1 . I was about 13 when an uncle gave me a copy of Jostein Gaarder’s Sophie’s World. It was full of ideas that were new to me, so I spent the summer with my head in and out of that book. It spoke to me and brought me into a world of philosophy (哲学).
That love for philosophy lasted until I got to college. Nothing kills the love for philosophy faster than people who think they understand Foucault, Baudrillard, or Confucius better than you — and then try to explain them.
Eric Weiner’s The Socrates Express: In Search of Life Lessons from Dead Philosophers reawakened my love for philosophy. It is not an explanation, but an invitation to think and experience philosophy.
Weiner starts each chapter with a scene on a train ride between cities and then frames each philosopher’s work in the context (背景) of one thing they can help us do better. The end result is a read in which we learn to wonder like Socrates, see like Thoreau, listen like Schopenhauer, and have no regrets like Nietzsche. This, more than a book about understanding philosophy, is a book about learning to use philosophy to improve a life.
He makes philosophical thought an appealing exercise that improves the quality of our experiences, and he does so with plenty of humor. Weiner enters into conversation with some of the most important philosophers in history, and he becomes part of that crowd in the process by decoding (解读) their messages and adding his own interpretation.
The Socrates Express is a fun, sharp book that draws readers in with its apparent simplicity and gradually pulls them in deeper thoughts on desire, loneliness, and aging. The invitation is clear: Weiner wants you to pick up a coffee or tea and sit down with this book. I encourage you to take his offer. It’s worth your time, even if time is something we don’t have a lot of.
What does the author like about The Socrates Express?| A．Its views on history are well-presented. |
| B．Its ideas can be applied to daily life. |
| C．It includes comments from readers. |
| D．It leaves an open ending. |
2 . Everything we know suggests that the universe is unusual. It is flatter, smoother, larger and emptier than a “typical” universe predicted by the known laws of physics. If we reached into a hat filled with pieces of paper, each with the specifications of a possible universe written on it, it is unlikely that we would get a universe anything like ours in one pick—or even a billion.
The challenge that cosmologists face is to make sense of this specialness. One approach to this question is inflation—the hypothesis (假设) that the early universe went through a stage of fast expansion. At first, inflation seemed to do the trick. A simple version of the idea gave correct predictions for the spectrum of fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background.
But a closer look shows that we have just moved the problem further back in time. To make inflation happen at all requires us to fine-tune the initial conditions of the universe. And unless inflation is highly tuned, it leads to a runaway process of universe creation. As a result, some cosmologists (宇宙学家) suggest that there is not one universe, but an infinite number, with a huge variety of properties: the multiverse. There are an infinite number of universes in the collection that are like our universe and an infinite number that are not. But the proportion of infinity to infinity is undefined, and can be made into anything the theorist wants. Thus, the multiverse theory has difficulty making any firm predictions and threatens to take us out of the area of science.
These other universes are unobservable and because chance dictates the random distribution of properties across universes, suggesting the existence of a multiverse does not let us get to anything about our universe beyond what we already know. As attractive as the idea may seem, it is basically a sleight of hand, which turns an explanatory failure into an apparent explanatory success. The success is empty because anything that might be observed about our universe could be explained as something that must, by chance, happen somewhere in the multiverse.
We started out trying to explain why the universe is so special, and we end up being asked to believe that our universe is one of an infinite number of universes with random properties. This makes me suspect that there is a basic but unexamined assumption about the laws of nature that must be overturned.
Cosmology has new questions to answer. Not just what are the laws, but why are these laws the laws? How were they chosen? We can’t just hypothesize what the initial conditions were at the big bang, we need to explain those initial conditions. Thus, we are in the position of a computer program asked to explain its inputs. It is clear that if we are to get anywhere, we need to invent new methods, and perhaps new kinds of laws, to gain a scientific description of the universe as a whole.
1. What does the writer imply about the hypothesis of inflation?| A．It hasn’t been challenged. |
| B．It doesn’t make much sense. |
| C．It is by far the most reasonable approach. |
| D．It is the simple version of a complicated idea. |
| A．believes the idea of the multiverse will help us to understand our universe better |
| B．argues there is a fixed proportion of universes like ours to those unlike ours |
| C．holds computer programs can work better than humans in cosmology |
| D．thinks some laws of nature that we take for granted may be false |
3 . Over the last seven years, most states have banned texting by drivers, and public service campaigns have tried a wide range of methods to persuade people to put down their phones when they are behind the wheel.
Yet the problem, by just about any measure, appears to be getting worse. Americans are still texting while driving, as well as using social networks and taking photos. Road accidents, which had fallen for years, are now rising sharply.
That is partly because people are driving more, but Mark Rosekind, the chief of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said distracted(分心)driving was “only increasing, unfortunately.”
“Big change requires big ideas.” he said in a speech last month, referring broadly to the need to improve road safety. So to try to change a distinctly modern behavior, lawmakers and public health experts are reaching back to an old approach: They want to treat distracted driving like drunk driving.
An idea from lawmakers in New York is to give police officers a new device called the Textalyzer. It would work like this: An officer arriving at the scene of a crash could ask for the phones of the drivers and use the Textalyzer to check in the operating system for recent activity. The technology could determine whether a driver had just texted, emailed or done anything else that is not allowed under New York’s hands-free driving laws.
“We need something on the books that can change people’s behavior,” said Félix W. Ortiz, who pushed for the state’s 2001 ban on hand-held devices by drivers. If the Textalyzer bill becomes law, he said, ”people are going to be more afraid to put their hands on the cell phone."
Which of the following best describes the ban on drivers’ texting in the US?
| A．Ineffective. | B．Unnecessary. |
| C．Inconsistent. | D．Unfair. |
4 . According to the Solar Energy Industry Association, the number of solar panels installed(安装)has grown rapidly in the past decade, and it has to grow even faster to meet climate goals. But all of that growth will take up a lot of space, and though more and more people accept the concept of solar energy, few like large solar panels to be installed near them.
Solar developers want to put up panels as quickly and cheaply as possible, so they haven’t given much thought to what they put under them. Often, they’ll end up filling the area with small stones and using chemicals to control weeds. The result is that many communities, especially in farming regions, see solar farms as destroyers of the soil.
“Solar projects need to be good neighbors,” says Jordan Macknick, the head of the Innovative Site Preparation and Impact Reductions on the Environment (InSPIRE)project. “They need to be protectors of the land and contribute to the agricultural economy.” InSPIRE is investigating practical approaches to “low-impact” solar development, which focuses on establishing and operating solar farms in a way that is kinder to the land. One of the easiest low-impact solar strategies is providing habitat for pollinators(传粉昆虫).
Habitat loss, pesticide use, and climate change have caused dramatic declines in pollinator populations over the past couple of decades, which has damaged the U.S. agricultural economy. Over 28 states have passed laws related to pollinator habitat protection and pesticide use. Conservation organizations put out pollinator-friendliness guidelines for home gardens, businesses, schools, cities—and now there are guidelines for solar farms.
Over the past few years, many solar farm developers have transformed the space under their solar panels into a shelter for various kinds of pollinators, resulting in soil improvement and carbon reduction. “These pollinator-friendly solar farms can have a valuable impact on everything that’s going on in the landscape,” says Macknick.
What do solar developers often ignore?
| A．The decline in the demand for solar energy. |
| B．The negative impact of installing solar panels. |
| C．The rising labor cost of building solar farms. |
| D．The most recent advances in solar technology. |
5 . Art is everywhere. Any public space has been carefully designed by an artistic mind to be both functional and beautiful. Why, then, is art still so widely considered to be "the easy subject" at school, insignificant to wider society, a waste of time and effort?
Art can connect culture with commercial products in a way that not many other things can; art generates money and holds significant emotional and cultural value within communities. When people attend a concert, they are paying for music, sure, maybe even hotel rooms, meals, and transport, but they also gain an incredible experience, a unique atmosphere and a memory that will go through the rest of their lives. People don't just want material things anymore, they want to experience life-the arts are a perfect crossover（交迭）between culture and commerce.
Furthermore, the arts can bring communities together, reducing loneliness and making people feel safer. Social bonds are created among individuals when they share their arts experiences through reflection and discussion, and their expression of common values through artworks in honour of events significant to a nation's experience.
The arts clearly have a pretty positive impact on physical and psychological health. It is found that people who frequent cultural places or participate in artistic events are more likely to gain good health compared to those who do not; more engagement with the arts is linked to a higher level of people's wellbeing. The Royal Society of Public Health discovered that music and art, when used in hospitals, help to improve the conditions of patients by reducing stress, anxiety and blood pressure.
Children who are involved with the arts make greater achievements in their education: those engaged with drama have greater literary ability while others taking part in musical practice exhibit greater skills in math and languages. Kids with preference for the arts have a greater chance of finding employment in the future. Participating in the arts is essential for child development; encouraging children to express themselves in constructive ways could help to form healthy emotional responses in later life.
Vital to human life, art is celebrated and used by nations across the world for various purposes. Life without art would be boring and dead still, for art is a part of what makes us human.
What can we learn about people who are involved in artistic activities?
| A．They enjoy better living conditions. |
| B．They like to compare themselves with others. |
| C．They are particularly good at both music and art. |
| D．They tend to be healthier physically and mentally. |
6 . During the rosy years of elementary school(小学), I enjoyed sharing my dolls and jokes, which allowed me to keep my high social status. I was the queen of the playground. Then came my tweens and teens, and mean girls and cool kids. They rose in the ranks not by being friendly but by smoking cigarettes, breaking rules and playing jokes on others,among whom I soon found myself.
Popularity is a well-explored subject in social psychology. Mitch Prinstein, a professor of clinical psychology sorts the popular into two categories: the likable and the status seekers. The likables’ plays-well-with-others qualities strengthen schoolyard friendships, jump-start interpersonal skills and, when tapped early, are employed ever after in life and work. Then there’s the kind of popularity that appears in adolescence: status born of power and even dishonorable behavior.
Enviableas the cool kids may have seemed, Dr. Prinstein’s studies show unpleasant consequences. Those who were highest in status in high school, as well as those least liked in elementary school, are “most likely to engage(从事) in dangerous and risky behavior.”
In one study, Dr. Prinstein examined the two types of popularity in 235 adolescents, scoring the least liked, the most liked and the highest in status based on student surveys(调查研究). “We found that the least well-liked teens had become more aggressive over time toward their classmates. But so had those who were high in status. It clearly showed that while likability can lead to healthy adjustment,high status has just the opposite effect on us."
1. What sort of girl was the author in her early years of elementary school?| A．Unkind. | B．Lonely. |
| C．Generous. | D．Cool. |
| A．They appeared to be aggressive. |
| B．They tended to be more adaptable. |
| C．They enjoyed the highest status. |
| D．They performed well academically. |
7 . At 88, I remain a competitive runner. The finish line of my life is drawing close, and I hope to reach it having given the best of myself along the way. I’ve been training my body to meet the demands of this final stretch. But, I wonder, should I have asked more of my mind?
If I didn’t exercise, I would release the hungry beasts that seek their elderly prey on couches, but not in the gym. The more I sweated, the more likely it was my doctor would continue to say, “Keep doing what you’re doing, and I’ll see you next year.” My mind, on the other hand, seems less willing to give in to discipline. I have tried Internet “brain games”, solving algebraic problems flashing past and changing the route of virtual trains to avoid crashes. But these never approach my determination to remain physically fit as I move deeper into old age.
Though I have many friends in their 70s, 80s and 90s, I’ve been far too slow to realize that how we respond to aging is a choice made in the mind, not in the gym. Some of my healthiest friends carry themselves as victims abused by time. Other friends, many, whose aching knees and hips are the least of their physical problems, find comfort in their ability to accept old age as just another stage of life to deal with. I would use the world “heroic” to describe the way they cope with aging.
One such friend recently called from a hospital to tell me a sudden brain disease had made him legally blind. He interrupted me as I began telling him how terribly sorry I was: “Bob, it could have been worse. I could have become dead instead of blind.”
In spite of all the time I spend lifting weights and exercising, I realized I lack the strength to have said those words. It suddenly struck me that I’ve paid a price for being a “gym rat”. If there is one characteristic common to friends who are aging with a graceful acceptance of life’s attacks, it is contentment. Aging had to be more than what I saw in a mirror.
But rather than undertaking a fundamental change in the way I face aging. I felt the place to begin would be to start small. A recent lunch provided a perfect example.
I’ve always found it extremely difficult to concentrate when I’m in a noisy setting. At this lunch with a friend in an outdoor restaurant, a landscaper began blowing leaves from underneath the bushes surrounding our table. Typically, after such a noisy interruption, I would have snapped, “let’s wait until he’s finished!. ”, then fallen silent. When the roar(吼叫)eventually faded, my roar would have drained(消耗)the conversation of any warmth. It troubled me that even a passing distraction(分心)could so easily take me from enjoying lunch with a good friend to a place that gave me no pleasure at all. I wanted this meal to be different.
My years in gyms had taught me to shake off pains and other distractions, never permitting them to stop my workout or run. I decided to treat the noise this way. I continued talking with my friend, challenging myself to hear the noise, but to hold it at a distance. The discipline was so familiar to me in the gym—this time applied to my mind— proved equally effective in the restaurant. It was as though I had taken my brain to a mental fitness center.
Learning to ignore a leaf blower’s roar hardly equips me to find contentment during my passage into ever-deeper old age. But I left the lunch feeling I had at least taken a small first step in changing behavior that stood in the way of that contentment.
Could I employ that same discipline to accept with dignity the unavoidable decline awaiting me like the finish line? Hoping that contentment will guide me as I make my way along the path yet to be travelled.
1. The author’s question in Paragraph 1 implies that ________.| A．he feels unsatisfied with the result of the brain games. |
| B．he has never believed the necessity of mind training. |
| C．He has realized he should mentally prepare for aging. |
| D．he feels regret for not sharpening his thinking skills |
| A．He takes physical illnesses as they come. |
| B．He fears that his illness will become worse. |
| C．He needs to find a way through those hardships. |
| D．He sees life as a series of disappointments. |
| A．he had made small changes to adapt to aging. |
| B．the restaurant was not an ideal place for eating |
| C．distractions were not uncommon in everything life. |
| D．his roar had spoiled the friendly conversation. |
| A．Benefits of Regular Exercise |
| B．Old Age Hate and Blessing |
| C．Never Too Old to Learn |
| D．The Secret to Aging Well |
8 . 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. |
9 . With the social media freely available, I've realized how easy it is to become a jealous cow. The truth is that however much I remind myself of the many wonderful things I have in my life, there are still moments when I look at those around me and feel bitterly upset by their success.
It's a horrible thing to admit! In an ideal world, I'd never want to be jealous of another person's achievements and I'd want to celebrate the successes of my friends. But sometimes it's hard, even when we want to. But I don't want to live my life as a jealous cow, and I assume you don't either.
It's easier to celebrate other people's wins if you celebrate your own. How often do we take the time to enjoy our success rather than instantly move onto the next thing we want to achieve? Last year, I decided to write a book. It was the only professional goal I set for myself and, while it tired me out, I got there. But as soon as it was done, I started planning my next goal-making the book a success. As I saw other people publishing books, I stopped celebrating and instead began to fear that mine wouldn't compete.
When I told a friend how I was feeling, she reminded me how much easier it is to clap for someone else when we also clap for ourselves. So, I took myself out for lunch, ordered a glass of wine and wrote myself a congratulations card. When I saw all those other books being written on my social media, I felt proud of each and every one of us who had battled to the end of the word count.
The other trick for celebrating other people's success is to realize that there is no limit on success. We can make more, which means that while it might seem as if others have everything and we have nothing, the reality is that life turns quickly and our luck could change at any time. If others have achieved those things, we can too. When we celebrate others, we're acknowledging their achievements but also cheering for ourselves as well as for our hopes and dreams and our belief that we can make them happen. And hopefully, when we do, those people will cheer for us too.
1. What can we infer from Paragraph 1?| A．Social media is the source of the author's jealousy. |
| B．Frequent successes on social media encourage envy. |
| C．It is a pleasure to face others' successes on social media. |
| D．People tend to be crazy about immediate success online. |
| A．Appreciate what's been done. |
| B．Show it off on social media. |
| C．Reflect on gains and losses. |
| D．Waite for others' congratulations. |
| A．pursuing those achievable goals |
| B．devoting yourself to the next goal |
| C．admitting personal incompetence |
| D．changing your attitude to success |
| A．I'm so happy for us! |
| B．What a considerate friend! |
| C．I don't care about it! |
| D．How selfless you can be! |
10 . 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. |
