1 . Freedom and Responsibility
Freedom’s challenge in the Digital Age is a serious topic. We are facing today a strange new world and we are all wondering what we are going to do with it.
Some 2,500 years ago Greece discovered freedom. Before that there was no freedom. There were great civilizations, splendid empires, but no freedom anywhere. Egypt and Babylon were both tyrannies, one very powerful man ruling over helpless masses.
In Greece, in Athens, a little city in a little country, there were no helpless masses. And Athenians willingly obeyed the written laws which they themselves passed, and the unwritten, which must be obeyed if free men live together. They must show each other kindness and pity and the many qualities without which life would be very painful unless one chose to live alone in the desert. The Athenians never thought that a man was free if he could do what he wanted. A man was free if he was self-controlled. To make yourself obey what you approved was freedom. They were saved from looking at their lives as their own private affair. Each one felt responsible for the welfare of Athens, not because it was forced on him from the outside, but because the city was his pride and his safety. The essential belief of the first free government in the world was liberty for all men who could control themselves and would take responsibility for the state.
But discovering freedom is not like discovering computers. It cannot be discovered once for all. If people do not prize it, and work for it, it will go. Constant watch is its price. Athens changed. It was a change that took place without being noticed though it was of the extreme importance, a spiritual change which affected the whole state. It had been the Athenian’s pride and joy to give to their city. That they could get material benefits from her never entered their minds. There had to be a complete change of attitude before they could look at the city as an employer who paid her citizens for doing her work. Now instead of men giving to the state, the state was to give to them. What the people wanted was a government which would provide a comfortable life for them; and with this as the primary object, ideas of freedom and self-reliance and responsibinreat wealth in which all citizens had a right to share.
Athens reached the point when the freedom she really wanted was freedom from responsibility. There could be only one result. If men insisted on being free from the burden of self-dependence and responsibility for the common good, they would cease to be free. Responsibility is the price every man must pay for freedom. It is to be had on no other terms. Athens, the Athens of Ancient Greece, refused responsibility; she reached the end of freedom and was never to have it again.
But, “the excellent becomes the permanent”, Aristotle said. Athens lost freedom forever, but freedom was not lost forever for the world. A great American, James Madison, referred to “ The capacity (能力) of mankind for self-government." No doubt he had nor an idea that he was speaking Greek. Athens was not in the farthest background of his mind, but once man has a great and good idea, it is never completely lost. The Digital Age cannot destroy it. Somehow in this or that man’s thought such an idea lives though unconsidered by the world of action. One can never be sure that it is not on the point of breaking out into action only sure that it will do so sometime.
1. What does the underlined word “tyrannies” in Paragraph2 refer to?| A．Countries where their people need help. |
| B．Governments ruled with absolute power. |
| C．Splendid empires where people enjoy freedom. |
| D．Powerful states with higher civilization. |
| A．regard their life as their own business |
| B．seek gains as their primary object |
| C．treat others with kindness and pity |
| D．behave within the laws and value systems |
| A．The Athenians refused to take their responsibility. |
| B．The Athenians no longer took pride in the city. |
| C．The Athenians benefited spiritually from the government. |
| D．The Athenians looked on the government as a business. |
| A．The author is hopeful about freedom. |
| B．The author is cautious about self-government. |
| C．The author is skeptical of Greek civilization. |
| D．The author is proud of man’s capacity. |
2 . In rich countries like America, the absence of professional waste-pickers presents a problem. The general public is not very good at sorting rubbish. Households and businesses serviced by municipal waste-management providers may actually have got worse at sorting in the past 20 years, says Peter Keller of Republic Services, America's second-biggest waste management firm, which runs Newby Island in San Jose.
Citizens of rich countries, where almost 100% of municipal waste gets collected, take such services for granted - unless the collectors go on strike (罢工),as happened in the Belgian city of Ghent in early August, leaving streets in a stink (恶臭) for days. In some industrialized nations, increasingly, residents are charged based on volume (known as "pay-as-you-throw") To encourage sorting, such schemes often exempt recyclables.
The volume of recyclables has reached 1,400 tons a day, a lot by American standards, says Mr. Keller. That should come as no surprise. After all, inhabitants of the San Francisco Bay area pride themselves on their recycling ability. San Francisco boasts a recycling rate of 80% one of the highest of any rich-world city. San Franciscans may therefore be shocked to learn that a lot of them, as Mr. Keller puts it, “aren't very good at it"
Two possible reasons account for Mr. Keller's remarks. The first is that many people do not know what is recyclable. Beer bottles and soft-drink cans are, he says. Egg cartons and magazines are not, for there is not market for the materials of which they are made. Some things are recyclable on their own, but not when combined, such as "paper" cups lined with plastic film. It is hard to blame consumers for feeling increasingly puzzled, he admits
The other problem is that residents only have to separate recyclables from non-recyclables Cans, bottles and papers are all thrown into one bin. This mix can, to some degree, be sorted at plants like Newby, enabled by clever technology which uses optical sensor;(光电感应器) and magnets to separate materials automatically. Anyway, these was no match for humans when it came to sorting.
As the volume of recyclables increased in America and Europe, the quality of recycled output decreased because everything was mixed in together. This did not trouble materials. recovery facilities (MRF) operators so long as they would offload their increasingly impure stock abroad. Then China announced it would not accept any plastics or carboard, and American waste-management companies have been struggling to find what to do with their poor-quality waste.
1. According to the passage, the biggest problem in rich countries caused by lack of professional waste-pickers is that ________.| A．waste collectors often go on strike regardless of people's needs |
| B．no one teaches people how to tell apart recyclable and non-recyclables |
| C．waste sorting by machine is far from perfect so far |
| D．citizens fail to deal with waste sorting properly |
| A．make no charge for | B．set aside |
| C．fully expect | D．set the standard for |
| A．More advanced waste sorting machines will be launched (推出) as soon as possible. |
| B．San Franciscans are not informed that there is no need to recycle egg cartons. |
| C．Recycling ability is not all about separating recyclables from non-recyclables |
| D．It's hard for San Franciscans to change their recycling habits in the new times |
| A．the reason why MFR is not worried about poor-quality waste |
| B．China's new policy to keep foreign rubbish out |
| C．efforts to teach residents how better to sort their rubbish |
| D．the components (成分) of the mixed waste in America |
3 . Picture a typical MBA lecture theatre twenty years ago. In it the majority of students will have conformed to (符合)the standard model of the time: male, middle class and Western. Walk into a class today, however, and you'll get a completely different impression. For a start, you will now see plenty more women-the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, for example, boasts that 40% of its new enrolment is female, you will also see a wide range of ethnic groups and nationals of practically every country.
It might be tempting, therefore, to think that the old barriers have been broken down and equal opportunity achieved. But, increasingly, this apparent diversity(多样化) is becoming a mask for a new type of conformity. Behind the differences in sex, skin tones and mother tongues, there are common attitudes, expectations and ambitions which risk creating a set clones among the business leaders of the future.
Diversity, it seems, has not helped to deal with basic weaknesses in business leadership. So, what can be done to create more effective managers of the commercial world? According to Valerie Gauthier, associate dean at HEC Paris, the key lies in the process by which MBA programs recruit(招募) their students. At the moment candidates are selected on a fairly narrow set of standards such as previous academic and career performance, and analytical and problem solving abilities. This is then coupled to a school's mixture of what a diverse class should look like, with the result that passport, ethnic origin and sex can all become influencing factors. But schools rarely dig down to find out what really makes an applicant succeed, to create a class which also contains diversity of attitude and approach-arguably the only diversity that, in a business context, really matters.
Professor Gauthier believes schools should not just be selecting candidates from traditional sectors such as banking, consultancy and industry. They should also be seeking individuals who have backgrounds in areas such as political science, the creative arts, history or philosophy, which will allow them to put business decisions into a wider context.
Indeed, there does seem to be a demand for the more rounded leaders such diversity might create. A study by Mannaz, a leadership development company, suggests that, while the bully-boy chief executive of old may not have been removed completely, there is a definite shift in emphasis towards less tough styles of management-at least in America and Europe. Perhaps most significant, according to Mannaz, is the increasing interest large companies have in more collaborative management models, such as those popular in Scandinavia, which seek to combine the hard and soft aspects of leadership and encourage delegated responsibility.
1. What characterizes the business school student population of today?| A．Greater diversity | B．Intellectual maturity. |
| C．Exceptional diligence. | D．Higher ambition. |
| A．It will arouse students' unrealistic expectation. |
| B．It will produce business leaders of a uniform style. |
| C．It focuses on theory rather than on practical skills. |
| D．It stresses competition rather than cooperation. |
| A．Age and educational background. |
| B．Social and professional experience. |
| C．Attitude and approach to business. |
| D．Ethnic origin and gender. |
| A．Applicants with prior experience in business companies. |
| B．Applicants with sound knowledge in math and statistics. |
| C．Applicants from outside the traditional sectors. |
| D．Applicants from less developed regions and areas. |
| A．effective | B．traditional |
| C．decisive | D．joint |
4 . Over the last decade, demand for the cosmetic surgery has increased by more than 400 percent. According to Dr. Dai Davies, of the Plastic Surgery Partnership in Hammersmith, the majority of cosmetic surgery patients are not chasing physical perfection. Rather, they are driven to improve their appearance by a desire to look normal. “What we all crave is to look normal. The advertising media give us a perception(概念)of what is physically acceptable and we feel we must look like that.”
In America, the debate is no longer about whether surgery is normal; rather, it centres on what age people should be before going under the knife. New York surgeon Dr. Gerard Imber recommends “maintenance” work for people in their thirties. “The idea of waiting until one needs a heroic transformation is silly,” he says. “By then, you've wasted 20 great years of your life and allowed things to get out of hand.” Dr. Imber draws the line at operating on people who are under 18, however. “It seems that someone we don't consider old enough to order a drink shouldn't be considering plastic surgery.”
In the U. K. cosmetic surgery has long been seen as the exclusive domain(领土)of the very rich and famous. But the cost of treatment has fallen considerably, bringing all but the most advanced laser technology within the reach of most people. Dr. Davies says, “Of course, ￡3,000 for an operation is a lot of money. But it is also an investment for life which costs about half the price of a good family holiday.”
Dr. Davies suspects that the increasing sophistication(精密)of the fat injecting and removal techniques that allow patients to be treated with a local anesthetic(麻醉)in an afternoon has also helped promote the popularity of cosmetic surgery. One woman who recently paid f2, 500 for liposuction to remove fat from her thighs admitted, “Going into the clinic was so low key and effective that it whetted my appetite. Now I don't think there's any operation that I would rule out having if I could afford it.”
1. The statement “draws the line at operating on people” (Paragraph 2) is closest in meaning to ________.| A．removing wrinkles from the face | B．helping people make up |
| C．enjoying operating | D．refusing to operate |
| A．cosmetic surgery, though costly, is worth having |
| B．cosmetic surgery is too expensive |
| C．cosmetic surgery is necessary even for the average person |
| D．cosmetic surgery is mainly for the rich and famous |
| A．it is wise to have cosmetic surgery under 18 |
| B．cosmetic surgery is now much easier |
| C．people tend to abuse cosmetic surgery |
| D．the earlier people have cosmetic surgery, the better they will be |
| A．the advantage of having cosmetic surgery |
| B．what kind of people should have cosmetic surgery. |
| C．the reason why cosmetic surgery is so popular. |
| D．the disadvantage of having cosmetic surgery |
5 . Forget Cyclists, Pedestrians are Real Danger
We are having a debate about this topic. Here are some letters from our readers.
★Yes, many cyclists behave dangerously. Many drivers are disrespectful of cyclists. But pedestrians are probably the worst offenders.
People of all ages happily walk along the pavement with eyes and hands glued to the mobile phone, quite unaware of what is going on around them. They may even do the same thing while crossing a road at a pedestrian crossing or elsewhere. The rest of us have to evade（避让）them or just stand still to wait for the unavoidable collision（碰撞）.
The real problem is that some pedestrians seem to be, at least for the moment, in worlds of their own that are, to them, much more important than the welfare of others.
——Michael Horan
★I love the letter from Bob Brooks about cyclists（Viewpoints, May 29）. I am afraid they seem to think they own the roads.
I was walking across Altrincham Road one morning when a cyclist went round me and on being asked what he was doing he shouted at me.
The government built a cycle lane on the road but it is hardly used.
The police do nothing. What a laugh they are!
The cyclists should all have to be made to use the cycle lanes and wear helmets, fluorescent（发荧光的）jacket and lights at night and in the morning they should pay some sort of tax and be fined for not wearing them.
——Carol Harvey
★Cyclists jump on and off pavements（which are meant for pedestrians）, ride at speed alone the pavement, and think they have a special right to go through traffic lights when they are on red.
I was almost knocked down recently by a cyclist riding on the pavement when there was a cycle lane right next to him.
Other road users, including horse riders, manage to obey the rules so why not cyclists?
It's about time they had to be registered and insured, so when they do hi a pedestrian or a vehicle, or cause an accident, at least they can be treated and there might be an opportunity to claim compensation.
——JML
Write to Viewpoints of the newspaper.
1. Michael Horan wrote the letter mainly to show that ________.| A．drivers should be polite to cyclists |
| B．road accidents can actually be avoided |
| C．some pedestrians are a threat to road safety |
| D．walking while using phones hurts one's eyes |
| A．be provided with enough roads |
| B．be asked to ride on their own lanes |
| C．be made to pay less tax for cycling |
| D．be fined for laughing at policemen |
| A．Very few drivers are insured. |
| B．Horse riders disrespect other road users |
| C．Pedestrians go through red traffic lights. |
| D．Cyclists ride fast on pavements. |
6 . Up-skilling is the future - but it must work for everyone
Automation and job replacement will be one of the most significant challenges for the global economy of the coming decades. A 2017 Mckinsey report established that 375 million workers will need to switch occupational categories by 2030. The World Economic Forum suggests that by 2022, automation will replace 75 million jobs globally - but create 133 million new ones.
Research into the likelihood that a job will be impacted by digitization has largely focused on the "auto-matability" of the role and the following economic regional and political effects of this. What this research doesn't take into account is something more important for the millions of taxi drivers and retail workers across the globe: their likelihood of being able to change to another job that isn't automatable. Recent research suggests that the answer to this may be that the skills that enable workers to move up the ladder to more complex roles within their current areas might be less important than broader skills that will enable workers to change across divisions.
In July, Amazon announced that it would spend $700 million retraining around 30% of its 300,000 US workforce. While praiseworthy, it will be interesting to see the outcome. In the UK, the National Retraining Scheme has largely been led by employers, meaning that those on zero-hours contracts and part-time workers - often low-skilled --- will miss out. Governance will be a crucial element of ensuring that such schemes focus on individuals and life-long learning, rather than upskilling workers into roles that will soon also face automation.
According to the Mckinsey report, "growing awareness of the scale of the task ahead has yet to translate into action. Public spending on labour-force training and support has fallen for years in most member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development," which impacts more than just the low-skilled.
The global impact of automation is also put into relief by research demonstrating that, between 1988 and 2015, income inequality increased throughout the world. Billions of people do not have the essentials of life as defined by the UN Sustainable Development goals.
Alongside climate change, automation is arguably tech's biggest challenge. As with globalization, governments and employers -- and us workers -- ignore its potential consequences at risk to ourselves.
1. It can be known from Paragraph 2 that ________.| A．recent research has found ways to face automation |
| B．broad skills are of great significance in changing jobs |
| C．regional economy can affect the automatability of a job |
| D．it is even harder for workers to move up the social ladder |
| A．Supportive. | B．Critical | C．Doubtful | D．Sympathetic |
| A．Less spending on training | B．A slowdown of globalization |
| C．Social unrest and instability. | D．An increase in income inequality |
| A．argue the urgency of creating new jobs |
| B．compare globalization with automation |
| C．analyze the automatability of certain jobs |
| D．stress the important of upskilling workers |
7 . Next week, as millions of families gather for their Thanksgiving feasts (大餐), many other Americans will go without. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, more than 12 million households
Hunger is surprisingly widespread in our country — one of the world’s wealthiest — yet the government estimates that we waste almost 100 billion pounds of food each year, more than one-quarter of our total supply.
Reducing this improper distribution of
America’s Second Harvest is a network of 214 inter-connected food banks and other organizations that
A great deal of work is involved in distributing tons of food from thousands of
In 2000, America’s Second Harvest began to use a new inventory and financial-management system — Ceres. It is a
Ceres has helped
With more accurate and timely reports, Ceres saves time, frees staff members to focus on finding new donors, and
Hunger in America remains a(n)
| A．serve | B．lack | C．reserve | D．order |
| A．workdays | B．birthdays | C．holidays | D．paydays |
| A．resources | B．incomes | C．missions | D．services |
| A．exposed | B．introduced | C．distributed | D．addicted |
| A．harvest | B．prepare | C．recommend | D．gather |
| A．For example | B．In contrast | C．Above all | D．In turn |
| A．backyards | B．shelters | C．garages | D．cabins |
| A．donors | B．survivors | C．farmers | D．victims |
| A．innovative | B．impressive | C．effective | D．productive |
| A．grow | B．recycle | C．spoil | D．stir |
| A．theory | B．action | C．remedy | D．software |
| A．advertise | B．relieve | C．track | D．migrate |
| A．produce | B．reduce | C．shift | D．simplify |
| A．promises | B．ceases | C．admits | D．locates |
| A．troubling | B．demanding | C．touching | D．imposing |
8 . Each year, backed up by a growing anti-consumerist movement, people are using the holiday season to call on us all to shop less.
Driven by concerns about resource exhaustion, over recent years environmentalists have increasingly turned their sights on our “consumer culture”. Groups such as The Story of Stuff and Buy Nothing New Day are growing as a movement that increasingly blames all our ills on our desire to shop.
We clearly have a growing resource problem. The produces we make, buy, and use are often linked to the destruction of our waterways, biodiversity, climate and the land on which millions of people live. But to blame these issues on Christmas shoppers is misguided, and puts us in the old trap of blaming individuals for what is a systematic problem.
While we complain about environmental destruction over Christmas, environmentalists often forget what the holiday season actually means for many people. For most, Christmas isn’t an add-on to an already heavy shopping year. In fact, it is likely the only time of year many have the opportunity to spend on friends and family, or even just to buy the necessities needed for modern life.
This is particularly, true for Boxing Day, often the target of the strongest derision(嘲弄) by anti-consumerists. While we may laugh at the queues in front of the shops, for many, those sales provide the one chance to buy items they’ve needed all year. As Leigh Phillips argues, “this is one of the few times of the year that people can even hope to afford such ‘luxuries’, the Christmas presents their kids are asking for, or just an appliance that works.”
Indeed, the richest 7% of people are responsible for 50% of greenhouse gas emissions. This becomes particularly harmful when you take into account that those shopping on Boxing Day are only a small part of our consumption “problem” anyway. Why are environmentalists attacking these individuals, while ignoring such people as Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, who has his own￡1.5bn yacht with a missile defence system?
Anyway, anti-consumerism has become a movement of wealthy people talking down to the working class about their life choices, while ignoring the real cause of our environmental problems. It is no wonder one is changing their behaviours—or that environmental destruction continues without any reduction in intensity.
1. It is indicated in the 1st paragraph that during the holiday season, many consumers .| A．ignore resource problems |
| B．are fascinated with presents |
| C．are encouraged to spend less |
| D．show great interest in the movement. |
| A．has targeted the wrong persons |
| B．has achieved its intended purposes |
| C．has taken environment-friendly measures |
| D．has benefited both consumers and producers |
| A．madness about life choices |
| B．discontent with rich lifestyle |
| C．ignorance about the real cause |
| D．disrespect for holiday shoppers |
| A．anything less than a responsibility | B．nothing more than a bias |
| C．indicative of environmental awareness | D．unacceptable to ordinary people |
When you hear the final whistle
One of the hardest things for any sportsperson to do is to know when to retire. But even harder is finding the answer to the question “What am I going to do with the rest of my life?”
Some sportspeople go on playing too long. Perhaps they just can’t stand life without the “high” of playing professional sport. Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player of all time retired three times. He retired once from the Chicago Bulls, made a successful comeback with the Bulls, then retired again. His second comeback with an inferior team ended in failure and he retired forever at the age of 38. Jordan said, “There will never be anything I do that will fulfill me as much as competing did.”
Others can’t resist the chance of one last “pay day”. Muhammad Ali needed the money, but his comeback fight, at the age of 39, against Trevor Berbick, was one of the saddest spectacles in modern sport. After losing to Berbick, Ali retired permanently. Three years later he developed Parkinson’s disease.
For some people, the pain of retirement never leaves them. As Jimmy Greaves, an ex-England international footballer said, “I think that a lot of players would prefer to be shot once their career is over.” Many of them spend their retirement in a continual battle against depression, alcohol, or drugs.
But for the lucky few, retirement can mean a successful new career. Franz Beckenbauer is a classical example of a footballer who won everything with his club, Bayern Muaich. After retiring he became a successful coach with Bayern and finally president of the club. John McEnroe, the infamous “bad boy” of tennis, is now a highly respected and highly paid TV commentator. But sadly, for most sportspeople these cases are the exceptions.
10 . More than a decade ago, cognitive scientists John Bransford and Daniel Schwartz, both then at Vanderbilt University, found that what distinguished young adults from children was not the ability to retain facts or apply prior knowledge to a new situation but a quality they called “preparation for future learning.” The researchers asked fifth graders and college students to create a recovery plan to protect bald eagles from extinction. Shockingly, the two groups came up with plans of similar quality (although the college students had better spelling skills). From the standpoint of a traditional educator, this outcome indicated that schooling had failed to help students think about ecosystems and extinction, major scientific ideas.
The researchers decided to go deeper, however. They asked both groups to generate questions about important issues needed to create recovery plans. On this task, they found large differences. College students focused on critical issues of interdependence between eagles and their habitats. Fifth graders tended to focus on features of individual eagles (“How big are they?” and “What do they eat?”). The college students had cultivated the ability to ask questions, the cornerstone (最重 要部分)of critical thinking. They had learned how to learn.
Museums and other institutions of informal learning may be better suited to teach this skill than elementary and secondary schools. At the Exploratorium in San Francisco, we recently studied how learning to ask good questions can affect the quality of people's scientific inquiry. We found that when we taught participants to ask “What if?” and “How can?” questions that nobody present would know the answer to and that would spark exploration，they engaged in better inquiry at the next exhibit-asking more questions, performing more experiments and making better interpretations of their results. Specifically, their questions became more comprehensive at the new exhibit. Rather than merely asking about something they wanted to try，they tended to include both cause and effect in their question. Asking juicy questions appears to be a transferable skill for deepening collaborative inquiry into the science content found in exhibits.
This type of learning is not confined to museums or institutional settings. Informal learning environments tolerate failure better than schools. Perhaps many teachers have too little time to allow students to form and pursue their own questions and too much ground to cover in the curriculum. But people must acquire this skill somewhere, Our society depends on them being able to make critical decisions about their own medical treatment, say, or what we must do about global energy needs and demands. For that, we have an informal learning system that gives no grades, takes all comers，and is available even on holidays and weekends.
1. What is traditional educators interpretation of the research outcome mentioned in the first paragraph?| A．Students are not able to apply prior knowledge to new problems. |
| B．College students are no better than fifth grader in memorizing facts. |
| C．Education has not paid enough attention to major environmental issues. |
| D．Education has failed to lead students to think about major scientific ideas. |
| A．they have learned to think critically. |
| B．they are concerned about social issues. |
| C．they are curious about specific features. |
| D．they have learned to work independently. |
| A．It arouses students’ interest in things around them. |
| B．It cultivates students’ ability to make scientific inquiries. |
| C．It trains students’ ability to design scientific experiments. |
| D．It helps students realize not every question has an answer. |
| A．train students to think about global issues |
| B．design more interactive classroom activities |
| C．make full use of informal learning resources |
| D．include collaborative inquiry in the curriculum |
