1 . How Can We Trust AI If We Don’t Know How It Works
Alien minds, in the form of artificial intelligence (AI) systems, surround us in daily life, powering facial recognition, determining creditworthiness, and even creating poetry and code.
Many AI systems, particularly those based on deep learning neural networks, have trillions of parameters (参数), making their decision-making processes opaque (不透明的) — a phenomenon known as the AI explainability problem.
Unlike humans who can justify their decisions based on ethical principles, AI lacks the ability to explain its decision-making, failing the predictive requirement for trust. Consider situations like the “Trolley Problem,” where a self-driving car must make a difficult decision without the capacity to provide a human-like explanation.
Trust relies not only on explainability and predictability but also on ethical or moral motivations. Humans expect others to act not just as they assume they will, but also as they should.
The integration of AI into vital systems, such as electric grids and military operations, heightens the importance of trust.
In conclusion, AI lacks the predictability and ethical elements that would make it inherently trustworthy. Addressing the challenges of explainability and alignment is essential to ensure that AI systems earn and maintain human trust in critical applications. Further research in this area is needed to pave the way for trustworthy AI systems in the future.
| A．As a result, understanding why AI systems make specific decisions is challenging, raising concerns about their trustworthiness. |
| B．However, AI operates with a fixed way of thinking molded by training data. |
| C．Addressing and resolving the issue before it reaches a critical point becomes crucial. |
| D．These are contexts where undesirable behavior could lead to severe consequences. |
| E．To enhance trust, proposals have been made to involve humans in AI decision-making, either in the loop or on the loop. |
| F．Due to the lack of unpredictability, people find it impossible to interpret the specific factors influencing Al-driven decisions. |
| G．However, the trustworthiness of these AI systems faces significant challenges due to their limited explainability and unpredictability. |
2 . It all began innocently—I rushed to the local market for a few items, deciding not to use a cart (推车). As I approached the checkout area with my hands full, it was clear that the
Like most, I surveyed the checkout lines,
In a(an)
Then came a(an)
Leaving the store, I felt
| A．community | B．delivery | C．customer | D．emergency |
| A．erupted | B．extended | C．prevented | D．disturbed |
| A．pessimistically | B．confidently | C．joyfully | D．curiously |
| A．news | B．information | C．awareness | D．dissatisfaction |
| A．spread | B．changed | C．exploded | D．ended |
| A．Controlled | B．Managed | C．Surrounded | D．Directed |
| A．accomplish | B．quicken | C．conclude | D．perform |
| A．suffered | B．experienced | C．expressed | D．sensed |
| A．effortless | B．depressed | C．formal | D．easygoing |
| A．friendly | B．confused | C．happy | D．expressionless |
| A．moral | B．experimental | C．unexpected | D．painful |
| A．escape | B．enrich | C．excite | D．embrace |
| A．wisdom | B．knowledge | C．judgment | D．appreciation |
| A．gentle | B．continuous | C．forbidden | D．serious |
| A．love | B．talent | C．gift | D．experience |
Born into a medical family, Amar, a 15-year-old boy, was expected to be a doctor, but deep down in his heart, he was eager to take up writing as his future career. He was in a great dilemma whether to pursue his dream or live up to his parents’ expectation. until one day when his father gifted him a parrot.
The parrot had two hazy lines in her neck: black and red. Amar knew the hazy lines mark the stage of learning. “When there is a good teacher, how can his student be stupid” ,he used to believe. It was absolutely true.
Metto’s cage was yellow with a big door and a shiny silver rod (杆) running through the centre. Metto’s world was fantastic, surrounded by eight-foot white walls with some plum trees. And a lawn, with a palm tree in the middle, was dotted with multiple-color roses.
Back home from school every afternoon, Amar always slid the door of the cage up for Metto to set her free nearby the palm tree. Metto could set herself free because she learned how to slide up the door but she had never tried to do so. It was either love with Amar or, might be, she had never tasted the taste of a bigger world.
Amar always talked with Metto in Pashto (普什图语). Whenever Amar fished out peanuts from his pocket, Metto talked frequently “Toti choori khore” —parrot! Wanna eat choori. She had learned one more sentence after meeting with a friend belonging to jungle outside the white walls. She always said that at the end of meal “Da wakht bam teer she”—this shall to be passed, which Amar had never taught her.
Amar saw her friend coming daily and sitting in the plum tree nearby Metto’s cage. He let them and did nothing. “The new one can never succeed in winning her. After all, I feed her well. She will never leave me”, Amar murmured. But he didn’t know the new teacher had taught her something the old one hadn’t. It was the outer world with untouchable horizon.
注意：1. 续写词数应为 150个左右;
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
One day, on the way to feed her, Amar was shocked at what Metto was doing.
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His head hanging down; Amar came back home after long running.
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Postcards from the World
While the sun washed over the grass of my grandmother’s front garden, I sank into one of her armchairs familiar to me. Life, as I knew it, had changed. My beloved grandmother, my Nanny, as a ”parent“ in the absence of my father, had cancer. It was terminal (晚期的).
As she watched Getaway, a Sunday afternoon TV program, she remarked to me that she’d never left Australia and that now she never would. Seeing her restricted to ”travel" by watching TV, I swallowed the sadness that came with knowing that chapters of her life were to be left unwritten.
At work, feeling helpless, I wiped tables and took orders and thought. Hard. The Saturday afternoon lunch rush was not enough to stop me from my thoughts. Collapsed with growing sorrow, I was reminded of the power of Facebook and the collective strength of human sympathy. I raced from the end of my shift to ask strangers on the Internet for help.
My Nanny Del has cancer. It’s terminal and she will never see the world. Please send her postcards so she can see the world from her armchair. I can offer nothing but gratitude.
I resolved not to breathe a word of this; if nothing came, I couldn’t bear to carry her disappointment along with my own. . And if something should wander into our humble little letterbox, I vould consider it a blessing and embrace it gratefully.
Days turned to weeks: Nothing. And Nanny’s health declined rapidly. I was trying to balance my full-time study, babysitting and waiting tables with the tiring responsibility of caring for my grandmother. As I helped Nanny in the early hours of those mornings, she would chat to me, sometimes reflections of her lifetime, and other times, the disturbance caused by medication. She seldom talked about her regret of being unable to travel, but I was still hoping for something.
注意：1. 续写词数应为150个左右;
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
One afternoon, about six weeks after my Facebook post, a travel-worn postcard arrived in our letterbox.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________My dreams of armchair travels became a reality.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________5 . It’s no surprise that there’s a link between exercise and mental health. But scientists have now made it official: research has found a direct connection between movement and mood. Why does exercise hold so many benefits for our mental health?
When our muscles tighten, chains of amino acids (氨基酸) called myokines (肌细胞因子) are released into the bloodstream.
A recent study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine showed that treatment for depression can be much more effective when physical activity is added to the usual care.
Exercise helps build key connections between the networks within the brain, too.
| A．It can improve overall cognitive performance |
| B．They help your muscles and organs communicate |
| C．The answer, studies say, lies in our brain chemistry |
| D．Here are the suggestions that you are supposed to pay attention to |
| E．It is amazing to consider how moving our bodies can affect our minds |
| F．To get the biggest health boost, the key is to be engaged in sports you enjoy |
| G．Participants found benefits after 12 weeks of exercising for 30 to 60 minutes a day |
Catherine had stayed at home all her life to look after her three children, but now, she, who lost her husband in a car accident, had to step out and earn money to make ends meet. With zero work experience and no professional degree, her chances of getting hired for a well-paid job were next to zero.
One day, after dropping her children at school, Catherine spotted a construction site. “I think I can work here,” she thought and approached the manager.
“Hi, are you hiring?” she asked. “Yes, we are,” the manager looked at Catherine from head to toe. “Are you sure you can work here? This job requires a lot of hard work.” “I’m ready for it,” she told the manager and signed a contract to work a 12-hour shift.
However, Catherine kept her new job a secret from her children. She thought they would feel embarrassed after learning their mother worked at a construction site.
Every morning, after dropping her children to school, she would go to the construction site and work until her shift ended. She would pick up heavy bricks on her shoulder to transport them from one part of the site to the other. One evening, Catherine’s son, Peter, told her about an upcoming contest in school that required mothers to participate. In the competition, students will wear blindfolds and have to recognize their mothers without looking at them. “That sounds like such a cool event, Peter!” Catherine said excitedly. “I can’t wait for it!” “I won’t go therewith you, mom,” Peter replied. “But why?” What her son said next was something Catherine wasn’t prepared to hear.
“Mom, I would have to touch your hands to recognize you, and everyone would look at them,” Peter explained. “Your hands are so ugly. They’re so hard and rough,” he added. “I will feel so embarrassed when my classmates look at your hands,” the boy said. “I won’t attend the event.” Catherine felt terrible but couldn’t say anything in her defense.
注意：1.续写词数应为150左右；
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Paragraph 1:
A few weeks later, Peter was walking home when something unexpected caught his attention.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Paragraph 2:
On his way back home, he kept thinking about how he would apologize to his mother:
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________7 . High in the Swiss Alps and the Arctic, scientists have discovered microbes (微生物) that can digest plastics — importantly, without the need to apply extra heat. Their findings, published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology, could one day improve plastic recycling.
It’s no secret that plastic pollution is still a big, global issue. Since its production exploded during and after World War II, humans have created more than 9.1 billion tons of plastic — and researchers estimate that less than one tenth of the resulting waste has been recycled. To make matters worse, the most common recycling option — when plastic is washed, processed and turned into new products — doesn’t actually reduce waste: The recycled materials are often of lower quality and might later end up in a landfill all the same.
So, researchers are looking for solutions to the plastics problem that go beyond conventional recycling — and one process they’ve experimented with is breaking down plastics using microbes. But the known plastic-digesting microbes can only do so at warm temperatures above 85 degrees Fahrenheit. When done at an industrial scale, the amount of energy needed to generate that much heat makes the process give off more carbon —and cost more money.
But the microbes found in the Arctic and Swiss Alps can function at cooler temperatures: They were able to break down biodegradable (可生物降解的) plastics at 59 degrees Fahrenheit. In the new study, co-author Joel Rüthi and his colleagues discovered that of the total 34 types of microbes examined,19 were successfully able to break down a form of plastic called polyester-polyurethane, and 17 could break down two types of biodegradable plastic mixtures.
Unfortunately, the plastics that the microbes partially degraded represent a “really small amount of plastics in circulation,” said Gavin Lear, an environmental microbiologist, who was not involved in the study. Lear acknowledged that using natural microbes can provide a head start when it comes to designing a strategy for bio-recycling. If we move away from the conventional non-biodegradable materials, “and we start to use more of these biodegradable plastics, then it’s good that we know how to degrade them more quickly so they’re less of an environmental problem,” he concluded.
1. What do we know about the conventional recycling?| A．It does not live up to expectations. | B．It contributes to more waste. |
| C．It is not as popular as before. | D．It ensures new product quality. |
| A．Impractical. | B．Pioneering | C．Reliable. | D．Invaluable. |
| A．To prove the microbes have an obvious taste preference. |
| B．To show the finding opens doors to a more efficient system. |
| C．To clarify how the process of breaking down plastics works. |
| D．To explain why bio-recycling is better than conventional recycling. |
| A．Reward. | B．Criterion. | C．Protection. | D．Advantage. |
8 . Artists everywhere are getting “understandably nervous” about recent advances in artificial intelligence. Last month, a winner of an art prize at the Colorado State Fair “sparked a violent protest” when he posted the news and explained that he’d created his image using an AI program. Critics quickly accused 39-year-old Lance Allen of cheating. To be fair, Allen had won in the digital art category and made no secret of how the image had been produced. But the rules of art making are clearly changing.
Allen’s creative process, to be clear, “was not a push-button operation, ”said Jason Blain in Forbes. He claims to have spent 80 hours on his entry, first on fine-tuning his text prompts (提示), then by touching up the final image using Photoshop and similar tools, then arranging to print the image on canvas. He made the finished product using AI much as a photographer creates an image using a camera.
But Allen, a tabletop game developer, is awed by AI’s capabilities and urges artists and illustrators to welcome the technology rather than fight it. “Art is dead,” he says. “AI won. Humans lost.” A more inspiring lesson to take from his victory, though, is that image generators are likely to “expand the appreciation for and creation of art” by opening the field to people, like him, who could never draw anything as detailed as his award-winning image. “If anything, we will have more artists,” and as the technology progresses, “we might see the emergence of art styles that none have seen before.”
You can’t blame traditional artists if they’re unhappy. Image generators work their magic, after all, by analyzing the aesthetics (美学) of millions of pre-existing images. One of the most complicated image generators “makes crystal clear just how destructive this technology will be,” said Loz Eliot in New Atlas. Given a specific prompt, it can produce an image of just about anything you can imagine and even follow the style of a favorite artist’s work. Its arrival marks “an incredible popularization of visual creativity” while aiming “a knife to the heart of anyone who’s spent decades improving their artistic techniques hoping to make a living from them.”
1. Why are artists getting nervous about AI recently?| A．A winner of an art prize used AI. | B．Lance Allen cheated in the art competition. |
| C．The digital art will soon dominate. | D．There will be great changes in art creation. |
| A．It was no easy work for Allen even with Al. | B．Allen worked as a photographer creating an image. |
| C．AI played a key role in Allen’s art creation. | D．Although with AI, Allen’s creation counted a lot. |
| A．Human has been beaten by AI. | B．AI will make art more popular. |
| C．Greater artists and new art styles will appear. | D．AI enables amateurs to win art competitions. |
| A．It works by analyzing images created by human. |
| B．It can produce images beyond people’s imagination. |
| C．It makes artists’ long-time effort meaningless. |
| D．It makes it impossible for artists to make a living. |
An Outdoor Trip That Speaks Louder Than A Regular Class
One day, as Jack, a science teacher, stressed the pressing need for protecting Tangerine Darters, a kind of fish, students in his class seemed uninterested and bored. Jack continued, but his students showed little enthusiasm.
He paused for a moment, allowing the silence to settle in the classroom. Then he went on in a different way.
“Imagine,” Jack began, his voice filled with passion, “the feeling of wading (趟水) through the clear shallow waters of Pigeon River, surrounded by the gentle sunlight. Picture the colors of the Tangerine Darters as they gracefully swim through the currents, their orange bellies (肚子) shining like rays of sunshine, or in that moment, a Tangerine Darter in your hands, its orange belly shining in the sunlight.” He painted a vivid picture with his words. Curiosity lit in his students’ eyes as they bent forward, eager to know more.
Jack continued, “The darters are very picky about their habitats. The place where they live should be very clean, and slight pollution could drive them away or even endanger their very existence.”
As Jack spoke, his passion spread quickly among his students, who started to ask questions, wanting to know more about the Tangerine Darters. Inspired by their newfound interest, Jack had an idea. Why not take students to the Pigeon River, where they can witness the beauty of the Tangerine Darters firsthand?
A week later, they were on the trip to the Pigeon River in Canton, North Carolina, where the environment was well preserved in comparison with other industrial areas.
Sunshine bounced off the Pigeon River, and cool water flowed over rocks and boulders (卵石)—the preferred habitat of Tangerine Darters. With Jack, it was the first time that the students had stood in the shallow water, eager to see their target of this fish eco logy class field trip.
注意：1.续写词数应为150左右;
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Suddenly, Jack bent and quickly caught a fish.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Seeing the students’ interested looks, Jack raised a question.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________10 . 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 |
