1 . People may typically think of memory as the recollection of the past. Memory enables people to learn from past experiences and apply that knowledge in present cases. It is an important part of our identity. So is culture, the way of life specific to a group of people.
Cultural memory is the constructed understanding of the past that is passed from one generation to the next through text, oral traditions, monuments and other symbols. Cultural memory is often amassed in objects, such as museums or historical monuments. To understand culture, humans access a mass of cultural symbols, such as books. Artifacts (历史文物) of the past provide insights into where we came from. Libraries and the Internet keep a seemingly boundless amount of data on what it means to be part of a culture. Cultural memory is the longest-lasting form of memory.
Like all forms of memory, cultural memory has important functions. For example, it makes the experiences a nation owns clear. It provides us with an understanding of the past and the values of the group to which we belong. Besides, it creates a form of shared identity and a means for communicating this identity to new members. The most powerful forms of cultural memory may involve memories of past disastrous experiences undergone by groups of victims. For example, in Russia, their role in World War II —in which tens of millions of Russians were killed — is still an important part of modern Russian identity. Because all groups have cultural memory, it can bring about a spirit of resistance or survival among threatened groups.
The main function of cultural memory is not to recall the past, whether it is good or bad. Rather, it is to use knowledge of past experiences to avoid making the same mistakes again and again. Aleida Assmann, a professor who has worked on memory theory since the 1960s, calls this “remembering forward”. Cultural memory enables people to adapt to their culture; it enables cultures to adapt to new circumstances by keeping traces (痕迹) of what worked in the past.
1. What is the function of the first paragraph?| A．Reporting a discovery of cultural memory. |
| B．Leading to the concept of cultural memory. |
| C．Introducing the importance of memory in identity. |
| D．Making a connection between memory and culture. |
| A．Stored. | B．Ignored. | C．Damaged. | D．Created. |
| A．the features of cultural memory | B．the formation of cultural memory |
| C．the role of big events in Russian identity | D．the impact of cultural memory on identity |
| A．Pass previous wisdom down. | B．Keep traces of history. |
| C．Get people to know about the past. | D．Remind people of their identity. |
2 . Childhood can bring a lot of awe (敬畏). Research also suggests that awe is important in promoting well-being beyond our individual lives — it can encourage our children to care for others.
A recent study by researchers Eftychia Stamkou, Keltner, and their colleagues invited children aged 8-13 to take part in an experiment. In the awe group, children were offered a short part of a movie that features a child transformed into a seal (海豹) and exploring the sea while in the joy group, children were offered a short part of another movie where friends were celebrating.
Researchers measured children’s kindness toward poor families by inviting children to support their food drive by spending as much time as they wanted in counting donated things, to make sure the poor got access to the donated food as quickly as possible. They also invited children to donate the reward they earned from taking part in the research (e.g., a snack or a museum ticket) to a poor family.
The results? Children who watched the awe-inspiring video spent more time counting food donations and donated their rewards to poor families more often compared to the children who watched the joy-inspiring video. These findings highlight that awe-inspiring art can motivate children to be sympathetic toward people who have been forcibly displaced (离开家园) from their countries of origin.
As parents, we can also seek out everyday experiences of awe in our communities to share with our children, like wall paintings of the city scenery and folk art. Awe can be inspired by music, like the harmonious sounds of a wooden guitar and the beat of a drum. Awesome architecture, like symphony halls, museums, and even features like staircases, can be a way to experience awe with our children.
1. What does the research find?| A．Awe should be inspired early. | B．Awe helps kids be more generous. |
| C．Individual lives affect kids’ health. | D．Training awe gives kids excitement. |
| A．They watched different movies. | B．They commented on the videos. |
| C．They were asked some questions. | D．They donated money to poor families. |
| A．They learned this from a video. | B．They were motivated by the movie. |
| C．They liked to contribute to charity. | D．They were reminded by the homeless. |
| A．Give reasons for feeling awe. | B．List experiences of awe. |
| C．Show benefits of awe to kids. | D．Appeal for developing awe in kids. |
3 . ACL 500 Word Story Competition
We are pleased to announce the launch of the ACL 500 Word Story Competition. This time the theme is “Awakening”. We’re looking for our community to pen a story that quickly catches our attention and tells a great tale. You can submit (提交) an entry as an individual achievement or as a team effort — we want to read both kinds! Our judges will include a range of our experienced instructors, staff and local Essex Author Sarah Armstrong.
Sarah Armstrong is the author of three novels, most recently The Wolves of Leninsky Prospekt and The Starlings of Bucharest, the first and second in the Moscow Wolves series. She is also the author of A Summer of Spying, a book mainly about her own experience. Sarah teaches undergraduate and postgraduate creative writing with The Open University, and lives in Essex with her husband and four children.
Rules:◆ Your story can be a poem, an essay or any other kinds of writing.
◆ Entries will need to be in a Word format. PDF files are unacceptable.
◆ Please ensure your story is suitable for all to read.
◆ Use the given submission form to submit your details and story. The deadline for submissions is 12th April.
Benefits:
◆ Prizes include a book voucher (代金券), a short creative writing course, and your work published.
◆ Discover new and exciting skills at writing while exploring your creative writing and sharing inspirational moments with others. We have a fantastic range of Creative Writing courses for you to choose from.
1. What do we know about the competition?
| A．It’s organized in honor of Sarah Armstrong. |
| B．It looks for both individual and group works. |
| C．It aims to awaken an interest in writing. |
| D．It’s targeted at undergraduates and postgraduates. |
| A．They should be submitted as a Word file. | B．They must be poems or essays. |
| C．They must be based on personal experience. | D．They should be about life in Essex. |
| A．A voucher for a course. | B．An expert training class by Sarah. |
| C．A vast range of courses. | D．An improvement to writing skills. |
4 . Leave the Screens at Home on Your Next Family Road Trip
The other day, a friend sent me an email, asking if I’d consider writing about educational apps for children to watch while on road trips. The email said, “
While the intention is well-meaning, I disagree with his idea. There is so much to see on a road trip!
Take physical books along. Choose some novels for an older reader, get cartoon books, or take interactive books such as I Spy, coloring books, puzzle books, etc.
Play games.
Long road trips shouldn’t just be about endurance (耐力); they should also be about learning how to pass the time without a screen. So, challenge yourselves to a screen-free road trip the next time you go somewhere as a family.
| A．Have some conversation starters ready. |
| B．The Great License Plate Search is a fun one. |
| C．You may be surprised at what a success it is. |
| D．Collect your kids’ questions before starting off. |
| E．Many are turning to road trips for a late-summer escape. |
| F．Help your kids to make a list of things they’ll see on the trip. |
| G．If they stare at a screen, they’ll miss everything outside the window. |
5 . Ford, the motor company, has announced it has rented a pair of Boston Dynamics’ robotic dogs. Ford is using the robotic dogs to help it 3D-map its Van Dyke Plant. “By having the robots in our factory, we can see what it actually looks like now and build a new engineering model. That digital model is then used when we need to change the equipment in the factory for new products,” said Mark Goderis, Ford’s digital engineering manager.
The robotic dogs are used to record 360-degree images of areas in the factory that are difficult to get to by using a traditional 3D camera. They’re equipped with five cameras and can climb steps and kneel (跪) down to get into hard-to-reach places. Their four legs allow the robots to walk like a dog, around the factory at speeds of up to 3 miles per hour — so they’re not very quick. Besides, the battery lasts for only two hours.
Mark said that the old way of scanning (扫描) with a camera could take two weeks, yet using the robotic dogs cuts that time in half. It also used to cost $300,000 to do it the old way. The robotic dogs are cheaper, but Ford didn’t say by how much.
At present, the robotic dogs are followed by their handler, Paula Wiebelhaus, who manages the robotic dogs through a controller with a screen that sees what the dogs see. But in the near future, Ford wants to program the robotic dogs to go to different parts of the factory and report back what they see without being followed by a human. They can also ask for a ride on the back of a mobile robot that Ford has named Scouter. Like the robotic dogs, it’s also taking 3D scans of its environment.
1. What can we learn about Ford?| A．It needs help in building an engineering model. |
| B．It aims to design more animal related products. |
| C．It is the main producer of robotic dogs. |
| D．It will use robots instead of engineers. |
| A．Serve as a short-term battery charger. | B．Explore and record inaccessible areas. |
| C．Carry heavy objects around the factory. | D．Improve the quality of digital images. |
| A．The advantages of robotic dogs. | B．Ford’s new way of saving money. |
| C．Mark’s interest in high technology. | D．The cost of traditional scanning. |
| A．Robotic dogs are sometimes out of control. |
| B．Scouter will take the place of robotic dogs. |
| C．Ford will build more robotic dogs later. |
| D．The robotic dogs will be improved soon. |
6 . On one side of the room sits the cutest life-size stuffed animal (填充玩具) you’ve ever seen. On the other side rests a real dog — the same size, shape and even the same name as the stuffed version. You get to sit next to both of these furry friends and pet their fur. Guess which one will make your brain light up?
If you guessed the real dog, you’re right. Stuffed animals, as cute and lovely as they may be, just don’t effectively activate our frontal cortex (额叶皮层), the part of the brain overseeing how we think and feel, according to a new study published in the journal PLOSONE. The study found an even stronger rise in brain activity when the person petted the fur of a real dog versus a stuffed animal.
“We chose to research the frontal cortex because this brain area is involved in several executive (执行) functions, such as attention, working memory, and problem-solving. But it is also involved in social and emotional processes,” said study lead author Rahel Marti, a doctoral student in the division of clinical psychology at the University of Basel in Switzerland.
Why is this finding important? It provides additional evidence that live human-animal interaction therapy (疗法) may promote cognitive and emotional activity in the brain. Marti said, “If patients with deficits in motivation, attention, and socioemotional functioning show higher emotional involvement in activities connected to a real dog, then such activities could increase the chance of learning and of achieving treatment aims.”
“This is an interesting, seriously conducted study that provides new insight into associations between human-animal interaction and regional prefrontal brain activity in healthy adults. We found that brain activity increased when the contact with a real dog or a stuffed animal became closer. This confirms previous studies relating closer contact with animals to increased brain activity,” Marti said.
1. How does the author introduce the subject of the text?| A．By listing some figures. | B．By giving an example. |
| C．By setting a situation. | D．By analyzing a phenomenon. |
| A．It is involved in several body parts. |
| B．It is the most important part of the brain. |
| C．It plays a key part in performing functions. |
| D．It provides evidence for live human-animal therapy. |
| A．Styles. | B．Faults. | C．Adventures. | D．Sources. |
| A．What Petting A Dog Can Do For Your Brain? |
| B．Why A Pet Dog Is Important To A Person? |
| C．Which Part Of The Brain Is Involved In Emotion? |
| D．How Can A Patient Benefit From Petting A Dog? |
7 . We’ve seen it used numerous times, from the cover of publications to speeches by world leaders: “Data (数据) is the new oil.” But the analogy (类比) should stop there.
Douglas Hofstadter, a philosopher, notes that this commonly-heard analogy belongs to those on which nonspecialists are likely to base their understandings of scientific ideas. Such analogies are probably easy to remember but in a certain context they can lead to complete dead ends.
There is a fixed amount of oil on our planet to be extracted (提取). Unlike oil, increasing amounts of data are being produced at a rate that’s hard to fathom: in the next two years, 40 zettabytes of data will be created — an amount so large that there is no useful approach to showing or describing its size effectively.
The value of oil comes from its limited amounts and the difficulty of extracting it. However, data is something quite different. For example, data is both created and used by autonomous cars interacting with connected equipment in a smart city. In San Francisco, there are 470,000 registered cars. If just 25% of those cars were autonomous, the amount of data produced yearly would be the same as about 300,000,000 Internet users. Imagine what will happen if this situation covers a whole country.
Oil is also a single-use supply, while data can be reused and shared for new purposes. Recently, data from a test of drugs commonly used to treat heart problems was reused, leading to the discovery of a second use for the medicine: destroying a protein (蛋白质) related to nearly half of all cancers. In comparison, adding more oil doesn’t result in getting better quality oil.
So the next time you hear someone say this analogy, ask them when the earth will have no more data to extract and see if you can get an answer.
1. What’s Hofstadter’s attitude to the famous analogy?| A．Supportive. | B．Objective. | C．Negative. | D．Unconcerned. |
| A．Understand. | B．Quicken. | C．Discover. | D．Reuse. |
| A．To explain it has busy public transportation. |
| B．To suggest it employs many autonomous cars. |
| C．To prove it is in great demand of updated data. |
| D．To show it alone creates large amounts of data. |
| A．It may prevent some cancers from happening. |
| B．It promotes scientific creations and advances. |
| C．It inspires healthy competition in the drug market. |
| D．It makes medical treatment accessible to people. |
8 . Over the past year, just about every major streaming service has raised its subscription (订阅) fees. At the same time, there are more membership deals, ad-supported subscriptions and streaming services overall.
First, you should decide what kind of viewer you are by creating a TV diary.
If the fees from all your subscriptions come from the same credit card or bank account, you can more easily track spending and end payments quickly. Also, online resources can help track regular subscription payments.
Check your streaming services occasionally. Frequently call up each streaming service you access, and look up your account information.
| A．It remains the biggest concern for the consumers |
| B．You can also drop and add services regularly |
| C．Major streaming services promise ads will be limited |
| D．This can help avoid the occurrence of repeated charges |
| E．Make sure the grade of subscription meets your needs |
| F．You may have some challenging time ahead as a streaming user |
| G．Write down what you watch and where you might find it |
9 . Artificial intelligence (AI) is showing promise in earthquake prediction, challenging the long-held belief that it is impossible. Researchers at the University of Texas, Austin, have developed an AI algorithm (算法) that correctly predicted 70% of earthquakes a week in advance during a trial in China and provided accurate strength calculations for the predicted earthquakes.
The research team believes their method succeeded because they stuck with a relatively simple machine learning approach. The AI was provided with a set of statistical features based on the team’s knowledge of earthquake physics, and then instructed to train itself using a five-year database of earthquake recordings. Once trained, the AI provided its prediction by listening for signs of incoming earthquakes within the background rumblings (隆隆声) in the Earth.
This work is clearly a milestone in research for AI-driven earthquake prediction. “You don’t see earth-quakes coming,” explains Alexandros Savvaidis, a senior research scientist who leads the Texas Seismological Network Program (TexNet). “It’s a matter of milliseconds, and the only thing you can control is how prepared you are. Even with the 70% accuracy, that’s a huge result and could help minimize economic and human losses and has the potential to remarkably improve earthquake preparation worldwide.”
While it is unknown whether the same approach will work at other locations, the researchers are confident that their AI algorithm could produce more accurate predictions if used in areas with reliable earthquake tracking networks. The next step is to test artificial intelligence in Texas, since UT’s Bureau TexNet has 300 earth-quake stations and over six years worth of continuous records, making it an ideal location for these purposes.
Eventually, the authors hope to combine the system with physics-based models. This strategy could prove especially important where data is poor or lacking. “That may be a long way off, but many advances such as this one, taken together, are what moves science forward,” concludes Scott Tinker, the bureau’s director.
1. How does the AI forecast earthquakes?| A．By identifying data from the satellites. |
| B．By analyzing background sounds in the Earth. |
| C．By modeling data based on earthquake recordings. |
| D．By monitoring changes in the Earth’s magnetic field. |
| A．The ways to reduce losses in earthquakes. |
| B．The importance of preparing for earthquakes. |
| C．The significance of developing the AI prediction. |
| D．The limitation of AI algorithms in earthquake prediction. |
| A．Conducting tests in different locations. |
| B．Applying the AI approach to other fields. |
| C．Building more earthquake stations in Texas. |
| D．Enlarging the database to train the calculation accuracy. |
| A．Stable but outdated. | B．Effective but costly. |
| C．Potential and economical. | D．Pioneering and promising. |
10 . Art is a global language. Music is an international language. Love is a worldwide language. Now, it’s the turn of sand to be mentioned in such terms. Sand artist Kseniya Simonova mixes art, music and love to create her own medium which can be understood and appreciated by everyone.
Simonova fell in love with sand art “absolutely accidentally”. Her husband, a theatre director, advised her to give it a try. Over time, she has unstoppably taken the web by storm. “I never thought it would turn out to be what it is now,” says Simonova.
In Follow your Dreams, Simonova told a heartfelt story honoring the love between a mother and her son — using only the sand in her hands. In only a couple of minutes, a phone turns into a house, then into two faces, then into a boy looking out of the window. . .
The art Simonova creates is magical; however, the medium she uses is quite common. “It is ordinary river sand. There was a time when I did use the volcanic one, but actually it makes no difference. What truly matters in a performance is the storyline that is effectively communicated in the theatre through the medium of sand,” explains Simonova.
The images created by the artist live only for a few seconds. However, Simonova is not in any way alarmed by the momentary character of sand art. “I know that my creations exist only for a while, but I believe that to be absolutely normal because art mirrors life. We live every moment of our life, but it’s not possible to repeat those. The same is the case with what I do,” Simonova adds.
Sand art helps the artist to see the world in a new way, painting ever-changing life in every grain of sand.
1. How does Simonova feel about her success in sand art?| A．Confident. | B．Stressed. | C．Confused. | D．Surprised. |
| A．The medium. | B．The type of sand. |
| C．The theatre. | D．The content of the story. |
| A．It is a kind of regret. | B．It encourages repetition. |
| C．It reflects our life. | D．It alarms many sand artists. |
| A．Sand Artists: Offering a Whole New World |
| B．Simonova: Painting the World with Sand |
| C．Sand Art: a New Form of Performance |
| D．Sand: the Most Powerful Tool |
