attracts the viewers to look back |
| B．seems mysterious because of her eyes |
| C．fixes her eyes on the back of the viewers |
| D．looks at the viewers wherever they stand |
A． | B． | C． | D． |
| A．confirm Horstmann’s belief |
| B．create artificial-intelligence avatars |
| C．calculate the angle of Mona Lisa’s gaze |
| D．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 ruler in the experiment will influence the viewers’ judgement. |
【推荐3】To move visual technology into the future, sometimes it helps to make a little noise. Researchers have used sound waves to produce floating 3-D images, create a sense of touch and even supply a soundtrack.
Since the 1940s, scientists have toyed with the concept of acoustic levitation(声悬浮), the use of soundwave vibrations to trap tiny things in midair. The technology has gained greater capabilities in the past decade. Some researchers believe this improvement could lead to applications such as contributing to novel 3-D printing methods, or creating displays that would be visible from any angle without requiring a screen.
Other researchers have also worked on visual displays that use acoustic levitation. In addition to visuals, the system can also produce audible noise to give the display a soundtrack. And the ultrasound speakers can also concentrate vibrations in one spot so that a finger might feel a sense pushing back—a little like the object shown by the floating image is really there. Soundwaves create a 3-D display!
Display without a screen is remarkably useful. It means that everybody in the room can see the image—any angle, location—and that’s extremely helpful. As a communications system, such a display might one day allow users to chat with a 3-D projection(投影) of a person who can turn his or her head to follow as they move around a room.
The display will require a lot more work before you can install it in your living room, however. So far, this has been done in the research laboratory. We need to push it a little bit harder. We need to do more analysis to see if it would make sense to create a real display that people would have at home. The current system can only show simple graphics, such as a smiley face or figure eight, in real time.
Still, we are optimistic about the potential for this type of technology. If the system had only one speaker-covered surface instead of two, it could generate images that are bigger than the device itself. We can’t make a TV image that’s bigger than the TV—even a projector has to have a projection screen that’s bigger than the image itself. But with a volumetric(容积的) display, a small, portable device might produce a much larger picture. We can imagine, in the future, having volumetric displays in watches, for example, that create large images that just project out of your watch.
1. From the first two paragraphs soundwave vibrations can be used to _________.| A．catch very small objects in midair |
| B．develop 3-D printer’s capabilities |
| C．replace a creative display screen |
| D．compose soundtracks by making no noise |
| A．It has resulted in visual technology. |
| B．It is possible to see the image from any direction. |
| C．It is already ripe to create a real one at home. |
| D．It has yet to be tested in the research laboratory. |
| A．Outlooks for the new technology. |
| B．Situations of the modern technology. |
| C．Praise for the cutting-edge technology. |
| D．Room for the technical improvement. |
| A．Hearing Is Seeing—Sound Waves Create a 3-D Display |
| B．Seeing is Believing—3-D Printing Methods Arrive |
| C．Advancing Sense of Touch—3-D Images Float in the Air |
| D．Promoting TV Technology—Chat with 3-D Projections |
【推荐1】Dental health: Brush with confidence
Children should be taught to brush their teeth regularly. But the suspicion remains among some People, dentists included, that even so, certain children are doomed to develop dental cavities. The hypothesis behind this fear is that some combinations of genes may give rise to the sorts of oral bacteria which are responsible for cavities. If true, that would be sad for the youngsters concerned.
But a study just published in Cell Host and Microbe, by Andres Gomez and Karen Nelson of the J. Craig Venter Institute, in San Diego, suggests it isn’t true.
The mouth is home to many species of microbes. Most are good. Some, though, are well known to secrete acidic waste products when fed sugar. This acidity weakens teeth, causing them to decay.
To try to find out whether a child’s genes play any role in encouraging such acid-secreting bugs, Dr Gomez and Dr Nelson set up an experiment with twins.
Their“volunteers”were 280 pairs of fraternal twins and 205 pairs of identical twins, all aged between five and 11, who had not taken antibiotics during the previous six months. The children were asked to stop brushing their teeth the evening and the morning before the crucial moment of data collection. This was when the researchers swabbed the children’s gingival sulci(the clefts between teeth and gums, in which bacteria collect)to find out what was there. The children also had their teeth scored by dentists as belonging to one of three categories: having no signs of current or previous dental cavities: having signs of current or previous cavities affecting the enamel(a tooth’s hard, outer layer); or having signs of cavities that penetrated the enamel and allected the underlying dentine as well.
Dr Gomez and Dr Nelson found that, though identical twins shared many groups of bacteria which were not shared by fraternal twins, none of these was a type responsible for cavities. Moreover, similarities in bacterial flora were greatest among five-to seven-year-olds, weaker among seven- to nine-year-olds and weakest among nine-to 11-year-olds. This suggests that any role genes do play in regulating the mouth’s ecology fades with time.
Far from supporting the idea that some children are fated to suffer from cavities no matter how well they brush their teeth, these results make it clear that the power to control the growth of the relevant bacteria is very much within reach of children and their parents. Brushing, however, may not be the only approach. Avoiding sugary foods is obviously de rigueur. It seems likely, though, that which other foods a child eats may help shape his oral ecosystem, too. This is an area of ongoing research. But, as in the intestines(肠道), so in the mouth, scientific medicine is at last coming to grips with the fact that the mixture of microbes present is both important and capable of manipulation, to the benefit of the host.
1. What does“hypothesis”refer to in paragraph 1?| A．Children’s failure to brush their teeth properly leads to tooth decay. |
| B．Some children are programmed to develop tooth decay. |
| C．Youngsters are suspicious of the effectiveness of tooth-brushing. |
| D．Some genes are more likely to lead to dental cavites. |
| A．whether genes have anything to do with dental decay |
| B．which group of twins are more likely to have decayed teeth |
| C．what kinds of foods tend to give rise to tooth decay |
| D．why the ecosystem of the intestines is similar to that of the mouth |
| A．Scientists are not yet sure how ecosystem of the mouth is formed. |
| B．The role genes play in controlling ecosystem of the mouth weakens with the time. |
| C．The children are classified into three groups according to the degrees of dental cavities. |
| D．Identical twins are not as genetically close to each other as fraternal twins. |
| A．The existence of multiple microbes benefits children’s oral ecosystem. |
| B．What a child eats enhances the healthfulness of a child’s oral ecosystem. |
| C．Cutting down on sugar intake is the most likely way to prevent tooth decay. |
| D．Parents are in no position to help their children maintain healthy oral ecosystem. |
【推荐2】Hardware in general, and smartphones in particular, have become a huge environmental and health problem in the Global South’s landfill sites(垃圾填埋场).
Electronic waste (e-waste) currently takes up 5 percent of all global waste, and it is set to increase rapidly as more of us own more than one smartphone, laptop and power bank. They end up in places like Agbogbloshie on the outskirts of Ghana’s capital, Accra. It is the biggest e-waste dump in the world, where 10,000 informal workers walk through tons of abandoned goods as part of an informal recycling process. They risk their health searching for the precious metals that are found in abandoned smartphones.
But Agbogbloshie legally should not exist. The Basel Convention, a 1989 treaty, aims to prevent developed nations from unauthorized dumping of e-waste in less developed countries. The e-waste industry, however, circumvents regulation by exporting e-waste labelled as “secondhand goods” to poor countries like Ghana, knowing full well that it is heading for a landfill site.
A recent report found Agbogbloshie contained some of the most dangerous chemicals. This is not surprising: smart phones contain chemicals like mercury(水银), lead and even arsenic(砷). Reportedly, one egg from a free-range chicken in Agbogbloshie contained a certain chemical which can cause cancer and damage the immune system at a level that’s about 220 times greater than a limit set by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). Most worryingly, these poisonous chemicals are free to pollute the broader soil and water system. This should concern us all, since some of Ghana’s top exports are cocoa and nuts.
Some governments have started to take responsibility for their consumers’ waste. For example, Germany has started a project that includes a sustainable recycling system at Agbogbloshie, along with a health clinic for workers. However, governments cannot solve the problem alone, as there is an almost limitless consumer demand for hardware, especially when governments’ green policies are focused on issues like climate change.
Only the manufacturers can fix this. A more economically sustainable and politically possible solution is through encouraging hardware manufacturers to make the repair, reuse and recycling of hardware profitable, or at least cost-neutral.
1. What can we infer from Paragraph 2?| A．Electronic waste requires more landfill sites. |
| B．Electronic waste is too complex to get fully recycled. |
| C．Electronic products need to be improved immediately. |
| D．Electronic pollution is a burning question in Agbogbloshie. |
| A．Relaxes. | B．Abolishes. | C．Avoids. | D．Tightens. |
| A．The violation of EFSA’s standards. | B．The threat of polluted food worldwide. |
| C．The lack of diversity in Ghana’s exports. | D．The damage to chicken’s immune system. |
| A．Letting governments take on the main responsibility. |
| B．Reducing customers’ demands for electronic products. |
| C．Governments adjusting their green policies about e-waste. |
| D．Manufacturers’ developing a sustainable hardware economy. |
【推荐3】Old problem，new approaches
While clean energy is increasingly used in our daily life，global warming will continue for some decades after CO2 emissions (排放) peak. So even if emissions were to begin to decrease today，we would still face the challenge of adapting to climate change. Here I will stress some smarter and more creative examples of climate adaptation.
When it comes to adaptation，it is important to understand that climate change is a process. We are therefore not talking about adapting to a new standard，but to a constantly shifting set of conditions. This is why, in part at least，the US National Climate Assessment says that：“There is no ‘onesize fits all’ adaptation.” Nevertheless，there are some actions that offer much and carry little risk or cost.
Around the world, people are adapting in surprising ways，especially in some poor countries. Floods have become more damaging in Bangladesh in recent decades. Mohammed Rezwan saw opportunity where others saw only disaster. His notforprofit organization runs 100 river boats that serve as floating libraries，schools，and health clinics，and are equipped with solar panels and other communicating facilities. Rezwan is creating floating connectivity(连接) to replace flooded roads and highways. But he is also working at a far more fundamental level：his staff show people how to make floating gardens and fish ponds to prevent starvation during the wet season.
Elsewhere in Asia even more astonishing actions are being taken. Chewang Norphel lives in a mountainous region in India, where he is known as the Ice Man. The loss of glaciers (冰川) there due to global warming represents an enormous threat to agriculture. Without the glaciers, water will arrive in the rivers at times when it can damage crops. Norphel's inspiration came from seeing the waste of water over winter, when it was not needed. He directed the wasted water into shallow basins where it froze, and was stored until the spring. His fields of ice supply perfectly timed irrigation(灌溉) water. Having created nine such ice reserves, Norphel calculates that he has stored about 200，000m3 of water. Climate change is a continuing process, so Norphel's ice reserves will not last forever. Warming will overtake them. But he is providing a few years during which the farmers will, perhaps, be able to find other means of adapting.
Increasing Earth's reflectiveness can cool the planet. In southern Spain the sudden increase of greenhouses (which reflect light back to space) has changed the warming trend locally, and actually cooled the region. While Spain as a whole is heating up quickly, temperatures near the greenhouses have decreased. This example should act as an inspiration for all cities. By painting buildings white, cities may slow down the warming process.
In Peru, local farmers around a mountain with a glacier that has already fallen victim to climate change have begun painting the entire mountain peak white in the hope that the added reflectiveness will restore the lifegiving ice. The outcome is still far from clear. But the World Bank has included the project on its list of “100 ideas to save the planet”．
More ordinary forms of adaptation are happening everywhere. A friend of mine owns an area of land in western Victoria. Over five generations the land has been too wet for cropping. But during the past decade declining rainfall has allowed him to plant highly profitable crops. Farmers in many countries are also adapting like this—either by growing new produce, or by growing the same things differently. This is common sense. But some suggestions for adapting are not. When the polluting industries argue that we've lost the battle to control carbon pollution and have no choice but to adapt, it's a nonsense designed to make the case for business as usual.
Human beings will continue to adapt to the changing climate in both ordinary and astonishing ways. But the most sensible form of adaptation is surely to adapt our energy systems to emit less carbon pollution. After all, if we adapt in that way, we may avoid the need to change in so many others.
1. The underlined part in Paragraph 2 implies ________．| A．adaptation is an everchanging process |
| B．the cost of adaptation varies with time |
| C．global warming affects adaptation forms |
| D．adaptation to climate change is challenging |
| A．The project receives government support. |
| B．Different organizations work with each other. |
| C．His organization makes the best of a bad situation. |
| D．The project connects flooded roads and highways. |
| A．Storing ice for future use. |
| B．Protecting the glaciers from melting. |
| C．Changing the irrigation time. |
| D．Postponing the melting of the glaciers. |
| A．White paint is usually safe for buildings. |
| B．The global warming trend cannot be stopped. |
| C．This country is heating up too quickly. |
| D．Sunlight reflection may relieve global warming. |
| A．adapt to carbon pollution |
| B．plant highly profitable crops |
| C．leave carbon emission alone |
| D．fight against carbon pollution |
| A．Setting up a new standard. |
| B．Reducing carbon emission. |
| C．Adapting to climate change. |
| D．Monitoring polluting industries. |
