1 . On March 7, 1907, the English statistician Francis Galton published a paper which illustrated what has come to be known as the “wisdom of crowds” effect. The experiment of estimation he conducted showed that in some cases, the average of a large number of independent estimates could be quite accurate.
This effect capitalizes on the fact that when people make errors, those errors aren’t always the same. Some people will tend to overestimate, and some to underestimate. When enough of these errors are averaged together, they cancel each other out, resulting in a more accurate estimate. If people are similar and tend to make the same errors, then their errors won’t cancel each other out. In more technical terms, the wisdom of crowds requires that people’s estimates be independent. If for whatever reasons, people’s errors become correlated or dependent, the accuracy of the estimate will go down.
But a new study led by Joaquin Navajas offered an interesting twist (转折) on this classic phenomenon. The key finding of the study was that when crowds were further divided into smaller groups that were allowed to have a discussion, the averages from these groups were more accurate than those from an equal number of independent individuals. For instance, the average obtained from the estimates of four discussion groups of five was significantly more accurate than the average obtained from 20 independent individuals.
In a follow-up study with 100 university students, the researchers tried to get a better sense of what the group members actually did in their discussion. Did they tend to go with those most confident about their estimates? Did they follow those least willing to change their minds? This happened some of the time, but it wasn’t the dominant response. Most frequently, the groups reported that they “shared arguments and reasoned together”. Somehow, these arguments and reasoning resulted in a global reduction in error. Although the studies led by Navajas have limitations and many questions remain, the potential implications for group discussion and decision-making are enormous.
1. What is paragraph 2 of the text mainly about?| A．The methods of estimation. | B．The underlying logic of the effect. |
| C．The causes of people’s errors. | D．The design of Galton’s experiment. |
| A．the crowds were relatively small | B．there were occasional underestimates |
| C．individuals did not communicate | D．estimates were not fully independent |
| A．The size of the groups. | B．The dominant members. |
| C．The discussion process. | D．The individual estimates. |
| A．Unclear. | B．Dismissive. | C．Doubtful. | D．Approving. |
Stop Asian Hate
During the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, New York City saw a sharp increase in harassment and violence against Asian people and communities, especially Asian elders. Discrimination on the basis of race, national origin, age, and disability, including having or
We all want to live in a world that is free from prejudice and
Since the pandemic, something has been made nasty in the media by comments from Donald Trump calling it “the China virus”, and ESEA people all over the world have found that their lives have been turned upside down. In the wake of the tragic deaths in the US and several studies
Working towards a world where no racism exists is always important to us, and will always be something
I needed to do something in my community (社区) in order to complete the community service hours required to graduate from high school. Some of my friends had signed up to spend time at a soup kitchen, so I did, too. It seemed like a good thing to do.
I thought that we would just be passing out dinners to those in need, but I found out we would be doing everything from preparing to serving the dinner. We began preparing the food, from mixing salad dressing to separating frozen meat. Much still needed to be done before dinner was served, but already outside the building many homeless people were gathering. It wasn’t until a couple of hours later that we opened the doors and began serving dinner.
As the line of people came toward me, I got a little scared. I’d come face to face with the homeless: How should I act? How would they treat me? Would they hate me for having more than they did? While some of the people looked very friendly, some of them looked so dangerous. I didn’t have too much time to worry about it. I was assigned (分配) to serve the salad with the lady next to me. She smiled at me and said if I needed help, she’d be right there, which I found quite comforting.
I had never seen so many people wanting food. They were of all ages and nationalities. Most of them wore clothes that were torn and dirty. Some looked like they had tally given up on life, while others seemed to be making the best of the situation, smiling and joking. Some were better off than others, but they all needed a good meal and a warm place to eat. It saddened me to think of how many people there were who didn’t have a place to call home and the only food they got came from a soup kitchen.
注意：
1. 所续写短文的词数应为150左右；
2. 至少使用5个短文中标有下划线的关键词语；
3. 续写部分分为两段，每段的开头语已为你写好；
4. 续写完成后，请用下划线标出你所使用的关键词语。
Paragraph 1:
As they came in my direction, I put on my brightest and happiest smile.
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Paragraph 2:
I was so happy that I had earned my service hours in this way.
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4 . Mental Health Crisis Among Teens Demands a New Approach
Since the CDC released its survey results last month showing alarmingly high rates of sadness and depressive thoughts among teens, fingers have been pointed from two sides at the causes of this crisis.
According to the CDC’s findings, more than one in five of the 17,000 high school students surveyed reported mental breakdown. Their rates of sadness and hopelessness are the highest in a decade, reflecting an increasing trend exacerbated by society’s isolation(隔离)and stress.
Parents as well as teachers and others who have direct contact with children must accept this preventive approach. It is crucial that they not be afraid to ask direct questions about depressive thoughts.
| A．And they should resist the false idea that raising a question creates a risk that was not there before. |
| B．This means that we must put aside our disagreements and approach this issue as a matter of life and death. |
| C．Some have argued that the climate issue has created an existential threat and accompanying anxiety. |
| D．Hospitalization may also be appropriate when the person in question shows an immediate danger to themselves. |
| E．At the macro(宏观的)level, our country can do so much more to help people struggling with mental health problems and their families. |
| F．It’s time to stop blaming and turn our attention to this generation of struggling teenagers. |
| G．It’s time for those who have the power to amplify(放大)their voices and drive change to focus on helping teenagers and families access the help they need. |
Bitcoin is a digital currency that is bought, sold and transferred between fellow
The following shows how the bitcoin works. You install a wallet on your computer or phone. You receive your new IP address. Then you begin accumulating bitcoins through purchase or transactions. All transactions on the payment network are stored in a Block Chain, which is nothing more than a
6 . Cities usually have a good reason for being where they are, like a nearby port or river. People settle in these places because they are easy to get to and naturally suited to communications and trade. New York City, for example, is near a large harbour at the mouth of the Hudson River. Over 300 years its population grew gradually from 800 people to 8 million. But not all cities develop slowly over a long period of time. Boom towns grow from nothing almost overnight. In 1896, Dawson, Canada, was unmapped wilderness(荒野). But gold was discovered there in 1897, and two years later, it was one of the largest cities in the West, with a population of 30,000.
Dawson did not have any of the natural conveniences of cities like London or Paris. People went there for gold. They travelled over snow-covered mountains and sailed hundreds of miles up icy rivers. The path to Dawson was covered with thirty feet of wet snow that could fall without warming. An avalanche(雪崩) once closed the path, killing 63 people. For many who made it to Dawson, however, the rewards were worth the difficult trip. Of the first 20,000 people who dug for gold, 4,000 got rich. About 100 of these stayed rich men for the rest of their lives.
But no matter how rich they were, Dawson was never comfortable. Necessities like food and wood were very expensive. But soon, the gold that Dawson depended on had all been found. The city was crowded with disappointed people with no interest in settling down, and when they heard there were new gold discoveries in Alaska, they left Dawson City as quickly as they had come. Today, people still come and go — to see where the Canadian gold rush happened. Tourism is now the chief industry of Dawson City — its present population is 762.
1. What attracted the early settlers to New York City?| A．Its business culture. |
| B．Its small population. |
| C．Its geographical position. |
| D．Its favourable climate. |
| A．Two-thirds of them stayed there. |
| B．One out of five people got rich. |
| C．Almost everyone gave up. |
| D．Half of them died. |
| A．They found the city too crowded. |
| B．They wanted to try their luck elsewhere. |
| C．They were unable to stand the winter. |
| D．They were short of food. |
| A．The rise and fall of a city. |
| B．The gold rush in Canada. |
| C．Journeys into the wilderness. |
| D．Tourism in Dawson. |
7 . The “reading wars,” one of the most confusing and disabling conflicts in the history of education, went on heatedly in the 1980s and then peace came. Advocates of phonics (learning by being taught the sound of each letter group) seemed to defeat advocates of whole language (learning by using cues like context and being exposed to much good literature).
Recent events suggest the conflict of complicated concepts is far from over. Teachers, parents and experts appear to agree that phonics is crucial, but what is going on in classrooms is not in agreement with what research studies say is required, which has aroused a national debate over the meaning of the word “phonics.”
Lucy M. Calkins, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College and a much-respected expert on how to teach reading, has drawn attention with an eight-page essay. Here is part of her argument: “The important thing is to teach kids that they needn’t freeze when they come to a hard word, nor skip past it. The important thing is to teach them that they have resources to draw upon, and to use those resources to develop endurance.”
To Calkins’s critics, it is cruel and wasteful to encourage 6-year-olds to look for clues if they don’t immediately know the correct sounds. They should work on decoding — knowing the pronunciation of every letter group — until they master it, say the critics, backed by much research.
Calkins’s approach “is a slow, unreliable way to read words and an inefficient way to develop word recognition skill,” Mark S. Seidenberg, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin, said in a blog post. “Dr. Calkins treats word recognition as a reasoning problem — like solving a puzzle. She is committed to the educational principle that children learn best by discovering how systems work rather than being told.”
Many others share his view. “Children should learn to decode — i.e., go from print on the page to words in the mind — not by clever guesswork and inference, but by learning to decode,” Daniel Willingham, a psychologist at the University of Virginia, told me. He said the inferences Calkins applauds are “cognitively (认知地) demanding, and readers don’t have much endurance for it. … It disturbs the flow of what you’re reading, and doing a lot of it gets frustrating.”
Yet a recent survey found that only 22 percent of 670 early-reading teachers are using the approach of phonics and what they mean by phonics is often no more than marking up a worksheet.
Both sides agree that children need to acquire the vocabulary and background information that gives meaning to words. But first, they have to pronounce them correctly to connect the words they have learned to speak.
Calkins said in her essay: “Much of what the phonics people are saying is praiseworthy,” but it would be a mistake to teach phonics “at the expense of reading and writing.”
The two sides appear to agree with her on that.
1. Critics of phonics hold the opinion that ________.| A．children should be taught to use context |
| B．teaching phonics is both boring and useless |
| C．kids acquire vocabulary in hearing letter groups |
| D．pronunciation has nothing to do with meaning of words |
| A．Tell me and I will forget; show me and I will remember. |
| B．Skilled reading is fast and automatic but not deliberative. |
| C．Word recognition skill should be developed in problem reasoning. |
| D．Learning to make reasonable inferences is also a way of decoding. |
| A．phonics approach has been proved to be successful |
| B．children don’t shy away from difficulties in reading |
| C．the two reading approaches might integrate with each other |
| D．reading and writing are much more important than phonics |
| A．An everlasting reading war among critics |
| B．From print on the page to words in the mind |
| C．A battle restarts between phonics, whole language |
| D．Decoding and inferring confuse early-reading teachers |
A Hearty Welcome
Chase counted his new year gifts one more time as he put a robot-shaped eraser into each envelope. “Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two.”
“Do you have one for everyone in your class?” Mom asked.
“Yep!” Chase said. “I’m ready for the party tomorrow!”
When Chase got to school the next day, he saw a new girl in his classroom. She stood near Ms. Robins and looked around shyly.
“This is Eva,” said Ms. Robins. “Will someone volunteer to show her around today? “Chase raised his hand since he liked showing the new kids around and helping them feel welcome.
“Thanks, Chase, “Ms. Robins said. “Now let’s get down to our work.”
That’s when Chase realized he didn’t have a new year gift for Eva. No one else would have one either. Chase pictured his classmates’ desks covered with gifts while Eva’s desk was empty. He felt sad about that.
At a break, he was careful not to mention the party as he showed Eva around the playground. At lunchtime, he walked Eva to the lunchroom, still worried about what would happen at the party. Eva had brought a packed lunch. so Chase showed her where she was supposed to sit and introduced her to some of the kids at her table.
While eating, Chase suddenly remembered that kids often included candy hearts with the new year gifts they exchanged. This won’t be a New Year’s Day for Eva with no gifts. But as he sat down at his table, an idea flooded into his head. He whispered it to the kids around him. Soon everyone at the table was nodding and whispering.
When they were back in the classroom after lunch, Chase told Ms. Robins about their plan. Ms. Robins smiled. “That’s very thoughtful, “she said. “Let’s go for it.”
It was math time, so Chase invited Eva to study with him. He made sure Eva sat with her back to the room so she wouldn’t notice.
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登作答。
Meanwhile, her new classmates were busying working on something.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________“Here’s your new year gift, Eva. It’s from everyone,” said Chase.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________9 . Could a new treatment developed by the US company Lilly mean “the beginning of the end” of Alzheimer’s? Could we even cure it some day? These are headlines and questions swirling (流传) around after news of a new drug, called donanemab, showed promising results in phase-3 trials.
The brain science behind Alzheimer’s is complex, but CT and MRJ scans suggest that poisonous changes occur in the brain, including the abnormal build-up of proteins called amyloid plaques and tau tangles. The damage starts in the parts of the brain essential for forming memories but then spreads throughout the organ, with brain tissue shrinking significantly.
Developing treatments for Alzheimer’s has been a challenge, with almost 20 years passing with no new drugs. But in the last year, two new ones have emerged: donanemab and lecanemab. Neither are cures or magic bullets for the disease, but they do address key symptoms. They target the amyloid proteins that can accumulate in the brain and damage neurons, slowing down its progression.
While this news is exciting, there are major caveats. One is whether it will ever become available on the NHS. The cost is estimated to be about £20,000 per person per year of treatment.
Another is the serious side effects: in the study, brain swelling occurred in 24% of participants and brain bleeding occurred in 31.4% on the drug compared with 13.6% in the placebo (安慰剂) group. There were also three deaths during the trial.
Part of the problem for me, as an academic, in assessing the drug is that the full results of the trial haven’t yet been shared publicly or published in a peer-review journal. We cannot access the full data or examine the trial yet, and there is always a motivation for private companies to overstate the effectiveness of new drugs. Trial results need to be assessed by an independent body of experts.
While it is unlikely to change clinical practice until at least 2025, the news of donanemab is again an indication that science is continuing to make progress when it comes to treating the major causes of illness and death, even one related to the highly complex inner workings of the brain, So, there are caveats and the need for caution, but these new drugs are indeed the grounds for that rare thing these days: hope.
1. What can we learn about Alzheimer’s from the passage?| A．There exists a new drug to cure it completely. |
| B．Most people will develop Alzheimer’s when they are old. |
| C．It is caused by the accumulation of some proteins in the brain. |
| D．It results from the loss of memories as people get older. |
| A．Warnings. | B．Discussions. | C．Debates. | D．Weaknesses. |
| A．It has serious side effects such as brain bleeding and deaths. |
| B．The effectiveness may be blown up without fair assessment. |
| C．The cost of the new drug is out of reach for ordinary people. |
| D．There is no possibility for new drugs to be admitted into the NHS. |
| A．Approving. | B．Doubtful. | C．Unclear. | D．Indifferent. |
10 . The environmental practices of big businesses are shaped by a fundamental fact that offends our sense of justice. A business may maximize the amount of money it makes by damaging the environment and hurting people. When government regulation is effective, and the public is environmentally aware, environmentally clean big businesses may out-compete dirty ones, but the reverse is likely to be true if government regulation is ineffective and the public doesn’t care.
It is easy to blame a business for helping itself by hurting other people. But blaming alone is unlikely to produce change. It ignores the fact that businesses are not charities but profit-making companies, and they are under obligation to maximize profits for shareholders by legal means.
Our blaming of businesses also ignores the ultimate responsibility of the public for creating the conditions that let a business profit through destructive environmental policies. In the long run, it is the public, either directly or through its politicians, that has the power to make such destructive policies unprofitable and illegal, and to make sustainable environmental policies profitable.
The public can do that by accusing businesses of harming them. The public may also make their opinion felt by choosing to buy sustainably harvested products; by preferring their governments to award valuable contracts to businesses with a good environmental track record; and by pressing their governments to pass and enforce laws and regulations requiring good environmental practices.
In turn, big businesses can exert powerful pressure on any suppliers that might ignore public or government pressure. For instance, after the US public became concerned about the spread of a disease, transmitted to humans through infected meat, the US government introduced rules demanding that the meat industry abandon practices associated with the risk of the disease spreading. But the meat packers refused to follow these, claiming that they would be too expensive to obey. However, when a fast-food company made the same demands after customer purchases of its hamburgers dropped, the meat industry followed immediately. The public’s task is therefore to identify which links in the supply chain are sensitive to public pressure.
Some readers may be disappointed or outraged that I place the ultimate responsibility for business practices harming the public on the public itself. I also believe that the public must accept the necessity for higher prices for products to cover the added costs of sound environmental practices. My views may seem to ignore the belief that businesses should act in accordance with moral principles even if this leads to a reduction in their profits. But I think we have to recognize that, throughout human history, government regulation has arisen precisely because it was found that not only did moral principles need to be made explicit, they also needed to be enforced.
My conclusion is not a moralistic one about who is right or wrong, admirable or selfish. I believe that changes in public attitudes are essential for changes in businesses’ environmental practices.
1. The main idea of Paragraph 3 is that environmental damage__________.| A．is the result of ignorance of the public |
| B．requires political action if it is to be stopped |
| C．can be prevented by the action of ordinary people |
| D．can only be stopped by educating business leaders |
| A．reduce their own individual impact on the environment |
| B．learn more about the impact of business on the environment |
| C．raise awareness of the effects of specific environmental disasters |
| D．influence the environmental policies of businesses and governments |
| A．Meat packers stopped supplying hamburgers to fast-food chains. |
| B．Meat packers persuaded the government to reduce their expenses. |
| C．A fast-food company forced their meat suppliers to follow the law. |
| D．A fast-food company encouraged the government to introduce regulations. |
| A．Will the world survive the threat caused by big businesses? |
| B．How can big businesses be encouraged to be less driven by profit? |
| C．What environmental dangers are caused by the greed of businesses? |
| D．Are big businesses to blame for the damage they cause to the environment? |
