1 . Jennifer Destefano answered a call from a number she did not recognize. “Mom, I messed up,” her daughter’s voice told her, crying. “These bad men have me.” A man proceeded to demand money, or he would drug her daughter and leave her in Mexico. But while she kept him on the phone, friends managed to reach her daughter, only to discover that she was, in fact, free and well on a skiing trip in Arizona. The voice used on the phone was a fake.

Voice cloning’s influences will be huge. For several years, customers have been able to identify themselves over the phone to their bank and other companies using their voice. Not even a gifted mimic(巧于模仿的人) could fool the detection system. But the arrival of cloning will force adaptation in order to prevent cheating.

Creative industries could face the impact too. Voice actors’ skills, trained over a lifetime, can be copied in a matter of seconds. But some actors may, in fact. find cloning congenial. Val Kilmer, who has lost much of his voice to throat cancer, was delighted to have his voice restored for “Top Gun: Maverick”.

Another industry that will have to come to cope with the rise of clones is journalism. Now who will trust a story based on an audio clip(片段)? Slightly easier to manage might be the false positives: recordings claiming to be someone but which are fakes. The opposite problem—the false negatives—will arise when public figures deny authentic recordings. Proving that a clip is genuine is bard, perhaps even impossible. Journalists will need to show how they obtained and stored audio files.

The term “fake news” had existed long before voice cloning. Now, ever more people caught in a crime are likely to defend themselves. “It wasn’t me. ” And many people will have even more reason to believe them.

1. What does Jennifer Destefano’s experience indicate?

A．The high frequency of fake news.	B．The rising crime rate in Mexico.
C．The danger of voice-cloning technology.	D．The value of bravery in an emergency.

2. What does the underlined word “congenial” in Paragraph 3 probably mean?

A．Illegal.

B．Ridiculous.

C．Horrible.

D．Agreeable.

3. Which of the following belongs to the false negatives?

A．Late Beetles’ songs have been restored by voice cloning.

B．A pop star declares an authentic recording untrue.

C．Journalists prove their reports with audio clips.

D．The police identify a criminal through voice.

4. What is the most suitable title for the text?

A．Voice cloning is increasingly used in journalism

B．Voice cloning is challenging our traditional ideas

C．Voice cloning is impacting different aspects of our life

D．Voice cloning is re-establishing life styles for the better

2 . Research spanning several decades demonstrates that you are more likely to think the information that is repeated to be true than the information you hear only once. You usually assume that if people put in effort to repeat a statement, this reflects the truth of the statement. This tendency-also called the truth effect-is a bias (偏见) that can lead you to draw incorrect conclusions.

To what degree are people aware of the truth effect? This question was addressed in a paper in the journal Cognition early this year.

In the critical study in this paper, participants did two sessions. In one session, they read about a hypothetical (虚构的) study in which they were exposed to some statements and then were asked whether both statements they had heard before as well as these new statements were true. They were asked to predict the proportion (比例) of each statement that would be judged as true. They did this both as a prediction of other people’s performance as well as a prediction of how they would do in this study.

At another session a few days later, participants actually performed this study, reading a set of 20 statements in the hypothetical study again and then judging the truth of altogether 40 statements, half of which were from the hypothetical study and the other half of which were new.

This study did replicate the well known truth effect. People were more likely to judge statements they had seen before as true than statements that were new. Two interesting findings emerged from the prediction. First, participants tended to underestimate the size of the truth effect for everyone. T hat is, while they did expect some difference in judgments between the statements seen before and those that were new, they thought this difference would be smaller than it actually was. Second, participants more significantly underpredicted the truth effect for themselves compared to that for other people.   

This study is particularly important in light of the amount of misinformation present in social media. Many people have the power to influence public opinion about important matters. Flooding social media feeds with misinformation will lead people to believe this information is true just because it is stated. Recognizing that we are all susceptible to this influence of repeated information should lead us to mistrust our intuition (直觉) about what is true and to look up important information prior to using it to make important judgments and decisions.

1. In the first paragraph, the author intends to ______.

A．clarify a misconception	B．present a phenomenon
C．challenge a statement	D．confirm a theory

2. What can we learn from the study?

A．Impacts of the truth effect require further studies.

B．Making predictions before judgments is significant.

C．People have hardly any awareness of the truth effect.

D．People tend to believe they can make wiser judgments.

3. What does the word “susceptible” underlined in the last paragraph most probably mean?

A．Critical.

B．Subject.

C．Opposed.

D．Adapted.

3 . 听下面一段较长对话，回答以下小题。
1. How did the man notice the problem first?

A．His bank called him.

B．His bill showed him.

C．His credit card was stolen.

2. What did the bank do to fix the problem?

A．They gave the man his money back at once.

B．They asked the man to provide the evidence.

C．They decided to talk to the bank’s owner.

3. What do the two speakers mainly talk about?

A．Information safety.

B．Shopping habits.

C．Money management.

4 . The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is developing guidance on data protection and the “Internet of Things” (IoT) in response to concerns raised by the consumer (消费者) watchdog, Which?, over “data harvesting” by smart home devices (设备).

Which? examined how businesses collect data from various devices like smart speakers, washing machines, TVs, video doorbells, and security (安全) cameras. They discovered that businesses behind these devices are collecting more data than they need Rocio Concha from Which? stated that consumers have already paid for smart products, in some cases thousands of pounds, so it’s unfair that they have to continue to “pay” with their personal information.

The UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requires organizations to collect personal data that is necessary in relation to the purposes for which it is processed.

“To keep trust in these products, companies must be open about the data they collect and how they use it, and ensure that the data is not used or shared in ways that people would not expect.” said Stephen Almond, ICO’s executive director of regulatory risk. He said businesses behind connected devices can expect the ICG to “act where we don’t see the rules being followed.”

The promise of action comes at a time when the ICO has opened a separate review into how fertility (生育力) tracking apps process users’ personal data due to concerns raised in a survey. The survey found that over half of women have concerns over data security, and more than half of people who use the apps have noticed an increase in baby or fertility-related ads (广告).

The ICO encourages users to share their experiences through a survey to identify any possible harm from these apps. Emily Keaney, deputy commissioner of regulatory policy of the ICO, sand that they expect organizations running health apps to safeguard their users privacy and have clear guidelines in place.

“This review aims to find out both the good and bad of how the apps are working at present. We will take action to protect the public if necessary,” said Keaney.

1. What did Which? find about the businesses?

A．They offer a larger variety of choices than before.

B．They have made their products smarter than expected.

C．They gather more personal information than necessary.

D．They have made their prices much higher than before.

2. What does Almond expect the businesses to do?

A．Observe the rules set by the ICO.

B．Improve the safety of their products.

C．Offer the ICO suggestions on data protection.

D．Explain their improvement in data collection.

3. What is the purpose of the ICO’s review?

A．To remove doubts about the apps.

B．To compare women’s preferred apps.

C．To look into baby-related ads in the apps.

D．To learn about the performance of the apps.

4. What is the best title for the text?

A．Devices shouldn’t be too smart

B．Consumers shouldn’t just complain

C．New guidelines for digital businesses

D．The impact of GDPR on smart device

6 . Fictional, computer-generated human faces are so convincing they can fool even trained observers. They can be easily downloaded online and used for Internet scams(诈骗)and fake social media profiles.

Al programs called generative adversarial networks (生成对抗网络), or GANs, can learn to create fake images that are less and less distinguishable from real images, by competing two neural networks against each other.

Nightingale and her colleague Hany Farid at the University of California, Berkeley, asked 315 participants, recruited on a crowdsourcing website, to say whether they could distinguish a selection of 400 fake photos from 400 photographs of real people. Each set consisted of 100 people from each of four ethnic groups: white, Black, East Asian and South Asian.

This group had an accuracy rate of 48.2 percent—slightly worse than chance. A second group of 219 participants were given training to recognize computer-generated faces. This group had an accuracy rate of 59 percent, but this difference is negligible (可忽略的), says Nightingale.

The researchers also asked a separate group of 223 participants to rate a selection of the same faces on their level of trustworthiness, on a scale of 1 to 7. They rated the fake faces as 8 percent more trustworthy, on average, than the real faces—a small yet significant difference, according to Nightingale. That might be because artificial faces look more like “average” human faces, and people are more likely to trust typical-looking faces, she says.

Looking at the extremes, the four faces rated most untrustworthy were real, whereas the three most trustworthy faces were fake.

“We need stricter ethical guidelines and more legal frameworks in place because, inevitably, there are going to be people out there who want to use these images to do harm, and that’s worrying,” says Nightingale.

To reduce these risks, developers could add watermarks to their images to flag them as fake. she says. “In my opinion, this is bad enough. It’s just going to get worse if we don’t do something to stop it.”

1. What can we know about GANs?

A．GANs can cheat trained observers.

B．GANs should be used under strict legal frameworks.

C．GANs can generate artificial pictures close to real ones.

D．GANs-generated Images can not be distinguished from real ones.

2. Why did Nightingale and Farid carry out the research?

A．To warn people the risk of online fraud.

B．To train people to discover fake photos online.

C．To see if people can distinguish fake faces from real ones.

D．To test whether GANs can create fake faces to fool people.

3. What does Nightingale mean in the last paragraph?

A．Stricter laws and regulations should be imposed.

B．Effective ways are needed but not found yet.

C．Watermarks are an effective way against fake images.

D．Responsibility should be taken by developers to prevent misuse of fake images.

4. Which of the following is the best title for this passage?

A．Development of Internet scams.	B．Development of AI technology
C．Will fake faces look more trustworthy?	D．Legal frameworks for GANs

7 . What is the woman’s advice?

A．Improving the judgment.	B．Avoiding judging by appearances.
C．Carrying out the real-name system.

8 . Americans do not believe their personal information is safe online, suggests findings from a new poll (民意调查). They are also not satisfied with the federal government’s efforts to protect such information.

The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and Meri Talk did the polling. It found that 64 percent of Americans say their social media activity is not secure. About as many have the same safety concerns about online information that shares their physical location. Half of Americans also believe their private text messages are not secure.

They are not just concerned. They want the federal government to do something about it. Almost 75 percent of Americans say they support creating laws for how companies can collect, use and share personal data.

A majority of those who took part in the poll said they have more trust in private companies than the federal government to address security and privacy issues. This comes even after years of hacks (黑客) of U. S. corporations that shared the personal information of millions of people around the world.

The poll answers showed that about 71 percent of Americans believe that individuals’ data privacy should be treated as a national security issue. But only 23 percent are satisfied with the federal government’s current efforts.

The law follows similar measures passed in California and Virginia, and gives people the right to find and delete personal information. Colorado’s law also permits people to choose out of having their data tracked and sold. Facebook and other companies opposed the bill.

The poll showed that protecting personal information online is “an area where people do see a direct role in government,” Benz said.

1. What percentage of Americans think their private text messages are not safe?

A．36 percent.

B．50 percent.

C．64 percent.

D．75 percent.

2. What do almost 75 percent of Americans support according to the poll?

A．Creating laws for companies to deal with personal data.

B．Allowing personal data to be treated as a business issue.

C．Giving private companies more control over data privacy.

D．Trusting the federal government to fix the problem for them.

3. Who do Americans have more trust in to solve security and privacy issues?

A．Themselves.

B．Social media platforms.

C．Private companies.

D．The federal government.

4. What is the best title for the text?

A．Americans are not safe online.	B．Americans are trying to protect themselves online.
C．Americans have little trust in the federal government.	D．Americans have little trust in online security.

9 . 语法填空

Nowadays, computers and Internet are playing an important part in our life. Some people even say that they can’t live     1     them. We usually need to set passwords when we use computers and Internet. But not all the passwords are safe. In order to keep our accounts and     2     (person) information safe, we must learn how     3     (make) safe passwords.

How can you make your computer and Internet passwords safe? Experts have some tips for you. You’d better remember the tips and they are     4     (use) for you. Here are the     5     (suggest).

First, make your password out of capital letters. If your password is made of capital letters, it     6     (be) difficult for others to get into your account.     7     only takes a hacker 10 minutes to work out a six letter password made of small letters. But the same password in capital letters takes 10 hours to work out.

    8     (two), add numbers or symbols to your password. It may be much     9     (safe).     10     sometimes such password is not easy to remember, it is really safe.

Third, never use personal information for passwords and use different passwords for different accounts. Experts say that a user should change his or her passwords every 90 days. In this way, hackers won’t guess your passwords.

10 . So much of our daily life relates to the internet, from work to education and even talking with friends. The more online accounts and devices you have, the more internet dangers you will face. That’s why it’s more important to understand internet safety rules which protect you and your family from threats that may harm your data and devices.     1    

Make sure you’re using a safe internet connection

Although using public Wi-Fi is not recommended, it’s sometimes unavoidable when you are out. However, when you go online in a public place and use a public Wi-Fi connection, you have no direct control over its safety, which could leave you vulnerable (易受伤的) to cyberattacks.     2    .

Choose strong passwords

Passwords are one of the biggest weak spots when it comes to online safety. People often choose passwords that are easy to remember.     3    . In addition to this, using the same password for various sites puts your data at further risk. If hackers (黑客) get your identification from one site, they can probably access other websites which use the same login details.

    4    

Developers are often working to make products safe, monitoring the latest threats and rolling out security patches (安全补丁) in case of weaknesses in their software. By using the updated operating systems and apps, you will benefit from the latest security patches. This is especially important for apps that include payment, health or other personal information about a user.

Be careful of uncertain links and where you click

    5    . That’s why it’s important to browse carefully and avoid certain types of online content—such as links from untrusted sources. If you receive an email that you’re not sure about, avoid clicking on any links in it. In fact, it’s best to avoid opening untrusted emails at all.

A．Be careful of what and where you post

B．Keep software and operating systems updated

C．Read on to find out about the ways to stay safe online

D．A careless click can give out your personal data online

E．But some of those sites may have poor data protection policies

F．Therefore, it’s easy for hackers to break into your system

G．So, if necessary, avoid carrying out personal businesses that use private data