1 . Art Builds Understanding
Despite the long history of scholarship on experiences of art, researchers have yet to capture and understand the most meaningful aspects of such experiences, including the thoughts and insights we gain when we visit a museum, the sense of encounter after seeing a meaningful work of art, or the changed thinking after experiences with art. These powerful encounters can be inspiring, uplifting, and contribute to well-being and flourishing.
According to the mirror model of art developed by Pablo P. L. Tinio, aesthetic reception corresponds to artistic creation in a mirror-reversed fashion. Artists aim to express ideas and messages about the human condition or the world at large.
In addition, art making and art viewing are connected by creative thinking. Research in a lab at Yale University shows that an educational program that uses art appreciation activities builds creative thinking skills. It showed that the more time visitors spent engaging with art and the more they reflected on it, the greater the correspondence with the artists’ intentions and ideas.
Correspondence in feeling and thinking suggests a transfer — between creator and viewer — of ideas, concepts, and emotions contained in the works of art. Art has the potential to communicate across space and time.
A.The viewers gain a new perspective on the story. |
B.The theory of aesthetic cognitivism describes the value of art. |
C.This helps to create connections and insights that otherwise would not happen. |
D.To do so, they explore key ideas and continually expand them as they develop their work. |
E.After spending more time with the work, the viewer begins to access the ideas of the artist. |
F.For example, in one activity, people are asked to view a work of art from different perspectives. |
G.Participants were more original in their thinking when compared to those who did not take part in the program. |
2 . Last week, I sent the same request to ChatGPT, the latest artificial-intelligence chatbot from OpenAI. “Upon the Firth of Forth, a bridge doth stand,” it began. In less than a minute, the program had created in full a rhyming Shakespearean sonnet (莎士比亚十四行诗). Tools like ChatGPT seem poised to change the world of poetry — and so much else — but poets also have a lot to teach us about artificial intelligence. If algorithms (算法) are getting good at writing poetry, it’s partially because poetry was always an algorithmic business.
Even the most rebellious (叛逆的) poets follow more rules than they might like to admit. When schoolchildren are taught to imitate the structure of sonnet, they are effectively learning to follow algorithmic constraints. Should it surprise us that computers can do so, too?
But considering how ChatGPT works, its ability to follow the rules for sonnets seems a little more impressive. No one taught it these rules. It is based on a newer kind of AI known as a large language model (LLM). To put it simply, LLMs analyze large amounts of human writing and learn to predict what the next word in a string of text should be, based on context. One frequent criticism of LLMs is that they do not understand what they write; they just do a great job of guessing the next word.
When a private verse by Dickinson makes us feel like the poet speaks directly to us, we are experiencing the effects of a technology called language. Poems are made of paper and ink — or, these days, electricity and light. There is no one “inside” a Dickinson poem any more than one by ChatGPT. Of course, every Dickinson poem reflects her intention to create meaning. When ChatGPT puts words together, it does not intend anything. Some argue that writings by LLMs therefore have no meaning, only the appearance of it. If I see a cloud in the sky that looks like a giraffe, I recognize it as an accidental similarity. In the same way, this argument goes, we should regard the writings of ChatGPT as merely imitating real language, meaningless and random as cloud shapes.
When I showed my friends the sonnet by ChatGPT, they called it “soulless and barren.” Despite following all the rules for sonnets, the poem is predictable. But is the average sonnet by a human any better? If we now expect computers to write not just poems but good poems, then we have set a much higher bar.
1. What is the main idea of paragraph 1 and paragraph 2?A.ChatGPT will make a difference to poetry based on algorithms. |
B.There is no doubt that AI can copy the grammatical rules of poetry. |
C.Poetry guidelines provide a possibility for AI’s poetry writing. |
D.There is a similarity between algorithms and poetry. |
A.ChatGPT is trained to follow the rules by LLMs. |
B.ChatGPT can analyze and predict human languages. |
C.ChatGPT is technologically supported by LLMs. |
D.ChatGPT itself learn to follow the rules. |
A.He talks about cloud to describe the meaninglessness of AI’s poetry. |
B.He tells of Dickinson to describe the meaninglessness AI’s poetry. |
C.He mentions cloud to suggest its close relationship with AI’s poetry. |
D.He refers to Dickinson to suggest her close relationship with AI’s poetry. |
A.Acceptable and favorable | B.Amazed and admiring |
C.Indifferent and uncaring | D.Doubtful and uneasy |
3 . Debate about artificial intelligence (AI) tends to focus on its potential dangers: algorithmic bias (算法偏见) and discrimination, the mass destruction of jobs and even, some say, the extinction of humanity. However, others are focusing on the potential rewards. Luminaries in the field such as Demis Hassabis and Yann LeCun believe that AI can turbocharge scientific progress and lead to a golden age of discovery. Could they be right?
Such claims are worth examining, and may provide a useful counterbalance to fears about large-scale unemployment and killer robots. Many previous technologies have, of course, been falsely hailed as panaceas (万灵药). But the mechanism by which AI will supposedly solve the world’s problems has a stronger historical basis.
In the 17th century microscopes and telescopes opened up new vistas of discovery and encouraged researchers to favor their own observations over the received wisdom of antiquity (古代), while the introduction of scientific journals gave them new ways to share and publicize their findings. Then, starting in the late 19th century, the establishment of research laboratories, which brought together ideas, people and materials on an industrial scale, gave rise to further innovations. From the mid-20th century, computers in turn enabled new forms of science based on simulation and modelling.
All this is to be welcomed. But the journal and the laboratory went further still: they altered scientific practice itself and unlocked more powerful means of making discoveries, by allowing people and ideas to mingle in new ways and on a larger scale. AI, too, has the potential to set off such a transformation.
Two areas in particular look promising. The first is “literature-based discovery” (LBD), which involves analyzing existing scientific literature, using ChatGPT-style language analysis, to look for new hypotheses, connections or ideas that humans may have missed. The second area is “robot scientists”. These are robotic systems that use AI to form new hypotheses, based on analysis of existing data and literature, and then test those hypotheses by performing hundreds or thousands of experiments, in fields including systems biology and materials science. Unlike human scientists, robots are less attached to previous results, less driven by bias—and, crucially, easy to replicate. They could scale up experimental research, develop unexpected theories and explore avenues that human investigators might not have considered.
The idea is therefore feasible. But the main barrier is sociological: it can happen only if human scientists are willing and able to use such tools. Governments could help by pressing for greater use of common standards to allow AI systems to exchange and interpret laboratory results and other data. They could also fun d more research into the integration of AI smarts with laboratory robotics, and into forms of AI beyond those being pursued in the private sector. Less fashionable forms of AI, such as model-based machine learning, may be better suited to scientific tasks such as forming hypotheses.
1. Regarding Demis and Yann’s viewpoint, the author is likely to be ______.A.supportive | B.puzzled | C.unconcerned | D.doubtful |
A.LBD focuses on testing the reliability of ever-made hypotheses. |
B.Resistance to AI prevents the transformation of scientific practice. |
C.Robot scientists form hypotheses without considering previous studies. |
D.Both journals and labs need adjustments in promoting scientific findings. |
A.Official standards have facilitated the exchange of data. |
B.Performing scientific tasks relies on government funding. |
C.Less popular AI forms might be worth paying attention to. |
D.The application of AI in public sector hasn’t been launched. |
A.Transforming Science. How Can AI Help? |
B.Making Breakthroughs. What Is AI’s Strength? |
C.Reshaping History. How May AI Develop Further? |
D.Redefining Discovery. How Can AI Overcome Its Weakness? |
4 . Atomic shapes are so simple that they can’t be broken down any further. Mathematicians are trying to turn to artificial intelligence (AI) for help to build a periodic table of these shapes, hoping it will assist in finding yet-unknown atomic shapes.
Tom Coates at Imperial College London and his colleagues are working to classify atomic shapes known as Fano varieties, which are so simple that they can’t be broken down into smaller components. Just as chemists arranged element s in the periodic table by their atomic weight and group to reveal new insights, the researchers hope that organizing these atomic shapes by their various properties will help in understanding them.
The team has given each atomic shape a sequence of numbers based on its features such as the number of holes it has or the extent to which it bends around itself. This acts as a bar code (条形码) to identify it. Coates and his colleagues have now created an AI that can predict certain properties of these shapes from their bar code numbers alone, with an accuracy of 98 percent.
The team member Alexander Kasprzyk at the University of Nottingham, UK, says that the AI has let the team organize atomic shapes in a way that begins to follow the periodic table, so that when you read from left to right, or up and down, there seem to be general patterns in the geometry (几何) of the shapes.
Graham Nib lo at the University of Southampton, UK, stresses that humans will still need to understand the results provided by AI and create proofs of these ideas. “AI has definitely got unbelievable abilities. But in the same way that telescopes (望远镜) don’t put astronomers out of work, AI doesn’t put mathematicians out of work,” he says. “It just gives us new backing that allows us to explore parts of the mathematical landscape that are out of reach.”
The team hopes to improve the model to the point where missing spaces in its periodic table could point to the existence of unknown shapes.
1. What is the purpose of building a periodic table of shapes?A.To gain deeper insights into the atomic shapes. |
B.To create an AI to predict the unknown shapes. |
C.To break down atomic shapes into smaller parts. |
D.To arrange chemical elements in the periodic table. |
A.Its holes. | B.Its bends. |
C.Its atomic weight. | D.Its properties. |
A.Design. | B.Help. | C.Duty. | D.Threat. |
A.Thanks to AI, new atomic shapes have been discovered. |
B.Mathematicians turn to AI to create more atomic shapes. |
C.AI helps build a relationship between chemistry and maths. |
D.A periodic table of shapes can be built with the help of AI. |
One late afternoon, Tina was driving on a highway when a severe snowstorm hit with no sign before. In a short time, the heavy snow, coupled with the strong wind, turned everything into white and made the road extremely dangerous.
Tina later found out that this kind of storm is called a “Saskatchewan screamer”, which comes on extremely fast with high winds. It’s really frightening and deadly to be caught in such extreme weather.
Unable to see the road clearly, Tina had to stop her car and call 911. The operator told her that phone calls for help kept flooding in and all the rescuers had been called out. She suggested that Tina should wait out the storm in her car rather than risk driving on or going out. She took Tina’s information and told her that an officer would call her back. Tina waited anxiously for almost two hours, but nobody called her yet to check in. “The storm showed no sign of stopping. What was worse, it was getting dark. I couldn’t see anything outside the car since the snow had covered all the windows. The wind was still howling and the temperature was getting lower and lower in the car. I had no idea whom I could turn to for help,” Tina later wrote in a Facebook post. “Alone and cold,I began to panic, worrying about getting hit by an oncoming vehicle, getting buried in a snowbank, having my tailpipe blocked by the snow... I was really worried I couldn’t ever make it home to my family."
That was when Tina realized that it was no use waiting passively for help. She decided to do something herself. So she took out her cellphone, logged on to the Google Map and determined her location. She found online a neighborhood Facebook group for the area that she was passing through and shared a comment about her trouble with her location marked on the map. Then all she could do next was sitting in the car, praying someone could make a response to her as early as possible.
Fortunately, Tina’s request reached 80-year-old retired rescuer Frank.
1. 根据文本内容从方框中选择适当的词并用其正确形式填入文本图示中,每词限用一次,两词为多余选项。request die succeed luck call pray warn worry wait failure adjust decide | ||
Tina was driving on a highway when a snowstorm hit without Tina found the storm | It is really frightening and | |
Tina a called 911 and the operator suggested her Tina waited | The weather conditions got worse and worse. Tina worried if she could go back home | |
Tina made a | Then she just sat in the car and | |
…… |
2. What was the major problem Tina faced?
3. After waiting for almost 2 hours who would help her? Then what did she decide to do?
4. Was it easy for Frank to rescue Tina? Why?
5. What will Tina think of the experience and Frank?
6 . Travelling abroad can present many challenges, including long journeys, language problems, and culture shocks, plus the expense of transport and accommodation.
One of the wonderful benefits of going abroad is that you can learn history and culture without real effort. There’s a natural tendency to absorb other cultures and pick up historical concepts, while enjoying yourself at the same time.
Another great benefit is that living in a foreign culture is the only real way to fully understand its language.
Removing yourself from the familiar and travelling to a new country can be a very powerful tool for gaining self-awareness and deeper understanding.
A.It’s far superior to learning it in a classroom. |
B.The new land gives you a fresh social environment. |
C.The direct experience helps you remember something easily. |
D.Many people wonder what they should do in a foreign country. |
E.Travelling abroad can also boost creativity and drive innovation. |
F.Another benefit of travelling abroad is the relaxation you can get. |
G.However, there’s rarely a dull moment when you’ re in a different country. |
7 . Fresh fish should have a mild smell. Strong fishy smells are the first signs to go bad. How do the fishy smells come from?
It can be several days from when the fish are caught to when they reach the supermarket. In that time, bacteria that grow naturally in fish start to consume a substance called trimethylamine N-oxide(TMAO)in fish. These bacteria change TMAO into trimethylamine (TMA), the substance responsible for the fishy smells. Bacteria in fish can also change lysine(赖氨酸)into cadaverine(尸胺), a substance that’s associated with breaking down the fish once they are caught and giving off fishy smell.
Chemical reactions can also lead to fishy smells. This happens through the oxidation(氧化)of fat. Fish are an important source of omega-3 fatty acids. When these fats are exposed to oxygen, they oxidize and break down into the substance that you can smell.
To slow down the fishy smell, what is beyond question is that the less time between when the fish are caught and when they reach the kitchen, the better. But today, fish are often flown across the globe. To keep smell-producing bacteria at bay, the fish must be frozen or kept at the low temperature possible as soon as they are caught and cleaned.
Controlling fat oxidation can function as well, especially for fattier fish species. While freezing slows bacterial growth, it does not stop fat oxidation. This reaction will occur as long as oxygen is present. Fatty fish are usually not frozen because, despite the cold temperature, they’re going to oxidize pretty fast unless they are stored in a low oxygen container. That’s why those species are often canned.
It’s also important to remember that smell is not always an indicator of safety, especially in processed fish products. “What you might consider the fishy smell may be a delicacy in another culture,” said Carl A. Batt, a professor of food science at Cornell University.
1. Which of the following has the fishy smell?A.Fish fat. | B.TMAO. | C.Cadaverine. | D.Lysine. |
A.Drying them in the air. | B.Storing them in closed containers. |
C.Carefully cleaning them. | D.Exposing them to rich oxygen. |
A.Objective. |
B.Negative. |
C.Acceptable. |
D.Unclear. |
A.Topic—Example—Conclusion. | B.Topic—Comparison—Opinion. |
C.Question——Cause——Solution. | D.Question—Effect—Opinion. |
8 . Fortunately, the days of being spread on thick baby oil and lying in the sun to get you skin yellowish-brown—or more likely burnt—are long over. Many sunscreens work by filtering (过滤) the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) rays to keep them from reaching skin cells and causing the DNA damage that can lead to wrinkles and skin cancer. But in recent years, the safety of some of those filtering chemical ingredients, particularly oxybenzone (氧苯铜), has been in question.
A 2019 study published in JAMA found evidence that oxybenzone is absorbed into the bloodstream, leading to concerns about whether it might affect functions of our body. Oxybenzone has also been detected in breast milk for newborn babies. Because of concerns about higher intake in children, doctors from the American Academy of Pediatrics advise against sunscreen with oxybenzone for kids.
The Environmental Working Group, an activist organization that monitors chemical safety, has called for a ban, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration considers sunscreens with oxybenzone safe. “It’s uncertain,” says Deborah S. Sarnoff, president of the U.S. Skin Cancer Foundation. “Just because you’re absorbing the chemical doesn’t mean it’s dangerous.” Further study is required.
But oxybenzone is a risk to coral reefs. Hawaii and the U.S. Virgin Islands have banned the sale of sunscreens with oxybenzone. In a 2022 study published in Science, researchers found that some certain sea plants, when exposed to sunlight, turn oxybenzone into energy or something needed in a way that damages and kills corals.
Some companies have been trying to stop using oxybenzone gradually in stages, and many big brands offer oxybenzone-free options. For anyone who is pregnant or breastfeeding, or simply looking to avoid these chemical filters, Dr. Sarnoff recommends mineral sunscreens, which contain mainly physical barriers.
1. What is the advantage of sunscreen?A.It gets your skin yellowish-brown. | B.It stops wrinkles and skin cancer. |
C.It keeps UV rays from harming you. | D.It prevents skin cells from DNA damage. |
A.They don’t want children to absorb more oxybenzone. |
B.They don’t want oxybenzone to hurt babies’ functions. |
C.They know oxybenzone can affect children’s bloodstream. |
D.They know oxybenzone has been found in newborn babies. |
A.Coral reefs in Hawaii were damaged or killed by sunscreens. |
B.More research is needed to prove the danger of oxybenzone. |
C.Some organizations have already banned the use of sunscreens. |
D.Mineral sunscreens are much safer than those with oxybenzone. |
A.The findings about sunscreens with oxybenzone. |
B.Questions on safe use of oxybenzone raised by doctors. |
C.Discussion on safety of oxybenzone between organizations. |
D.Effects of sunscreens on humans and plants in recent studies. |
9 . In US emergency rooms (ER), the average wait time to see a doctor is more than two hours. There are more patients in need than there are doctors, nurses and other staff to help them. Many parents have suffered through hours in the ER with a sick, upset child, only to get sent home because their case is not considered urgent. What if there was another choice—like a house call from an intelligent machine?
Now, a new study shows that AI systems can assess (评估) a child’s medical chart and come up with a diagnosis (诊断), a determination of what is wrong with that patient.
The study took place at Guangzhou Women and Children’s Medical Center in southern China. First, a team of doctors reviewed 6, 183 medical charts. They summarized the information in these charts into a list of keywords linked to disease-related symptoms or signs, such as “fever”. Researchers then taught these keywords to the AI system. Once trained, the system scanned children’s charts for the key terms, checking if they were present or not in order to come to a conclusion. Finally, it offered diagnoses based on the charts, narrowing down from among 55 illness categories.
Dongxiao Zhu, an assistant professor of computer science at Wayne State University who did not take part in the study, however, sees this as “augmented intelligence (增强智能)” rather than “artificial intelligence”, because the system handled only 55 illness categories. Compare that to thousands of possibilities in the real world. The machine cannot yet get into the more complex aspects of a medical decision.
Zhu is also concerned about the amount of human work that went into the study—namely, the time and energy spent by human doctors. They spent hours grading the machine’s assessments and comparing them to their own. It’s no wonder that the process took four years. Considering that, it may be a while before you can skip the ER and see a robot-doctor instead.
1. What can we infer from Paragraph 1?A.Patients pay too much for the ER. |
B.American doctors aren’t responsible. |
C.Children are treated urgently in the ER. |
D.The emergency rooms are crowded with patients. |
A.AI systems still have a long way to go. |
B.AI systems diagnose disease like doctors. |
C.AI systems will take over from doctors someday. |
D.AI systems get into complex medical decisions. |
A.By examining a patient first. |
B.By reviewing many medical charts. |
C.By scanning keywords about a disease. |
D.By observing disease-related symptoms. |
A.They need to be improved a lot. |
B.They will replace real doctors soon. |
C.They are suitable for complex disease. |
D.They help doctors make a quick analysis. |
10 . When you ask people to judge others by their speech, a trend emerges: Listeners dislike disfluency. Slow talkers producing loads of ums and pauses(停顿)are generally perceived as less charming. But science tells us there may be even more to disfluency.
Disfluencies do not occur in arbitrary positions in sentences. Ums typically occur right before more difficult or low-frequency words. Imagine you’re having dinner with a friend at a restaurant,and there’re three items on the table: a knife, a glass, and a wine decanter(醒酒器). Your friend turns to you and says, “Could you hand me the...um...” What would you assume they want? Since it’s unlikely that they will hesitate before such common words as knife, and glass, chances are you’ll pick up the decanter and ask, “You mean this?”
This is exactly what we demonstrated through controlled eye-tracking studies in our lab. Apparently, listeners hear the um and predict that an uncommon word is most likely to follow.Such predictions, though, reflect more than just simple association between disfluencies and difficult words; listeners are actively considering from the speaker’s point of view. For example, when hearing a non-native speaker say the same sentence but with a thick foreign accent, listeners don’t show a preference for looking at low-frequency objects. This is probably because listeners assume non-native speakers may have as much trouble coming up with the English word for a common object, like a knife, as for unusual ones and can’t guess their intention.
In another experiment, listeners were presented with an atypical speaker who produced disfluencies before simple words and never before difficult words. Initially, participants displayed the natural predictive strategy: looking at uncommon objects. However, as more time went by, and they gained experience with this atypical distribution of disfluencies, listeners started to demonstrate the contrary predictive behavior: They tended to look at simple objects when hearing the speaker say um.
These findings represent further evidence that the human brain is a prediction machine: We continuously try to predict what will happen next, even though not all disfluencies are created equal.
1. What does the underlined word “arbitrary”mean in paragraph 2?A.Random. | B.Strategic. | C.Obvious. | D.Consistent |
A.They can be understood easily. | B.They actively put themselves in others’ shoes |
C.Their vocabularies are limited. | D.Their disfluencies are a little less predictive. |
A.Simple things are difficult in some cases. | B.Listeners can adjust predictions accordingly. |
C.Distribution of disfluencies is changeable. | D.Disfluencies in communication can be avoided. |
A.Pauses Coexist with Prediction. | B.Brains Are Powerful Prediction Machines. |
C.Active Listeners Simplify Talks. | D.Disfluency Says More Than You Think. |