2 . “Is data the new oil?” asked advocates of big data back in 2012 in Forbes magazine. By 2016, with the rise of big data’s fast-growing cousin deep learning, we had become more certain: “Data is the new oil,” stated Fortune magazine.

Amazon’s Neil Lawrence has a slightly different comparison: Data is coal. Not coal today, though, but coal in the early days of the 18th century, when Thomas Newcomen invented the steam engine. Newcomen built his device to pump water out of the southwest’s rich tin (锡) mines.

The problem, as Lawrence said, was that the pump was rather more useful to those who had a lot of coal than those who didn’t: it was good, but not good enough to be able to buy enough coal in to run it. That was so true that the first of Newcomen’s steam engines wasn’t built in a tin mine, but in coal works near Dudley.

So why is data coal? The problem is similar: there are a lot of Newcomen in the world of deep learning. New companies are coming up with revolutionary new ways to train machines to do impressive tasks, from reconstructing facial data from images to learning the writing style of an individual user to better predict which word they are going to type in a sentence. And yet, like Newcomen, their innovations are so much more useful to the people who actually have large amounts of raw material to work from.

But there is an ending to the story: 69 years later, James Watt made a nice change to the Newcomen steam engine, adding a condenser (冷凝器) to the design. That change, Lawrence said, “made the steam engine much more efficient, and that’s what triggered the industrial revolution.”

Whether data is oil or coal, then, there’s another way the comparison holds up: a lot of work is going into trying to make sure we can do more, with less.

“If you look at all the areas where deep learning is successful, they’re all areas where there’s lots of data,” points out Lawrence. That’s great if you want to classify images of cats, but less helpful if you want to use deep learning to diagnose rare illnesses. “It’s generally considered unacceptable to force people to become sick in order to acquire data.”

It’s not as impressive as teaching a computer to play a game better than any human alive, but “data efficiency” is a vital step if deep learning is to move away from simply taking in large amounts of data and giving out the best correlations (关联) possible.

1. The first of Newcomen’s steam engines wasn’t built in a tin mine because________.

A．its operation required a lot of coal	B．it would lose its function in a tin mine
C．it was in greater demand in coal works	D．the rich mines required more advanced aids

2. According to the passage, in which situation is deep learning the least successful?

A．Reconstructing facial data.	B．Predicting a word in a sentence.
C．Classifying images of cats.	D．Diagnosing rare diseases.

3. What can be inferred from the passage?

A．Watt’s condenser helped the steam engine consume less coal.

B．Data involving patients is often collected through immoral ways.

C．Teaching machines to learn is a vital step towards data efficiency.

D．Thomas Newcomen’s steam engine had revolutionary applications.

4. Neil Lawrence compared data to coal to indicate that________.

A．acquiring data is as complex as mining for coal

B．a change is required to make more out of less data

C．data is the new fuel to start an information revolution

D．a larger amount of data is needed to accomplish something

4 . Directions: Read the following passage. Summarize the main idea and the main point(s) of the passage in no more than 60 words. Use your own words as far as possible.

Can Birdsong Make You Happier?

If you are able to step outside and hear many types of birds, you might also have a greater feeling of well-being. Two studies show that hearing diverse birdsongs may help increase our happiness.

One study was done by the researchers at California Polytechnic State University. The team studied the effects of birdsong on people walking through a park in the U.S. state of Colorado. Danielle Ferraro, who led the Cal Poly study, says that there could be an evolutionary reason why we like birdsong. The idea is that when we hear birdsong it could signal safety to us. There could be many other reasons too Ferraro states that in some areas around the world birdsong can also signal the arrival of spring and nice weather. Bird diversity, she adds, can also mean a healthy environment.

Similarly, scientists in Germany examined for the first time whether a diverse nature also increases human well-being across Europe. The researchers looked at the European Quality of Life Survey to study the connection between the different kinds of birds in their surroundings and life satisfaction. They looked at more than 26,000 adults from 26 European countries. “Europeans are particularly satisfied with their lives if their surroundings have a high species diversity,” explains the study’s lead author, Joel Methorst, a researcher at the Goethe University in Frankfurt. He and his team found that the happiest Europeans are those who can experience many different kinds of birds in their daily life, or who live in near-natural surroundings that are home to many species.

So, if birdsong is good for our mental health, how can we increase the different types of birdsongs we hear? Scientists also mentioned, “We would recommend planting native trees and flowers because we have a lot of pretty decorative plants in our cities. And they might look nice to us, but birds can’t necessarily use them. So, we think it important to have species that are native to the area to increase bird diversity.”

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5 . Motivating Employees under Unfavourable Conditions

It is a great deal easier to motivate employees in a growing organization than a declining one. When organizations are expanding, promotional opportunities, pay rises, and the excitement of being associated with a dynamic organization create feelings of optimism. When an organization is shrinking, the best and mobile workers are likely to leave voluntarily.     1     The minor employees remain because their job options are limited.

Morale (士气) also suffers during decline. People fear they may be the next to be made unnecessary. Productivity often Suffers, as employees spend their time sharing rumours and providing one another with moral support rather than focusing on their jobs.     2     Pay cuts, unheard of during times of growth, may even be imposed. The challenge to management is how to motivate employees under such special conditions.

    3     For example, if the job is running a small business or an autonomous unit within a larger business, high achievers should be sought. High achievers will do best when the job provides moderately challenging goats and where there is independence and feedback.

The literature on goal-setting theory suggests that managers should ensure that all employees have specific goals and receive comments on how well they are doing in those goals. Regardless of whether goals are achievable or well within management’s perceptions of the employee’s ability, if employees see them as unachievable they will reduce their effort.     4    

Since employees have different needs, managers should use their knowledge of each employee to personalize the rewards over which they have control. Some of the more obvious rewards that managers allocate include pay, promotions and the opportunity to participate in goal-setting and decision-making.

A．There is enough evidence to support the motivational benefits that result from carefully matching people to jobs.

B．For those whose jobs are secure, pay increases are rarely possible.

C．High achievers are motivated by jobs that are high in independence and responsibility.

D．Unfortunately, they are the ones the organization can least afford to lose—those with the highest skills and experience.

E．The answer to that depends on perceptions of goal acceptance and the organization’s culture.

F．Managers must be sure, therefore, that employees feel confident that their efforts can lead to performance goals.

6 . I recently had the unique honor of returning to my university, as a guest lecturer, to talk about opinion and fact in news media and how to tell the two apart. During my class, I quizzed the students using 10 statements which they had to decide were either opinion or fact. Some students did a good job while others failed.

A Pew Research poll conducted among Americans in 2018 showed that only 26 percent of adults could identify the five factual statements, and only 35 percent could identify the five opinion statements.

This is possibly because, according to a recent report by the RAND Corporation — a non-profit, non-partisan think-tank based on Los Angeles — “US-based journalism has gradually shifted away from objective news and offers more opinion-based content that appeals to emotion and relies heavily on argumentation and advocacy.”

Their study looked at US news reporting over a 28-year period and found that “journalism in the US has become more subjective and consists less of the detailed event or context-based reporting that used to characterize news coverage,” according to Jennifer Kavanagh, a senior political scientist and lead author of the report.

This will probably come as a surprise to no one, or at least no one outside the United States where subjective and emotive reporting has clearly hampered the population’s ability to separate fact and opinion and deal with each with a healthy amount of skepticism.

So, what is opinion?

Opinion is someone’s subjective belief or view that cannot be proven as fact. Opinion will often feature adjectives like amazing, perfect, unbeatable, dreadful, grotesque, embarrassing.

As an opinion writer myself, you’ll often see those kinds of words here in my column, but since my weekly rants are clearly not news reports, you know to take whatever I say just as an opinion and form your own opinion if you so desire.

Here’s an example of an opinion-based statement: “Wes Anderson is an amazing filmmaker.” There’s no way of proving that statement as fact, because it’s subjective.

What is fact?

Fact is an objective statement or account of something real which can be proven. Factual accounts should not include adjectives like amazing, perfect, unbeatable, dreadful, grotesque or embarrassing. Here’s an example: “Wes Anderson won the Silver Bear for Best Director in 2018.”

Sound easy? Well, it really is, apart from the fact that news media in-the United States often purposefully or subconsciously mix opinion and fact, effectively blurring the line between the two so much that now many Americans can’t tell the difference.

Spotting deception

You can improve your news reading skills by keeping an eye out for the common markers of opinion in news reporting. The easiest is to look for adjectives, which are usually always markers of opinion and will sometimes be hidden inside news reporting to nefariously affect the reader’s understanding.

Here’s a quick example using a headline: “Impressive crowd of 10,000 turn out for march.” Can you see the adjective in that headline? The word “impressive” is the writer’s own opinion mixed in with a factual statement about the number of people who turned out for a march. By using that adjective, the writer is pushing you to see the march as a success and to feel that the cause behind the march has a lot of public support. That isn’t necessarily the case, and similarly a writer with another opinion could pen this headline: “Only 10,000 turn out for march.” See the difference?

Improve your news eye

I hope this short foray into a tiny aspect of news media has helped a little and that now you’re just a little bit more apt at separating fact from, well, fiction. In today’s world, that skill is more important than ever.

1. Which of the following statements about US-based journalism is true?

A．It is characterized by the detailed event or context-based reporting.

B．It fails to appeal to people’s emotion when reporting news events.

C．It results in people’s inability to distinguish facts from opinions.

D．It helps to cultivate a healthy amount of skepticism in people.

2. What is a good way to spot deception when one is trying to separate fact and opinion?

A．Turning to opinion writers for help.

B．Looking for specific adjectives.

C．Reading as much news as possible.

D．Figuring out the hidden meaning.

3. Which of the following statements are facts?
①Increasing the federal minimum wage to US$15 an hour is essential for the health of the US economy.
②Health care costs per person in the US are the highest in the developed world.
③Immigrants who are in the US illegally have some rights under the Constitution.
④Democracy is the greatest form of government.
⑤Immigrants who are in the US illegally are a very big problem for the country today.
⑥President Barack Obama was born in the United States.

A．①②③

B．④⑤⑥

C．②③⑥

D．①⑤⑥

4. What is the writer’s purpose in writing the passage?

A．To attract more readers for his column.

B．To call for joint efforts by news agencies to cooperate.

C．To warn the danger of lack of news reading skills.

D．To provide advice on how to distinguish facts from opinions.

7 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. stranded        B. unsettling       C. vast        D. alternating        E. titled        F. breaking G. unparalleled       H. unfolding       I. sprung       J. distress       K. solidity

Finding Comfort in War and Peace

Over the past 15 years, Yiyun Li, a Chinese-American author, has read War and Peace at least a dozen times. Her hardback copy of Leo Tolstoy's 1,200 - page saga bristles with colored notes, like some exotic lizard's spine. The novel is not just a masterclass in fiction, Ms. Li believes, but a cure for     1    . At the most difficult times in her life, she says, she has turned to it again and again, reassured by its "    2    " in the face of uncertainty.

War and Peace - originally     3     The Year 1805 - is widely considered the world's greatest novel. It is also among the most daunting(令人敬畏的), acknowledged Richard Pevear, one of its translators, "as     4     as Russia itself." Its huge canvas(画布)encompasses(包含)not just Napoleon's wars against the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires from 1805 to 1812, but a cast whose actions and emotions span the breath of human consciousness. As a literary critic has noted, Tolstoy is the supreme novelist of human conflicts. His epic(史诗)is a(n)     5     examination of how people respond to the pressure of both wars and ordinary life.

So large is Tolstoy's world, Ms. Li reckoned, that there could be no better companion for people     6     in isolation. She thought of virtual book club to sustain readers through the lockdown. Participants around the globe would plough through this book together and share their thoughts on social media. It would be an anchor in     7     times. To their amazement, when it began in mid-March 3,000 people on six continents signed up.

Other book clubs have     8     up to discuss great literature during the pandemic. But Tolstoy's novel reflects the atmosphere of life in quarantine better. Its     9     structure, shifting between battlefields and the salons of Russian high society, mirrors the disorienting split in readers' own attention - between their own personal, stilled states and the calamity(灾祸)    10     outside.