1 . This era of “Industry 4. 0” is being driven by the same technological advances that enable the capabilities of the smartphones in our pockets. It is a mix of low-cost and high-power computers, high-speed communication and artificial intelligence. This will produce smarter robots with better sensing and communication abilities that can
In the manufacturing industry, where robots have arguably made the most headway of any division, this will mean a(n)
For large-scale manufacturers, Industry 4. 0 means their robots will be able to sense their environment and communicate in an industrial network that can be run and
For
While these machines are getting smarter, they are still not as smart as us. Today's industrial artificial intelligence operates at a
What's coming next is known as “deep learning”. Similar to big data analysis, it involves processing large quantities of data in real time to
A.compare with | B.adapt to | C.pick out | D.hold on |
A.extensive | B.accidental | C.convenient | D.dramatic |
A.Traditional | B.Removable | C.Fashionable | D.Potential |
A.temporarily | B.thoroughly | C.eventually | D.initially |
A.arranged | B.evaluated | C.monitored | D.composed |
A.gradually | B.collectively | C.similarly | D.approximately |
A.identify | B.reserve | C.exploit | D.indicate |
A.dominating | B.imposing | C.eliminating | D.scheduling |
A.high-speed | B.mass-produced | C.small-to-medium | D.multi-cultural |
A.multiple | B.feasible | C.profitable | D.independent |
A.promotions | B.improvements | C.highlights | D.resolutions |
A.separate | B.peculiar | C.narrow | D.mysterious |
A.come up with | B.account for | C.give way to | D.make decisions about |
A.difference | B.commission | C.phenomenon | D.expectation |
A.introduced | B.described | C.prepared | D.demonstrated |
Pedigree Matters Less
The Exciting Offer, a reality show
Two participants in particular have attracted a great deal of attention: Wang Xiao, who graduated with a master’s degree in law from Stanford University, and Ding Hui, who
Many Viewers imagined that Wang
You
Well, I hate to rain on your parade (泼冷水),
More importantly, no amount of prestige can make up for being an arrogant know-it-all.
In a word, respect is earned by becoming a worthy role model for others rather than through an excellent pedigree (历史).
3 . The older of two sisters, Jane Goodall was born on April 3, 1934, in London, England, into a middle class British family. When Goodall was about two years old, her mother gave her a toy chimpanzee, which Goodall still possesses to this day. She was a good student, but she had more interest in being outdoors and learning about animals. Once she spent five hours in a hen-house so she could see how a hen lays an egg. She loved animals so much that by the time she was ten or eleven she dreamed of living with animals in Africa. Her mother encouraged Goodall's dream, which eventually became a reality.
When Goodall was eighteen she completed secondary school and began working. She worked as a secretary, as an assistant editor in a film studio, and as a waitress, trying to save enough money to make her first trip to Africa.
Jane Goodall finally went to Africa when she was twenty-three years old. In 1957 she sailed to Mombasa on the east African coast, where she met anthropologist (人类学家) Louis Leakey (1903-1972), who would become her mentor, or teacher. In Africa, Leakey and his wife, Mary, had discovered what were then the oldest known human remains. These discoveries supported Leakey’s claim that the origins of the human species were in Africa, not in Asia or Europe as many had believed.
Leakey hoped that studies of the primate (灵长目动物的) species most closely related to human beings chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans — would shed (散发) light on the behavior of the human animal’s ancestors. He chose Goodall for this work because he believed that as a woman she would be more patient and careful than a male observer and that as someone with little formal training she would be more likely to describe what she saw rather than what she thought she should be seeing.
Later Goodall turned her attention to the problem of captive (被囚禁的) chimpanzees. Because they closely resemble humans, chimpanzees have been widely used as laboratory animals to study human diseases. Goodall used her knowledge and fame to work to set limits on the number of animals used in such experiments and to convince researchers to improve the conditions under which the animals were kept. She also worked to improve conditions for zoo animals and for conservation of chimpanzee habitats. In 1986 she helped found the Committee for the Conservation and Care of Chimpanzees, an organization dedicated to these issues. She has even written children’s books, The Chimpanzee Family Book and With Love, on the subject of treating animals kindly.
For her efforts Goodall has received many awards and honors. In 2000 she accepted the third Gandhi-King award for Non Violence at the United Nations. She does not spend much time in Africa anymore; rather, she gives speeches throughout the world and spends as many as three hundred days a year traveling.
1. What is Jane Goodall’s major achievements?A.Her books for children to learn about nature. |
B.Her observation of how the hen lay an egg. |
C.Her study of the chimpanzee behavior. |
D.Her finding of the origins of the human species. |
A.Science fiction. | B.A biography book. |
C.A handbook about animal protection. | D.A travel brochure. |
A.She would be more patient and careful than a male observer. |
B.She helped found the Committee for the Conservation and Care of Chimpanzees. |
C.She was more likely to record what really happens though lacking formal training. |
D.She had more interest in being outdoors and learning about animals. |
A.She went to Africa when she was twenty-three years old. |
B.She accepted the third Gandhi-King Award for Non Violence. |
C.Her discoveries supported Leakey’s claim of the origins of the human species. |
D.She worked to improve conditions for zoo animals. |
4 . Spanish-American Institute
Student Cub Notes
Free and Low Cost Gyms, Health Clubs and Pools
NYC Department of Parks Recreation Centers
www.nycgovparks.org
Recreation Centers: The NYC Department of Parks has many Recreation Centers throughout New York City. Recreation Centers offer a wide range of free and membership programs and services. Some have indoor swimming pools. Almost all have weight rooms, basketball courts, dance studios, boxing rings, art studios, game rooms, etc.
All Recreation Centers offer a wide range of programs such as aerobics, dance, tai chi, fencing, computer classes, and art. Many programs are free and open to the general public but many require membership.
You do not need to be a New York City resident to use a Recreation Center. You may use your annual membership at any and all Centers. Use one near the Spanish-American Institute and then use one near your home.
Costs: Free and membership programs. Standard annual membership is $50 for Recreation Centers and $75 for Recreation Centers with pools. (Do you know anyone 55 and older? The senior membership is only $10 a year.)
Standard annual membership provides scheduled access to the gym, pool, and all the other facilities. Instructor-led courses such as aerobics, martial arts, music, or yoga may require an additional fee.
Membership and Program Information: Go to the www.nycgovparks.org home page. On the “Facilities” menu, click on “Recreation Centers.” On the “Recreation Centers” page, you will find information about membership and fees. You will also see links to Recreation Facilities by borough (Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island).
On the “Facilities” menu, you may also want to check out other NYC Department of Parks facilities such as beaches, ice skating rinks, nature centers, running tracks, soccer fields, etc.
Recreation Centers: There are several Parks Department Recreation Centers in each borough. After you go to the “Recreation Centers” page and click on a borough, you will find a list of the centers in that borough with their addresses, phone numbers, and web links. The list will look like that for Manhattan below. Click on the link for a particular Center to learn more about its services, schedules, and programs.
1. What special benefits can an annual member of Recreation Centers enjoy?A.Having access to all the facilities all year. |
B.Experiencing all programs and services free. |
C.Taking free Instructor-led courses. |
D.Using only the center near your home free. |
A.At least $20. | B.At least $120. | C.At least $180. | D.At least $220. |
A.the cost for various memberships | B.the locations of recreations centers |
C.the staff and provided services | D.the facilities, phones and web links |
5 . 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. |
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. |
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 |
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. |
6 . Never in recorded history has a language been as widely spoken as English is today. The reason why millions are learning it is simple: it is the language of international business and,
David Graddol, the author of English Next, says it is
An important question one might ask is: whose English will it be in the future? Non-native speakers now
Professor Barbara Seidlhofer, Professor of English and Applied Linguistic at the University of Vienna, records and transcribes spoken English interactions between speakers of the language around the world. She says her team has noticed that non-native speakers are
Those who insist on standard English grammar remain in a(n)
But spoken English is another matter. Why should non-native speakers bother with what native speakers regard as correct? Their main aim,
Professor Seidlhofer says, “I think that what we are looking at is the
A.however | B.therefore | C.otherwise | D.instead |
A.relieving | B.shocking | C.tempting | D.disappointing |
A.accept | B.oppose | C.mind | D.doubt |
A.outnumber | B.overlook | C.upgrade | D.underestimate |
A.attentive | B.agreeable | C.energetic | D.present |
A.diagnosis | B.comprehension | C.disturbance | D.concentration |
A.creating | B.improving | C.varying | D.obeying |
A.edited | B.neglected | C.avoided | D.required |
A.mistakes | B.coincidences | C.exceptions | D.excuses |
A.fear | B.object | C.agree | D.fight |
A.ignorance | B.evolution | C.correctness | D.guidance |
A.honored | B.mysterious | C.falling | D.powerful |
A.by comparison | B.after all | C.on purpose | D.in reality |
A.disappearance | B.emergence | C.criticism | D.evaluation |
A.less good | B.less lonely | C.more alive | D.more adapted |
7 . Hugely ambitious in scope, The Lord of the Rings occupies an uncomfortable position in 20th century literature. This book of J.R.R.Tolkien’s poses a challenge to modern literature and its defenders. (Tolkien on his
It seems that the key point lies in Tolkien’s wholehearted rejection of modernity and modernism. This is what so powerfully
“However fanciful Tolkien’s creation of Middle earth was,” Shippey writes, “he did not think that he was entirely
The book is also deeply grounded in Tolkien’s linguistic expertise (语言专长) —he
Tolkien himself often spoke of his work as something ‘found’ or ‘discovered’, something whose existence was
A.books | B.critics | C.readers | D.ambitions |
A.dislike | B.challenge | C.review | D.prefer |
A.common | B.possible | C.missing | D.funny |
A.annoys | B.influences | C.attracts | D.concerns |
A.recovery | B.designing | C.analysis | D.questioning |
A.taking it down | B.making it up | C.turning it down | D.looking it up |
A.remained | B.struck | C.moved | D.existed |
A.spoke | B.invented | C.neglected | D.recalled |
A.put aside | B.set up | C.look into | D.get along |
A.style | B.tension | C.success | D.tradition |
A.decision | B.request | C.struggle | D.refusal |
A.representative | B.independent | C.conscious | D.thoughtful |
A.clear | B.weird | C.unfair | D.pitiful |
A.As a result | B.On the contrary | C.Even so | D.What’s worse |
A.ancient | B.broken | C.imaginary | D.foreign |
8 . Science may never know what memories play on the mind of the California sea hare, a foot-long marine snail, when it eats algae — a sea plant — in the tide pools of the Pacific coast.
But in a new study, researchers claim to have made headway in understanding the simplest kind of memory a creature might form.
David Glanzman, a neurobiologist at the University of California, believes the kinds of memories that trigger a defensive reaction in the snail are encoded not in the connections between brain cells, as many scientists would argue, but in RNA molecules (分子) that form part of an organism’s genetic machinery.
In an experiment to test the idea, Glanzman implanted wire into the tails of California sea hares, and gave them a series of electrical shocks. The procedure sensitized the animals so that when they were prodded (戳) in a fleshy spout called a siphon, they contracted their gills (鳃状呼吸器官) in a strong defensive action.
After sensitizing the sea snails, Glanzman extracted RNA from the animals and injected it into other sea snails to see what happened. He found the recipient sea snails became sensitized, suggesting the “memory” of the electrical shocks had been transplanted. When Glanzman repeated the experiment with RNA from sea snails that had been hooked up to wires but not shocked, the reaction behavior did not transfer.
Despite the result, the work has not found widespread acceptance. “Obviously further work needs to be carried out to determine whether these changes can happen without failure in a wide range of conditions,” said Prof Sherilynn Vann, who studies memory at Cardiff University. “While the sea hare is a fantastic model for studying basic neuroscience, we must be very cautious in drawing comparisons to human memory processes.”
Tomas Ryan, who studies memory at Trinity College Dublin, is firmly unconvinced. “It’s interesting, but I don’t think they’ve transferred a memory,” he said. “This work tells me that maybe the most basic behavioral responses involve some kind of switch in the animal and there is something in the liquid that Glanzman extracts that is hitting that switch.”
But Ryan added that different thinking about memory was badly needed: “In a field like this which is so full of accepted beliefs, we need as many new ideas as possible. This work takes us down an interesting road, but I have a huge amount of skepticism about it.”
1. Why were the sea hares given electrical shocks?A.To rob them of their memory. |
B.To see how they defend themselves. |
C.To break the connection between nerves. |
D.To make them sensitive to external stimulations. |
A.Memory can be encoded and changed by people. |
B.Only with strong stimulation can sea snails form reaction. |
C.The memory giving rise to sea snail’s sensitization is held in RNA. |
D.The sea snail’s defense is probably enabled by connectivity of brain cells. |
A.The recipient sea snail’s response may require further confirmation. |
B.Variables (变量) in the experiments may not have remained the same. |
C.Something else other than RNA in the extract may lead to the recipient’s reaction. |
D.The sea snail “memory transplant” may not apply to more complex memory process. |
A.criticism | B.doubt | C.relief | D.optimism |
9 . When your home becomes a tourist attraction
Have you ever looked at a beautiful little news house in London and thought “It must be so amazing to live there?”
Alice Johnston is a longtime resident of Notting Hill, the London neighborhood famous for pastel-painted row houses and for being the setting of the movie of the same name. Johnston, a journalist, has complicated feelings about her Instagram-beloved neighborhood. She lives on Portobello Road, one of the capital’s most famous streets.
Once, she and a friend were walking his French bulldog when a tourist asked if they could “borrow” the pup for a quick photo. The friend and the dog agreed, the Instagrammer posed with the Frenchie in front of a bright blue door and then handed over five pounds as a thank you. In that story, everybody had a good time.
A.And she has witnessed all kinds of crazy behavior committed in the pursuit of the perfect snapshot. |
B.But there can be a darker side to living inside what some people think is a movie set. |
C.“For us it’s a tremendous pleasure to be able to share the house and see so many people happy and excited about it.” |
D.If so, you’re not the only one. |
E.When private homes become tourist attractions, conflicts can occur. |
F.When it comes to living in a much-photographed place, some people try to take the good with the bad. |
10 . Economists have long tried to calculate the value of unpaid housework. In terms of inputs and outputs, the
Last month China was shocked when a court ordered a man to pay his wife $7,700 for housework during their live-year marriage. The wife, known as Ms Wang, told a judge in Beijing that she "looked after the child and managed the household
The court ruling was widely
In the West, where the starting principle is an equal split of the couple's assets on divorce, claims for extra compensation are
In Britain, the concept of compensation fell out of use for over a decade before resurfacing in 2020, bringing the question of pay for housework into the
Many women have no option but to leave the workforce when they start a family—the cost of child care might
A.accusations | B.ambitions | C.contributions | D.exclamations |
A.fabrics | B.folds | C.packages | D.pockets |
A.appliances | B.chores | C.conflicts | D.expenses |
A.approved | B.celebrated | C.circulated | D.questioned |
A.awarded | B.channeled | C.furnished | D.transferred |
A.additional | B.compulsory | C.free | D.paid |
A.free | B.help | C.relieve | D.suspend |
A.considered | B.encouraged | C.favored | D.rejected |
A.gives out | B.loses out | C.misses out | D.wears out |
A.forum | B.horizon | C.lens | D.spotlight |
A.admit | B.recall | C.reflect | D.signal |
A.at first glance | B.for the first time | C.first of all | D.in the first place |
A.counter | B.eliminate | C.outweigh | D.replace |
A.accommodate | B.escape | C.fortify | D.shift |
A.check | B.distinguish | C.promote | D.publicize |