1 . One of the curious things about social networks is the way that some messages, pictures, or ideas can spread like wildfire while others that seem just as catchy or interesting barely register at all.

Before you go deep into the puzzle, consider this: If you measure the height of your male friends, for example, the average is about 170 centimeters. You are 172 and your friends are all about the same height as you are. Indeed, the mathematical concept of “average” is a good way to capture the nature of this data set.

But imagine that one of your friends was much taller than you. This person would dramatically skew the average, which would make your friends taller than you, on average. In this case, the “average” is a poor way to capture this data set.

Exactly this situation occurs on social networks. On average, your coauthors will be cited more often than you, and the people you follow will post more frequently than you, and so on.

Now Lerman from University of Southern California has discovered a related paradox, which they call the majority illusion. They illustrate this illusion with an example. They take 14 nodes linked up to form a small network. They then color three of these nodes and count how many of the remaining nodes link to them in a single step.

In one situation, the uncolored nodes see more than half of their neighbors as colored. This is the majority illusion — the local impression that a specific feature is common when the global truth is entirely different.

So how popular is it in the real world? It’s found out that the majority illusion occurs in almost all network scenarios. “The effect is largest in the political blogs network, where 60% of nodes will have majority active neighbours, even when only 20% of the nodes are truly active,” says Lerman.

It immediately explains many interesting phenomena. For a start, it shows how some content can spread globally while other similar content does not — the key is to start with a small number of well-connected early adopters fooling the rest of the network into thinking it is common. The affected nodes then find it natural to follow the trend. A real spread finally comes into being.

But it is not yet a marketer’s charter. For that, marketers must first identify the popular nodes that can create the majority illusion for the target audience. These influencers must then be persuaded to adopt the desired behavior or product, which is essential to the prospect of the marketing plan.

1. The phrase skew the average in the passage most probably refers to the action of ________.

A．hiding the real average to be unrecognizable to others

B．producing an average against the general feature of data

C．working out the common feature suggested by the average

D．ignoring the average because of the frequency by which it is reviewed

2. Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?

A．Majority illusion rarely has impacts except in political blogs field.

B．The majority illusion on social networks relies on that people you follow post more than you.

C．The essence of successful opinion spread is to initiate the trend with well-connected sharers.

D．The spread scale of ideas on networks mainly depends on the quality of content.

3. To guarantee the success of marketing promotion, it’s vital to ________.

A．thoroughly understand the concept of majority illusion

B．accurately figure out who is the powerful person to affect others

C．definitely decide who are the target audience for the promotion

D．successfully convince the influencers to practice certain action

4. What is most probably the title of the passage?

A．The social network vision that tricks your mind.

B．Who is stealing your network identity?

C．Minority network opinion spread, curse or blessing?

D．Have you been misled during the last political voting?

2 . Man may disappear________ other creatures who became too specialized to survive their environment.

A．as

B．just as

C．as if

D．as have

3 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passages coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

Japan’s robot revolution in senior care

Japan’s artificial intelligence expertise is transforming the elder care industry, with     1     (specialize) robotic care accomplishing more than just taking pressure off the critical shortage of caregivers. Senior care facilities across Japan are testing out such new robots     2     deliver a collection of social and physical health care and the government-backed initiative has been met with positive reviews by elderly residents.

The rapidly graying population     3     (eye) by the government as a potential market for medical technology now. Disappointing government predictions show that by 2025, Japan's first baby boomers will have turned 75 and about 7 million people are likely to suffer from some form of dementia (痴呆). The nation won't be able to avoid a dementia crisis     4     an additional 380,000 senior care workers.

The long-standing shortage of professional care workers has encouraged the Japanese government     5     (simplify) procedures for foreign caregivers to be trained and certified. The current Technical Intern Training Program between Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia, under     6     Economic Partnership Agreement, was extended to include nursing care as well as agriculture, fishery, and construction sectors.

    7     the government made efforts to increase the numbers of senior care workers, the target number of foreign graduates has still fallen flat, with the national caregiver examination proving a major obstacle to pass. The success rate for foreign students was a merely 106 students last year,     8     has slightly improved to 216 students this year. Another depressing reality is that 19 to 38 percent of foreign nurses who pass the exam opt to leave the industry and return home,    9     (cite) tough work conditions and long hours. Given the challenges, this is     10     the government believes care robots will be able to step in.

4 . In a letter he wrote in 1884, Mark Twain complained that “Telephones, telegraphs and words are too slow for this age; we must get something that is faster.” “We should communicate by thought only, and say in a couple of minutes what should have ballooned into ________ in an hour and a half,” said him.

Despite the progress the previous century brought for our understanding of both language and the brain, we are no closer to telepathy(心灵感应), communication from one mind to another by ________ means, than we were in Twain’s time. The reason is that the telepathy we’ve been promised, the sort imagined by Twain, and ________ in countless movies and TV shows, is, for the time being, groundless.

“Good old-fashioned telepathy” (GOFT) involves a direct transfer of ________ from one mind to another. It has fascinated people for good reasons. It removes the ________ of language. With GOFT, we no longer need to put each concept into words or to ________ someone’s language. You know instantly what one means as the former channel of communication, language, is not at all necessary. The ________ of language is the central feature of GOFT. It is what enables science-fiction writers to imagine humans and aliens from other planets communicating telepathically despite not sharing a language. But can it really come true with current science and technology?

Besides, GOFT promises genuine communication. However, ________ is universal. We all have experiences of saying one thing, only to be understood as saying something else. Because language is so flexible, it is also easy to lie or ________ oneself.   We aren’t even certain if Bob’s expression could be in line with what he believes in a year’s time.

These weaknesses have driven people to look for alternatives and finally inspired inventions of artificial languages trying to remove misunderstanding. Of course, one day when technology allows, a direct thought-to-thought transfer seems the ________ solution.

Many of us have the confidence that we can think faster than we can speak or write. Having to rely ________ on language to communicate, however, is depressing. Therefore, the ________ of adding new direct brain-to-brain communication channels is exciting. By channels of this kind, our brains can be “________ ” and allowed to be committed to other ________ practices instead of conveying messages.   New brain-to-brain channels have the potential to increase ________, turning us into super-actors, handling so many tasks in a short period of time as we cannot yet imagine.

1.

A．words

B．gestures

C．actions

D．costs

2.

A．extra-genetic

B．extra-familial

C．extra-sensory

D．extra-legal

3.

A．sacrificed

B．popularized

C．enclosed

D．balanced

4.

A．strength

B．intelligence

C．thoughts

D．structures

5.

A．limitations

B．expenses

C．command

D．evolution

6.

A．replace

B．update

C．decode

D．imitate

7.

A．avoidance

B．discrimination

C．employment

D．expansion

8.

A．reluctance

B．privacy

C．fear

D．misinterpretation

9.

A．contradict

B．indicate

C．delay

D．justify

10.

A．multiple

B．invisible

C．ultimate

D．equivalent

11.

A．roughly

B．casually

C．entirely

D．willingly

12.

A．distraction

B．prospect

C．origin

D．regulation

13.

A．fed up

B．set up

C．cut off

D．let loose

14.

A．profitable

B．meaningful

C．steady

D．typical

15.

A．charm

B．recognition

C．efficiency

D．endurance

7 . I wondered what ways Johnnie could suggest ________ solve this difficult problem.

A．helping

B．to help

C．help

D．helped

8 . The cultivation of plants by ants is more widespread than previously realized, and has evolved on at least 15 separate occasions.

There are more than 200 species of ant in the Americas that farm fungi (真菌) for food, but this trait evolved just once sometime between 45 million and 65 million years ago. Biologists regard the cultivation of fungi by ants as true agriculture appearing earlier than human agriculture because it meets four criteria: the ants plant the fungus, care for it, harvest it and depend on it for food.

By contrast, while thousands of ant species are known to have a wide variety of interdependent relationships with plants, none were regarded as true agriculture. But in 2016, Guillaume Chomicki and Susanne Renner at the University of Munich, Germany, discovered that an ant in Fungi cultivates several plants in a way that meets the four criteria for true agriculture.

The ants collect the seeds of the plants and place them in cracks in the bark of trees. As the plants grow, they form hollow structures called domain that the ants nest in. The ants defecate (排便) at designated absorptive places in these domain, providing nutrients for the plant. In return, as well as shelter, the plant provides food in the form of fruit juice.

This discovery prompted Chomicki and others to review the literature on ant-plant relationships to see if there are other examples of plant cultivation that have been overlooked. “They have never really been looked at in the framework of agriculture,” says Chomicki, who is now at the University of Sheffield in the UK. “It’s definitely widespread.”

The team identified 37 examples of tree-living ants that cultivate plants that grow on trees, known as epiphytes (附生植物). By looking at the family trees of the ant species, the team was able to determine on how many occasions plant cultivation evolved and roughly when. Fifteen is a conservative estimate, says Campbell. All the systems evolved relatively recently, around 1million to 3 million years ago, she says.

Whether the 37 examples of plant cultivation identified by the team count as true agriculture depends on the definitions used. Not all of the species get food from the plants, but they do rely on them for shelter, which is crucial for ants living in trees, says Campbell. So the team thinks the definition of true agriculture should include shelter as well as food.

1. According to biologists, why is ant-fungus cultivation considered as a form of true agriculture?

A．Because it occurred earlier than human agriculture.

B．Because it fulfills the standards typical of agricultural practices.

C．Because it redefines the four criteria for true human agriculture.

D．Because it is less common than previously thought.

2. What motivated Chomicki and others to review the literature on ant-plant relationships?

A．They determined on new family trees of the ant species.

B．They overlooked some tree-living ants that provided nutrients for the plants.

C．They never studied the ant-plant relationships within the context of agriculture.

D．They never identified any an t species that engaged in cultivation of fungi.

3. Which of the following statements is supported by the team's findings according to the passage?

A．Ants’ cultivation of plants is limited to a few specific species.

B．The cultivation of fungi by ants is considered the earliest form of agriculture.

C．True agriculture in ants involves only food-related interactions with plants.

D．Ants have independently cultivated plants on at least 15 distinct occasions.

4. What is the passage mainly about?

A．The evolution of ants in the plant kingdom.

B．The widespread occurrence of ant-plant cultivation.

C．The discovery of a new ant species engaging in agriculture.

D．The contrast between ant agriculture and human agriculture.

9 . Investors probably expect that following the suggestions of stock analysts would make them better off than doing the exact opposite. _________, recent research by Nicola Gennaioli and his colleagues shows that the best way to gain excess return s would be to invest in the shares least favored by analysts. They compute that, during the last 35 years, investing in the 10 percent of U. S. stocks analysts were most _________ about would have yielded on average 3 percent a year. _________, investing in the 10 percent of stocks analysts were most pessimistic about would have yielded a surprising 15 percent a year.

Gennaioli and colleagues shed light on this _________ with the help of cognitive sciences and, in particular, using Kahneman and Tversky's concept of representativeness. Decision makers, according to this view, _________ the representative features of a group or a phenomenon. These are defined as the features that occur more frequently in that group than in a baseline reference group.

After observing strong earnings growth—the explanation goes—analysts think that the firm may be the next Google. “Googles” are in fact more frequent among firms experiencing strong growth, which makes them _________. The problem is that “Googles” are very _________ in absolute terms. As a result, expectations become too optimistic, and future performance_________. A model of stock prices in which investor beliefs follow this logic can account both qualitatively and quantitatively for the beliefs of analysts and the dynamics (动态变化) of stock returns.

In related work, the authors also show that the same model can _________ booms and busts in the volume of credit and interest rate spreads.

These works are part of a research project aimed at taking insights from cognitive sciences and at __________them into economic models. Kahneman and Tversky's concept of “representativeness” lies at the heart of this effort. “In a classical example, we __________ to think of Irishmen as redheads because red hair is much more frequent among Irishmen than among the rest of the world,” Prof. Gennaioli says. “However, only 10 percent of Irishmen are redheads. In our work, we develop models of belief formation that show this logic and study the __________ of this important psychological force in different fields.”

Representativeness helps describe __________ and behavior in different fields, not only in financial markets. One such field is the formation of stereotypes about social groups. In a recent experimental paper, Gennaioli and colleagues show that representativeness can explain self-confidence, and in particular the __________ of women to compete in traditionally male subjects, such as mathematics. A slight prevalence of __________ male math ability in the data is enough to make math ability un-representative for women, driving their under confidence in this particular subject.

1.

A．Consequently

B．Furthermore

C．Nevertheless

D．Meanwhile

2.

A．curious

B．controversial

C．concerned

D．optimistic

3.

A．In brief

B．By contrast

C．In addition

D．Without doubt

4.

A．engagement

B．concentration

C．puzzle

D．definition

5.

A．memorize

B．prioritize

C．modernize

D．fertilize

6.

A．representative

B．argumentative

C．executive

D．sensitive

7.

A．harsh

B．adaptable

C．crucial

D．rare

8.

A．cheers

B．disappoints

C．stabilizes

D．improves

9.

A．account for

B．count on

C．suffer from

D．hold up

10.

A．pouring

B．admitting

C．integrating

D．tempting

11.

A．pretend

B．afford

C．offer

D．tend

12.

A．effects

B．delights

C．intervals

D．codes

13.

A．companions

B．scales

C．expectations

D．findings

14.

A．necessity

B．involvement

C．perseverance

D．reluctance

15.

A．equivalent

B．exceptional

C．mysterious

D．distressing

10 . Flinging brightly coloured objects around a screen at high speed is not what computers’ central processing units were designed for. So manufacturers of arcade machines invented the graphics-processing unit (GPU), a set of circuits to handle video games’ visuals in parallel to the work done by the central processor. The GPU’s ability to speed up complex tasks has since found wider uses: video editing, cryptocurrency mining and most recently, the training of artificial intelligence.

AI is now disrupting the industry that helped bring it into being. Every part of entertainment stands to be affected by generative AI, which digests inputs of text, image, audio or video to create new outputs of the same. But the games business will change the most, argues Andreessen Horowitz, a venture-capital (VC) firm. Games interactivity requires them to be stuffed with laboriously designed content: consider the 30 square miles of landscape or 60 hours of music in “Red Dead Redemption 2”, a recent cowboy adventure. Enlisting AI assistants to churn it out could drastically shrink timescales and budgets.

AI represents an “explosion of opportunity” and could drastically change the landscape of game development. Making a game is already easier than it was: nearly 13,000 titles were published last year on Steam, a games platform, almost double the number in 2017. Gaming may soon resemble the music and video industries in which most new content on Spotify or YouTube is user-generated. One games executive predicts that small firms will be the quickest to work out what new genres are made possible by AI. Last month Raja Koduri, an executive at Intel, left the chip maker to found an AI-gaming startup.

Don’t count the big studios out, though. If they can release half a dozen high-quality titles a year instead of a couple, it might chip away at the hit-driven nature of their business, says Josh Chapman of Konvoy, a gaming focused VC firm. A world of more choices also favors those with big marketing budgets. And the giants may have better answers to the mounting copyright questions around AI. If generative models have to be trained on data to which the developer has the rights, those with big back-catalogues will be better placed than startups. Trent Kaniuga, an artist who has worked on games like “Fortnite”, said last month that several clients had updated their contracts to ban AI-generated art.

If the lawyers don’t intervene, unions might. Studios diplomatically refer to AI assistants as “co-pilots”, not replacements for humans.

1. The original purpose behind the invention of the graphics-processing unit (GPU) was to ________.

A．speed up complex tasks in video editing and cryptocurrency mining

B．assist in the developing and training of artificial intelligence

C．disrupt the industry and create new outputs using generative AI

D．offload game visual tasks from the central processor

2. How might the rise of AI-gaming startups affect the development of the gaming industry?

A．It contributes to the growth of user-generated content.

B．It facilitates blockbuster dependency on big studios.

C．It decreases collaboration between different stakeholders in the industry.

D．It may help to consolidate the gaming market under major corporations.

3. What can be inferred about the role of artificial intelligence in gaming?

A．AI favors the businesses with small marketing budgets.

B．AI is expected to simplify game development processes.

C．AI allows startups to gain an edge over big firms with authorized data.

D．AI assistants may serve as human substitutes for studios.

4. What is this passage mainly about?

A．The evolution of graphics-processing units (GPUs).

B．The impact of generative AI on the gaming industry.

C．The societal significance of graphics-processing units (GPUs).

D．The challenges generative AI presents to gaming studios.