1 . In spring, chickens start laying again, bringing a welcome source of protein at winter’s end. So it’s no surprise that cultures around the world celebrate spring by honoring the egg.
Some traditions are simple, like the red eggs that get baked into Greek Easter breads. Others elevate the egg into a fancy art, like the heavily jewel-covered “eggs” that were favored by the Russians starting in the 19th century.
One ancient form of egg art comes to us from Ukraine. For centuries, Ukrainians have been drawing complicated patterns on eggs. Contemporary artists have followed this tradition to create eggs that speak to the anxieties of our age: Life is precious, and delicate. Eggs are, too.
“There’s something about their delicate nature that appeals to me,” says New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast. Several years ago, she became interested in eggs and learned the traditional Ukrainian technique to draw her very modern characters. “I’ve broken eggs at every stage of the process — from the very beginning to the very, very end.”
But there’s an appeal in that vulnerability(易损性). “There’s part of this sickening horror of knowing you’re walking on the edge with this, that I kind of like, knowing that it could all fall apart at any second.” Chast’s designs, such as a worried man alone in a tiny rowboat, reflect that delicateness.
Traditional Ukrainian decorated eggs also spoke to those fears. The elaborate patterns were believed to offer protection against evil.
“There’s an ancient legend that as long as these eggs are made, evil will not exist in the world.” says Joan Brander, a Canadian egg-painter who has been painting eggs for over 60 years, having learned the art from her Ukrainian relatives.
1. People in many cultures honor the egg because _______________.| A．it is their major source of protein in winter |
| B．it is a welcome sign of the approach of spring |
| C．it can bring wealth and honor to them |
| D．it can easily be made into a work of art |
| A．carve | B．promote | C．place | D．lower |
| A．She is never sure what the final design will look like until the end. |
| B．She always achieves great pleasure from designing something new. |
| C．She never knows if the egg will break before the design is completed. |
| D．She believes there won’t be evil in the world once the egg is made. |
| A．the decorated “eggs” are favored as a form of fancy art in Russia |
| B．contemporary artists draw on eggs to reflect anxieties of people today |
| C．the delicate nature of eggs appeals to Roz Chast |
| D．eggs provide a hard and unique surface to paint on |
2 . Feeling achy and feverish? Your misery has plenty of company. By the end of December, the tally (计数器) of flu-like illnesses in the state exceeded the peaks in the two previous seasons, when the biggest number of cases occurred in February and March. This time, the flu virus seems to be hitting even harder.
Flu is unique among human diseases. It circulates constantly in cool and dry areas. Because it spreads from person to person and can be picked up easily, nearly everyone is exposed. While it’s unclear whether the annual flu epidemic (流行病) will worsen this year, or just arrived earlier, fears have been increased by the severity of flu in Australia during its most recent season and the fact that the vaccine may protect against the predominant (盛行的) kind of the flu only 30 percent of the time.
Despite the worries, doctors and public health officials say there is no evidence that people are getting sicker than usual. Flu cases in Massachusetts started rising around Thanksgiving and increased steadily, with an especially steep climb in the last week of the year. “This is a bad flu season but not a horrible one,” said Dr. Andrew G. Villanueva, a lung specialist and chief quality officer at the Lahey Hospital & Medieal Centre in Burlington.
The flu season, while clearly in full swing, doesn’t “feel different” from previous years, Villanueva said. “We’re not seeing a lot of people being hospitalized because of flu,” he said. “Most people with the flu recover on their own without medical care.”
1. What’s the function of the first paragraph?| A．A lead-in. | B．A comment. | C．A summary. | D．A background. |
| A．The outbreak of the flu is terrible. |
| B．The flu has arrived earlier than before. |
| C．The vaccine against the nu is highly effective. |
| D．Everyone feels horrible at the mention of the flu. |
| A．Crowded | B．Changeable | C．Permanent | D．Active |
| A．To explain what flu is. |
| B．To rid people of flu panic. |
| C．To warn readers of how serious the flu is. |
| D．To inform readers how to prevent the flu. |
3 . In 2015, a man named Nigel Richards memorized 386, 000 words in the entire French Scrabble Dictionary in just nine weeks. However, he does not speak French. Richards’ impressive feat is a useful example to show how artificial intelligence works — real AI. Both of Richard and AI take in massive amounts of data to achieve goals with unlimited memory and superman accuracy in a certain field.
The potential applications for AI are extremely exciting. Because AI can outperform humans at routine tasks — provided the task is in one field with a lot of data — it is technically capable of replacing hundreds of millions of white and blue collar jobs in the next 15 years or so.
But not every job will be replaced by AI. In fact, four types of jobs are not at risk at all. First, there are creative jobs. AI needs to be given a goal to optimize. It cannot invent, like scientists, novelists and artists can. Second, the complex, strategic jobs — executives, diplomats, economists — go well beyond the AI limitation of single-field and Big Data. Then there are the as-yet-unknown jobs that will be created by AI.
Are you worried that these three types of jobs won’t employ as many people as AI will replace? Not to worry, as the fourth type is much larger: jobs where emotions are needed, such as teachers, nannies and doctors. These jobs require compassion, trust and sympathy — which AI does not have. And even if AI tried to fake it, nobody would want a robot telling them they have cancer, or a robot to babysit their children.
So there will still be jobs in the age of AI. The key then must be retraining the workforce so people can do them. This must be the responsibility not just of the government, which can provide funds, but also of corporations and those who benefit most.
1. What is the main purpose of paragraph 1?| A．To introduce the topic. |
| B．To mention Nigel’s feat. |
| C．To stress the importance of good memory. |
| D．To suggest humans go beyond AI in memory. |
| A．Be superior to | B．Be equal to |
| C．Be similar to | D．Be related to |
| A．The writer. | B．The shop assistant. |
| C．The babysitter. | D．The psychologist. |
| A．Limit the application of AI to a certain degree. |
| B．Get more support from the government. |
| C．Apply for the donation from companies. |
| D．Upgrade themselves all the time. |
4 . Regrets are often painful. A study suggests that some people can overcome them, said Jia Wei Zhang, a psychology graduate at the University of California. But this isn’t the case for everyone, he said.
The researchers wondered why some people report feeling improvement from regrets but others don’t. Does it lie in how people approach their regrets?
In the study, the researchers focused on self-compassion (自我同情) as a potential factor in why some people have an easier lime leaving their regrets behind them.
400 people attended an experiment. First, they were asked to write about their biggest regret. Half wrote something they did but wish they hadn’t done; the other half wrote something they didn’t do but wish they had. Then, the participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups: self compassion, self-esteem and a control group. The self-esteem group was asked to respond by “talking to yourself about this regret from the aspect of confirming your positive qualities”.
The control group was asked to write about their favorite hobby rather than their regret. Then, they were asked about their feelings of forgiveness, acceptance and personal improvement following the exercise.
They found that the self-compassion group reported greater feelings of acceptance, forgiveness and personal improvement, compared with the control group and the self esteem group. In other words, focusing on your best qualities is not what helps you feel better about a regret. Rather, being compassionate toward yourself is what may make a difference, the researchers found.
It’s possible that people who practice self-compassion are able to confront their regrets and see what went wrong, so they can make a better choice in the future, Zhang told Live Science. Self-compassion pushes people to accept their regret instead of running away from it.
The researchers used an example of this from a previous study on breast cancer patients who were asked to try thinking about their treatment in a positive light before it began. The women who did so reported greater feelings of personal growth later on.
1. What does the underlined word “confront” in Paragraph 7 mean?| A．Handle | B．Forget. |
| C．Ignore | D．Show. |
| A．Think of a way out. | B．Write about their regrets. |
| C．Record their favorite hobbies. | D．Treat their regrets in positive ways. |
| A．To cover up their regrets. |
| B．To see if they have weaknesses. |
| C．To see if they have self compassion. |
| D．To help them feel better about their regrets. |
| A．To show the method of the research. |
| B．To show the value of the acceptance. |
| C．To show the truth of people’s feeling. |
| D．To show the difficulty of the research. |
