1 . Heading to the beach is a popular option for lots of people on a hot summer's day. It's there that you'll find plenty of sand. But could sand be more important than we've ever realized? A team of scientists have found a very different use for the tiny grains that we like to play with on the beach.
They've come up with a type of measurement which will allow them to figure out what's known as the "age distribution fingerprint" of the mineral zircon, which is found within sand. The researchers believe this could provide them with new information on how the Earth's surface has changed over the last few thousand million years.
Some minerals, like zircon, have stood the test of time, and are thought to carry clues of Earth's history. By studying the zircon found in grains of sand from rivers and rocks, the scientists are able to work out previously hidden details about the Earth's past. "Strong and lasting minerals like zircon paint a vivid picture of the planet's history, including changing environments, the evolution of continents, and the accumulation of mineral resources at ancient p late boundaries," said Dr Milo Barham, who worked on the research. “The world's beaches faithfully record a detailed history of our planet's geological past, with billions of years of Earth's history marked in the geology(地质状况)of each grain of sand and our technique helps unlock the information.”
The scientists tried out their new technique by taking a look at sediment(沉淀物)in South America, East Antarctica, and Western Australia and they found some interesting differences. "The sediment on the west and east coasts of South America is completely different because there are many young grains on the west side that were created beneath the continent. However, on the east coast, all is relatively calm geologically and there is a mix of old and young grains," said professor Chris Kirkland, who also worked on this research.
1. What do the underlined words "a very different use" in paragraph 1 refer to?| A．Sand can provide a geological history of the Earth's surface. |
| B．Sand can reconstruct the conditions of mineral formation. |
| C．Sand can help discover the age distribution fingerprint. |
| D．Sand can be used to kill time on a hot summer's day. |
| A．Its cost is extremely low. | B．Its zircon is hard and long-lasting. |
| C．It exists all over the world. | D．It's experienced many changes. |
| A．The west coast is relatively calm geologically. |
| B．The east coast is more active than the west one. |
| C．Its beaches have revealed the Earth's mysteries. |
| D．The grains on the west and east coast have different ages. |
| A．History of grains of sand |
| B．Interesting differences of sediment |
| C．A new technique will trace the human past |
| D．Sand can unlock what happened to Earth |
2 . Hikes in grocery prices often arise from factors outside of governments' control, whether it's bird flu driving up egg costs or heavy rain in California drowning crops. But farmers can gain more control over the availability of certain foods by using satellite data, finds a new study led by researchers from University of Maryland.
Remote sensing has long been used to track and make predictions about crop harvests. But governments have been hesitant to heavily invest in the technology for crop monitoring and planting because they lacked evidence of the ability to produce quantifiable economic benefits-until now.
“The models we created show that remote sensing forecasting can reduce food prices in import-dependent countries by 1.1%~12.5%,” said Laixiang Sun, a professor in the Department of Geographical Sciences. “By using remote sensing to predict a poor harvest in the Northern Hemisphere(半球), the Southern Hemisphere can plant more to avoid a shortage. If the Northern Hemisphere has a good harvest, the Southern Hemisphere can plant less to avoid an oversupply. This will keep prices stable.”
The researchers first created models to predict how much warning farmers in the opposite hemisphere could have of potential shortages or surpluses. To do so, the researchers used remote-sensing data before a 2008 poor wheat harvest in, Russia, a 2012 good wheat harvest in Ukraine, and 2012’s poor soybean harvest in Brazil. The wheat-forecasting models accurately predicted production in 2008 and 2012 two months before the harvests.
The researchers also developed economic models to show how predictions of upcoming shortages and surpluses could prevent food price changes. With data from 2007 and 2011, the years immediately before the wheat and soybean harvests, the models showed that consumers in import-dependent countries could save some money if farmers could see and respond to the predicted harvests in the opposite hemisphere.
Sun said the findings justify continued monitoring of crop growth from space—and not a moment too soon, either. “This is important, as global food security is increasingly threatened by regional human conflicts and extreme weather events from climate change,” he said.
1. What kept governments from investing in satellite data for crop monitoring?| A．Lack of economic proof. | B．Difficulty in interpreting data. |
| C．Insufficient satellite technology. | D．Farmers' resistance to new methods. |
| A．By causing a global price movement. |
| B．By stabilizing importing countries’ food prices. |
| C．By reducing food prices in areas with poor harvests. |
| D．By predicting food prices of a year with good harvests. |
| A．To clarify the accuracy of crop forecasting models. |
| B．To show how remote sensing can reduce food prices. |
| C．To prove the economic profits of using satellite data. |
| D．To explain the impact of climate change’ on food security. |
| A．It resolves human conflicts worldwide. |
| B．It relieves threats to global food security. |
| C．It enhances farmers’ awareness of climate change. |
| D．It helps prevent extreme weather events from happening. |
3 . When I started Social-Engineer, I just left a company that was amazing. It was like a family. The pain of leaving was real for me and like all family separation, it wasn’t 100% smooth. I was heartbroken to leave but wanted to take every lesson I learned to my new company. I was determined to also take all the good memories with me. Yes, there were mistakes from both sides of the fence but instead of focusing on those, I went away remembering all the great times, life lessons and growth I had gifted to me.
I figured I would grow my company by being a nice man and working hard, and never demanding more from my people than I was willing to give, believing this approach would earn respect and effort in return. I would say things to myself like, “Well, I did this, so they should do that.” Or “I am this way, so they should be that way.”
And to be honest, it felt real. It felt like it was an honest evaluation.
But... But... But...
I started to have people problems. I am a very strong, direct communicator and although in many ways that is a strength, it can be a weakness in other ways. I often hurt people’s feelings. Even though I was very self-aware of this, I still messed up. Now this is odd to admit out loud for a company that basically focuses on helping dozens of companies make huge changes.
I went to see a psychologist. Natasha actively listened to all I said and then every now and then presented a thought as a question or a mild statement. She wanted to challenge me to change, challenge me to expand my thoughts. I was in my session with Natasha and I was saying things like this:
“I gave this person tens of thousands of dollars in a raise in one year, they should be more appreciative.”
“I have a great salary, benefits and support package, this person should have been more thankful.”
Natasha stopped me and said, “Well, you just SHOULD all over yourself, didn’t you? Did you pay for devotion? Did you pay for honor? Did you pay for appreciation?”
The sad answer was NO.
“You want to see the change that you so desire — then be the change,” Natasha said. She then mentioned Bruce Lee, who said “Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle... Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”
I know what I should do. Will you join me?
1. Why was the author confident about his company management?| A．He believed he was gifted for it. |
| B．His employees were well qualified. |
| C．He had lessons and work principles. |
| D．His previous mistakes had been removed. |
| A．The rigid rules. | B．The lack of vision. |
| C．The company’s focus. | D．The author’s social skill. |
| A．The author fell into a thinking trap. |
| B．The employees expected too much. |
| C．The author was not really committed. |
| D．The employees were victims of management. |
| A．Read Bruce Lee. | B．Learn to change. |
| C．Take more duties. | D．Desire less for more. |
4 . A gene variant (变体) that causes the “alcohol flush (脸红)” reaction increases the risk of heart disease by causing inflammation of blood vessels (脉管), especially in drinkers. Around 8 percent of the world’s populations has a gene variant called ALDH2*2 that impairs the body’s ability to break down alcohol and causes unpleasant symptoms such as flushing soon after people drink. Now, researchers have shown why this change also raises the risk of heart disease.
“We are trying to understand why ALDH2*2 is associated with a higher risk of coronary arte (冠状动脉) disease at a cellular (细胞的) level,” says Hongchao Guo at Stanford University in California.
The ALDH2*2 gene encodes one version of the enzyme (酵素) alcohol dehydrogenase (脱氢酶), which breaks down the toxic acetaldehydes (乙醛) produced when alcohol is metabolized (代谢), and also mops up other harmful substances known as free radicals.
The gene variant also impairs the growth of new blood vessels. “That means that when there is a heart attack, when there is a need of blood vessel growth, carriers have less ability to generate new blood vessels,” says Guo.
The team found that an existing diabetes (糖尿病) drug called empagliflozin may reduce these harmful effects in people with ALDH2*2 who drink a lot of alcohol. But for Wu, the take-home message is clear. “If you’re missing this enzyme, try not to drink,” he says. “If you drink consistently, you are at much higher risk of heart disease, hypertension, diabetes and cancer.”
Given its many negative consequences, there has been debate about why this change spread and became common, today being found in more than a third of people of cast Asian origin.
“My only explanation is that if you are missing this enzyme, you tend to drink less and there’s therefore less chance of you becoming alcoholic,” says Wu.
1. Which of the following may be caused by “alcohol flush”?| A．Heart disease and high blood pressure. | B．A gene variant called ALDH2*2. |
| C．Inflammation of blood vessels. | D．Diabetes and cancer. |
| A．Exiting diabetes drug can help people witALDH2*2. |
| B．People with ALDH2*2 shouldn’t drink alcohol. |
| C．People with ALDH2*2 have less chance of becoming alcoholic. |
| D．Drinking alcohol can bring about diabetes and cancer. |
| A．Diabetes drug can free people with ALDH2*2 of alcohol flush. |
| B．If you are missing this enzyme, you will easily become alcoholic. |
| C．People with ALDH2*2 tend to suffer from cancer. |
| D．More than a third of people of cast Asian origin may be affected by ALDH2*2. |
| A．To explain the impact of genetic variant causing the “alcohol flush”. |
| B．To introduce ways to stop drinking alcohol. |
| C．To introduce dangers of drinking alcohol. |
| D．To persuade people to get rid of drinking alcohol. |
5 . My mom loved to pass her wisdom to me: ”Nothing beats a good bite that bites back.” She was referring to her bitter-taste foods like dill pickles and rhubarb (大黄叶). But I was not a big fan.
Three years ago, I finally decided to ask if I could
When I was a kid and my mom gave me that pie, it made me
Then, last summer, I came across the
Since then I’ve come to a
| A．dig | B．check | C．figure | D．smell |
| A．Absolutely | B．Possibly | C．Basically | D．Technically |
| A．warm | B．anxious | C．curious | D．sharp |
| A．talent | B．affection | C．patience | D．ambition |
| A．asking | B．weeding | C．assessing | D．walking |
| A．makes for | B．takes in | C．breaks through | D．puts down |
| A．admire | B．miss | C．ignore | D．question |
| A．friend | B．doctor | C．parent | D．child |
| A．grateful | B．content | C．guilty | D．reluctant |
| A．enlarge | B．cancel | C．sweeten | D．postpone |
| A．obtained | B．gathered | C．praised | D．avoided |
| A．letter | B．bill | C．recipe | D．menu |
| A．break | B．shot | C．second | D．rest |
| A．resolution | B．suggestion | C．decision | D．conclusion |
| A．appreciate | B．achieve | C．tolerate | D．provide |
6 . Abstract art, a genre often misunderstood and deeply involved in argument, challenges the traditional norms of visual representation. It resists simple explanation, making viewers connect with the artwork in a more thoughtful and emotional way. This style of art, eschewing (避开) literal depiction, instead uses shapes, colors, forms, and gestural marks to achieve its effect.
The genesis of abstract art can be traced back to the early 20th century, a period marked by rapid technological advancements and significant societal changes. Artists began to move away from realistic portrayal, seeking new ways to express the complexities of the modern world. Pioneers like Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian broke away from traditional techniques, favoring a more subjective approach that emphasized inner feelings over external realities.
Kandinsky, often hailed as the father of abstract painting, believed that art should be free from the constraints of representational accuracy. He advocated for the use of color and form as tools to evoke emotion, asserting that they possessed an intrinsic spiritual value. Mondrian, on the other hand, focused on reducing art to its basic elements – a style he termed Neoplasticism (新塑造主义). His compositions, characterized by horizontal and vertical lines intersecting at right angles, sought to achieve a sense of harmony and balance.
In the ensuing years, abstract art evolved into various movements and styles, each offering a unique perspective on the non-representational aesthetic. Movements like Abstract Expressionism, led by artists such as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, emphasized the creative process and the physical act of painting. Pollock’s drip paintings, made by spreading and dripping paint onto the canvas, showed the movement’s lively and energetic nature.
Despite its evolution, abstract art has often been met with skepticism. Critics argue that its lack of clear, recognizable forms makes it inaccessible to the general public. However, proponents of abstract art contend that its value lies in its ability to transcend language and cultural barriers, offering a universal form of expression that connects with the viewer on a subconscious level.
The impact of abstract art extends beyond the confines of the art world. It has influenced various fields, including architecture, design, and fashion, underscoring its significance as a revolutionary force in the realm of creative expression.
1. What distinguishes abstract art from traditional art forms?| A．Its focus on realistic portrayal. |
| B．Its emphasis on historical themes. |
| C．Its reliance on technological tools. |
| D．Its use of non-representational elements. |
| A．As means to achieve representational accuracy. |
| B．As tools to evoke emotional and spiritual responses. |
| C．As elements secondary to the subject matter. |
| D．As techniques to enhance visual complexity. |
| A．To depict modern technological advancements. |
| B．To capture the dynamism of urban life. |
| C．To reduce art to its basic elements for harmony and balance. |
| D．To experiment with new painting materials. |
| A．Because of its inaccessibility and lack of recognizable forms. |
| B．Due to its complex and complex themes. |
| C．Owing to its focus on naturalless and dynamism. |
| D．Due to its limited influence on other creative fields. |
7 . Robert Chmielewski has had quadriplegia (四肢瘫痪) since his teens. Sensors implanted (植入) in his brain read his thoughts to control two robotic arms, which helps him to perform daily tasks. Now he can use one robotic arm to control a knife and the other a fork.
Modern technology can reach inside someone’s head and pull out what he is thinking. Maybe he intends to move a robotic arm or type something on a computer screen. Such thought-controlled devices can help people who aren’t able to move or perform different tasks and promote the well-being of the disabled.
Decoding (解码) thought usually requires placing sensors directly on or in someone’s brain. Those implanted sensors can catch the electrical signals passing between the person’s brain cells, or neurons. Such signals carry messages that allow brains to think, feel and control the body.
Using brain implants, researchers have picked up electrical signals in the brain linked to certain words or letters. This has allowed brain implants to transform thoughts into text or speech on a computer. Likewise, brain implants have transformed imagined handwriting into text on a screen. Implanted sensors have even allowed scientists to turn the signals they caught that are associated with a song in someone’s head into real music.
In a recent study, scientists decoded full stories from people’s brains using MRI scans (磁共振成像扫描). This did not require any brain implants. But building the thought decoder did require many hours of brain scans for each person. What’s more, the system only worked on the person whose brain scans helped build it and only when that person was willing to have their mind read.
So devices that might let someone secretly read your mind from across the room are still a long, long way off. Still, it’s clear that mind-reading tech is getting more advanced. As it does, scientists are thinking hard about what it would mean to live in a world where not even the inside of your head is completely private.
1. What does the text begin with?| A．A suggestion. | B．A comparison. | C．An argument. | D．An example. |
| A．What principles a thought decoder should follow. |
| B．How MRI monitors the work of the implanted sensors. |
| C．What’s used to catch signals passing through the brain. |
| D．How robotic arms are designed to satisfy different needs. |
| A．Concerned. | B．Confident. | C．Doubtful. | D．Indifferent. |
| A．Mind Reading is Stealing Our Privacy | B．Mind Reading is Hard, but not Impossible |
| C．Mind Reading—Good News for Musicians | D．Mind Reading—a Brain-scanning Technology |
8 . The iPhone has become a usability nightmare (噩梦). A new one comes with 38 preinstalled (提前装好的) apps, of which you can delete 27. Once you’ve downloaded your favorite apps, you’re now sitting at 46 or more.
Like many companies, Apple has decided that there’s no need to build an easy-to-use product when it can use artificial intelligence. If you want to find something in their garbage dump of apps and options, you must use Spotlight, Apple’s AI-powered search engine that can find almost everything there.
This “innovation” of artificial intelligence is not the creation of something new but simply companies selling you back basic usability after decades of messy design choices. And these tech firms are charging us more to fix their mistakes and slapping an AI label as a solution.
Alexa and Siri have become replacements for intentional computing. They give commands into voice interfaces (接口) easily but sacrifice “what we can do” to “what Amazon or Apple allows us to do.” We have been trained to keep apps and files, while tech companies have failed to provide any easy way to organize them. They have decided that disorganized chaos is fine as long as they can provide an automated search product to sift (筛查) through the mess, something more tech, even if tech created the problem in the first place.
Artificial intelligence-based user interfaces rob the user of choice and empower tech giants to control their decision-making. When one searches for something in Siri or Alexa, Apple and Amazon control the results. Google already provides vastly different search results based on your location, and has redesigned search itself multiple times to trick users into clicking links that benefit Google in some way.
Depressingly, our future is becoming one where we must choose between asking an artificial intelligence for help, or fighting through an ever-increasing amount of poorly designed menus in the hope we might be able to help ourselves. We, as consumers, should demand more from the companies that have turned our digital lives into trillion-dollar enterprises.
1. Why does the author mention Apple’s problem?| A．As the main topic. | B．As the model. |
| C．As an example. | D．As a sharp contrast. |
| A．They are both Apple’s search products. |
| B．They help consumers make their own choices. |
| C．They have bettered the user experience greatly. |
| D．They work to the benefits of tech giants behind. |
| A．Uncertain. | B．Disapproving. | C．Unclear. | D．Unconcerned. |
| A．abandon using artificial intelligence |
| B．abandon using products from tech giants |
| C．recognize the nature of AI-based solution |
| D．recognize the nature of poorly designed apps |
9 . From writing Shakespeare-style poetry to making music, ChatGPT has amazed he world since its launch in late 2022 by the US-based company OpenAI. It even passed several law exams in four courses at the Unlversity of Minnesota, US.
The AI program can answer questions on a whole host of topics and write essays, stories and any other written texts you can think of. It does this by drawing on information collected from a large corpus (语料库) of text data.
What makes ChatGPT so impressive? As Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI said n an interview, “It’s not actually a fundamentally new technology that made this (ChatGPT) have a moment.” According to MIT Technology Review, ChatGPT is based on GPT-3, a large language model. Because texts are more complex than the meaning of every word combined, language models require a type of neural network (神经网络) that can make sense of texts.
One breakthrough behind today’s model is a network called Transformer, which was invented by Google researchers in 2017. The neural network can infer word meanings by tracking where the word appears in a sentence. Transformer can therefore gather the meaning of texts more accurately.
The GPT models were built by OpenAI combined Transformer with unsupervised (无人指导的) learning, meaning that the models can learn by themselves without being told what to look at. ChatGPT can now generate human-like responses instantly due to the large scale (规模) of texts It made sense of and learned from.
“One of the biggest problems with ChatGPT is that it comes back, very confidently, with falsities,” Michael Wooldridge at the Alan Turing Institute in London, UK. This means that ChatGPT doesn’t know the truth about the world — it learns information from various resources but It cannot decide what is true or false. As for education, many US schools recently banned students from using ChatGPT on school networks because students began to use it as a shortcut for essays.
1. What aspect of ChatGPT is most impressive?| A．The neural network. | B．The large text database. |
| C．The ability to combine words. | D．The application of technology. |
| A．Data-based communication. | B．Learning from masses of texts. |
| C．Human-guided machine learning. | D．Collecting texts for a large corpus. |
| A．Supportive. | B．Confused. | C．Objective. | D．Confident. |
| A．Is ChatGPT a Good Translator? |
| B．Should ChatGPT be Banned at School? |
| C．Can ChatGPT Choose True Information? |
| D．Will ChatGPT be the Wonder of Modern Technology? |
10 . In the days before the Internet, critical thinking was the most important skill of informed citizens. But in the digital age, according to Anastasia Kozyreva, a psychologist at the Max Planck Institute of Human Development, and her colleagues, an even more important skill is critical ignoring.
As the researchers point out, we live in an attention economy where content producers on the Internet compete for our attention. They attract us with a lot of emotional and eye-catching stories while providing little useful information, so they can expose us to profit-generating advertisements. Therefore,we are no longer customers but products, and each link we click is a sale of our time and attention. Toprotect ourselves from this, Kozyreva advocates for learning the skill of critical ignoring, in which readers intentionally control their information environment to reduce exposure to false and low-quality information.
According to Kozyreva, critical ignoring comprises three strategies. The first is to design ourenvironments, which involves the removal of low-quality yet hard-to-resist information from around. Successful dieters need to keep unhealthy food out of their homes. Likewise, we need to set up a digital environment where attention-grabbing items are kept out of sight. As with dieting, if one tries to bank onwillpower not to click eye-catching “news”, he’ll surely fail. So, it’s better to just keep them out of sightto begin with.
The next is to evaluate the reliability of information, whose purpose is to protect you from false and misleading information. It can be realized by checking the source in the mainstream news agencies which have their reputations for being trustworthy.
The last goes by the phrase “do not feed the trolls.” Trolls are actors who internationally spread false and hurtful information online to cause harm. It may be appealing to respond to them to set the facts straight, but trolls just care about annoying others rather than facts. So, it’s best not to reward their bad behaviour with our attention.
By sharpening our critical ignoring skills in these ways, we can make the most of the Internet while avoiding falling victim to those who try to control our attention, time, and minds.
1. What can we learn about the attention economy from paragraph 2?| A．It offers little information. | B．It features depressing stories. |
| C．It saves time for Internet users. | D．It seeks profits from each click. |
| A．To discuss the quality of information |
| B．To prove the benefits of healthy food. |
| C．To show the importance of environments. |
| D．To explain the effectiveness of willpower. |
| A．Reveal their intention. | B．Turn a deaf ear to them. |
| C．Correct their behaviour. | D．Send hard facts to them. |
| A．Reasons for critical thinking in the attention economy. |
| B．Practising the skill of critical ignoring in the digital age. |
| C．Maximizing the benefits of critical ignoring on the Internet. |
| D．Strategies of abandoning critical thinking for Internet users |
