Human memory is notoriously (众所周知地) unreliable. Even people with the sharpest facial recognition skills can only remember so much.

It’s tough to quantify how good a person is     1     remembering. No one really knows how many different faces someone can recall, for example, but various estimates tend to hover in the thousands – based on the number of acquaintances a person     2     have.

Machines aren’t limited this way. Give the right computer a massive database of faces, and it can process what it sees – then recognize a face it     3     (tell) to find – with remarkable speed and precision. This skill is     4     supports the enormous promise of facial-recognition software in the 21^st century. It is also what makes contemporary surveillance (监控) systems so scary.

The thing is, machines still have limitations when it comes to facial recognition. And scientists are only just beginning to understand what those constraints are.     5     (figure) out how computers are struggling, researchers at the University of Washington created a massive database of faces – they call it MegaFace – and     6     (test) a variety of facial-recognition algorithms(算法) as they scales up in complexity. The idea was to test the machines on a database that included up to 1 million different images of nearly 7,000 different people – and not just a large database     7     (feature) a relatively small number of different faces, more consistent with what’s been used in other research.

As the databases grew, machine accuracy dipped across the board. Algorithms     8     were right 95% of the time when they were dealing with a 13,000-image database, for example, were accurate about 70% of the time when     9     (face) with 1 million images. That’s still pretty good, says one of the researchers, Ira Kemelmacher-Shlizerman. “Much better than we expected,” she said,

Machines also had difficulty adjusting for people who look a lot alike –either doppelgangers (长相极相似的人), whom the machine would have trouble       10     (identify) as two separate people, or the same person who appeared in different photos at different ages or in different lighting, whom the machine would incorrectly view as separate people.

The fairest woman in the world was Helen.     1     was the fame of her beauty that there was not a single young prince in all of Greece that didn’t wish to marry her. When her suitors assembled in her home to make a formal proposal for her hand there were so many from such powerful families that her reputed father King Tyndareus, was afraid to select one from amongst them, fearing that the others would unite against him. He therefore demanded first a solemn path from all     2     they would stand up for the cause of Helen’s husband, whoever he might be, if any wrong was done to him through his marriage. Then Tyndareus chose Menelaus, the brother of Agamemnon, and made him King of Sparta as well.

So matters stood when Paris gave the golden apple to Aphrodite. The Goddess of Love and Beauty knew very well where the most beautiful woman on earth was     3     (find). She led the young shepherd straight to Sparta, where Menelaus and Helen received him graciously as their guest. The ties between guest and host were strong. But Paris broke that sacred bond. Menelaus, trusting completely to it, left Paris in his home and went off to Crete.

Menelaus returned to find Helen gone, and he called upon all of Greece to help recover her. The chieftains responded     4     they were obliged to do. They eagerly arrived for the great expedition,    5     (cross) the sea and lay mighty Troy in ashes. Two of the first rank, however, were missing: Odysseus. King of the Island of Ithaca, and Achilles, the son of Peleus and the sea nymph Thetis. Odysseus, who was one of     6     (shrewd) men in Greece, did not want to leave his house and family to embark on a romantic adventure overseas for the sake of a faithless woman. He pretended, therefore, that he had gone mad, and when a messenger from the Greek

Army had arrived, the King was plowing a field and sowing it with salt     7     seed. But the messenger seized Odysseus’ little son and put him directly in the way of the plow. Instantly the father turned the plow aside, thus     8     (prove) that he had all his wits about him. However reluctant, he had to join the Army.

Achilles was kept back by his mother. She sent him to the court of Lycomedes and made him wear women’s clothing, hiding him among the maidens. Odysseus was dispatched by the chieftains to bring him out. Disguised as a peddler he went to the court     9     Achilles was said to be, with gay ornaments in his pack such as women love, and also some fine weapons. While the girls flocked around the trinkets, Achilles fingered each of the swords and daggers. Odysseus knew him then, and he had no trouble at all in making him disregard what his mother had said and     10     (go) to the Greek camp with him.

So the great fleet made ready.

Lost at sea

Two men from the Solomon Islands have been rescued after spending 29 days lost at sea.

The men     1     (travel) to another island when heavy rain and wind took them out to sea. The two men survived on oranges they had packed, coconuts they found in the sea and by gathering rainwater.

“I look forward to going back home     2     I guess it was a nice break from everything,” one of the men, Livae Nanjikana, told The Guardian.

Nanjikana and Junior Qoloni took off from Mono Island on Sept. 3 in a motorboat to travel 200 km to Noro on New Georgia Island. However, soon after they set out, their boat was hit by heavy winds and rain, which made unclear the coastline they were following     3     a guide. 

“When the bad weather came, it was bad, but it was     4     (bad) and became scary when the GPS died,” he said. “We couldn’t see where we were going and so we just decided to stop the engine and wait,     5     (save) fuel.”

When the rain had finally passed, Nanjikana and Qoloni had already drifted far out to sea. They spent the next 29 days     6     (live) off of limited supplies and by gathering rainwater with     7     they could make use of to keep themselves alive.

A fisherman found and rescued the two men on Oct. 2 off the coast of New Britain, Papua New Guinea, about 400 km from     8     they had started.

Nanjikana and Qoloni     9     (bring) to a local health clinic for treatment and are staying temporarily with a local man, Joe Kolealo, until they     10     return home.

Billionaires Race to Space

In late July 2021, Jeff Bezos achieved an out-of-this-world ambition. The billionaire founder of Amazon     1     (fly) to the edge of space—62 miles (100 kilometers) above Earth’s surface—on a rocket designed by his company Blue Origin.

“Best day ever,” Bezos said over the radio to mission control after landing safely back on Earth,     2    others weren’t so impressed. They called the mission an enormous waste of money. Bezos, they argued,     3    be spending his billions to improve things on Earth.

Bezos wasn’t the first billionaire to set his sights on space. Nor was he the first     4     (criticize) about wasting enormous personal wealth. A week     5    the Amazon founder made history, business owner Richard Branson did, too. Branson became the first person to fly to space on a rocket he helped fund,     6     (develop) by his company Virgin Galactic.

Critics say that the money     7     (go) toward commercial space travel would be better spent on     8    they see as more important pursuits. These include working to cure diseases, reducing poverty, and helping to solve the climate crisis. Besides, launching spacecrafts is harmful to the planet, critics declare.     9    naturalist Holly Haworth pointed out in Sierra magazine, “traveling in rockets is arguably the most carbon-emitting thing an individual can do.”

But supporters of commercial space travel argue that it does benefit humanity. Personal funds     10     (put) toward high-paying jobs and a new industry. That’s money they could have spent on new limousines or villas for themselves, supporters say. Plus, their companies are investing in new technologies that increase access to space and drive innovation in other areas as well.

Charles Dickens

It has been 150 years since Charles Dickens died, 184 years since his first work was released to the public and 156 years since his last completed book came out. In all of this time, these novels have never been out of print. Dickens may have left us, but his work remains timeless,     1     (fascinate) the majority of those who open their pages.

Most people have read, watched or at least heard of Dickens’ stories, but what makes him and his work so popular? Since he began novel writing in his 20s, Dickens constantly produced quality classics. Year after year his awaiting fans were not left     2     (disappoint) as their minds were fed with complex tales of romance, crime, hope and despair.

In the Victorian era he lived in, much of the work Dickens produced     3     (model) on the literature before him. He was one of the first writers of the time     4     (portray) honest examples of working-class people, giving many something to relate to. He focused on unfolding the good and bad qualities of characters which allowed his readers to follow their journeys and understand     5     they may have acted in the unusual or shocking ways that they did.

Any Dickens fans will know the diverse and outrageous (耸人听闻的) characters coming to life between the pages.     6     was special about this novelist’s ability in imagining these characters’ stories is that it comes from his own life’s path.     7     a young boy left to take care of himself in a workhouse to the wealthy figure he became through his writing successes, he knew what it was like to see in different lights. This deep understanding of his characters gave his fictional stories the strong element of believability     8     is needed in a good novel.

Over a century and a half later, Dickens’ themes can be relevant to today’s world problems. His words and imagery have been transformed further into the media of modern film, television and even musical adaptations.     9     set in a time unfamiliar to readers today, his work still enables everyone to relate to the love, hardship and sense of family that pours from the narratives. It is this aspect     10     has carried Charles Dickens into the 21st century.

Natural early risers are less likely to develop mental health problems than night owls, according to scientists.

    1     (program) biologically to wake up early is linked to greater happiness and a lower risk of schizophrenia (精神分裂症) and depression. Evening types may be at greater risk     2     mainly early start times at work.

Prof Mike Weedon, of the University of Exeter, said, “    3     large number of people in our study means we have provided the strongest evidence to date     4     ‘night owls’ are at higher risk of mental health problems, such as schizophrenia and lower mental well-being,     5     farther studies are needed to understand this link.”

The study     6     (use) genetic data from 250^000 participants signing up to help the research and 450,000 people in the UK Biobank study Participants were asked whether they were “a morning person” or an “evening person”, and their genomes (基因组) were analysed,       7     (reveal) genes that people shared that appeared to influence sleep patterns.

The number of areas of the genome known to influence     8     someone is a riser has grown from 24 to 351. “This study highlights a large number of genes which can be studied in more detail to work out how different people can have different body clocks,” said Weedon.

The evidence suggested evening types were roughly 10% more likely to develop schizophrenia while morning people were also at lower risk of depression and reported     9     (be) happier in well-being questionnaires.

Samuel Jones, the paper’s lead author, said that the current hypothesis is that evening types have to work     10     their natural body clock in the world of work, which may have negative consequences. Another possibility is that the body-clock genes have a more direct influence on vulnerability to certain conditions.