1 . Humans have long tried to conquer water. We’ve straightened once-winding rivers for shipping purposes. We’ve constructed levees (防洪堤) along rivers and lakes to protect people from flooding—We’ve erected entire cities on drained and filled-in wetlands. We’ve built dams on rivers to store water for later use.
Levees, which narrow channels causing water to flow higher and faster, nearly always break. Cities on former wetlands flood regularly—often disastrously. Dams starve downstream areas of sediment (沉积物) needed to protect coasts against rising seas. Straightened streams move faster than winding ones, giving water less time to flow downward. And they wash away riverbed ecosystems.
In addition to laying out this damage done by supposed water control, Gies takes readers on a hopeful global tour of solutions to these problems. Along the way, she introduces “water detectives” —scientists,engineers,urban planners, and many others.
These water detectives have found ways to give the slippery substance the time and space it needs to flow slowly underground. Around Seattle’s Thornton Creek, for instance, reclaimed land now allows for regular flooding, which has renewed riverbed habitat and created an urban oasis. In California’s Central Valley, scientists want to find ways to move unpolluted storm water into subsurface valleys that make ideal aquifers (含水层).
While some people are exploring new ways to manage water, others are leaning on ancient knowledge. Researchers in Peru are now studying old-style methods of water storage, which don’t require dams, in hopes of ensuring a steady flow of water to Lima—Peru’s populous capital that’s periodically affected by water shortage.
Understanding how to work with, not against, water will help humankind weather this age of drought and flood that’s being worsened by climate change.
| A．Controlling water, Gies convincingly argues, is a false belief. |
| B．Instead of trying to control water, they ask: What does water want? |
| C．It seems that water is cooperative and willing to flow where we direct it. |
| D．These old-style underwater concrete techniques pave the way for the construction of dams. |
| E．To further understand the whole ecosystem, they believe effective water control requires effort. |
| F．The study may help convince those who favor concrete-centric solutions to try something new. |
| G．Feeding groundwater supplies will in turn sustain rivers from below, which helps to maintain water levels and ecosystems. |
2 . Debate about artificial intelligence (AI) tends to focus on its potential dangers: algorithmic bias (算法偏见) and discrimination, the mass destruction of jobs and even, some say, the extinction of humanity. However, others are focusing on the potential rewards. Luminaries in the field such as Demis Hassabis and Yann LeCun believe that AI can turbocharge scientific progress and lead to a golden age of discovery. Could they be right?
Such claims are worth examining, and may provide a useful counterbalance to fears about large-scale unemployment and killer robots. Many previous technologies have, of course, been falsely hailed as panaceas (万灵药). But the mechanism by which AI will supposedly solve the world’s problems has a stronger historical basis.
In the 17th century microscopes and telescopes opened up new vistas of discovery and encouraged researchers to favor their own observations over the received wisdom of antiquity (古代), while the introduction of scientific journals gave them new ways to share and publicize their findings. Then, starting in the late 19th century, the establishment of research laboratories, which brought together ideas, people and materials on an industrial scale, gave rise to further innovations. From the mid-20th century, computers in turn enabled new forms of science based on simulation and modelling.
All this is to be welcomed. But the journal and the laboratory went further still: they altered scientific practice itself and unlocked more powerful means of making discoveries, by allowing people and ideas to mingle in new ways and on a larger scale. AI, too, has the potential to set off such a transformation.
Two areas in particular look promising. The first is “literature-based discovery” (LBD), which involves analyzing existing scientific literature, using ChatGPT-style language analysis, to look for new hypotheses, connections or ideas that humans may have missed. The second area is “robot scientists”. These are robotic systems that use AI to form new hypotheses, based on analysis of existing data and literature, and then test those hypotheses by performing hundreds or thousands of experiments, in fields including systems biology and materials science. Unlike human scientists, robots are less attached to previous results, less driven by bias—and, crucially, easy to replicate. They could scale up experimental research, develop unexpected theories and explore avenues that human investigators might not have considered.
The idea is therefore feasible. But the main barrier is sociological: it can happen only if human scientists are willing and able to use such tools. Governments could help by pressing for greater use of common standards to allow AI systems to exchange and interpret laboratory results and other data. They could also fun d more research into the integration of AI smarts with laboratory robotics, and into forms of AI beyond those being pursued in the private sector. Less fashionable forms of AI, such as model-based machine learning, may be better suited to scientific tasks such as forming hypotheses.
1. Regarding Demis and Yann’s viewpoint, the author is likely to be ______.| A．supportive | B．puzzled | C．unconcerned | D．doubtful |
| A．LBD focuses on testing the reliability of ever-made hypotheses. |
| B．Resistance to AI prevents the transformation of scientific practice. |
| C．Robot scientists form hypotheses without considering previous studies. |
| D．Both journals and labs need adjustments in promoting scientific findings. |
| A．Official standards have facilitated the exchange of data. |
| B．Performing scientific tasks relies on government funding. |
| C．Less popular AI forms might be worth paying attention to. |
| D．The application of AI in public sector hasn’t been launched. |
| A．Transforming Science. How Can AI Help? |
| B．Making Breakthroughs. What Is AI’s Strength? |
| C．Reshaping History. How May AI Develop Further? |
| D．Redefining Discovery. How Can AI Overcome Its Weakness? |
3 . When a chunk of ice fell from a collapsing glacier(冰川)on the Swiss Alps’ Mount Eiger in 2017, part of the long deep sound it produced was too low for human ears to detect. But these vibrations held a key to calculating the ice avalanche’s(崩塌)critical characteristics.
Low-frequency sound waves called infrasound that travel great distances through the atmosphere are already used to monitor active volcanoes from afar. Now some researchers in this field have switched focus from fire to ice: dangerous blocks snapping off glaciers. Previous work has analyzed infrasound from snow avalanches but never ice, says Boise State University geophysicist Jeffrey Johnson. “This was different,” Johnson says. “A signature of a new material has been detected with infrasound.”
Usually glaciers move far too slowly to generate an infrasound signal, which researchers pick up using detectors that track slight changes in air pressure. But a collapse—a sudden, rapid breaking of ice from the glacier’s main body—is a prolific infrasound producer. Glacial collapses drive ice avalanches, which pose an increasing threat to people in mountainous regions as rising temperatures weaken large fields of ice. A glacier “can become detached from the ground due to melting, causing bigger break— offs,” says University of Florence geologist Emanuele Marchetti, lead author of the new study. As the threat grows, scientists seek new ways to monitor and detect such collapses.
Researchers often use radar to track ice avalanches, which is precise but expensive and can monitor only one specific location and neighboring avalanche paths. Infrasound, Marchetti says, is cheaper and can detect break—off events around a much broader area as well as multiple avalanches across a mountain. It is challenging, however, to separate a signal into its components (such as traffic noises, individual avalanches and nearby earthquakes) without additional measurements, says ETH Zurich glaciologist Malgorzata Chmiel. “The model used by Marchetti is a first approximation for this,” she says. Isolating the relevant signal helps the researchers monitor an ice avalanche’s speed, path and volume from afar using infrasound.
Marchetti and his colleagues are now working to improve their detectors to pick up more signals across at-risk regions in Europe, and they have set up collaborations around the continent to better understand signals that collapsing glaciers produce. They are also refining their mathematical analysis to figure out each ice cascade’s physical details.
1. What can we learn from Paragraph 2 and Paragraph 3?| A．Infrasound has a major role to play in discovering new materials. |
| B．Ice avalanches are a bigger threat to people than volcanic eruptions. |
| C．Researchers are trying to use infrasound in detecting ice avalanches. |
| D．Scientists employ infrasound more in mountain areas than in other places. |
| A．The combination with other relevant signals. |
| B．The accuracy in locating a certain avalanche. |
| C．The ability in picking up signals in wider areas. |
| D．The sensitivity in tracking air pressure changes. |
| A．distinguishing different components of a signal |
| B．detecting multiple avalanches at the same time |
| C．calculating the speed and path of ice avalanches |
| D．monitoring the specific location of ice break—offs |
| A．From Fire to Ice | B．Glacier Whispers |
| C．Nature is Warning | D．Secret of Ice Avalanches |
4 . A few years ago, the City Council of Monza, Italy, barred pet owners from keeping goldfish in curved fishbowls. The sponsors of the measure explained that it is cruel to keep a fish in such a bowl because the curved sides give the fish a distorted view of reality. Aside from the measure’s significance to the poor goldfish, the story raises an interesting philosophical question: How do we know that the reality we perceive is true?
Physicists are finding themselves in a similar trouble to the goldfish’s. For decades they have been pursuing an ultimate theory of everything—one complete and consistent set of fundamental laws of nature that explain every aspect of reality. It now appears that this pursuit may generate not a single theory but a family of interconnected theories, each describing its own version of reality, as if it viewed the universe through its own fishbowl. This concept may be difficult for many people to accept. Most people believe that there is an objective reality out there and that our senses and our science directly convey (传达) information about the material world. In philosophy, that belief is called realism.
In physics, realism is becoming difficult to defend. Instead, the idea of alternative realities is a mainstay of today’s popular culture. For example, in the science-fiction film The Matrix the human race is unknowingly living in a simulated (模拟的) virtual reality created by intelligent computers. How do we know we are not just computer-generated characters living in a Matrix-like world? If—like us—the beings in the simulated world could not observe their universe from the outside, they would have no reason to doubt their own pictures of reality.
Similarly, the goldfish’s view is not the same as ours from outside their curved bowl. For instance, because light bends as it travels from air to water, a freely moving object that we would observe to move in a straight line would be observed by the goldfish to move along a curved path. The goldfish could form scientific laws from their frame (框架) of reference that would always hold true and that would enable them to make predictions about the future motion of objects outside the bowl. If the goldfish formed such a theory, we would have to admit the goldfish’s view as a reasonable picture of reality.
The goldfish example shows that the same physical situation can be modeled in different ways, each employing different fundamental elements and concepts. It might be that to describe the universe we have to employ different theories in different situations. It is not the physicist’s traditional expectation for a theory of nature, nor does it correspond to our everyday idea of reality. But it might be the way of the universe.
1. What does the underlined word “distorted” in Paragraph most probably mean?| A．Original. | B．Accurate. | C．Distant. | D．False. |
| A．The need for a complete theory. | B．The lasting conflict in physics. |
| C．The existence of the material world. | D．The conventional insight of reality. |
| A．Nature’s mysteries are best left undiscovered. |
| B．An external world is independent of the observers. |
| C．People’s theories are influenced by their viewpoints. |
| D．It is essential to figure out which picture of reality is better. |
| A．various interpretations of the universe are welcomed |
| B．physicists have a favorite candidate for the final theory |
| C．multiple realities can be pieced together to show the real world |
| D．there is still possibility to unify different theories into a single one |
The world will observe International Museum Dayon May 18th. Since 1977, this day
I am a 22-year-old artist. My journey through art led me to being an environmentalist.
Reading is a unique human experience. Just by skimming our eyes over some words, we can
But reading can also be hard, especially when we’re faced with a difficult text.
8 . The Positive Effects of a Positive Affect
Parents often have high hopes for how their children will turn out in adulthood, such as wanting them to be healthy, to feel satisfied with their career, and to have strong friendships.
Recent research suggests that a teen’s affect—especially positive affect—is one critical factor. What exactly is affect? Affect is the tendency to express positive or negative emotions, which in turn influences how we experience things and determine whether to judge a given situation as positive or negative.
Affect is typically described in terms of being either positive or negative, and it seems that positive affect, in particular, is related to a number of beneficial outcomes in adulthood.
In support of this crucial role that positive affect has in development, a study by researchers at the University of Virginia followed teenagers and young adults from ages 14 to 25, allowing them to understand the predictive power of positive affect across the critical developmental period from adolescence to young adulthood.
But what about the effects of negative affect? The researchers also examined whether negative affect would predict problems in young adulthood.
| A．Affective responses to events typically happen automatically. |
| B．So how can parents help their children grasp the meaning of positive affect? |
| C．But what factors help produce these outcomes as teens move from adolescence to adulthood? |
| D．Interestingly, the results suggested that positive affect may go beyond helping teens build positive relationships. |
| E．The results uncovered that negative affect might account for many life problems when a teenager became a young adult. |
| F．Unlike positive affect, having greater negative affect did not have any significant associations with any of the later life outcomes. |
| G．This study found that positive affect was strongly predictive of life outcomes in young adulthood, such as developing better friendships. |
9 . Early in my teaching career, I heard countless make-believe stories for unfinished homework. Then I grew less trusting and quitted
One day, Anthony approached me. “Could I talk to you?” he asked
I was about to ask why he didn’t tell me earlier when I suddenly realized why. So I changed the
He nodded hard.
Anthony became the first student in my after-school study session. Several days later, Terrell joined him, followed by Sandy and Randy. Before long, I had a room full of students. Their stories were not amusing, but all very
·The power company
·My dad says schoolwork is just a waste of time.
·We don’t have any paper in the house.
I thus discovered not all kids come from families that are
| A．inventing | B．finding | C．accepting | D．offering |
| A．reputation | B．benefit | C．experience | D．praise |
| A．loudly | B．shyly | C．curiously | D．eagerly |
| A．poor | B．mean | C．lazy | D．weak |
| A．behave | B．concentrate | C．struggle | D．compete |
| A．question | B．tune | C．process | D．thought |
| A．complex | B．moving | C．cool | D．real |
| A．broke down | B．put out | C．cut off | D．shut out |
| A．disciplined | B．peaceful | C．traditional | D．supportive |
| A．works | B．feels | C．understands | D．controls |
Engaging in meaningful conversations with others strengthens social bonds and boosts well—being far more than small talk does. Yet many people fear or even actively avoid intimate (亲密的) conversations, especially with those they don’t know well. Why are we so unwilling to engage in an activity that could benefit us so acutely? According to new research, it may be due to miscalculated expectations, and changing them could foster deeper connections.
In a series of studies published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, participants either engaged in “shallow” conversations (speaking, for example, about their sleep schedule or how often they get haircuts) or “deep” discussions (covering embarrassing moments or what they’re grateful for). Before chatting, they predicted how awkward and uncomfortable the conversation would be, how close they would feel to their conversation partner afterward, and how much they would enjoy the interaction. Participants who consistently overestimated the awkwardness of the conversations also greatly underestimated how much they’d enjoy the more intimate conversations, as well as how close they’d feel to their partner.
The noticeable difference between participants’ expectations and their actual experience seemed rooted in the assumption that conversation partners wouldn’t care about the details of their lives. “We underestimate, essentially, how social others are,” explains study author Nicholas Epley, a psychologist at the University of Chicago.
Such an assumption could be a barrier to forming deeper connections with others, Epley believes. Yet participants appeared able to course-correct. When they were told ahead of time that it’s common to underestimate how much strangers care about each other, they voluntarily steered the talks into deeper directions, potentially reaping the benefits of doing so.
A single reminder likely isn’t enough to permanently change miscalculated assumptions, Epley warns. But making the effort to engage in just a few positive interactions could help someone mentally reset. “After having a meaningful conversation, people usually want to have another one,” he says. “But you can learn only from experiences that you have,” he adds. “If you think it will be unpleasant to talk to someone and therefore never try, you’ll never find out that you were wrong.”
1. Why are people unwilling to get involved in intimate conversations?2. What could stop people forming deeper connections with others?
3. Please decide which part is false in the following statement, then underline it and explain why.
A single reminder can permanently change our assumptions, but we still need to engage in positive interactions to help us mentally reset.
4. Do you prefer to have a “shallow” conversation or a “deep” discussion with strangers? And give your reasons. (In about 40 words)
