1 . Up-skilling is the future - but it must work for everyone
Automation and job replacement will be one of the most significant challenges for the global economy of the coming decades. A 2017 Mckinsey report established that 375 million workers will need to switch occupational categories by 2030. The World Economic Forum suggests that by 2022, automation will replace 75 million jobs globally - but create 133 million new ones.
Research into the likelihood that a job will be impacted by digitization has largely focused on the "auto-matability" of the role and the following economic regional and political effects of this. What this research doesn't take into account is something more important for the millions of taxi drivers and retail workers across the globe: their likelihood of being able to change to another job that isn't automatable. Recent research suggests that the answer to this may be that the skills that enable workers to move up the ladder to more complex roles within their current areas might be less important than broader skills that will enable workers to change across divisions.
In July, Amazon announced that it would spend $700 million retraining around 30% of its 300,000 US workforce. While praiseworthy, it will be interesting to see the outcome. In the UK, the National Retraining Scheme has largely been led by employers, meaning that those on zero-hours contracts and part-time workers - often low-skilled --- will miss out. Governance will be a crucial element of ensuring that such schemes focus on individuals and life-long learning, rather than upskilling workers into roles that will soon also face automation.
According to the Mckinsey report, "growing awareness of the scale of the task ahead has yet to translate into action. Public spending on labour-force training and support has fallen for years in most member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development," which impacts more than just the low-skilled.
The global impact of automation is also put into relief by research demonstrating that, between 1988 and 2015, income inequality increased throughout the world. Billions of people do not have the essentials of life as defined by the UN Sustainable Development goals.
Alongside climate change, automation is arguably tech's biggest challenge. As with globalization, governments and employers -- and us workers -- ignore its potential consequences at risk to ourselves.
1. It can be known from Paragraph 2 that ________.| A．recent research has found ways to face automation |
| B．broad skills are of great significance in changing jobs |
| C．regional economy can affect the automatability of a job |
| D．it is even harder for workers to move up the social ladder |
| A．Supportive. | B．Critical | C．Doubtful | D．Sympathetic |
| A．Less spending on training | B．A slowdown of globalization |
| C．Social unrest and instability. | D．An increase in income inequality |
| A．argue the urgency of creating new jobs |
| B．compare globalization with automation |
| C．analyze the automatability of certain jobs |
| D．stress the important of upskilling workers |
2 . Are we getting more stupid? According to Gerald Crabtree, a scientist at Stanford University in the US, we are.
You may not want to hear this, but Crabtree believes that human intelligence reached its peak more than 2,000 years ago and ever since then has been going downhill. “If an average Greek from 1,000 BC were transported to modern times, he or she would be one of the brightest among us,” Crabtree told The Guardian.
At the heart of Crabtree’s thinking is a simple idea. In the past, intelligence was critical for survival when our ancestors had to avoid dangerous animals and hunt for food. The difference of being smart or stupid is often life or death. However, after the spread of agriculture when our ancestors began to live in dense farming communities, the need to keep their intelligence in peak-condition gradually reduced.
This is not hard to understand. Most of the time, pressure is what keeps us going—you need the pressure from your teachers to finish your homework the pressure of looking pretty encourages you to lose weight when summer comes. And the same is also true of our intelligence-if we think less, we become less smart.
These mutations (变异) are harmful to our intelligence and they were all developed in the past 3,000 years. The other evidence that Crabtree holds is in our genes. He found that among the 2,000 to 5,000 genes that we have that determine human intelligence, there are two or more mutations in each of us.
However, Crabtree’s theory has been criticized by some who say that early humans may have better hunting and surviving abilities, but people today have developed more diverse intelligence. For example, spearing (用矛刺) a tiger doesn’t necessarily require more brainpower than playing chess or writing a poem. Moreover, the power of modern education means lot more people have the opportunity to learn nowadays.
“You wouldn’t get Stephen Hawking 2,000 years ago. He just wouldn’t exist,” Thomas Hills of the University of Warwick, UK, told Live Science. “But now we have people of his intellectual capacity doing things and making insights (洞察力) that we would never have achieved in our environment of evolutionary adaptation (进化适应).”
1. What is Crabtree’s recent finding according to the article?| A．The Greeks from 1,000 BC could have been the smartest in human history. |
| B．Our ancient ancestors had no better surviving abilities than we do nowadays. |
| C．Mutations in genes that decide human intelligence have affected the development of intelligence. |
| D．Humans have been getting steadily more intelligent since the invention of farming. |
| A．had much more genes that determine human Intelligence |
| B．were forced to be smart due to natural selection pressures |
| C．relied more on group intelligence than individual intelligence |
| D．developed a diverse intelligence to adapt to the hard realities |
| A．people today are under much more pressure than early humans |
| B．it’s unreasonable to compare hunter’s and a poet’s intelligence |
| C．modern education is far more advanced than ancient education |
| D．human intelligence nowadays is different from that of the distant past |
| A．He is for Crabtree’s theory. |
| B．He is against Crabtree’s theory. |
| C．He is worried about Crabtree’s theory. |
| D．He is confused about Crabtree’s theory. |
3 . You've been painting for a few years, and maybe you have even sold a painting or two. Are you ready to
Distinguishing green hand from professional artists is
To turn professional, people find it critical to develop a personal style. What makes your paintings
Artists talk about their
Many amateur artists passively wait for
Besides, professional artists are constantly prepared to grab new ideas for the next painting, which they believe is sure to be better than the previous one. The belief that there is always room for
| A．step beyond | B．turn off | C．see through | D．make up |
| A．rewarding | B．tricky | C．formal | D．temporary |
| A．individually | B．thoroughly | C．instantly | D．sincerely |
| A．different | B．superior | C．practical | D．reliable |
| A．get | B．transfer | C．imitate | D．analyze |
| A．recent | B．clear | C．modest | D．logical |
| A．preservation | B．employment | C．adaption | D．recognition |
| A．background | B．significance | C．motivation | D．routine |
| A．To sum up | B．In contrast | C．In addition | D．In general |
| A．academic | B．global | C．financial | D．original |
| A．inspiration | B．fame | C．guidance | D．solution |
| A．offended | B．dominated | C．distracted | D．rewarded |
| A．studio | B．bedroom | C．garage | D．garden |
| A．Reflection | B．Devotion | C．Creativity | D．Illustration |
| A．negotiation | B．profit | C．criticism | D．improvement |
4 . WE COMBAT ANIMAL DISEASES TOGETHER!
We want to prevent serious animal diseases such as foot and mouth disease, classical swine fever and African swine fever from spreading to Finland. These and other animal diseases can be transmitted from one country to another by animals or by meat and dairy products even if they are packed for personal consumption or intended as gifts. Travelers like you play an important role in preventing the spread of animal diseases.
Don’t bring meat, meat products, milk and dairy products from non-EU countries to Finland!
A ban on personal imports applies to meat and dairy products brought into Finland by travelers or ordered and sent through the post. The ban applies to food stuffs intended for personal consumption or as gifts and to pet food. If you have food products of animal origin with you, throw them in a waste container in the point of entry or contact Customs!
Bringing meat-containing products as presents and for personal use from an EU country to Finland
At the moment, there are EU countries with cases of African swine fever. In those countries there are restriction areas and, as a rule, pork and wild bear meat or products containing these meats may not be imported from these areas into Finland. Import is allowed only under very strict criteria controlled by local authorities. However, the sales of these meat products within the country may be allowed. In the EU, the disease has been detected in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Belgium and Italy (Sardinia), for instance. It is difficult for travelers to know and prove from which area meat products originate and whether the products on sale meet all criteria. This is the reason why we recommend that people avoid importing any meat products containing pork or wild bear meat as presents or for personal use from countries with African swine fever.
PLEASE NOTE! Never leave any food waste or leftover in the environment or places where they may be eaten by wildlife. Never give food waste or leftover to production animals or to pet pigs.
Thank you for helping us to prevent the spread of animal diseases. We wish you a pleasant journey!
| A．Food importers in Finland. | B．Travelers to Finland. |
| C．Citizens in EU countries. | D．Medical staff from non-EU countries. |
| A．To protect endangered wildlife. | B．To secure the domestic economy. |
| C．To promote vegetarian lifestyle. | D．To prevent the infectious diseases. |
| A．A Russian official threw a beef burger in a dustbin at the Finnish airport. |
| B．A Finnish girl fed milk to pigeon at the park in her neighborhood. |
| C．A Japanese traveler bought some Hungarian homemade sausages in Finland. |
| D．A German brought German cheeses to his Finnish girlfriend as a gift. |
5 . In a time when too much emphasis has been attached to utilitarianism (功力主义), it doesn’t come as a surprise to me that we people no longer believe in poetry. Utility is now often the standard of what one should devote his or her time and energy to and what he or she shouldn’t, but don’t get me wrong. I am not saying or stating that one should not consider utility at all when making crucial decisions. On the contrary, everyone should take it into account. Medicine, law, business and engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance and love, these are what we stay alive for.
My dad once told me that “life is suffering,”, which now I think is probably a unanimous (无异议的) opinion among most people. With a tough life inevitably comes a tough language---and that is what poetry is and why poetry is needed. It offers people a way to talk about the difficult-to-describe things in life, like death, suffering, profound joy and transformation. So whenever I hear someone say that poetry is not a must, or it’s an option, or it’s only for the educated middle classed, I suspect that he or she must have had things pretty easy.
But how can people live without poetry when poetry is nothing but a ceaseless flow of genuine human emotions? Unlike what the academics may tell you, my suggestion about bring poetry into your lives is that don’t analyze it and don’t ask others to analyze it. Don’t deconstruct it or try to make meaning of it. Just find the poems that wake you up, that make you feel as if you’ve submerged (沉浸) yourself in a mineral hot spring or an ice bath. Find the poems that make you feel almost irrational joy or sadness. Find the poems that make you want to roll around in them or paint their colors all over your bedroom ceiling. Those are the poems you want to play with. Find the poems that communicate with the deepest parts your being and welcome them in.
If finding others’ poems no longer satisfies you, compose your own! You don’t have to be a poet to compose poetry. After all, poetry is not a luxury only for members desire or genuine willingness to vent feelings. It’s about searching for the real meaning of life and also about giving meaning to life. Just like Walt Whitman’s “O Me! O Life!”, a poem that ends by speaking directly to its readers: “the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse,” poetry is about everyone. And now I want to ask you the mother of all inspirational questions; “What will your verse be?”
Inspired by Jeanette Winterson’s book:
Why Be Happy When You Could be normal?
1. The author thinks that poetry is very important for human beings because it ________.| A．has nothing to do with the shared belief in utility |
| B．symbolizes a status as an educated middle class |
| C．offers a medium for describing hard experiences |
| D．reveals a fundamental truth that life isn’t all roses |
| A．deconstruct and making meaning of it |
| B．enjoy a mineral hot spring or an ice bath |
| C．paint it over his or her bedroom ceiling |
| D．get consumed by irrational joy or sadness |
| A．only a true poet can write poems |
| B．no poem can appeal to everyone |
| C．life feels just like a powerful play |
| D．every human is entitled to poetry |
| A．Composing Poetry | B．Poetry for Life |
| C．The Art of poetry | D．Analyzing poetry |
The price of a piece of history
A fresh lemon can be purchased for less than $1. But in 2008, Cowan's Auctions in Cincinnati sold a lemon blackened with age for $2,350.
What was so special about this lemon?
Two thousand dollars is a lot to pay for produce, even from the estate of a founding father. This sale, however, just might be considered a bargain compared with prices paid for other historical collectibles in recent years.
Collecting a piece of history, or an object associated with a famous person, is not brand new. Ordinary objects with extraordinary stories have increasingly been coming to auction and achieving high prices, says Thomas Venning, director of Christie's department of books and manuscripts in London. Prices are being driven up, he says, by collectors in the U.S. and, increasingly, in Asia. The Hawking wheelchair, for example, was purchased by a private museum in China.
Katie Horstman, head of Cowan's American History department, says she could find no comparable items for the lemon as she prepared the piece for its auction. Ms. Horstman nevertheless eventually arrived at the estimated value at $3,000 to $4,000, she says, by researching auction records for objects somehow associated with Washington that had appeared on the market.
Cowans ended up estimating the value of the lemon at $3,000 to $4,000, according to description on its website. Objects associated with Washington these days, Ms. Horstman says, can sell for anywhere from 1,000 up to tens of thousands of dollars.
| A．Stephen Hawking’s wheelchair fetched 296, 750 at a sale at Christie's in London last November. |
| B．Yet determining potential values of such objects isn't easy. |
| C．It was said to be from a tree planted by George Washington at Mount Vernon. |
| D．The auction result surely drew the attention from both the business and economics worlds. |
| E．The uniqueness of many of these objects further complicates efforts to put a value on them. |
| F．Therefore the unique value of many objects proved the worth of collection. |
Time: is there ever enough of it? In today's modern world, most of us are
A study by Derek Thompson on the “myth" of being busy suggests that while
While being informed is important, it can lead to anxiety about keeping up with the times. If you find yourself unable to stop scrolling through Twitter, turn off the phone and take a mental break. Practice JOMO (joy of missing out), a(n)
Another thing technology has
Of course, if you want to move up the corporate ladder and get a bigger paycheck, working long hours has long been a
People working the same hours feel completely different levels of time pressure depending on their passion. If most of the hours are spent doing something you don't feel
8 . Each year, backed up by a growing anti-consumerist movement, people are using the holiday season to call on us all to shop less.
Driven by concerns about resource exhaustion, over recent years environmentalists have increasingly turned their sights on our “consumer culture”. Groups such as The Story of Stuff and Buy Nothing New Day are growing as a movement that increasingly blames all our ills on our desire to shop.
We clearly have a growing resource problem. The produces we make, buy, and use are often linked to the destruction of our waterways, biodiversity, climate and the land on which millions of people live. But to blame these issues on Christmas shoppers is misguided, and puts us in the old trap of blaming individuals for what is a systematic problem.
While we complain about environmental destruction over Christmas, environmentalists often forget what the holiday season actually means for many people. For most, Christmas isn’t an add-on to an already heavy shopping year. In fact, it is likely the only time of year many have the opportunity to spend on friends and family, or even just to buy the necessities needed for modern life.
This is particularly, true for Boxing Day, often the target of the strongest derision(嘲弄) by anti-consumerists. While we may laugh at the queues in front of the shops, for many, those sales provide the one chance to buy items they’ve needed all year. As Leigh Phillips argues, “this is one of the few times of the year that people can even hope to afford such ‘luxuries’, the Christmas presents their kids are asking for, or just an appliance that works.”
Indeed, the richest 7% of people are responsible for 50% of greenhouse gas emissions. This becomes particularly harmful when you take into account that those shopping on Boxing Day are only a small part of our consumption “problem” anyway. Why are environmentalists attacking these individuals, while ignoring such people as Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, who has his own￡1.5bn yacht with a missile defence system?
Anyway, anti-consumerism has become a movement of wealthy people talking down to the working class about their life choices, while ignoring the real cause of our environmental problems. It is no wonder one is changing their behaviours—or that environmental destruction continues without any reduction in intensity.
1. It is indicated in the 1st paragraph that during the holiday season, many consumers .| A．ignore resource problems |
| B．are fascinated with presents |
| C．are encouraged to spend less |
| D．show great interest in the movement. |
| A．has targeted the wrong persons |
| B．has achieved its intended purposes |
| C．has taken environment-friendly measures |
| D．has benefited both consumers and producers |
| A．madness about life choices |
| B．discontent with rich lifestyle |
| C．ignorance about the real cause |
| D．disrespect for holiday shoppers |
| A．anything less than a responsibility | B．nothing more than a bias |
| C．indicative of environmental awareness | D．unacceptable to ordinary people |
9 . Talking to human-like devices can be great fun - just ask Siri to tell you a joke. But it may also lead to problems.
A recent study by scientists from the University of Kansas (KU) in the US found that human-like devices keep people from seeking out normal human interaction when they feel lonely.
During a series of experiments, participants were asked to write about a time when they felt lonely. They also took part in an online game of “catch” against a computer program that was designed to “throw” the ball other player more often, but participants believed they were playing with real people online.
Participants were then introduced to human-like products, including a vacuum cleaner (真空吸尘器) designed to appear as if it were smiling. They were also asked to think about their phone in human-like terms, considering questions like “how much does it help you?”
The results showed that the participants were happy with the comfort they got from the machines and didn’t need to seek out normal human interaction.
Generally, when people feel socially excluded, they seek out other ways to reduce the feeling of loneliness. Normal ways include increasing their number of social media friends or engaging in behaviors to seek out interaction with other people, according to Jenny Olson, assistant professor of marketing at KU.
But it wasn’t all bad news, as the team found that there were limits to how far this effect would extend.
“As soon as we tell people we know that it looks like the [vacuum cleaner] is smiling, they seemed to realize it was a machine and not a person,” Olson told Daily Mail. “The effect goes away. This seems to happening on a very subconscious level.”
Researchers believe the results are important for consumers to realize how these types of products could affect their social interaction with real people, especially because so many new products feature interactivity.
“If someone notices they are talking more to Siri lately, maybe that has something to do with felling lonely,” Olson said. “From that standpoint, it’s important to be aware of it.”
The study could also help companies design products that can increase the well-being of people who feel lonely, without sacrificing normal social interaction.
“Maybe it is more about improving our current relationships,” Olson said, “such as taking a break from screen time and focusing on developing your real personal connections.”
1. Researcher from the University of Kansas found that _______.| A．human-like devices may help people interact with others. |
| B．interaction with human-like devices may make people feel lonely. |
| C．lonely people may easily become addicted to human-like devices. |
| D．human-like devices may reduce people’s social interaction in real life. |
| A．were allowed to talk with human-like devices. |
| B．were shown devices with human features. |
| C．played online games with both machines and real people. |
| D．were encouraged to engage in normal human interaction. |
| A．lonely people are more likely to seek out interaction with other people. |
| B．lonely people are content to only interact with human-like machines. |
| C．the feeling of loneliness deepens as people interact more with human-like devices. |
| D．People who are socially excluded would get uninterested in socializing. |
| A．It shows people why human-like products make them feel lonely. |
| B．It warns people to stop using human-like devices completely and focus on real social interaction. |
| C．It may help the well-being of people who fell lonely and improve their current relationships. |
| D．It points out the effects of human-like devices and could help companies improve their products. |
10 . A sensational new scientific discovery in the ocean near Australia may explain the most massive extinction of living things in Earth’s history. For years, scholars have been frustrated in trying to analyze why 90 to 95 percent of sea life and 75 percent of and life vanished about 250 million years ago. The extinctions were so enormous that they are called The Great Dying. To date, some authorities on ancient life thought that a volcanic eruption or a sudden change in the environment affected all life on Earth. Other specialists have doubted these theories, maintaining that it was not plausible that a solo volcano could bring about such chaos. From the outset, critics believed these claims were exaggerated.
By contrast, there is wide acceptance of the idea that a meteor (流星)which hit Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula 65 million years ago was the primary cause of the dinosaurs’ extinction. Nevertheless, until now they had no evidence of an intense meteor impact 185 mill on years earlier. Now they do.
American geologists have been examining rock samples from a deep sea crater (火山口)near the northwest coast of Australia. The samples were initially collected and preserved by petroleum technicians seeking oil. Now the geologists and their colleagues believe that the precise splits in the rock’s structure show a typical pattern for meteors. There is a clear distinction from volcanic patterns. In fact, a spokesperson went so far as to say that these rocks completely revise the way scientists perceive the mass extinctions from the ancient era. Academics say that the meteor’s crater s the size of Mount Qomolangma, the highest mountain on Earth! Literally, the meteor made a mark on Earth as it drowned in the sea. The Earth could not absorb such a harsh blow without sustaining global devastation. Things must have come to a standstill. Evidently, the blow was fatal for many forms of life.
Bear in mind that all this was long before mammals---including humans--emerged in Earth’s history. Still, we would be wise to pay attention to the damage a meteor can cause. Fortunately, meteor strikes on Earth are few and far between.
1. The word “plausible” (paragraph 1) is closest in meaning to “______”.| A．available | B．incredible |
| C．reasonable | D．ridiculous |
| A．Because they were very resistant | B．Because there weren’t any then |
| C．Because they lived in isolated areas | D．Because they hid themselves in the caves |
| A．Scholars agreed that a single volcano caused The Great Dying |
| B．75 percent of land life continued 250 million years ago |
| C．Volcanic rocks and meteors have different patterns |
| D．When the meteor hit land Mount Qomolangma sprang up. |
| A．The Dinosaurs’ End | B．Crater on Qomolangma |
| C．Contradictory Claims | D．A Meteor’s Impact |
