1 . “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 |
2 . 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. |
3 . Philosophers have a bad reputation for expressing themselves in a dry and boring way. The ideals for most philosophical writing are precision, clarity, and the sort of conceptual analysis that leaves no hair un-split.
There is nothing wrong with clarity, precision, and the like — but this isn’t the only way to do philosophy. Outside academic journals, abstract philosophical ideas are often expressed through literature, cinema, and song. There’s nothing that grabs attention like a good story, and there are some great philosophical stories that delight and engage, rather than putting the reader to sleep.
One of the great things about this is that, unlike formal philosophy, which tries to be very clear, stories don’t wear their meanings on their sleeve — they require interpretation, and often express conflicting ideas for the reader to wrestle with.
Consider what philosophers call the metaphysics (形而上学) of race — an area of philosophy that explorers the question of whether or not race is real. There are three main positions that you can take on these questions. You might think that a person’s race is written in their genes (a position known as “biological realism”). Or you might think of race as socially real, like days of the week or currencies (“social constructionism”). Finally, you might think that races are unreal — that they’re more like leprechauns (一种魔法精灵) than they are like Thursdays or dollars (“anti-realism”).
A great example of a story with social constructionist taking on race is George Schuyler’s novel Black No More. In the book, a Black scientist named Crookman invents a procedure that makes Black people visually indistinguishable from Whites. Thousands of African Americans flock to Crookman’s Black No More clinics and pay him their hard-earned cash to undergo the procedure. White racists can no longer distinguish those people who are “really” White from those who merely appear to be White. In a final episode, Crookman discovers that new Whites are actually a whiter shade of pale than those who were born that way, which kicks off a trend of sunbathing to darken one’s skin-darkening it so as to look more While.
Philosophically rich stories like this bring more technical works to life. They are stories to think with.
1. What does the author think of philosophical stories?| A．The meaning behind is very obvious. |
| B．They am extremely precise and formal. |
| C．They often cause conflicts among readers. |
| D．They are engaging and inspire critical thinking. |
| A．Social constructionism. | B．Anti-realism. |
| C．Biological realism. | D．Literary realism. |
| A．Racial issues caused by skin colors. |
| B．A society view on race and self-image. |
| C．Black people accepted by the white society. |
| D．The origin of sun bathing among white people. |
| A．Stories Made Easy | B．Stories to Think with |
| C．Positions in Philosophy | D．Nature of Philosophical Writing |
4 . In the late 1970s, archaeologists (考古学家) uncovered the remains of a woman and a young dog, her hand resting on the puppy’s chest in a 12,000-year-old village.
The find is some of the earliest evidence of the bond between humans and dogs. But even after years of study researchers are divided on how this bond began. Did it arise over thousands of years, as early dogs became tamer (驯服的) and more accustomed to human behaviors? Or was this fire already burning in the ancestors of dogs: the gray wolf?
Christina Hansen Wheat, a behavioral ecologist at Stockholm University, and workmates hand-raised 10 gray wolves from the time they were 10 days old. When the animals were 23 weeks old, a caregiver led them one at a time into a mostly empty room. Over the course of several minutes, the caregiver exited and entered the room, sometimes leaving the wolf alone, sometimes leaving it with a complete stranger. The team repeated the experiment with 12 23-week-old Alaskan huskies (哈士奇), which they’d raised similarly since puppyhood.
For the most part, the scientists saw few differences between the wolves and the dogs. When their caregiver entered the room, both species scored 4.6 on a five-point scale of “greeting behavior”—a desire to be around the human. When the stranger entered, dog greeting behavior dropped to 4.2 and wolf to 3.5, on average, suggesting both animals made a distinction between the person they knew and the one they didn’t. It’s this distinction that the team counts as a sign of attachment.
In addition, dogs barely paced—a sign of stress—during the test, while wolves paced at least part of the time. However, the wolves stopped pacing almost entirely when a stranger left the room and their caretaker returned. Hansen Wheat says that’s never been seen before in wolves. It could be a sign, she says, that the animals view the humans who raised them as a “social buffer”.
For her, that’s the most interesting part of the study. “If this is true, this sort of attachment is not what separates dogs from wolves,” she says. In other words, it didn’t have to be bred into them by humans, but could have been the seed we selected for, and then strengthened over thousands of years.
1. What’s the purpose of Hansen Wheat’s experiment?| A．To find out what makes gray wolves and dogs different. |
| B．To explain the reasons why humans raised dogs from ancient times. |
| C．To argue gray wolves after being tamed are easier to keep than dogs. |
| D．To prove whether gray wolves can make doglike attachment to people. |
| A．Researchers began to raise gray wolves from their birth. |
| B．Researchers used equal numbers of gray wolves and dogs. |
| C．Gray wolves felt more stressful than dogs when a stranger came. |
| D．“Greeting behavior” of the two animals was significantly different. |
| A．A reminder of feeding. | B．A sign of social attachment. |
| C．A source of comfort and support. | D．A warning of stopping pace. |
| A．Dogs are more attached to humans than gray wolves. |
| B．It is the attachment to humans that sets gray wolves apart from dogs. |
| C．The attachment between dogs and humans is the result of being tamed. |
| D．The attachment to humans plays a role in the choice of dogs or gray wolves. |
5 . For decades, India’s time zone has been a hotly debated issue. Back in 1884 when time zones were officially established, two time zones were used — Bombay Time and Calcutta Time. Indian Standard Time (IST) was introduced in 1906, but Calcutta Time and Bombay Time continued to be maintained after
India’s independence in 1947, until 1948 and 1955 respectively. The current single time zone, though a legacy of British rule, is often viewed as a symbol of unity. Yet, not everyone thinks it is a good idea. India stretches 3,000 km from east to west, spanning roughly 30 degrees longitude. This corresponds to a two-hour difference in mean solar time, based on the position of the sun in the sky. Thus, the sun rises nearly two hours earlier in the east than in India’s far west. In Northeastern states, sunrise can be as early as 4 a.m. in summer and sunset by 4 p.m. in winter, much earlier than the official working hours. This results in great loss of daylight hours and more consumption of electricity, and often reduced productivity.
Meanwhile, recent studies point out that the current system leads to a serious problem in education for some students. Nationwide, the school day starts at roughly the same time; thus, children go to bed later and have reduced sleep in west India, where the sun sets later. Such sunset-induced sleep deprivation is more pronounced among the poor, mostly due to their noisy environment and lack of sleep-inducing facilities like window shades or indoor beds. On average, an hour’s delay in sunset time reduces children’s sleep by 30 minutes, and an hour’s delay in annual average sunset time reduces education by about 0.8 years. As a result, children living in locations with later sunsets are less likely to complete primary and middle school education.
Despite various requests and proposals for multiple time zones, the government is keen to retain the current system. Reasons provided include prevention of confusion and safety issues regarding railway and flight operations.
1. Which of the following illustrates the Indian time zone system since 1955?A． | B． |
C． | D． |
| A．Noisy. | B．Distant. | C．Flexible. | D．Outstanding. |
| A．The number of traffic accidents can be reduced. |
| B．Children may have better-quality sleep and education. |
| C．India may have more energy resources to generate electricity. |
| D．The country may rid itself of the impact of British colonization. |
| A．7 p.m. | B．6 p.m. | C．5 p.m. | D．4 p.m. |
6 . Beating Burnout and Compassion Fatigue in the New Year
This year has continued to bring many of us closer to the pain, suffering and exhaustion of those experiencing burnout and compassion fatigue (疲倦). There is no doubt that 2021 has been filled with additional challenges.
The data is clearly showing that our workforce shares feelings of burnout. A recent Gallup report indicated that 67% of us feel burned out either some or most of the time. At an organizational level, Hogan reports that burned out employees are 18% less productive and 2.6 times more likely to be actively seeking a different job.
Fatigue and burnout arise not when we fail to get sufficient rest but when we fail to appreciate the moments of purpose and joy in our lives.
There are a few myths around burnout and compassion fatigue:
Myth 1: Burnout is an individual's problem.
Many people believe that burnout is about an individual who needs to “figure it out”.
Myth 2:
Surprisingly, the individuals most likely to experience burnout are committed employees and leaders who love their job and are highly engaged. These top performers are the people you are most likely to lose.
Myth 3: People who experience burnout are just less resilient.
Research shows a correlation between higher levels of resilience (复原力) and lower levels of burnout.
If 2021 has taught us anything, it is that we cannot separate burnout from our emotions, whether they may be fear, anger, shame or guilt.
| A．While fatigue is more sudden and results from carrying the pain and suffering of others, what we experience is similar. |
| B．Burnout results from lack of responsibility. |
| C．Burnout hurts individuals' enthusiasm and passion. |
| D．At this point, burnout and compassion fatigue has expanded into many aspects of our lives. |
| E．But burnout occurs at different levels and is the result from challenges to individuals, teams and organizations. |
| F．At one point, people believed resilience was established by “sucking it up”, or “just staying positive”. |
| G．And the path forward requires us to deepen the relationship with feelings of joy, passion, pride and fulfillment. |
7 . LONDON- Britain prepares for a vote Thursday that will decide whether it leaves the European Union. The debate has centered on immigration and economic security. Both sides have lowered the tone of their arguments after a three-day suspension(暂停) of campaigning that followed the murder of an anti-Brexit lawmaker, an incident that polls(民意调查) suggest has shocked many previously undecided voters who now say they will vote to remain.
These are uncertain times in a nation whose economy is the second largest in the European Union. The risks are huge. There are warnings that leaving the 28-member group may cause the British pound to lose 15 percent of its value and bring the resignation(辞职) of David Cameron, the country's prime minister; his stay or not depends on whether Britain listens to him and votes to remain.
For months, the Leave campaign has been hitting the streets. Its arguments are based largely on immigration, and the belief that Britain has handed control of its borders(边界) to a European super state: "The U.K. has lost control over migration. We have to accept anyone into this country if they have an EU passport, no matter if they have a criminal record or not. We are not allowed to say 'no' to people and that is damaging for the security of the U.K., but it is also putting pressure on jobs and opportunities for young people," said Tom Harwood, a Brexit campaigner.
The murder of Jo Cox, an anti-Brexit, pro-immigrant lawmaker by a far right extremist(极端分子) with a history of mental problems had a serious effect on both campaigns, and on voters.
Polls since the June 16th murder showed the Leave camp losing ground, but with both sides still very close on a referendum(全民投票) that many believe could change the course of European history.
1. What does the underlined word " Brexit" in paragraph 3 mean?| A．Break the law of the European Union. |
| B．Break away from the European Union. |
| C．Build the exit to the European Union. |
| D．Ban the immigration into Britain. |
| A．The immigration has caused great concern in Britain. |
| B．Brexit will be good for British economy. |
| C．Both camps have been campaigning and debating on the streets for months. |
| D．The murder of Jo Cox made many voters determined to vote for the exit. |
| A．Britain will leave the European Union after the vote. |
| B．Anyone with a passport can choose to stay and work in Britain. |
| C．Whether Cameron will resign depends on the result of the referendum. |
| D．Jo Cox was murdered by a Brexit campaigner in June 16m. |
| A．Positive | B．Negative | C．Indifferent(漠不关心的) | D．Concerned. |
8 . Babies made from three people approved in UK
Babies made from two women and one man have been approved by the UK’s fertility regulator. The historic and controversial move is to prevent children from being born with deadly genetic diseases.
Doctors in Newcastle — who developed the advanced form of In Vitro Fertilization or IVF (人工授精) — are expected to be the first to offer the procedure and have already appealed for donor eggs. The first such child could be born, at the earliest, by the end of 2017.
Some families have lost multiple children to incurable mitochondrial (线粒体的) diseases, which can leave people with insufficient energy to keep their heart beating.
The diseases are passed down from only the mother, so a technique using a donor egg as well as the mother’s egg and father’s sperm has been developed.
The resulting child has a tiny amount of their DNA from the donor, but the procedure is legal and reviews say it is ethical (伦理的) and scientifically ready.
“It is a decision of historic importance,” said Sally Cheshire, chairwoman of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA). “I’m sure patients will be really pleased by what we’ve decided today.”
But some scientists have questioned the ethics of the technique, saying it could open the door to genetically-modified(转基因) ‘designer’ babies.
The HFEA must approve every clinic and every patient before the procedure can take place. Three-person babies have been allowed only in cases where the risk of a child developing mitochondrial disease is very high.
Prof Mary Herbert, from the Newcastle Fertility Centre, said, “It is enormously pleasing that our many years of research in this area can finally be applied to help families affected by these devastating diseases”.
“Now that we are moving forward towards clinical treatments, we will also need donors to donate eggs for use in treatment to prevent affected women transmitting disease to their children.”
Prof Sir Doug Turnbull, the director of the Welcome Centre for Mitochondrial Research at Newcastle University, said, “We are delighted by today’s decision. We will also provide long-term follow up of any children born.”
NHS England has agreed to fund the treatment costs of the first trial of three-person IVF for those women who meet the HFEA criteria, as long as they agree to long-term follow up of their children after they are born.
1. Why is it historically important to approve babies made from three people?| A．It helps couples who lose the ability to give birth to a baby. |
| B．It marks a foundation stone to change babies’ appearances before birth. |
| C．It stops deadly genetic diseases passing down to newly-born babies. |
| D．It turns out to be an advanced form of In Vitro Fertilization. |
| A．They pass down on to babies from their parents. |
| B．They prevent people’s heart from functioning normally. |
| C．Some children infected can be cured with proper treatment. |
| D．Babies can be infected with them through a donor’s egg. |
| A．Only when the baby to be born needs it to survive. |
| B．Only when the patient gets financially prepared. |
| C．Only when the clinic gets scientifically ready. |
| D．Only when the technique is ethnically accepted. |
| A．Supportive | B．Indifferent | C．Worried | D．Objective |
9 . Can We Stop Food Longing Through Imaginary Eating?
Are you fighting an urge to reach for chocolate? Then, let it melt in your mind, not in your mouth. According to the recent research, imagining eating a specific food reduces your interest in that food, so you eat less of it.
This reaction to repeated exposure to food—being less interested in something because you’ve experienced it too much—is called habituation.
The research is the first to show that habituation can occur through the power of the mind. “If you just think about the food itself—how it tastes and smells—that will increase your appetite,” said Carey Morewedge, a well-known psychologist. “It might be better to force yourself to repeatedly think about chewing and swallowing the food in order to reduce your longing.
Morewedge conducted an interesting experiment. 51 subjects were divided into three groups. One group was asked to imagine putting 30 coins into a laundry machine and then eating three chocolates.
| A．What’s more, this only works with the specific food you’ve imagined. |
| B．People were advised to try different methods to perform the experiment. |
| C．For example, a tenth bite is desired less than the first bite, according to the study. |
| D．All of them then ate freely from bowls containing the same amount of chocolate each. |
| E．It meant those who repeatedly imagined eating would concern about some specific food. |
| F．This requires the same motor skills as eating small chocolates from a packet, the study says. |
| G．This study is part of the research looking into what makes us eat more than we actually need. |
10 . On the day the tornado hit, there was no indication severe weather was on its way—the sky was blue and the sun had been out. The first warning my husband, Jimmy and I got came around 9 p.m., from some scrolling text on the TV Jimmy was watching.
No sooner had we found coverage of the tornado than it was on top of us. I didn’t know how or if we would make it down the steps. It felt as if there were no floor underneath me as the wind lifted me off my feet. I gripped the banister(楼梯扶手) and tried to move forward, but this intense pressure held me in place. In those seconds of practical stillness, I could hear everything around me rattling.
We got close to the staircase landing only to hear the loud ripping（撕裂） sound of our garage door coming off. The back wall of the house followed suit and tore off into the darkness outside.
By the time I reached the closet, the tornado had been over us for about a minute. Jimmy pushed me down to the closet floor, but he couldn’t get inside himself because of the wind. I held Jimmy’s arm tightly as the tornado sucked the door open—we never did get it fully shut—and tried to bring Jimmy with it. My knees and head were full of glass, but in that moment, I felt no pain. If I had let go, Jimmy would have flown right out the back of the house and into the bay.
“Hold on! Hold on!” he yelled. But there was nothing in this closet to hold on to. All of a sudden, Jimmy lifted off his feet like people in tornadoes do in the movies. I thought he was gone. And then everything stopped. He landed on his feet. In those first quiet moments, I couldn’t believe it was over. Jimmy said he’d go outside to check. “No,” I said. “Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me.”
1. What does the underlined word coverage mean?| A．damage | B．reports |
| C．arrival | D．delay |
| A．Because she was too eager to help her husband to feel it. |
| B．Because she was frozen in amazement. |
| C．Because she was held entirely by the power of tornado. |
| D．Because she was frightened by the damage caused by the disaster. |
| A．scared, surprised but calm | B．surprised, terrified but determined |
| C．astonished, confused and moved | D．amazed, determined and grateful |
