1 . I spoke to my parents last night and for a moment I forgot I wasn’t really speaking to them, but to their digital replicas (复制品). They live inside an app as voice assistants constructed by the company HereAfter AI.
In fact, my parents are still alive and well; their virtual versions were made to help me understand the technology. Grief tech, which lets you “talk” with the people you’ve loved and lost, has been appearing in science fiction. But now it’s becoming a reality. Although the thought of it makes some frightened, it’s not hard to see the appeal that people might turn to digital replicas for comfort.
However, there is one major limitation. These replicas may sound like someone you love, but they know nothing about you. Anyone can talk to them, and get the same reply in the same tone. “The biggest issue with the technology is the idea that you can generate a single universal person,” says Justin Harrison, founder of a technological service.
Creating a virtual avatar you can have more conversation with contributes to your feeling connected to someone you loved and lost, says Erin Thompson, a clinical psychologist. But a grieving person needs to know that these bots can only capture a small part of someone rather than replace healthy, functional human relationships.
And there are other risks. Any service that allows you to create a digital replica of someone without that person’s participation raises complex moral issues. While some might argue that permission is less important with someone who is dead, can’t you also argue that the person who generated the other side of the conversation should have a say too? And what if that person is not, in fact, dead?
If digital replicas become mainstream, there will inevitably need to be new regulations around what we leave behind online. And we’ll be better off if we cope with the possibility of these replicas’ misuse before, not after, they reach mass adoption.
Anyway, I feel lucky to still have the precious opportunity to spend more time with my parents, face to face, no technology involved.
1. Which of the following is not a drawback of digital replicas?| A．They can’t vary their response accordingly. |
| B．They can’t mirror every aspect of a person. |
| C．They may pose threat to the interests of people alive. |
| D．It’s hard to gain permission from someone who is not alive. |
| A．Favorable. | B．Reasonable. | C．Critical. | D．Indifferent. |
| A．Technology is advancing faster than imagined. |
| B．Safety risks can be surely avoided by regulations. |
| C．Replicas will not be misused before widely adopted. |
| D．Cherish the beloved ones when they are still around. |
| A．Reflections on grief tech. | B．Ways to overcome our grief. |
| C．Technology to change our life. | D．Controversy over digital replicas. |
2 . In our human-centric view, the ability to shoot ink or change colors may seem odd, but you know what’s really odd? Menopause (更年期). You can count species other than humans known to experience and outlive menopause on one hand. Only Oracs (虎鲸) and some whale populations have females that live long past their reproductive years to become grandmothers. But a new, landmark study confirms that at least one population of chimpanzees can now be added to the list.
The discovery comes as the result of 21 years’ worth of observing the Ngogo community of wild chimpanzees in Kibale National Park, Uganda. Studying urine from 66 Ngogo females, aged 14 to 67, showed that their hormone levels changed after approaching 50, confirming they were in menopause. Interestingly, 50 is also the age when many people begin to experience menopause. “It’s really cool to finally have that piece of the puzzle come into place,” says Catherine Hobaiter, a primatologist who was not part of the new study.
But Catherine points out that the Ngogo community lives in a chimp paradise: the resource-rich, well-protected Kibale National Park that also lacks leopards, their main predator. And because the Noggo community is found in the heart of the park, its only neighbors are other chimps — not humans who can expose chimpanzees to viruses that have devastated other communities. “The Ngogo population may be an outlier (局外人) when it comes to the rest of the species,” she cautions.
And there is a question concerning “the grandmother effect”, according to which a grandmother has a decidedly beneficial effect on her children and grandchildren. Chimpanzees do not form long-term pair-bonds and females leave in search of new communities when they reach maturity, which means grandmother chimpanzees likely don’t know who their grandchildren are in the same way humans or even orcas do. What they do after the menopause remains a question of interest. “And that’s all future work to be done.” said Catherine.
1. What can be learned about menopause?| A．It is rare among animals. | B．It is unique to human beings. |
| C．It just occurs at the age of 50. | D．It is experienced only by females. |
| A．Scientist have found the solution to menopause. |
| B．What happens to the 66 Ngogo females remains a puzzle. |
| C．There is a puzzle whether chimpanzee females experience menopause. |
| D．The latest discovery casts new light on the puzzle of animal menopause. |
| A．To stress the importance of protecting chimpanzees from viruses. |
| B．To remind researchers of the potential limitation of the new study. |
| C．To prove that Ngogo chimpanzees are perfect subjects of the study. |
| D．To argue that the discovery of the new study is completely groundless. |
| A．By offering a definition. | B．By drawing a conclusion. |
| C．By presenting relevant facts. | D．By giving examples and opinions. |
3 . Who has no regrets about things done in the past? Wouldn’t it be nice if, somehow, we could go back to change a couple of bad decisions? This sounds like science fiction.
The laws of physics prohibit traveling back in time for many reasons. If we did travel back in time and changed the course of events, we would be altering the course of history. An example often cited is the grandfather’s paradox (悖论): If your grandfather died when he was still a high school student, he wouldn’t have met your grandmother and your father and you wouldn’t exist.
Putting humans or consciousness traveling back in time aside for the moment, is there anything in science even similar? Surprisingly, yes. At the level of quantum particles (量子粒子), there is something called Wheeler’s delayed-choice experiments that show that actions in the present can influence the past. The experiments use something called the wave-particle duality (波粒二象性) of light and of matter. The fact that the physical nature of quantum objects is undetermined until it is measured. In other words, this means that a particle of light or of matter can behave either as a wave (spreading out in space) or as a particle (staying together) depending on the measuring devices. Long and ongoing discussions about the nature of quantum physics are still trying to work out what this actually means. Do our minds determine the nature of physical reality?
Should we offer food for thought for the future or the past? Unfortunately, these experiments say very little about how we could interfere with the past in events relevant to the human scale. Better to think carefully about decisions than to try to fix them backwards.
1. What’s the purpose of mentioning the paradox?| A．To show it is interesting. |
| B．To explain Wheeler’s tests. |
| C．To demonstrate time is different from what we have known. |
| D．To show it’s impossible to travel back in time. |
| A．Consciousness traveling back in time was tried in the experiments. |
| B．Different measuring devices have the same result. |
| C．More research is needed in the future. |
| D．These experiments can determine the nature of matter. |
| A．We should focus on the present. |
| B．The future food is more nutritious. |
| C．We can change the past from the experiments. |
| D．It is never too late to make up for mistakes. |
| A．Is changing the past wise? |
| B．Can we change the past? |
| C．Do our minds determine the future? |
| D．Do the laws of physics ban traveling back? |
4 . It was reported that a worker’s strike happened because industry bosses are planning to cancel paper tickets and close almost 1,000 station ticket offices in England. The government says nothing has been decided in reply to this strike. But some officials advise to save money in this way.
Regardless of the outcome of the strike, the direction of digital change is clear. With time going by, station ticket offices are likely to become a sepia-tinted memory. For us, we who have been used to organising travel via a smartphone feel little sadness. But for people without online skills — who may be older, poorer and weaker — another small social barrier will be built.
From doctor appointments to payment apps, more and more key services are now provided online. Local government, lack of money, has to do business in this way. As this change takes place, some people hold that it can be unfair to some users. In the case of health and social care, those who need help most are unable to navigate (导航) a digital route to the place. A recent report estimated that around 6% of households have no internet access. As digital technology becomes the gatekeeper to everyday life, some groups may face the problem of exclusion and isolation.
The debate over ticket offices offers an opportunity to reflect on the increasing role of technology in our society. Clearly, it is important to help marginalised groups gain easy online access. Some people will never become comfortable using smartphones or tablets. Some offline options must be maintained for important services. This will cost more. But that is the price of being fair to those who find themselves on the wrong side of the digital divide.
1. What is paragraph 1 of the text mainly about?| A．The desire of the government. | B．The disappearance of paper tickets |
| C．The causes of an employee’s strike. | D．The problem of station ticket offices. |
| A．Latest. | B．Different. | C．Profound. | D．Dated. |
| A．The digital divide risks | B．The majority households. |
| C．The exclusion process. | D．The individual estimates. |
| A．Indifferent. | B．Negative. | C．Doubtful. | D．Approving. |
1.分析“Farming and new technologies”的优势和问题；
2.阐述你的观点，并说明原因。
注意：
1.词数为100词左右；
2.开头已给出，不计入词数。
Farming and new technologies
In recent years, an increasing number of new technologies have been applied in farming.
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An increasing number of scientists
7 . Imagine you can open your fridge, open an app on your phone and immediately know which items will go bad soon. This is one of the applications that a new technology developed by engineers at the University of California San Diego would enable.
The technology combines a chip (芯片) integrated into product packaging and a software update on your phone. The phone becomes capable of identifying objects based on signals the chip sends out from specific frequencies, in this case Bluetooth or WiFi. In an industrial setting, a smartphone equipped with the software update could be used as a radio frequency identification (RFID) reader.
The work uses breakthroughs in backscatter (反向散射) communication, which uses signals already generated by your smartphone and re-directs them back in a format your phone can understand. Effectively, this technique uses less power than the latest technology to generate WiFi signals.
The custom chip, which is roughly the size of a grain of sand and costs only a few pennies to produce, needs so little power that it can be entirely powered by LTE signals, a technique for wireless broadband communication for mobile devices. The chip turns Bluetooth signals into WiFi signals, which can in turn be detected by a smartphone with that specific software update.
The technology’s broader promise is the development of devices that do not need batteries because they can harvest power from LTE signals instead. This in turn would lead to devices that are significantly less expensive and last longer, said Dinesh Bharadia, one of the paper’s senior authors.
“E-waste, especially batteries, is one of the biggest problems the planet is facing, after climate change,” Bharadia said.
For future research, the team will integrate this technology into other projects to demonstrate its capabilities, and they also hope to commercialize it, either through a startup or through an industry partner.
1. How does the chip interact with the phone?| A．By providing power for the phone. | B．By producing LTE signals for the phone. |
| C．By giving Bluetooth signals to the phone. | D．By sending WiFi signals back to the phone. |
| A．Reducing e-waste. | B．Making batteries cheap. |
| C．Supplying power to LTE signals. | D．Decreasing the cost of LTE signals. |
| A．Invest in new technologies. | B．Bring the technology to market. |
| C．Improve the quality of the device. | D．Commercialize more research projects. |
| A．New technology turns smartphones into RFID readers |
| B．Smartphones need to be equipped with software updates |
| C．RFID readers obtain new chips and have new functions |
| D．Backscatter communication makes the best of smartphones |
A teenage boy named Joel lived in a small faraway town.Joel was an ambitious rapper who spent countless hours in his bedroom writing lyrics (歌词) and perfecting his flow. But he never performed on stage. His dream was to make it big in the music industry and share his passion for rap with the world. He hoped that one day his dream would become a reality. Little did he know, this dream was about to come true in the most unexpected way.
One sunny afternoon, Joel was walking through his neighborhood when he heard booming music coming from a nearby park. Interested, he followed the sound and discovered a crowd of people gathered around a stage. To his surprise, the famous rapper Latto was in town and performing her show for the community. Joel had always been Latto’s faithful fan. He’d like to become a rapper like her. Pushing his way through the crowd, Latto came to front of the stage.
Joel’s heart raced with excitement as he watched Latto appeal to the audience with her charming lyrics and undeniable talent. He waved his arms and cheered loudly together with all the people present.All of a sudden, a fearless idea suddenly occurred to him.Inspired by her performance, Joel decided to seize the opportunity and show his skills before his idol (偶像). Joel went up to the event organizer and explained his passion for rap, hoping to be given a chance to perform.
Impressed by Joel’s enthusiasm and determination, the event organizer agreed to let him perform a short set after Latto finished her performance. Joel was overjoyed and spent the remaining time practising,making sure he was ready to deliver an unforgettable performance. He prayed (祈祷) at the bottom of his heart that he would succeed like Latto. Latto ended her show and the crowd broke up.
注意：1. 续写词数应为150左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Joel stepped onto the stage, his heart beating wildly
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Witnessing Joel’s incredible performance, Latto approached him.
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I’ll admit it. I can be a complainer. After all, there’s so much in this life to complain about: the dirty clothes that don’t make it into the basket, that annoying neighbor’s loud music, my husband’s shoes spread out at the front door, rainy days, traffic...
Complaining is a habit I cultivated since childhood, a skill I developed through the years. My parents didn’t seem to mind—they were great complainers, too—though I do recall some eye-rolling and long-drawn sighs from friends and schoolmates when I would voice my negative opinions. In fact, I can distinctly recall the exact moment when I first realized my complaining habit reached its expert level.
One day, as I reminded ray husband once again to remove his bills from the dining-room table, put his shoes away, and lower that bothersome radio, he put up his hand.“Stop! You’re your complaining. It’s driving me crazy.”
I looked at him blank-eyed.
He took a deep breath. “You never hear me complaining, do you?”
“Well,” I answered, “you’re complaining about my complaining, so actually, yes, I am hearing you complain right now.”
His eyes widened. A drop of sweat formed his upper lip. Then he grabbed his car keys and ran out of the door.
Perhaps I’d gone too far, I thought. Maybe I really did complain too much. But, what to do about it? After all, it had been a lifetime habit. And habits are hard to break.
I took a break and sat down to think about solution. When I felt annoyed, I could lock myself in the bathroom and scream. No. The neighbors would probably hear me. Phone a friend? She probably wouldn’t be a friend for very long. Then it hit me.
I’d been in the habit of keeping a journal for most of my life. It provided a sort of timeline for me，and I liked to review past entries occasionally to review the path I had been on at that point. Journaling kept me honest with myself, and I liked it for that reason. Perhaps, I though, a complaint journal might be the answer I was seeking.
注意：
1. 续写词数应为l50左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答；
That day, I decided to give it a try.
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Besides the improved relationship with my husband, I saw other effects soon. .
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10 . The past three weeks have witnessed the dramatic rise and fall of a new candidate for the materials science: a superconductor (超导体) that works at room temperature. On July 22th 2023, a team of researchers in South Korea reported their findings on a substance they called LK-99, claiming that its discovery was a “brand new historical moment”. A hit of online physics discussions followed, only to fall flat two weeks later. LK-99, it seemed, was a bubble (泡沫).
Whenever electrical power runs through a transmission (传送) line, some is lost as waste heat, a common tax forced by the laws of nature. The huge potential of superconductors is that they carry electricity over large distances with perfect efficiency, having the greatest impact on energy generation, transmission and distribution. If we ever figure out how to produce them cheaply and make them work at room temperature rather than only at hundreds of degrees below zero, it would revolutionize our economy and help save the environment.
Superconductors can also achieve things like powerful magnetic (磁场的) fields in mid-air, enabling new electronic devices, computers and modes of transportation. This technology has been in development in Japan for decades, with maglev trains originally projected to open to the public in 2027, running at speeds up to 375 miles per hour between Tokyo and Nagoya.
The pull of a room-temperature superconductor grows as our economic and environmental picture darkens. It’s the kind of miracle material that could slow climate change while driving global economy, realized new technologies seen in science fiction.
We still don’t know whether the field of superconductivity research will benefit from the new paths opened up by the LK-99 in the last few weeks. It’s a field where theory and experiment have often challenged each other, and our expectations of what is possible have frequently been questioned by what has been observed. Although public interest will no doubt fade for now, an obvious promise remains: a superconducting golden age might be just over the horizon, and the role of science is clear-to find a way to get us there.
1. What can we learn about electricity from the text?| A．We should pay the tax using electricity. |
| B．The law of nature regulates the electricity tax. |
| C．Electricity loss during transmission is unavoidable. |
| D．Electricity loss can be reduced to zero by superconductors. |
| A．The electricity bill will become a huge burden. |
| B．The issue of climate change will be dealt with. |
| C．The economy and environment will start to fade. |
| D．The new modes of transportation are more available. |
| A．Neutral. | B．Doubtful. | C．Confident. | D．Indifferent. |
| A．Bubble Burst: Where Is Superconductor LK-99 Going. |
| B．Superconductor: Why It Sends Scientists Heart Racing. |
| C．Material Science: How It Booms with Superconductors. |
| D．Superconductor: How It Becomes the Commander of Technology. |
