1 . Up until a few decades ago, our expectation of the future were largely positive. Science and technology would cure all the ills of humanity, leading to lives of satisfaction and opportunity for all.
Now the utopia (乌托邦) has grown unfashionable, as we have gained deeper appreciation of the range of threats facing us, from natural disasters to deadly flu to climate change. You might even be tempted to assume that human beings have little future to look forward to.
But such negative attitude doesn’t make sense. The fossil record shows that many species have existed for millions of years- so why shouldn’t we? Take broader look at our species’ place in the universe, and it becomes clear that we have an excellent chance of surviving for tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of years.
So what does our deep future hold? Perhaps it may be easier to think about the question in long time periods than about the more immediate future. The potential evolution of today’s technology, and its social consequences, is astonishingly complicated, and it’s’ perhaps best left to science fiction writers and futurologists (未来学家) to explore the many possibilities we can merely imagine. That’s one reason why we have launched Arc, a new publication dedicated to the near future.
But take a longer view and there is a surprising amount that we can say with considerable assurance. As so often, the past holds the key to the future: we have now identified enough of the long-term patterns shaping the history of the planet, and our species, to make evidence-based forecasts about the situations in which our future generations will find themselves.
This makes the negative predictions of our future seem more likely to be temporary and unreliable. To be sure, the future is not all rosy. But we are now knowledgeable enough to reduce many of the risks that threatened the existence of earlier humans, and to prevent the lot of those to come.
1. What used to inspire our expectation of the future?| A．Our desire for lives of satisfaction. |
| B．Our faith in science and technology. |
| C．Our awareness of potential risks. |
| D．Our belief in equal opportunity. |
| A．Are limits the range of futurological studies. |
| B．Technology offers solutions to social problem. |
| C．The interest in science fiction is on the rise. |
| D．Our near future is comparatively hard to predict. |
最近，在一本英文旅游杂志上刊登了国际空间站(TSS-- International Space Station)将在2020年对游客开放的信息（见下表)。如果有可能（具备足够的时间和金钱)，你是否会去争取成为第一批游客。请谈谈你的理由。
Information About the Trip to ISS
Number of visitors 2 every year
Length of stay 30 days (at most)
Cost $ 27000 per night (stay)
$ 40 million (transport)
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