3 . Pricing is managers’ biggest marketing headache. It’s where they feel the most pressure to perform and the least certain that they are doing a good job. All successful pricing efforts share two qualities: The policy combines well with the company’s overall marketing strategy, and the process is well-organized as a whole.

A company’s pricing policy sends a message to the market—it gives customers an important sense of a company’s philosophy. Consider Saturn Corporation (a wholly owned company of General Motors). Saturn wants to let consumers know that it is friendly and easy to do business with. Part of this concept is conveyed through initiatives such as inviting customers to the factory to see where the cars are made and sponsoring evenings at the dealership that combine a social event with training on car maintenance. But Saturn’s pricing policy sends a strong message as well. Can a friendly, trusting relationship be established with customers if a salesperson uses all the negotiating tricks in the book to try to separate them from that last $100? Of course not. Saturn has a “no hassle, no haggle” policy which removes the possibility of conflicts between dealer and potential customer. Customers have an easier time buying a car knowing that the next person in the door won’t negotiate a better deal.

Of course, there are typically many participants in the pricing process: Accounting provides cost estimates; marketing communicates the pricing strategy; sales provides specific customer input; production sets supply boundaries; and finance establishes the requirements for the entire company’s financial health. Input from diverse sources is necessary. However, problems arise when the philosophy of wide participation is carried over to the price-setting process without strong coordinating mechanisms (协调机制). For example, if the marketing department sets list prices, the salespeople negotiate discounts in the field, the legal department adjusts prices if necessary to prevent breaking the laws or contractual agreements, and the people filling orders negotiate price adjustments for delays in shipment, everybody’s best intentions usually end up bringing about less than the best results. In fact, the company may actually lose money on some orders.

4 . In the middle of 2023, a study conducted by the HuthLab at the University of Texas sent shockwaves through the fields of neuroscience (神经科学) and technology. For the first time, the thoughts and impressions of people _______ to communicate with the outside world were translated into continuous natural language, using a combination of artificial intelligence (AI) and brain imaging technology. This is the closest science has yet come to _______ someone’s mind.

Losing the ability to communicate is a deep cut to one’s sense of self. _______ this ability gives the patient greater control over their lives. But it could also give other entities, such as corporations, researchers and other third parties, a(n) _______ degree of insight into, or even control over, the lives of patients. The NeuroRights Foundation, based at Columbia University in New York, argues that new rights surrounding neurotechnologies will be _______ for all humans to preserve their privacy, identity, and free will. The potential _______ of disabled patients makes this a particularly important problem.

_______ this approach, Chile was the first country that adopted legislation, drafting new laws, to address the risks of neurotechnology. It not only introduced a new constitutional right to mental _______, but is also in the process of adopting a bill that bans selling neurodata, and forces all neurotech devices to be regulated as medical devices, even those intended for the general consumer.

The proposed legislation recognizes the intensely _______ nature of neural data and considers it as organ tissues, which cannot be bought or sold, only donated. But this legislation has also faced ________, with legal scholars questioning the need for new rights and pointing out that it could discourage beneficial brain research for disabled patients.

While the legal action taken by Chile is the most impactful and ________ to date, other countries are considering updating existing laws to face the new developments in neurotechnologies.

And while it is likely that the first applications of neurotech will be medical, future ________ are likely to involve consumer applications such as entertainment, as well as for military and security purposes. The growing ________ of neurotechnology in a commercial context only causes more legal concerns.

Different people, societies, and cultures will disagree on where to draw the line. We are at a(n) ________ stage of technological development. And as we begin to uncover the great potential of brain science, the need to consider their implications for legal action becomes more ________.

6 . Directions: Read the following passage. Summarize the main idea and the main point(s) of the passage in no more than 60 words. Use your own words as far as possible.

Will Plant-based Protein Continue to be an Appetizer in Food World?

A good vegan milk needs to look like milk and taste like milk, whether it’s a fatty version, preferred by bakers, or a skimmed one, favored by the health-conscious. For years, manufacturers of plant-based protein have had trouble hacking this delicate imitation game and it seems that they are winning back a bit. The global revenues (收益) from alternative proteins could reach $290 billion by 2035 and that is a cautious estimate. However, can it last?

Unlike those early products, which were neither terribly tasty nor particularly nutritious, cleaver (剁肉刀) processing improves textures, additives boost taste and a pinch of specially engineered peas and beans adds nutrient in the latest products. Still, ultra-processed substitutes seldom match animal proteins in nutritional value. Animal products, including milk, are better for children’s bone development, though lab- grown versions of meat or dairy are becoming more nutritious. Meanwhile, green-minded consumers are realizing that plant-based does not necessarily mean sustainable in that it still takes a lot to obtain raw materials. Farming almonds (杏仁) to make a milk-like drink, for example, uses huge quantities of water.

Plant-based proteins are also a tough sell in giant markets like India, where diets are already rich in plants and vegetables, or Nigera, where meat-eating is a sign of wealth. That limits their global appeal.

All these suggests that alternative proteins have far to go to replace the animal kind. The limitations may be weighing on the firms involved. Oatly’s market value has fallen by about 80% since its listing, partly because of production difficulties. That of Beyond Meat, whose burgers feature in McDonald’s latest menu, is down by 90% from its peak. Plant-based foods may no longer be only an appetizer in diets, but their maker remain one in food business.

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7 . Back in 1930, the economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that with technological change and improvements in-productivity, we’d only be working 15 hours a week by now. But while working hours have _______ by 26%, most of us still average 42.5 hours a week.

One of the things Keynes underestimated is the human desire to _______ with our peers — a drive that makes most of us work more than we need to. “We don’t measure productivity by how much we’ve harvested anymore,” says Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, visiting scholar at Stanford University. “Overworking has been part of Western society since the Industrial Revolution. When some predicted that automation would create an extra amount of _______ time, needless to say, that didn’t happen.

Thanks to computerization and globalization in the 1980s, managers could demand more of employees under the _______ that jobs could be given to someone else. So the _______ piled on. And we took it exhausted, but asking up the burden all the same. The psychologist Barbara Killnger writes in Workaholics: Te Respectable Addicts about how we _______ sacrifice our own well-being through overwork for “success”.

But far from delivering productivity, value, or personal fulfillment, overwork has been proven to lead to burnout, stress, greater risk of heart disease and even shorter lifespans. _______ we carried on — until COVID-19 came along.

Besides making us work longer hours from home, COVID-19 has also _______ the move towards the adoption of automated machine, especially tor jobs requiring much interpersonal contact-from Amazon developing delivery drones (无人机) to self-driving cars. By 2050, Michael Osborne, a professor of machine learning at the University of Oxford, predicts that at least 40% of current jobs will be lost to _______.

There are ________. Jobs that involve complex social interactions are beyond current robot skills: so teaching, social care, nursing and counselling are all likely to ________ the AI revolution. As are jobs that rely on creativity. The same also goes for ________ jobs, according to Osborne, due to the large number of different objects cleaners encounter and the variety of ways those objects need to be dealt with. Interestingly, areas of the workplace traditionally dominated by women won’t be so easily adopted by AI. Robots are unlikely to ________ in the “work” of taking care of children, preparing lunchboxes and doing the laundry.

Those whose work falls outside the caring, cleaning or creative field will still work in future, just ________. In about 60% of occupations, it is estimated that a third of the tasks can be automated, meaning changes to the way we work. A large-scale study has predicted that over the next 20 years, although 7 million jobs will be taken over by AI. 7.2 million new ones will be ________ as a result. So we will work in future: we just don’t know what we’ll be doing yet.

What Comes After Space?

Looking at a clear night sky you witness the vastness of space, which holds everything humans know to exist. To find out what     1     beyond a good place to start is to determine where the universe ends. However, the problem is that scientist are uncertain about where space ends or whether it ends at all.

The     2     universe

The furthest humans can see out into space,using all the technology currently available to us,is 46 billion light years (alight year is the distance that light can travel in one year,and is equivalent to about 9. 5 million million kilometres). The     3     of space that humans can see is called the visible universe. Beyond this, it remains a mystery whether it’s an expanse of more galaxies and stars or possibly the edge of the universe. Some think that the universe is     4    , meaning space goes on forever in every direction. In this case,there is nothing after space,because space is everything.

Moving further away

Experts have captured images of the entire Earth from space,and some astronauts have personally witnessed its beauty from orbit. Perhaps     5     the limits of the universe would also be possible too, if only humans knew where to go to look for it.

Another challenge is the universe’s rapid     6    . As galaxies move further away their light   takes longer to reach us. Eventually, some galaxies may be so distant that their light never     7    . This might imply that any edge— and whatever is on the other side — is increasingly     8     itself from us. Regardless of these uncertainties, scientists still spend a lot of time thinking about what comes after space.

Many universes?

It’s possible that there isn’t just one universe, and that our universe is just one small part of a “multiverse”. Perhaps our universe is     9     within its own distinct region of space, separated from others by vast expanses of nothingness. Or maybe     10     universes exist pressed tightly against each other. Getting an idea of the universe’s true shape may help astronomers find out whether it has an edge. What comes after that could be an even great mystery.

Your Cat Might Not Be Ignoring You When You Speak

Every cat owner has a story to tell of being blanked by their cat. We call to our cat, it turns away, and some of us might be left     1     (wonder) why we didn’t get a dog. But your cat may be listening after all. More than that, it     2     (care) more than you may think.

A study by French researchers     3     (publish) last month in the journal Animal Cognition found that not only do cats react to what scientists call cat-directed speech — a high-pitched (高音的) voice similar to     4     we talk to babies — they react to who is doing the talking.

“We found that hearing their owners using a high-pitched voice, cats reacted more than when hearing their owner speaking normally to another human adult,” said Charlotte de Mouzon, an author of the study. “But it actually didn’t work when it came from a stranger’s voice.”

    5     studies involving dogs, analyzing cat behavior is difficult, which is part of why humans understand them less. Cats are often so stressed by being in a lab     6     meaningful behavioral observations become impossible. And forget about trying to get a cat     7     (sit) still for an M.R.I. scan (核磁共振扫描) to study its brain function.

So the researchers for the latest study went to the cats’ homes and played recordings of different types of speech and different speakers. At first, there was concern from Dr. de Mouzon and her team for lack of reaction from the cats, but upon analysis of the film recordings, delicate reactions     8     (notice). “It could be just moving an ear or turning the head to the speaker or even freezing what     9     were doing,” Dr. de Mouzon said.

In the study, there were a few cases     10     cats would approach the speaker playing a voice and meow. “In the end, we had really clear gains in the cat’s attention when the owner was using cat-directed speech,” Dr. de Mouzon said.