1 . Who is a genius? This question has greatly interested humankind for centuries.

Let’s state clearly: Einstein was a genius. His face is almost the international symbol for genius. But we want to go beyond one man and explore the nature of genius itself. Why is it that some people are so much more intelligent or creative than the rest of us? And who are they?

In the sciences and arts, those praised as geniuses were most often white men, of European origin. Perhaps this is not a surprise. It’s said that history is written by the victors, and those victors set the standards for admission to the genius club. When contributions were made by geniuses outside the club—women, or people of a different color or belief—they were unacknowledged and rejected by others.

A study recently published by Science found that as young as age six, girls are less likely than boys to say that members of their gender(性别)are “really, really smart.” Even worse, the study found that girls act on that belief: Around age six they start to avoid activities said to be for children who are “really, really smart.” Can our planet afford to have any great thinkers become discouraged and give up? It doesn’t take a genius to know the answer: absolutely not.

Here’s the good news. In a wired world with constant global communication, we’re all positioned to see flashes of genius wherever they appear. And the more we look, the more we will see that social factors(因素)like gender, race, and class do not determine the appearance of genius. As a writer says, future geniuses come from those with “intelligence, creativity, perseverance(毅力), and simple good fortune, who are able to change the world.”

1. What does the author think of victors’ standards for joining the genius club?

A．They’re unfair.	B．They’re conservative.
C．They’re objective.	D．They’re strict.

2. What can we infer about girls from the study in Science?

A．They think themselves smart.

B．They look up to great thinkers.

C．They see gender differences earlier than boys.

D．They are likely to be influenced by social beliefs

3. Why are more geniuses known to the public?

A．Improved global communication.

B．Less discrimination against women.

C．Acceptance of victors’ concepts.

D．Changes in people’s social positions.

4. What is the best title for the text?

A．Geniuses Think Alike	B．Genius Takes Many Forms
C．Genius and Intelligence	D．Genius and Luck

3 . Artificial intelligence (AI) has amazing potential to change the world, and we’ve only just begun to scratch the surface. As AI matures and people move further away from distinct programming and monitoring of systems, unidentified bias (偏见) might make decisions continue for a long time that cause _______ harm for individuals and society. This bias might _______ input data or even the algorithms (算法) themselves.

All too often, data sets are incomplete and the sample represented in the data set does not _______ the population that the AI model is making predictions about — this is known as coverage bias. Some other types of bias related to input data include sampling bias, where data is not collected randomly from the target group, and participation bias, where users from certain groups _______ surveys at different rates than users from other groups. Still, another more challenging bias to identify is confirmation bias that occurs when a decision maker or analyst has a strong _______ belief or experience that affects their ability to consider alternatives. This could lead one to more strongly _______ data that confirms a preexisting belief.

Bias resulting from AI algorithms themselves, or algorithmic bias, is equally _______. One example of algorithmic bias is implicit bias or unconscious bias, where data scientists _______ make associations or assumptions based on their mental models and memories that affect data modeling decisions. Implicit bias can _______ how data is collected and classified, or how systems are designed and developed. As machines learn, their conclusions and decisions affect people. Ethical (道德的) AI must understand these impacts and create governance and testing methods to ________ mistakes and inaccuracies.

To create ethical AI, companies need to put the ________ of the individual at the center of data innovation. This means thinking about ________ rights as human rights and developing a comprehensive approach to data, including how we use AI.

Having ________ data practices for AI means having good AI governance. This governance not only focuses on data and analytics but also understands the impacts of any given analysis and makes sure it’s ________ and accurate. Good AI governance includes data responsibility as well as a commitment to transparency (透明性).

None of this will be easy, but true innovation never is. By coming together and working on the problem of bias now, before it becomes a(n) ________ force, businesses can help bring out the best AI has to offer the world.

1.

A．theoretical

B．psychological

C．disproportionate

D．unintended

2.

A．arise from

B．contribute to

C．take over

D．make up

3.

A．inspire

B．match

C．protect

D．restrict

4.

A．quit

B．administer

C．compare

D．analyze

5.

A．distinct

B．predictable

C．original

D．widespread

6.

A．restore

B．imply

C．miss

D．favor

7.

A．embarrassing

B．dangerous

C．relevant

D．ridiculous

8.

A．intentionally

B．temporarily

C．automatically

D．appropriately

9.

A．influence

B．help

C．attract

D．predict

10.

A．admit

B．define

C．address

D．publicize

11.

A．belongings

B．expressions

C．characteristics

D．needs

12.

A．civil

B．digital

C．legal

D．natural

13.

A．frequent

B．responsible

C．peculiar

D．graceful

14.

A．fair

B．quick

C．appealing

D．adequate

15.

A．leading

B．innovative

C．cultural

D．destructive

4 . The Great PowerPoint Panic of 2003.

Sixteen minutes before touchdown on the morning of February 1, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia (“哥伦比亚”号航天飞机)______ into the cloudless East Texas sky. All seven astronauts aboard were killed. As the shattered shuttle flew toward Earth in pieces, it looked to its live TV viewers like a swarm of shooting stars.

The immediate ______ of the disaster, a report from a NASA Accident Investigation Board determined that August, was a piece of insulating foam (绝缘泡沫胶) that had broken loose and damaged the shuttle’s left wing soon after liftoff. But the report also   ______ out a less direct, more surprising cause. Engineers had known about - and inappropriately______ - the wing damage long before Columbia’s attempted reentry, but the flaws in their analysis were ______ in a series of overstuffed computer-presentation slides that were shown to NASA officials.

By the start of 2003, the phrase “death by PowerPoint” had well and truly entered the ______ vocabulary. Edward Tufte was the first to have taken it literally: That spring, the Yale statistician published a booklet entitled The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint, whose core argument was that the medium of communication influences the substance of communication. While PowerPoint, as a medium, did not ______ create unclear, lazy presentations, it certainly ______ and sometimes even masked them — with potentially deadly consequences. This is exactly what Tufte saw in the Columbia engineers’ slides.

Wired ran an excerpt (节选) from Tufte’s booklet in September 2003 under the headline “PowerPoint Is Evil.” A few months later, The New York Times Magazine included his assessment — summarized as “PowerPoint Makes You Dumb” — in its ______ of the year’s most important ideas. “Perhaps PowerPoint is uniquely suited to our modern age of confusion,” the entry read.

Despite the backlash it inspired in the ______, the presentation giant rolls on. The program has more monthly users than ever before, well into the hundreds of millions. During lockdown, people ______ PowerPoint parties on Zoom. Kids now make PowerPoint presentations for their parents when they want to get a puppy. If PowerPoint is evil, then evil ______ the world.

On its face at least, the idea that PowerPoint makes us stupid looks like a textbook case of misguided technological doomsaying. Today’s concerns about social media somehow resemble the PowerPoint critique. Both boil down to a worry that new media technologies ______ form over substance, that they are designed to hold our attention rather than to convey truth, and that they make us stupid.

______, concerns about new media rarely seem to make a difference. If the innovation did change the way we think, we are measuring its effects with an altered mind. Either the critical remarks were wrong, or they were so right that we can no longer tell the   ______.

1.

A．disappeared

B．disintegrated

C．distributed

D．disappointed

2.

A．side

B．cause

C．feature

D．issue

3.

A．collected

B．unified

C．dropped

D．single

4.

A．discounted

B．viewed

C．accessed

D．founded

5.

A．muted

B．absorbed

C．buried

D．sunk

6.

A．technical

B．popular

C．negative

D．special

7.

A．possibly

B．reasonably

C．ordinarily

D．necessarily

8.

A．accommodated

B．combined

C．distinguished

D．enhanced

9.

A．abstract

B．repetition

C．review

D．brief

10.

A．press

B．publication

C．media

D．criticism

11.

A．opened

B．created

C．threw

D．jumped

12.

A．rules

B．harmonizes

C．impacts

D．roars

13.

A．feature

B．encourage

C．value

D．defend

14.

A．Therefore

B．However

C．Certainly

D．Surprisingly

15.

A．difference

B．truth

C．time

D．concern

5 . Pope (罗马教皇) Francis wearing a massive, loose and white puffer coat. Elon Musk walking hand-in-hand with rival GM CEO Mary Barra. None of these things actually happened, but such AI-generated _______ did go viral online over the past week.

The situation demonstrates a new online reality: the _______ of a new crop of artificial intelligence tools has made it cheaper and easier than ever to create realistic images, as well as audio and videos. And these images are likely to pop up with increasing frequency on social media.

While these AI tools may enable new means of expressing creativity, the spread of computer-generated media also threatens to further _______ the information ecosystem. That risks _______ the challenges for users, news organizations and social media platforms to tell what’s real. There are also concerns that Al-generated images could be misused.

Images, compared to the Al-generated text, can be _______ powerful in provoking emotions when people view them, said Claire Leibowicz, head of AI and media integrity at the Partnership on AI. That can make it harder for people to slow down and _______ whether what they’re looking at is real or fake. _______, bad guys could eventually attempt to create fake content in quantity in order to confuse Internet users and provoke certain behaviors.

Computer-generated image technology has improved rapidly in recent years, from the photoshopped image of a shark swimming through a flooded highway to the websites that four years ago began mass producing mostly _______ photos of people. But in most cases, the creators of the recent hot images don’t appear to have been ill-intended.

There are _______ by platforms, AI technology companies and industry groups to improve the transparency when a piece of content is generated by a computer. Platforms including Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, Twitter and YouTube have policies restricting or even ________ the sharing of media that could mislead users. But as use of AI-generated technologies grows, even such policies could threaten to ________ user trust. If, for example, a fake image accidentally slipped through a platform’s detection system, it could give people false confidence. Although there’s a detection system that says it’s real, it’s actually not.

Work is also underway on technical solutions that would, ________, watermark an AI-generated image or include a transparent label in an image’s metadata, so anyone viewing it across the Internet would know it was created by a computer. “All these institutions are ________ disclosure and transparency,” Leibowicz said.

A group of tech leaders, including Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, this week wrote an open letter ________ artificial intelligence labs to stop the training of the most powerful AI systems for at least six months, citing “profound risks to society and humanity.” ________, it’s not clear whether any labs will take such a step. And as the technology rapidly improves and becomes accessible beyond a relatively small group of corporations doing responsible practices, lawmakers may need to get involved.

1.

A．images

B．dream

C．article

D．imagination

2.

A．rise

B．emphasis

C．innovation

D．population

3.

A．rob

B．pollute

C．fire

D．reverse

4.

A．getting rid of

B．coming up with

C．adding to

D．accounting for

5.

A．equally

B．necessarily

C．especially

D．nearly

6.

A．underestimate

B．overstate

C．refer

D．evaluate

7.

A．As you know

B．What’s more

C．On the other hand

D．To put it short

8.

A．unachievable

B．unbiased

C．unconvincing

D．uncomfortable

9.

A．efforts

B．cases

C．demands

D．resources

10.

A．hacking

B．urging

C．publicizing

D．prohibiting

11.

A．ruin

B．cease

C．rebuild

D．replace

12.

A．in fact

B．for example

C．above all

D．in short

13.

A．committed to

B．credited to

C．mixed about

D．worried about

14.

A．counting on

B．waiting on

C．arranging for

D．calling for

15.

A．Namely

B．Oddly

C．Still

D．Therefore

9 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

What makes this year’s World Cup special?

This year’s FIFA World Cup kicked off in Qatar on Nov 20. In this sports event, a total of 32 teams will compete with each other for 28 days. But     1    makes this year’s World Cup “stand out” is its numerous historical footnotes, for better or for worse. Let’s see some of them.

One of the few countries not previously qualified to participate in the World Cup

Qatar has been     2    regular in the Asian Cup in recent years as well as a 2019 Asian Cup winner, gaining seven-game wins and scoring 19 goals that year. Its soccer team, however, has never previously qualified for a World Cup for either the men’s or women’s editions. Winning the right to host the 2022 tournament makes Qatar become the first country since Italy in 1934 to play in a World Cup without first     3     (qualify) for it.

First held in the northern hemisphere’s winter

Typically, the FIFA World Cup is held in May, June or July for suitable weather conditions. Yet, the sports event this year     4    (change) to winter to accommodate Qatar’s local temperatures.    5    (locate) in the desert, Qatar whose summer months usually reach above a temperature of 40°C, would be a nightmare for outdoor sports players. Playing in such temperatures means both being unable to play well and putting themselves at risk. Doing sports in intense heat may lead to dehydration (脱水), vision loss, fainting, and other such problems, noted the website Football.

    6    these considerations, Qatar has still stirred up some controversies (争议).    7    of them has been about player preparation. According to Fox Sports, many teams usually have plenty of time to prepare in advance. Soccer seasons often start in late August and wrap up the following May.    8    the World Cup begins, soccer teams still have three or four tune-up (热身) matches lasing several weeks. The coaches can also decide which team members can play in a match after seeing all of their players train and compete up close. Because of the unusual timing of the Qatar World Cup, however, this won’t leave any time for friendly matches ahead of the main event.

Criticized in lead-up to World Cup

To successfully hold the World Cup, Qatar needed to build more sports stadiums and other relevant infrastructure, like airports, metro lines and roads. This     9     (overwhelm) need for new construction created a high demand for labor. This demand was fulfilled by bringing 30,000 migrant workers to work on these projects since 2010. Some are reported     10     (treat) poorly, having their wages deducted (克扣) or even going unpaid for months. That has attracted criticism from some organizations around the world.

10 . Riding the bus to school could be keeping some kids out of class. Most school buses run on fuel. Those buses send out pollution, including tiny particles and gases. Bus riders get exposed to high levels of this pollution. When breathed in, it can lead to breathing problems, such as asthma (哮喘), which may keep kids home from school. But replacing the worst-polluting buses should cut down on student absences, a new study shows.

The study focused on schools that were asked to take part in a U. S. government program. The program offered schools cash back for money spent on cleaner school buses. The 2, 816 school districts in the new study all asked for the money. But not all got it. Only 383 were picked to receive funding. Winning districts could buy new buses and desert old ones.

The program started in 2012. From 2012 to 2017, the winning districts very likely had less bus pollution. And a year after getting new buses, student attendance had improved in those districts. For an average district of 10, 000 students, about six more students attended school each day in the winning districts. Districts that replaced the oldest buses had an average of 45 more students in school each day.

Those numbers may sound small, but they can add up, says Meredith Pedde, an environmental epidemiologist (流行病学家). Almost 3 million U. S. kids ride school buses more than 20 years old, her team figures. Replacing all of those old buses could mean 1.3 million fewer student absences each year, the data suggest. And school attendance matters for student achievement.

Now the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has a new program for school buses.   It’s offering $5 billion through 2026 to replace old fuel buses with cleaner ones. Almost all U. S. school districts can apply for the new rebates. But schools in low-income areas and in rural areas will get priority. Kids in these areas tend to face the most health risks from old buses, EPA notes. And anything that cuts air pollution, Pedde says, should improve student health.

1. What is the primary reason why riding the bus to school might lead to student absences?

A．Serious fuel shortage for school buses.

B．Lack of available seats on school buses.

C．High risk of disease spreading in a bus.

D．High levels of pollution from school buses.

2. What does Meredith Pedde suggest about the impact of replacing old buses?

A．It increases health risks for students.

B．It is a costly and ineffective measure.

C．It helps to improve student attendances.

D．It has no significant effect on absences.

3. What does the underline word “rebates” in Paragraph 5 probably refer to?

A．Financial aids.

B．School posts.

C．Health benefits.

D．Public resources.

4. What is the purpose of the text?

A．To describe the potential risk of school buses.

B．To talk about the use of cleaner school buses.

C．To discuss the importance of decreasing absence.

D．To call on the government to improve school buses.