1 . It’s common knowledge that the woman in Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous painting seems to look back at viewers, following them with her eyes no matter where they are 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 of 15.4° off to the viewer’s right — well outside 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 ironic (讽刺), 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”, which is absolutely real. If a person is illustrated or photographed looking straight ahead, even people viewing the portrait from an angle will feel they are being looked at. As long as the angle of the person’s gaze is no more than about 5 degrees off to either side, the Mona Lisa effect occurs.
Horstmann and his co-author were studying this effect for its application in the creation of artificial-intelligence avatars (虚拟头像) when Horstmann took a long look at the “Mona Lisa” and realized she wasn’t looking at him.
To make sure it wasn’t just him, the researchers gathered 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 (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 observers wherever they stand |
| A．The Mona Lisa effect does not really exist. |
| B．The mystery of the woman’s smile in the painting. |
| C．The angle of the gaze in Mona Lisa effect. |
| D．Mona Lisa effect does not occur with Mona Lisa. |
| A．confirm Horstmann’s belief |
| B．create artificial-intelligence avatars |
| C．calculate the angle of Mona Lisa’s gaze |
| D．show how the Mona Lisa effect can be applied |
| A．Horstmann thinks it 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. |
2 . Because the commercial internet has been developed with so little regard for privacy, tech companies have been able to turn personal data into considerable profits, raising billions of dollars off their ability to collect and sell information about anyone who has wandered within shouting distance of their software. This week, Google announced a step in the right direction-but not a huge step, nor one that will stop Google from continuing to collect immense amounts of personal data.
At issue is how online companies track internet users as they browse (浏览) from site to site online, typically through cookies (information that a website leaves in your computer so that the website will recognize you when you use it again). The most harmful version, “third-party” cookies, is the web alternative of a company posting security guards across the internet to monitor what you do, even when you’re on other companies’ sites.
Google declared in a blog post Wednesday that it would no longer use or support third-party cookies, nor would it create or use any other technology that tracks individual users across the web. Given that Google is a main supplier of online advertising technology, its change in approach will impact far and wide.
That’s welcome news, although with huge amounts of warning. As Lee Tien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation noted, third-party cookies were already on the retreat, with Apple and other makers of popular web browsers moving to block them. Meanwhile, Google, Facebook and other Big Tech companies continue to collect personal information in large quantities from people who use their sites and services through first-party cookies and similar techniques.
The concerns about personal data collection are the same whether it’s being collected through first-party or third-party techniques, said Michelle Richardson of the Center for Democracy and Technology. “Companies may use the information to discriminate among internet users, offering different goods, services and even prices to different users.”
Instead of helping advertisers track individuals, Google says, it is improving a technology that assigns users namelessly to large groups with common interests. That’s an improvement, even though it too may be at risk of abuse. But why do any form of tracking at all? Privacy advocates say pitches (兜售) can be targeted effectively by basing them on where the user is at the moment, not where he or she has browsed previously online.
Ultimately, lawmakers are going to have to lay down regulations giving people far more control over whether and how personal information is used online. Ideally the federal (联邦的) government will set a strong floor under online privacy protections, but until then it will be up to state lawmakers or voters to act, as this state has done with its groundbreaking online privacy laws. It’s good to see Google move the ball forward, but there’s much farther to go.
1. What does the underlined phrase “on the retreat” in Para 4 most probably mean?| A．Exposed. | B．Removed. | C．Emerging. | D．Fading. |
| A．is developing new technologies to stop data collection |
| B．refuses to work with companies tracking privacy |
| C．intends to abandon its advertising technologies |
| D．resolves to stop the use of third-party cookies |
| A．are still collecting personal information |
| B．are blocked by big companies like Apple |
| C．are mainly used by advertising companies |
| D．are less concerning than third-party cookies |
| A．It is less satisfactory than expected. |
| B．It needs to be more forceful to be effective. |
| C．It will accelerate the disappearance of cookies. |
| D．It has driven lawmakers to make new regulations. |
3 . With Heavenly Lake as the center, the Heavenly Lake and Tianshan Mountains Scenic Area consists of four mountain landscape belts, which covers a total area of 380.69 square kilometers. In the mountains by Heavenly Lake, there live many precious plants and animals, such as snow cocks and roe deer. The tops of the mountains are even home to contemporary glaciers and rich in resources such as copper, iron and mica.
Ideal Sightseeing Season: August and September
Opening Hours: 09:00 - 19:30 in peak season, 10:00-18:00 in off season
Ticket Price:
● Admission fee: 95 yuan from April to October, 45 yuan from November to March.
● Temple of Queen Mother of the West: 10 yuan.
● Eco- museum of Heavenly Lake: 10 yuan.
● Cableway: 20 yuan/one-way, 35 yuan/round-trip.
● Other fees: sightseeing bus (60 yuan/round-trip), accumulator car (5 yuan/person each time), painted pleasure boat (50 yuan/person each time), speed boat (35 yuan/person each time), yacht (205yuan/person each time).
Note:
● There is an obvious difference in temperature from day and in night in Xinjiang and temperature in some scenic spots is probably lower due to the high elevation or weather change. Therefore, it is still necessary to take along a coat or woolen sweater to keep warm during the summer.
● Located in the northwest, Xinjiang has a lower average temperature than that in most areas of China, but ultraviolet irradiation in it is commonly higher. The highest temperature in some cities such as Turpan can reach above 40 degree Centigrade, so it is suggested to take along effective sun block and some medicine in case of sunburn and sunstroke prevention.
● Xinjiang is a region of an ethnic minority with a common belief of Islam. Pork is one of the biggest taboos for Muslims, so please do NOT bring porky food into a Muslim restaurant or talk about pork in public areas.
● Although most areas of Xinjiang are located in UTC+6, Beijing Time (UTC+8, national standard time of China) is officially used in Xinjiang. Due to the time difference of two hours later, sightseeing in Xinjiang is usually arranged between Beijing Time 09:00 and 20:00.
1. What can we know from the passage?| A．There are many common plants and contemporary glaciers on tops of the mountains. |
| B．In spring visitors can enjoy the most beautiful scenery there. |
| C．Visitors need to carry heavy clothes, sunglasses and some medicine during the visit in summer. |
| D．Pulled pork is available in Muslim restaurants in Xinjiang |
| A．165 yuan. | B．330 yuan. |
| C．70 yuan. | D．140 yuan. |
| A．A travel review. | B．A travel advertisement. |
| C．A travel news. | D．A travel guide. |
4 . In the magnificent range of mountains of northern California, 42 radio telescopes point towards the stars, scanning for signs of life. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence （SETI） Institute has been listening for a signal here since it was founded in 1984. Jill Tarter, its co — founder, says the programmed aim is not just to communicate with remote civilisations. It is also to remind human beings of its own modest, fragile （脆弱的）place in the universe. Thus, for the first time, SETI is cocking its ear towards Earth to look for a signal that can be sent into space to represent the species.
Felipe Perez Santiago, a Mexican musician and composer, has an idea of what might work.Since songs, like the human voices, are common to all languages and nations, he and Ms. Tarter have designed the “Earthling Project”-a call to people everywhere to upload extracts （精华）of song that he plans to melt into a collective human chorus. An initial composition will be launched into space this summer, recorded on a virtually indestructible disk. Future plans and dreams include an eventual landing on Mars.
Human music has been sent to the heavens in 1977. Distant beings can in theory already enjoy Peruvian panpipes, a Navajo chant, Bach, Beethoven and more. But no previous offering, and perhaps no composition undertaken anywhere, has tried to encompass the entire diversity of human song.
Mr. Santiago says he is thrilled about bringing together contributors from around the globe. Unlike other recordings sent into space, says Mr. Santiago, “Everyone's invited. You don't have to be one of the main composers of our history like Beethoven, just someone singing in their shower.” Download the “Earthling Project" app, sing up to three songs of 30 seconds each, and your voice will be sent into the sky.
1. Why does SETI look for a signal to be sent into space?| A．To stand for species on the earth. |
| B．To scan for other liveable planets. |
| C．To respond to the call of the universe. |
| D．To stress the importance of the earth. |
| A．It is a world music organization. |
| B．It intends to create a human chorus. |
| C．It tries to develop a universal language. |
| D．It aims to search for signals from space. |
| A．Include. | B．Appreciate. |
| C．Work out. | D．Relate to. |
| A．To inspire people to become composers. |
| B．To call on people to protect our planet. |
| C．To encourage people to explore space. |
| D．To invite people to join a programme. |
5 . Just as a hungry brain craves (渴望) food, a lonely brain craves people. A new brain study demonstrates this. After being left alone, it shows people's brains would be activated at the sight of other people. The action was in the same brain region that speeds up when a hungry person sees food.
Livia Tomova, a neuroscientist, who studies how the brain produces mental activities, and her colleagues began this study. They recruited (招募) 40 people. On one day, the participants had to fast—not eat anything at all—for 10 hours. On another day, the same people were placed in a room for 10 hours. They couldn't see anyone. No friends, no family and no social media. They weren't even allowed to check their email. After both days, Tomova and her colleagues put the people in a MRI machine. It shows activity in the brain by tracking how much blood is flowing to each region.
At the end of each day, the participants showed high activity in a brain area called the midbrain. The scientists were interested in two, small areas within it. Both areas produce dopamine, a chemical that is important in craving and rewards. The two areas activated when hungry participants saw pictures of tasty pizza or juicy hamburgers. After the volunteers had been isolated, those brain areas became active when they saw social activities they missed. It might be playing sports or chatting with friends.
The midbrain plays an important part in people's motivation to seek food or friends. In fact, it responds to food and social signals even when people aren't hungry or lonely. But hunger and loneliness increased the reactions and made people's responses specific to the thing they were missing. And the more hunger or isolation the volunteers said they were experiencing, the stronger the activity in this part of the brain. Tomova and her colleagues published their results November 23 in Nature Neuroscience.
1. How does Tomova test out the result of the study?| A．By stimulating desire. | B．By controlling blood flow. |
| C．By monitoring brain activity. | D．By examining mental activities. |
| A．It consists of two areas. | B．It helps motivate desire for food. |
| C．It stops working when people are full. | D．It decreases responses to lost friends. |
| A．A midbrain area. | B．A social activity. | C．A volunteer. | D．A hamburger. |
| A．Dopamine—a Sure Sign of Age | B．Midbrain—a Nest for the Thoughts |
| C．Hunger Makes Mental Health Struggle | D．Loneliness Makes Our Brains Need People |
6 . Randy Kraus was disabled. His left side was useless. He'd been a police officer before, and he was strong and able. Now, he felt he could do nothing.
His trouble started with Parkinson's disease, but it didn't end there. In July, 2002, the 60-year-old Kraus went into the hospital for an operation on his brain to control the shaking. But during the operation，he had a stroke. He was paralyzed. The doctor said, “You may never walk again and you might not even be able to talk.”
Kraus found that he couldn't lift a fork or take a drink by himself. Physical treatment was so painful and slow. What did he have to live for? So Kraus held the gun against his head. Feeling the cold metal on his skin, he began to consider the pain he would cause for his wife, daughters and grandchildren. He didn't pull the trigger (扳机)．
Andrew Garud, his exercise physiologist, told him, “You are where you are. The pace would be slow；the pain would be real. But as long as you are alive, you will have the ability to get better.”
After three months of working with Garud, Kraus wanted to see if he could stand.
He could. Then he took three steps, sat down and cried like a baby.
One step, as they say, led to another. Next he managed a short walk along the edge of a boxing ring (拳击台) in the health club. It was the hardest fight of Kraus's life. People at the gym cheered him on. Garud kept saying he could do more. Now, Kraus can brush his teeth，shave himself and get around the house with a walker. Only the disabled can fully understand little success.
1. According to the passage，we can learn that ________.| A．the stroke during the operation on his brain led to Kraus' disability |
| B．Kraus' operation in 2002 was performed by Andrew Garud |
| C．doing exercise can help cure Parkinson's disease |
| D．Kraus will lead a normal life as a healthy person in the future |
| A．Everyone in the world has the right to be alive. |
| B．It's necessary for people to do exercise to keep healthy. |
| C．One should try to lead a better life. |
| D．As long as a person is alive, he will have a chance to be better. |
| A．Optimism. | B．Strong mindedness. |
| C．Sympathy. | D．Generosity. |
7 . As more and more people speak the global language of English, Chinese, Spanish, and Arabic, other languages are rapidly disappearing. In fact, half of the 6,000-7,000 languages spoken around the world today will be likely to die out by the next century, according the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
In an effort to prevent language loss, scholars from a number of organizations — UNESCO and National Geographic among them — have for many years been documenting dying languages and the cultures they reflect.
Mark Turin, a scientist at the Macmillan Center, Yale University, who specializes in the languages and oral traditions of the Himalayas, is following in that tradition. His recently published book, A Grammar of Thangmi and Their Culture, grows out of his experience living, working, and raising a family in a village in Nepal.
Documenting the Thangmi language and culture is just a starting point for Turin, who seeks to include other languages and oral traditions across the Himalayan reaches of India, Nepal, Bhutan, and China. But he is not content to simply record these voices before they disappear without record.
At the University of Cambridge Turin discovered a wealth of important materials —including photographs, films, tape recordings, and field notes — which had remained unstudied and were badly in need of care and protection. Now, through the two organizations that he has founded — the Digital Himalaya Project and the World Oral Literature Project — Turin has started a campaign to make such documents, found in libraries and stores around the world, available not just to schools but to the younger generations of communities from whom the materials were originally collected. Thanks to digital technology and the widely available Internet, Turin notes, the endangered languages can be saved and reconnected with speech communities.
1. Many scholars are making efforts to ________.| A．promote global languages | B．rescue disappearing languages |
| C．search for languages communities | D．set up language research organizations |
| A．having detailed records of the languages | B．writing books on language users |
| C．telling stories about language speakers | D．living with the native speakers |
| A．The cultural studies in India. | B．The documents available at Yale. |
| C．His language research in Bhutan. | D．His personal experience in Nepal. |
| A．Write, sell and donate. | B．Record, repair and reward. |
| C．Collect, protect and reconnect. | D．Design, experiment and report. |
8 . The Rise of Voice Technology
Voice technology has come a long way. Just a few years ago, it would have been unusable. But now, those who follow the technology know that it has got considerably better.
Writing with your voice raises several interesting questions. How difficult is it actually? Human speech involves a lot more starting and stopping with errors and the need for repairing broken sentences than you may think. Even gifted speakers make mistakes. To turn the spoken word into reasonable writing requires lots of planning. You’ll need some kinds of notes or other organisers to make it work.
Another question turning speech into writing raises is the style. How would writing make the change that people speak their writing rather than type? Chances are that it would come up with many more short sentences and more concrete language, which is good. It would probably also rely on prepared phrases a lot more often, which is not available when you are speaking quickly.
To confirm this, a column was not written, but dictated (听写). It was composed from brief notes written down for structure only, and it was edited for length, with all of the original errors kept in. Here were the results. The first was that the literal accuracy was extremely high. There weren’t many cases where the software had heard one word incorrectly and written down another. But the other result was that the readability of this column was rather bad. Obviously, the blame is not with the technology at all, which turns out to be rather good. Speaking into writing relies on a better human brain than the one we currently possess. Writing is hard. There’s a reason it can’t be done at the speed of speech, in real time.
To clarify the matter, this time paragraph breaks were added after the whole writing. Punctuations (标点) had to be spoken aloud, and after a full stop, the first word in the new sentence was capitalized automatically. Some minor punctuation marks were added to make it clearer. To improve accuracy, people “trained” the software beforehand, reading a prewritten passage aloud. Actually it turns out to be more effective. All of these ensure the satisfactory completion of turning speech into writing.
Language is the most important tool for human interaction, and voice is one beautiful part of language. With the maturity of modern technology, it has given birth to a great change in the human-computer voice interaction.
1. According to the passage, which helps to turn speech into writing in terms of style?| A．There is careful planning in advance. |
| B．Errors and broken sentences are avoided. |
| C．People type words as fast as they say them. |
| D．The writing contains more prepared phrases. |
| A．processing errors in a column. |
| B．adding minor punctuation marks. |
| C．increasing the number of brief notes. |
| D．integrating short paragraphs in writing. |
| A．human brains are responsible for poor dictated writing. |
| B．writing with voice promises to improve the quality of writing. |
| C．writing is an unnatural act that can hardly be learned and improved. |
| D．technology has a long way to go in the human-computer voice interaction. |
| A．Why people fully intend to turn speech into writing. |
| B．What role voice technology plays in improving readability. |
| C．Where the human-computer voice interaction is at an advantage. |
| D．How voice technology enables the change from speech into writing. |
9 . While many countries love their tea, UK citizens are particularly proud of being "tea people". The average UK citizen consumes nearly 2 kilograms of tea each year.Tea only made its way to England in large quantities in the first years of the 17th century. Tea from China and a few other Asian countries was being sold more widely in England at that time. Then tea became more and more popular among different social classes.
There are many varieties of tea. Black tea mixtures are still the most common type drunk in the UK. Black tea is dark in colour,because the leaves have been allowed to oxidize(氧化）before drying. This is why we usually serve it with milk,although it is not uncommon to drink it black or with lemon.
You may still find tea made with loose tea leaves, served up in a pot, and poured into the best china cups with saucers(茶托）for visitors.
Tea is still a large part of daily life in the UK today, but it seems to be on the decrease . The amount of tea sold in the UK fell by more than 10% in the five years leading up to 2002, and has been dropping ever since. Tea sales fell by 6% in 2014 alone, and most restaurants report selling more than twice as many cups of coffee as they do tea. More than 1 billion was spent on coffee in high street stores in 2013, more than twice what was spent on tea bags.
Still, what goes around comes around ; it's sure to become fashionable again.
1. Which of the following is true according to the first three paragraphs?| A．Tea made its way to England in the early years of the 16th century. |
| B．The UK usually serves black tea with lemon. |
| C．Tea from China is being sold more widely in England now. |
| D．UK citizens take pride in being "tea people". |
| A．Tea sales fell by 6% in 2014 alone. |
| B．The sales of tea have been on the decrease for about 20 years. |
| C．In 2013, the money spent on tea was f 3 billion. |
| D．Most restaurants like selling tea than coffee. |
| A．It can never succeed again. | B．Tea can become popular again. |
| C．Coffee is more popular than tea. | D．Tea is becoming less popular. |
10 . There are around 100 tribes(部落)that live in global isolation, mostly in South America and India. The Sentinelese have lived on one of the Andaman Islands in Eastern India for 60, 000 years. They protect their island by fighting against people from outside. Their language is different from any other known language. Another Andaman tribe is the Jarawa. In the past, they were independent and fought against anybody trying to make contact with them. But in 1998, the Indian government built a road across their land, and since then, they’ve had more contact with the outside world.
Some Amazon tribes avoid contact because of unhappy memories. The Mashco-Piro left their vegetable gardens after rubber companies killed most of their tribe at the beginning of the 20th century. Those who survived became nomadic(游牧的)and started hunting animals in the forest.
The Awa live in the Amazon forests ofBrazil. Out of 350 members, 100 have no contact with the outside world. They left their villages and adopted a nomadic lifestyle around 1850 to escape attacks by Europeans. In the following years, farmers in nearby communities started cutting the trees to expand their farmland. The Awa lost most of their hunting land. The few Amazon tribes that still exist are fighting to keep their traditional way of life.
Survival, an organization that fights for the rights of tribal people, says that uncontacted tribes are the most vulnerable(弱势的)humans on the planet and that’s why their environment should be unavailable to the rest of us. After years of pressure, the organization got Brazil’s government to clear non-natives from the Awa land. All non-Awa people are leaving so the tribe can get their forest back.
But some think it's impossible for tribes to stay isolated forever in a connected world. Contact will be made one day. So the question is：Whose choice should it be, ours or theirs?
1. What can we learn about the Sentinelese from the first paragraph?| A．They resist contact from the outside world. |
| B．They speakthe same language as the Jarawa. |
| C．They are wild about fighting with other tribes. |
| D．They have got help from the Indian govemment. |
| A．To protect their hunting land. | B．To search for food sources. |
| C．To avoid threats from Europeans. | D．To maintain their original way of life. |
| A．The tribes should be left undisturbed. |
| B．The tribes should fight for more living space. |
| C．The cribes should live in harmony with nature. |
| D．The tribes should adapt to the connected world. |
| A．The Nomadic Tribes in the World | B．Seeking Survival of Tribes |
| C．The Unavailable Tribal Environment | D．Protecting the Tribal Forests |
