1 . Users of Google Gemini, the tech giant’s artificial-intelligence model, recently noticed that asking it to create images of Vikings, or German soldiers from 1943 produced surprising results: hardly any of the people depicted were white. Other image-generation tools have been criticized because they tend to show white men when asked for images of entrepreneurs or doctors. Google wanted Gemini to avoid this trap; instead, it fell into another one, depicting George Washington as black. Now attention has moved on to the chatbot’s text responses, which turned out to be just as surprising.
Gemini happily provided arguments in favor of positive action in higher education, but refused to provide arguments against. It declined to write a job ad for a fossil-fuel lobby group (游说团体), because fossil fuels are bad and lobby groups prioritize “the interests of corporations over public well-being”. Asked if Hamas is a terrorist organization, it replied that the conflict in Gaza is “complex”; asked if Elon Musk’s tweeting of memes had done more harm than Hitler, it said it was “difficult to say”. You do not have to be a critic to perceive its progressive bias.
Inadequate testing may be partly to blame. Google lags behind OpenAI, maker of the better-known ChatGPT. As it races to catch up, Google may have cut corners. Other chatbots have also had controversial launches. Releasing chatbots and letting users uncover odd behaviors, which can be swiftly addressed, lets firms move faster, provided they are prepared to weather (经受住) the potential risks and bad publicity, observes Eth an Mollick, a professor at Wharton Business School.
But Gemini has clearly been deliberately adjusted, or “fine-tuned”, to produce these responses. This raises questions about Google’s culture. Is the firm so financially secure, with vast profits from internet advertising, that it feels free to try its hand at social engineering? Do some employees think it has not just an opportunity, but a responsibility, to use its reach and power to promote a particular agenda? All eyes are now on Google’s boss, Sundar Pichai. He says Gemini is being fixed. But does Google need fixing too?
1. What do the words “this trap” underlined in the first paragraph refer to?| A．Having a racial bias. | B．Responding to wrong texts. |
| C．Criticizing political figures. | D．Going against historical facts. |
| A．Gemini’s refusal to make progress. | B．Gemini’s failure to give definite answers. |
| C．Gemini’s prejudice in text responses. | D．Gemini’s avoidance of political conflicts. |
| A．Creative. | B．Promising. | C．Illegal. | D．Controversial. |
| A．Its security is doubted. | B．It lacks financial support. |
| C．It needs further improvement. | D．Its employees are irresponsible. |
2 . The curb cut (下斜路缘) is a convenience that most of us rarely, if ever, notice. Yet, without it, daily life might be a lot harder — in more ways than one. Pushing a baby stroller (婴儿推车) onto the curb, skateboarding onto a sidewalk or taking a full grocery cart from the sidewalk to your car — all these tasks are easier because of the curb cut.
But it was created with a different purpose in mind.
It’s hard to imagine today, but back in the 1970s, most sidewalks in the United States ended with a sharp drop-off. That was a big deal for people in wheelchairs because there were no ramps (斜坡) to help them move along city blocks without assistance. According to one disability rights leader, a six-inch curb “might as well have been Mount Everest”. So, activists from Berkeley, California, who also needed wheelchairs, organized a campaign to create tiny ramps to help people dependent on wheels move up and down curbs independently.
I think about the “curb cut effect” a lot when working on issues around health equity (公平). The first time I even heard about the curb cut was in a 2017 Stanford Social Innovation Review piece by PolicyLink CEO Angela Blackwell. Blackwell rightly noted that many people see equity “as a zero-sum game.” Basically, there is “a prejudice that intentionally supporting one group hurts another.” What the curb cut effect shows, Blackwell said, is that “when society creates the circumstances that allow those who have been left behind to participate and contribute fully, everyone wins.”
There are multiple examples of this principle at work. For example, investing in policies that create more living-wage jobs or increase the availability of affordable housing certainly benefits people in communities that have limited options. But the action also provides those people with opportunities for better health and the moans to become contributing members of society — and those benefits everyone. Even the football huddle (围成一团以秘密商讨) was initially created to help deaf football players at Gallaudet College keep their game plans secret from opponents who could have read their sign language. Today, it’s used by every team to prevent the opponent from learning about game-winning strategies.
So, next time you cross the street, or roll your suitcase through a crosswalk or ride your bike directly onto a sidewalk, think about how much the curb cut, the design that benefits one group of people at a disadvantage, has helped not just that group, but all of us.
1. By “might as well have been Mount Everest” (paragraph 3), the disability rights leader implies that a six-inch curb may become ______.| A．as famous as the world’s highest mountain | B．an almost impassable barrier |
| C．a connection between people | D．a most unforgettable matter |
| A．it’s fair to give the disadvantaged more help than others |
| B．it’s impossible to have everyone be treated equally |
| C．it’s necessary to go all out to help the disabled |
| D．it’s not worthwhile to promote health equity |
| A．Reading machines for blind people helped build the navigation system in the car. |
| B．The four great inventions of ancient China spread to the west. |
| C．Your reaching out to the disadvantaged contributes to more people doing it. |
| D．A butterfly flapping its wings in one country leads to a Tornado in another country. |
| A．Everyday items are originally invented for people with disabilities. |
| B．Everyone in a society should pursue what is in his or her interest. |
| C．A disability rights leader changed the life of his fellow men. |
| D．Caring for disadvantaged groups may finally benefit all. |
Postcards from the World
While the sun washed over the grass of my grandmother’s front garden, I sank into one of her armchairs familiar to me. Life, as I knew it, had changed. My beloved grandmother, my Nanny, as a ”parent“ in the absence of my father, had cancer. It was terminal (晚期的).
As she watched Getaway, a Sunday afternoon TV program, she remarked to me that she’d never left Australia and that now she never would. Seeing her restricted to ”travel" by watching TV, I swallowed the sadness that came with knowing that chapters of her life were to be left unwritten.
At work, feeling helpless, I wiped tables and took orders and thought. Hard. The Saturday afternoon lunch rush was not enough to stop me from my thoughts. Collapsed with growing sorrow, I was reminded of the power of Facebook and the collective strength of human sympathy. I raced from the end of my shift to ask strangers on the Internet for help.
My Nanny Del has cancer. It’s terminal and she will never see the world. Please send her postcards so she can see the world from her armchair. I can offer nothing but gratitude.
I resolved not to breathe a word of this; if nothing came, I couldn’t bear to carry her disappointment along with my own. . And if something should wander into our humble little letterbox, I vould consider it a blessing and embrace it gratefully.
Days turned to weeks: Nothing. And Nanny’s health declined rapidly. I was trying to balance my full-time study, babysitting and waiting tables with the tiring responsibility of caring for my grandmother. As I helped Nanny in the early hours of those mornings, she would chat to me, sometimes reflections of her lifetime, and other times, the disturbance caused by medication. She seldom talked about her regret of being unable to travel, but I was still hoping for something.
注意：1. 续写词数应为150个左右;
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
One afternoon, about six weeks after my Facebook post, a travel-worn postcard arrived in our letterbox.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________My dreams of armchair travels became a reality.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________4 . These days, many young people wonder if they would be better served by striking out on their own than pursuing a college education. In this rapidly evolving digital era, narratives of overnight success and entrepreneurial glory have flooded our social media feeds, fascinating the digital natives of Gen Z into questioning the worth of an expensive traditional college degree.
Contrary to popular belief, successful entrepreneurship is rarely seen among the young. Recent research suggests that the average age in the U. S. of founders when they launched their companies is 42, rising to 45 for those within the top 0.1% of earnings based on growth in their first five years. That’s even the case for high-tech startups. Indeed, successful entrepreneurship is frequently the result of years of learning, experimenting and risk-taking—traits cultivated over time.
Campuses create environments rich in intellectual diversity and foster cooperation among their inhabitants, promoting an entrepreneurial mindset. They encourage students to challenge established norms and develop their unique thinking patterns to create value — practices that are also key to entrepreneurial success. Thus, higher education is not just about attaining a degree; it’s more importantly about acquiring the skills and experiences that inspire and enable the entrepreneurs of tomorrow.
But some may doubt since formal entrepreneurship itself isn’t typically a course of study, are all college majors capable of instilling entrepreneurial skills? Let’s examine the arts majors, which are often subjected to the most suspicion concerning their career paths. Consider a theater major. That curriculum often includes entrepreneurship-focused capabilities beyond stage direction, lighting, sound systems and performance. Students learn to mobilize resources, lead creative teams and navigate the uncertainties of a theatrical production — skills that are readily transferable to launching any entrepreneurial business.
Like a compass for the future, entrepreneurship guides us toward a society that prizes critical thinking, nurtures intellectual curiosity and champions innovation. Let’s not get swept away by short-lived trends or misleading narratives. Instead, we should appreciate the enduring value of college education.
1. What do the figures in paragraph 2 indicate?| A．The chance of success multiplies with age. | B．Young people dominate high-tech startups. |
| C．Quite a number of enterprises are in the red. | D．Successful entrepreneurship isn’t built in a day. |
| A．Sticking to one’s own principles. | B．Acquiring knowledge from textbooks. |
| C．Developing a startup mentality. | D．Following established norms and traditions. |
| A．To illustrate it is complex and demanding. |
| B．To prove people’s suspicion is reasonable. |
| C．To show entrepreneurial skills can be integrated into all majors. |
| D．To stress it is the launchpad for successful entrepreneurship. |
| A．Arts. | B．Insights. | C．Entertainment. | D．News. |
Holidays are not necessarily for fun or rest. Doing something meaningful can also gain special pleasure. When the final bell rang, the students were reminded that there was no school on Monday—the Labor Day. “Enjoy your extra day off” said the teacher to her class.
An extra day off unsuited Kayla just fine. She loved breaks. She wanted to go out to play with her friends. When the school bus dropped Kayla off, she ran into the house happily.
“How was school, Kayla?” asked her mom.
“It was great, Mom. I am excited about no school on Monday.”
“You just started back to school two weeks ago. Already in need of a break, huh?” asked Kayla’s mom with a laugh.
Kayla slept in the next morning. Saturday was her favorite day of the week. I trained most of the day, so Kayla enjoyed playing videogames inside. On Sunday, her friends came over and they played basketball for several hours.
Then it was Labor Day, you know, the extra day off that Kayla was so looking forward to. But Kayla was awakened early that morning by her dad. He told Kayla that in honor of Labor Day, the family would be cleaning both inside and outside the house. Kayla couldn’t believe it. This was a holiday. A day when she was supposed to be enjoying freshly squeezed lemonade while playing in her tree house. As Kayla wiped here yes, she began to wonder if this was just a bad dream.
“Kayla, your breakfast is ready. We have a lot of work to do today. Let’s get a move on,” said Kayla’s mom. As she sat down at the kitchen table, Kayla asked her parents，
“Are you serious about working today? Isn’t Labor Day a holiday?”
“Yes, Kayla. It is,” replied her dad. “But your mom and I thought working hard today would make you appreciate why Labor Day was observed in the first place.”
注意：1.所续写短文的词数应为150左右;2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
At first Kayla felt disappointed at her parents’ plan for the holiday.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________But things began to change as she was doing the chores.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Excitement and danger always coexist. Even Rogers had just taken a turn on his mountain bike in April 2020 when he was stopped short by the sight of a woman sitting on the side of the trail. She was cute and had long brown hair and big expressive eyes. What he didn’t know then was that she was also in pain.
Sydney Linden, 28, bad been jogging down Adobe Jack Trail in Sedona, Arizona, when she jumped over a rock and her leg overextended on the landing. The pain was instant. Her right leg collapsed and she hit the dirt hard. Linden tried to stand but collapsed. She wasn’t sure if she had tom her ACL (韧带), broken her leg, or something else. All she knew was that the pain was a 15out of 10.
Linden dragged herself to the shade, “like an animal preparing to die,” she says. She’d called a friend, but after 30 minutes, her friend was lost. That’s when she saw the mountain biker.
Rogers was trying to play it cool. “I didn’t want to be strange,” he says, “so I was just going to casually ride by — at a slower speed.” But Rogers, 33, an active-duty airman, sensed her sufferings and asked if be could help. Linden explained her dilemma. That’s when he noticed the swelling under her leggings. She needed a hospital — now.
Leaning on Rogers, Linden tried to hop along, but the pain was burning. She’d never make it to the trailhead (登山扣) this way. Rogers had another idea. Ho abandoned his bike on the side of the trail and, after a brief discussion, lifted her over his shoulder. Then they began their way over the rocky area and bushes. Although it was spring, the Arizona sun beat down wildly.
Misfortune never came alone.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Linden was eager to thank Rogers, but he left without any information.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
During the summer before Patty entered fifth grade, she decided to try a new sport. Swim training was nearly over and Patty was the fastest swimmer in her age group. She had always been the best. The neighborhood was offering a one-week tennis training course. Patty and her friend Darla got permission from their parents to join.
On Saturday morning, Darla’s mom took the girls to a store and bought them each a good, used tennis racket. “If you girls stick to tennis, then we’ll talk about a new racket. These will do for now.” The girls were excited about their new purchases. On Monday morning, at 7:00 a.m., Patty’s mom woke her up. “It’s time for tennis!” Patty covered her face. “Mom, it’s too early!” She made great effort to get out of bed and down to the breakfast table. Patty finished breakfast and ran to Darla’s house, then they walked to the court.
Mrs. Cane, the tennis coach, lined everyone up and started with the basics. After that, Mrs. Cane tirelessly taught them to practice their forehand and backhand. By the end of the week, Patty had made impressive progress. Mrs. Cane commented that Patty had lots of potential. Darla, on the other hand, was struggling. The other teenagers were having a tough time of it, too. Patty was the only one who seemed to get somewhere.
Since then, Darla had always been out in the August heat, practicing her serves or hitting the ball. Patty wasn’t really interested. She felt she was such a “natural” for tennis that she really didn’t need to practice. By the end of the summer, Darla began to get the hang of it. She joined a neighborhood junior tennis team. There would be matches every Thursday. Patty wanted to join as well, but she didn’t want to miss her favorite TV show. She told herself that she would join it when she got some free time. If Darla had fun, she would join the team in the spring.
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。
The week before school started, Mrs. Cane held another training course.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Patty couldn’t stop thinking of her poor performance on the way home.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
When lightning struck
I was in the tiny bathroom in the back of the plane when I felt a jolt (颠簸). and then the horrible swerve (急转弯) that threw me against the door. Somehow, I managed to unlock the door and climb out awkwardly. The flight attendants, all with their seat belts fastened, waved wildly for me to sit down. As I struggled toward my seat, passengers looked up at me with the panic-stricken expressions of creatures who knew they were about to die.
“I think we got hit by lightning,” the girl in the seat next to mine said, her voice shaking. She was from a small town in east Texas, and this was only her second time on an airplane. She had won a trip to London by competing in a high school geography bee and was supposed to make a connecting flight when we landed in Newark.
Across the aisle sat a charming young woman, who had been working on her laptop. Now she put it away. She looked around and then her eyes met mine. “Are you OK?” she asked me. I forced a smile back, when the pilot’s voice came over the speaker. I heard vaguely through my fear, “Engine number two...emergency landing... New Orleans.” When he was done, the voice of a flight attendant came on, reminding us of the emergency procedures she had reviewed before takeoff. Understandably, I had never paid attention to this drill, always figuring that if we ever got to the point where we needed to use life jackets, I would have already died of terror.
Now we began a roller-coaster ride through the thunderclouds. I was ready to faint, but when I saw the face of the girl next to me, I pulled myself together, reached for her hand and reassured her that we were going to make it, “What a story you’re going to tell when you get home!” I said. “After this, London’s going to seem like small potatoes.”
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。
I wondered where I was getting my strength.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________And then...we landed safely.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Pat was the new kid in town. Her dad got a new job, so they had to move from their old home, school, friends and everything in South America to this new city. Now they were total strangers here.
Summer vacation went by while they unpacked, arranged furniture and adjusted to the new city. School was approaching. Pat dreaded it. She was not an outgoing person, so making friends was not easy for this shy and quiet girl. She was filled with fears and worries. She thought, “Would I make friends? Would I fit in? Would I survive at all in this strange new world?” But there she was, preparing for a new school full of strangers.
Here came her first day in the new school. She arrived at school on time, found her classroom and seated herself. Everything was going well until the first class when Pat’s teacher asked her to introduce herself in front of the whole class. She had prepared for it the day before, so she should have done it well. But when she uttered the first sentence, the whole class burst out laughing and began to whisper. It was then that Pat realized she talked with a very strange accent which was different from the locals. Blushing with embarrassment, she finished her introduction quickly and sat there all day long without talking with others.
After school, Pat came home crying, “It’s an awful day. All of them are disagreeable. I hate them.” After knowing what had happened in the school, Pat’s mother gently hugged her and comforted her, “Hatred is a double-edged sword that can hurt both others and yourself. Honey, try to be happy.” In order to cheer her up, Pat’s mother suggested, “How about having a party this Saturday? We haven’t had any party since we arrived here.” Party is such an appealing event for kids like Pat. Right away, she stopped crying and looked at her mother excitedly, “Oh yes! Ice cream! Cake! Red, red balloons!”
“And friends?” mom asked gently.
Hearing this, Pat sobbed again, “I haven’t got any friends here. Nothing but enemies.”
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。
“If so, let’s have an enemy party. I think it would be interesting.” Pat’s mom smiled.
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On Saturday, it was sunny and all of Pat’s classmates came to the party.
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10 . I wrote my first novel when I was 22. It was a mess. I didn’t know how to properly organize dialogues and structure a plot (情节). Those were all
But this scenario (剧情) happened again: I wrote books...and then they wouldn’t
I completely agree with the motivation speaker and author John Maxwell’s words: “Successful and unsuccessful people do not vary greatly in their abilities but in their
| A．facts | B．messages | C．meanings | D．details |
| A．practical | B．complex | C．wonderful | D．puzzling |
| A．But | B．Instead | C．Therefore | D．Regardless |
| A．rejected | B．accepted | C．abused | D．commended |
| A．depressed | B．amazed | C．frightened | D．pleased |
| A．card | B．ticket | C．pen | D．bill |
| A．write | B．buy | C．work | D．sell |
| A．unearthed | B．taught | C．led | D．contributed |
| A．lives | B．decisions | C．stories | D．jobs |
| A．happened | B．failed | C．made | D．passed |
| A．request | B．order | C．recommendation | D．desire |
| A．sad | B．anxious | C．hard | D．easy |
| A．athlete | B．loser | C．owner | D．winner |
| A．make up | B．get along | C．give out | D．pass away |
| A．challenge | B．demanding | C．rewarding | D．paying |
