1 . Several dozen graduate students in London were recently tasked with outwitting a large language model (LLM), a type of AI designed to hold useful conversations. LLMs are often programmed with guardrails designed to stop them giving harmful replies: instructions on making bombs in a bathtub, say, or the confident statement of “facts” that are not actually true.
The aim of the task was to break those guardrails. Some results were merely stupid. For example, one participant got the chatbot to claim ducks could be used as indicators of air quality. But the most successful efforts were those that made the machine produce the titles, publication dates and host journals of non-existent academic articles.
AI has the potential to be a big benefit to science. Optimists talk of machines producing readable summaries of complicated areas of research; tirelessly analysing oceans of data to suggest new drugs and even, one day, coming up with hypotheses of their own. But AI comes with downsides, too.
Start with the simplest problem: academic misconduct.Some journals allow researchers to use LLMs to help write papers. But not everybody is willing to admit to it. Sometimes, the fact that LLMs have been used is obvious. Guillaume Cabanac, a computer scientist, has uncovered dozens of papers that contain phrases such as “regenerate response” — the text of a button in some versions of ChatGPT that commands the program to rewrite its most recent answer, probably copied into the manuscript (原稿) by mistake.
Another problem arises when AI models are trained on AI-generated data. LLMs are trained on text from the Internet. As they churn out (大量炮制) more such text, the risk of LLMs taking in their own outputs grows. That can cause “model collapse”. In 2023 llia Shumailov, a computer scientist, co-authored a paper in which a model was fed handwritten digits and asked to generate digits of its own, which were fed back to it in turn. After a few cycles, the computer’s numbers became more or less illegible.After 20iterations (迭代), it could produce only rough circles or blurry lines.
Some worry that computer-generated insights might come from models whose inner workings are not understood. Inexplainable models are not useless, says David Leslie at an AI-research outfit in London, but their outputs will need rigorous testing in the real world. That is perhaps less unnerving than it sounds. Checking models against reality is what science is supposed to be about, after all.
For now, at least, questions outnumber answers. The threats that machines pose to the scientific method are, at the end of the day, the same ones posed by humans. AI could accelerate the production of nonsense just as much as it accelerates good science. As the Royal Society has it,nullius in verba: take nobody’s word for it. No thing’s, either.
1. The result of the task conducted in London shows that ________.| A．LLMs give away useful information | B．the guardrails turn out to be ineffective |
| C．AI’s influence will potentially be decreased | D．the effort put into the study of AI hardly pays off |
| A．The readability of the models’output is underestimated. |
| B．The diverse sources of information confuse the models. |
| C．Training on regenerated data stops models working well. |
| D．The data will become reliable after continuous iterations. |
| A．impractical | B．unjustified | C．groundless | D．unsettling |
| A．Faster Nonsense: AI Could Also Go Wrong |
| B．Imperfect Models: How Will AI Make Advances? |
| C．The Rise of LLMs: AI Could Still Be Promising |
| D．Bigger Threats: AI Will Be Uncontrollable |
2 . “Assume you are wrong.” The advice came from Brian Nosek, a psychology professor, who was offering a strategy for pursuing better science.
To understand the context for Nosek’s advice, we need to take a step back to the nature of science itself. You see despite what many of us learned in elementary school, there is no single scientific method. Just as scientific theories become elaborated and change, so do scientific methods.
But methodological reform hasn’t come without some fretting and friction. Nasty things have been said by and about methodological reformers. Few people like having the value of their life’s work called into question. On the other side, few people are good at voicing criticisms in kind and constructive ways. So, part of the challenge is figuring out how to bake critical self-reflection into the culture of science itself, so it unfolds as a welcome and integrated part of the process, and not an embarrassing sideshow.
What Nosek recommended was a strategy for changing the way we offer and respond to critique. Assuming you are right might be a motivating force, sustaining the enormous effort that conducting scientific work requires. But it also makes it easy to interpret criticisms as personal attacks. Beginning, instead, from the assumption you are wrong, a criticism is easier to interpret as a constructive suggestion for how to be less wrong — a goal that your critic presumably shares.
One worry about this approach is that it could be demoralizing for scientists. Striving to be less wrong might be a less effective motivation than the promise of being right. Another concern is that a strategy that works well within science could backfire when it comes to communicating science with the public. Without an appreciation for how science works, it’s easy to take uncertainty or disagreements as marks against science, when in fact they reflect some of the very features of science that make it our best approach to reaching reliable conclusions about the world. Science is reliable because it responds to evidence: as the quantity and quality of our evidence improves, our theories can and should change, too.
Despite these worries, I like Nosek’s suggestion because it builds in cognitive humility along with a sense that we can do better. It also builds in a sense of community — we’re all in the same boat when it comes to falling short of getting things right.
Unfortunately, this still leaves us with an untested hypothesis (假说): that assuming one is wrong can change community norms for the better, and ultimately support better science and even, perhaps, better decisions in life. I don’t know if that’s true. In fact, I should probably assume that it’s wrong. But with the benefit of the scientific community and our best methodological tools, I hope we can get it less wrong, together.
1. What can we learn from Paragraph 3?| A．Reformers tend to devalue researchers’ work. |
| B．Scientists are unwilling to express kind criticisms. |
| C．People hold wrong assumptions about the culture of science. |
| D．The scientific community should practice critical self-reflection. |
| A．the enormous efforts of scientists at work | B．the reliability of potential research results |
| C．the public’s passion for scientific findings | D．the improvement in the quality of evidence |
| A．discouraging | B．ineffective | C．unfair | D．misleading |
| A．doubtful but sincere | B．disapproving but soft |
| C．authoritative and direct | D．reflective and humorous |
3 . Art Builds Understanding
Despite the long history of scholarship on experiences of art, researchers have yet to capture and understand the most meaningful aspects of such experiences, including the thoughts and insights we gain when we visit a museum, the sense of encounter after seeing a meaningful work of art, or the changed thinking after experiences with art. These powerful encounters can be inspiring, uplifting, and contribute to well-being and flourishing.
According to the mirror model of art developed by Pablo P. L. Tinio, aesthetic reception corresponds to artistic creation in a mirror-reversed fashion. Artists aim to express ideas and messages about the human condition or the world at large.
In addition, art making and art viewing are connected by creative thinking. Research in a lab at Yale University shows that an educational program that uses art appreciation activities builds creative thinking skills. It showed that the more time visitors spent engaging with art and the more they reflected on it, the greater the correspondence with the artists’ intentions and ideas.
Correspondence in feeling and thinking suggests a transfer — between creator and viewer — of ideas, concepts, and emotions contained in the works of art. Art has the potential to communicate across space and time.
| A．The viewers gain a new perspective on the story. |
| B．The theory of aesthetic cognitivism describes the value of art. |
| C．This helps to create connections and insights that otherwise would not happen. |
| D．To do so, they explore key ideas and continually expand them as they develop their work. |
| E．After spending more time with the work, the viewer begins to access the ideas of the artist. |
| F．For example, in one activity, people are asked to view a work of art from different perspectives. |
| G．Participants were more original in their thinking when compared to those who did not take part in the program. |
1．介绍活动；
2．发出邀请。
注意：1．词数100左右，开头和结尾已经给出，不计入总词数；
2．可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
提示词：国家博物馆 National Museum of China
非物质文化遗产展览 intangible cultural heritage exhibition
Dear Jim,
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yours,
Li Hua
5 . It seems rather obvious that facial characteristics are determined by our genes. But until recently geneticists(遗传学家) had very little understanding of which parts of our DNA were linked to our facial appearance.
An international team of researchers identified more than 130 chromosomal(染色体的) regions associated with specific aspects of facial shape. This is a critical first step toward understanding how genetics impact our faces, Live Science noted.
Researchers scanned the DNA of more than 8,000 people and analyzed dozens of shape measurements from their 3D facial images to look at the statistical relationships between about 7 million genetic markers—known locations in the genetic code where humans vary—and the facial features.
“When we find a statistical relation between a facial feature and one or more genetic markers, it points us to a very precise region of DNA on a chromosome. The genes located around that region then become our prime candidates for facial features like nose or lip shape,” Seth Weinberg, co-author of the study, wrote on Live Science.
Researchers discovered some interesting patterns after looking at the implicated(牵涉其中) genes at these DNA regions. Your nose is the part that is most influenced by your genes. Areas like the cheeks, which are highly influenced by lifestyle factors like diet, showed the fewest genetic associations.
There is also a high degree of overlap(重合) between the genes involved in facial and limb development. This provides an important clue as to why many genetic syndromes(综合症) are characterized by both hand and facial malformations(畸形). Some genes involved in facial shape may be involved in cancer, too. It explains why people treated for pediatric(小儿科的) cancer show some distinctive facial features.
So, can someone take your DNA and construct an accurate image of your face? It’s unlikely. The 130-plus genetic regions that were identified explain less than 10 percent of the variation in facial shape. But even if we understood all of the genes impacting facial appearance, prediction would still be a big challenge. That’s because facial features are affected by other factors as well, such as age, diet, climate and sun exposure.
Still, the knowledge of patients’ genetic information can be an invaluable tool in creating personalized treatment plans in fields like orthodontics(畸齿矫正学) or reconstructive surgery. For example, if someday doctors can use genetics to predict when a child’s jaw will hit its growth peak, it will help them decide the best time to intervene.
1. What’s the main purpose of the research?| A．To explain why humans vary based on statistics. |
| B．To identify the factors impacting facial appearance. |
| C．To discover the link between genes and facial features. |
| D．To study the relationship between facial features and genetic markers. |
| A．The nose is most influenced by genes. |
| B．Facial malformations affect limb development. |
| C．The cheeks are most closely associated with age. |
| D．Facial shape and cancer are impacted by exactly the same genes. |
| A．It could improve orthodontic treatments. |
| B．It could be useful for changing facial shapes. |
| C．It could help recreate one’s jaw at an early age. |
| D．It could help predict facial appearance with ease. |
6 . The environmental practices of big businesses are shaped by a fundamental fact that offends our sense of justice. A business may maximize the amount of money it makes by damaging the environment and hurting people. When government regulation is effective, and the public is environmentally aware, environmentally clean big businesses may out-compete dirty ones, but the reverse is likely to be true if government regulation is ineffective and the public doesn’t care.
It is easy to blame a business for helping itself by hurting other people. But blaming alone is unlikely to produce change. It ignores the fact that businesses are not charities but profit-making companies, and they are under obligation to maximize profits for shareholders by legal means.
Our blaming of businesses also ignores the ultimate responsibility of the public for creating the conditions that let a business profit through destructive environmental policies. In the long run, it is the public, either directly or through its politicians, that has the power to make such destructive policies unprofitable and illegal, and to make sustainable environmental policies profitable.
The public can do that by accusing businesses of harming them. The public may also make their opinion felt by choosing to buy sustainably harvested products; by preferring their governments to award valuable contracts to businesses with a good environmental track record; and by pressing their governments to pass and enforce laws and regulations requiring good environmental practices.
In turn, big businesses can exert powerful pressure on any suppliers that might ignore public or government pressure. For instance, after the US public became concerned about the spread of a disease, transmitted to humans through infected meat, the US government introduced rules demanding that the meat industry abandon practices associated with the risk of the disease spreading. But the meat packers refused to follow these, claiming that they would be too expensive to obey. However, when a fast-food company made the same demands after customer purchases of its hamburgers dropped, the meat industry followed immediately. The public’s task is therefore to identify which links in the supply chain are sensitive to public pressure.
Some readers may be disappointed or outraged that I place the ultimate responsibility for business practices harming the public on the public itself. I also believe that the public must accept the necessity for higher prices for products to cover the added costs of sound environmental practices. My views may seem to ignore the belief that businesses should act in accordance with moral principles even if this leads to a reduction in their profits. But I think we have to recognize that, throughout human history, government regulation has arisen precisely because it was found that not only did moral principles need to be made explicit, they also needed to be enforced.
My conclusion is not a moralistic one about who is right or wrong, admirable or selfish. I believe that changes in public attitudes are essential for changes in businesses’ environmental practices.
1. The main idea of Paragraph 3 is that environmental damage__________.| A．is the result of ignorance of the public |
| B．requires political action if it is to be stopped |
| C．can be prevented by the action of ordinary people |
| D．can only be stopped by educating business leaders |
| A．reduce their own individual impact on the environment |
| B．learn more about the impact of business on the environment |
| C．raise awareness of the effects of specific environmental disasters |
| D．influence the environmental policies of businesses and governments |
| A．Meat packers stopped supplying hamburgers to fast-food chains. |
| B．Meat packers persuaded the government to reduce their expenses. |
| C．A fast-food company forced their meat suppliers to follow the law. |
| D．A fast-food company encouraged the government to introduce regulations. |
| A．Will the world survive the threat caused by big businesses? |
| B．How can big businesses be encouraged to be less driven by profit? |
| C．What environmental dangers are caused by the greed of businesses? |
| D．Are big businesses to blame for the damage they cause to the environment? |
The Power of Determination
Your quest for success and happiness begins with right intentions. It culminates (达到顶点) when you reach your chosen goals. What sustains your effort in between is your determination. What carries you towards your goals is your determination. It means the firmness of purpose or intention.
If there is one gift that you can give to yourself in your life to be what you want to be, it is the power of determination. Without it you are a mere passive spectator in the drama of your life. If there is one quality that makes a difference between a winner and a loser or a leader and a follower, it is the power of determination. Without it, you may dream wild dreams, but you will not accomplish much in life. If you have determination, nothing can stop you and deter you from following your course of action to achieve your goals or realize your dreams.
Obstacles may arise and obstruct your progress. They may delay your success, disturb you temporarily, and may even mislead you, but they cannot withstand the power of determination. It is the power that you generate within yourself to remain committed to your path and conviction, and march towards your cherished goals. Before you take up any project or goal, you should know whether you have the determination to stick to your plans and reach your goals. Your determination has to arise from within and derive its reinforcement from your thinking and beliefs rather than circumstances. Only then will you be able to sustain your effort, even when the going gets tough. Determination is your inner strength. Like the hardwood inside a tree, it gives you the power to stand tall and face the winds of turmoil.
With determination, you can crush the mountains of fear and doubts in you. You can find your way through the most difficult situations. Determination does not mean you will be insensitive to the reality of the situation. A determined person is also an adaptable and flexible person. He is not interested in being tough for toughness sake, but to overcome obstacles and reach his goals. Hence, he remains open-minded about possibilities and opportunities, but firm in his commitment and convictions. Discipline and determination go together. If you have them, you become unstoppable.
1. According to the passage, what is determination?2. What would happen if one does not have determination?
3. Please decide which part is false in the following statement, then underline it and explain why.
With determination, you can crush the mountains of fear and doubts in you, and you will not make changes.
4. How does being determined benefit you? (In about 40 words)
1. 时间与地点;
2. 主要内容和目的;
3. 你的感受。
注意：1. 词数100左右;
2. 开头和结尾已给出，不计入总词数。
提示词：the 100-day Oath of College Entrance Examination 高考百日誓师
Dear Jim,
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yours,
Li Hua
9 . HANDSTITCHED WORLDS: THE CARTOGRAPHY OF QUILTS
Quilts (床罩) are a narrative art; with themes that are political, spiritual, communal, or commemorative, they are infused with history and memory, mapping out intimate stories and legacies through a handcrafted language of design. Handstitched Worlds: The Cartography of Quilts is an invitation to read quilts as maps, tracing the paths of individual histories that illuminate larger historic events and cultural trends.
Spanning the nineteenth to twenty-first centuries, this insightful and engaging exhibition brings together 18 quilts from the collection of the American Folk Art Museum, New York, representing a range of materials, motifs, and techniques from traditional early-American quilts to more contemporary sculptural assemblages. The quilts in Handstitched Worlds show us how this too-often overlooked medium balances creativity with tradition, individuality with collective zeitgeist. Like a road map, these unique works offer a path to a deeper understanding of the American cultural fabric.
Number of Works:18 quilts
Organized by: American Folk Art Museum, New York
Approximate size:175-200 linear feet
Security: Moderate security
Participation Fee: Please inquire
Shipping: IA&A makes all arrangements; exhibitors pay outgoing shipping costs within the contiguous U.S.
Booking Period:12 weeks
Tour: June 2021—August2024
Contact: TravelingExhibitions@ArtsandArtists.org
Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, WI
June 12, 2021—August 29, 2021
Washington State Historical Society, Tacoma, WA
September 17, 2021—January 23, 2022
Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, UT
February 19, 2022—May 14, 2022
Fort Wayne Muesum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN
June 18, 2022—September 11, 2022
AVAILABLE
October 2022—January 2023
Dane G. Hansen Memorial Museum, Logan, KS
February 17,2023—May 14, 2023
AVAILABLE
June 2023—December 2023
Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, Laurel, MS
January 30, 2024—April 21, 2024
AVAILABLE
May 2024—August 2024
All tour dates can be customized to meet your scheduling needs. Please contact Traveling Exhibitions @ Artsand Artists.org for more information.
1. What is the purpose of the exhibition of Handstitched Worlds: The Cartography of Quilts?| A．To promote creativity and individuality thorough the engaging exhibition. |
| B．To provide an opportunity for visitors to learn to make quilts stitch by stitch. |
| C．To give visitors an insight into the history and culture of America in specific periods. |
| D．To enrich the understanding of the American culture by a tour visit to museums across America. |
| A．The exhibition is free both for the exhibitors and for the visitors. |
| B．Exhibitors that are interested can choose whatever dates they want. |
| C．The artistic and historic value of handstitched quilts used to be neglected. |
| D．Exhibitors that are interested can book the exhibition 12 weeks in advance. |
| A．exhibitors | B．visitors | C．artists | D．historians |
10 . Both misinformation, which includes honest mistakes, and disinformation, which involves an intention to mislead, have had a growing impact on teenage students over the past 20 years. One tool that schools can use to deal with this problem is called media literacy education. The idea is to teach teenage students how to evaluate and think critically about the messages they receive. Yet there is profound disagreement about what to teach.
Some approaches teach students to distinguish the quality of the information in part by learning how responsible journalism works. Yet some scholars argue that these methods overstate journalism and do little to cultivate critical thinking skills. Other approaches teach students methods for evaluating the credibility of news and information sources, in part by determining the incentive of those sources. They teach students to ask: What encouraged them to create it and why? But even if these approaches teach students specific skills well, some experts argue that determining credibility of the news is just the first step. Once students figure out if it’s true or false, what is the other assessment and the other analysis they need to do?
Worse still, some approaches to media literacy education not only don’t work but might actually backfire by increasing students’ skepticism about the way the media work. Students may begin to read all kinds of immoral motives into everything. It is good to educate students to challenge their assumptions, but it’s very easy for students to go from healthy critical thinking to unhealthy skepticism and the idea that everyone is lying all the time.
To avoid these potential problems, broad approaches that help students develop mindsets in which they become comfortable with uncertainty are in need. According to educational psychologist William Perry of Harvard University, students go through various stages of learning. First, children are black-and-white thinkers—they think there are right answers and wrong answers. Then they develop into relativists, realizing that knowledge can be contextual. This stage is the one where people can come to believe there is no truth. With media literacy education, the aim is to get students to the next level—that place where they can start to see and appreciate the fact that the world is messy, and that’s okay. They have these fundamental approaches to gathering knowledge that they can accept, but they still value uncertainty.
Schools still have a long way to go before they get there, though. Many more studies will be needed for researchers to reach a comprehensive understanding of what works and what doesn’t over the long term. “Education scholars need to take an ambitious step forward,” says Howard Schneider, director of the Center for News Literacy at Stony Brook University.
1. As for media literacy education, what is the author’s major concern?| A．How to achieve its goal. | B．How to measure its progress. |
| C．How to avoid its side effects. | D．How to promote its importance. |
| A．Importance. | B．Variety. | C．Motivation. | D．Benefit. |
| A．compare different types of thinking |
| B．evaluate students’ mind development |
| C．explain a theory of educational psychology |
| D．stress the need to raise students’ thinking levels |
| A．Media Literacy Education: Much Still Remains |
| B．Media Literacy Education: Schools Are to Blame |
| C．Media Literacy Education: A Way to Identify False Information |
| D．Media Literacy Education: A Tool for Testing Critical Thinking |
