1 . A new study shows that female academics are significantly underrepresented in winning academic prizes and having awards named after them. Analysis of nearly 9,000 awardees and 346 scientific prizes and medals published in Nature Human Behaviour has found that men win eight prizes for every one won by a woman if the award is named after a man. These awards represent almost two-thirds of all scientific prizes. Female academics are, however, more likely to win awards that have been named after other notable female scientists, with 47% of those awards going to women and 53% to men.
Dr Katja Gehmlich, Associate Professor in the Institute of Cardiovascular Science at the University of Birmingham and joint lead author of the study, said, “The gender gap between awardees in scientific prizes is sadly a product of a long, systematic issue of poor representation of women in sciences. Despite decades of efforts to rebalance this issue, our study shows that women are still poorly recognized for their scientific contributions, and men are far more likely to win prizes and awards, in particular, if those awards are named after other men.
“It seems particularly shocking to me that awards named after women still see more than half of prizes going to men. We further propose a list of actions to address and overcome these issues but are aware this will be a long process. The Nominate Her movement is one way that the scientific community can begin to address this,” said Dr Gehmlich.
Prof Stefan Krause from the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham and joint lead author of the study said, “Our data is indicative of much wider issues of gender inequality within sciences. Our current publication is an initial attempt to understand the causes of such striking gender inequality and to promote discussion on the subject within our scientific communities.”
“Research culture has a lot to do to improve the gender prize gap, as well as efforts to address the inequality that sees almost two-thirds of prizes currently named after men. More pathways may also be needed, such as renaming or getting rid of gender names associated with some awards,” added Prof Krause.
1. How are awards named after female scientists distributed between genders?| A．Males are in the majority. |
| B．Females take up a bit more than half. |
| C．They are almost entirely awarded to females. |
| D．They are evenly distributed between males and females. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Tolerant. |
| C．Uncaring. | D．Disappointed. |
| A．Establishing gender rates for awards. |
| B．Increasing the number of female judges. |
| C．Encouraging more women to enter scientific fields. |
| D．Renaming or removing gender names from awards. |
| A．Achievements of women in science |
| B．The role of men in the scientific world |
| C．Gender inequality in scientific awards |
| D．Future of gender equality in academia |
2 . Imagine living in an apartment in Manhattan. When Covid-19 hits, you have nowhere to escape. Instead, you go up to the rooftop, where, to your surprise, other renters have come, too. After some awkwardness, everyone starts meeting nightly, drinks in hand, to share stories about themselves. This is the background setting of Fourteen Days, a “collaborative novel” edited by Margaret Atwood and Douglas Preston. In addition to these two, 34 authors of varied backgrounds contributed to the book. It is one of a growing number of new works, which are written together in some way.
AI services, such as ChatGPT, have started to become co-authors, too. Such models are also conversational machines, which can suggest phrases, give feedback and answer questions. “Cyborg authorship” is what MrRettberg of University of Bergen calls this. He published a book with Cyborg authorship, in which ChatGPT is tasked with generating reviews of famous works in the style of well-known authors — think Jane Austen writing about William Burroughs’s Naked Lunch.
Writing with collaborators, be they human or artificial, will only become more common. But individual authors will still dominate creatively. That is because collectively written books rarely make for great literature. Many contributions to Fourteen Days are cleverly woven together. But the book does not work quite well. Then there is authorial ego (自我价值感). Getting all 36 authors of Fourteen Days to agree on the text was a challenge, with some writers taking issue with how their story ended up being framed and referred to by other contributors later. And AI is not yet fully accepted in literary circles. Recently KudanRie, the winner of Japan’s top prize for literature, admitted she used ChatGPT to write around 5% of her science-fiction novel Tokyo Sympathy Tower. Such honesty is rare because most would never admit using AI. A new sort of “ghost writing” may be having a moment, but many writers will never want to name ChatGPT as their co-author.
1. Who created Fourteen Days?| A．New Yorkers suffering from Covid-19. | B．Margaret Atwood and Douglas Preston. |
| C．Renters of a Manhattan apartment building. | D．Separate writers from different walks of life. |
| A．Generating phrases. | B．Giving feedback. |
| C．Writing book reviews. | D．Improving language fluency. |
| A．Collaborative writing is becoming less common. | B．Individual authorship makes creative literature. |
| C．Most authors reject to cooperate with AI. | D．Individual writing improves efficiency. |
| A．Favorable. | B．Negative. | C．Cautious. | D．Optimistic. |
3 . Martha Stewart was charged, tried and convicted of a crime in 2014. As she neared the end of her prison sentence, a well-known columnist wrote that she was “paying her dues,” and that “there is simply no reason for anyone to attempt to deny her right to start anew. ”
At least 65 million people in the United States have a criminal record. This can result in severe penalties (惩罚) that continue long after punishment is completed.
Many of these penalties are imposed regardless of the seriousness of the offense or the person’s individual circumstances.
In all, more than 45,000 laws and rules serve to exclude vast numbers of people from fully participating in American life. Some laws make senses. No one advocates letting someone convicted of pedophilia (恋童癖) work in a school.
These laws are also counterproductive (适得其反), since they make it harder for people with criminal records to find housing or a job, two key factors that reduce backsliding. A recent report makes several recommendations, including the abolition of most post-conviction penalties, except for those specifically needed to protect public safety.
The point isn’t to excuse or forget the crime. Rather, it is to recognize that in America’s vast criminal justice system, and second chances are crucial. It is in no one's interest to keep a large segment of the population on the margins of society.
| A．Criminals should pay the price of finding housing or a job and getting qualifications for benefits. |
| B．Surely, the American ideal of second chances shouldn’t be reserved only for the rich and powerful. |
| C．But too often collateral (附随的) consequences bear no relation to public safety. |
| D．Where the penalties are not a must, they should be imposed only if the facts of a case support it. |
| E．American’s vast criminal justice system provides criminals with necessary support for living. |
| F．Laws can restrict or ban voting, access to public housing, and professional and business licensing. |
4 . THE GLOBAL WASTE TRADE IS ESSENTIALLY BROKEN
Cut into hillside in northern Malaysia stands a large, open-air warehouse. This is a recycling factory, which opened last November. On a very hot afternoon in January, Shahid Ali was working his very first week on the job. He stood knee-deep in soggy, white bits of plastic. Around him, more bits floated of the conveyor belt and fell to the ground like snowflakes.
Hour after hour, Ali sorts through the plastic jumble moving down the belt, picking out pieces that look off-color or soiled-rejects (废品) in the recycling process. Though it looks like backbreaking work, Ali says it is a great improvement over his previous job, folding bed-sheets in a nearby textile factory, for much lower pay. Now, if he eats simply, he can save money from his wages of just over $l an hour and send $250 a month to his parents and six brothers and sisters in Peshawar, Pakistan, 2,700 miles away, “As soon as I heard about this work, I asked for a job,” says Ali, 24, a bearded man with glasses and an easy smile. Still, he’s working 12 hours a day, seven days a week. “If I take a day off, I lose a day’s wages,” he says.
In the warehouse, hundreds of bags are stacked more than 60 feet high-each stuffed with plastic wrappers and bags thrown away weeks earlier by their original users in California. The fact that the waste has traveled to this distant corner of the planet in the first place shows how badly the global recycling economy has failed to keep pace with humanity’s plastics addiction. This is an ecosystem that is deeply dysfunctional, if not on the point of collapse: About 90% of the millions of tons of plastic the world produces every year will eventually end up not recycled, but burned, buried, or dumped.
Plastic recycling enjoys ever-wider support among consumers: Putting yogurt containers and juice bottles in a blue bin is an eco-friendly act of faith in millions of households. But faith goes only so far. The tidal wave of plastic items that enters the recycling stream each year is increasingly likely to fall right back out again, casualties of a broken market. Many products that consumers believe (and industries claim) are “recyclable" are in reality not, because of hard economics. With oil and gas prices near 20-year lows, so-called virgin plastic, a product of petroleum feed-stocks, is now far cheaper and easier to obtain than recycled material. That unforeseen shift has yanked the financial rug out from under what was until recently a practical recycling industry. “The global waste trade is essentially broken,” says the head of the global plastics campaign at Greenpeace. “We are sitting on vast amounts of plastic with nowhere to send it and nothing to do with it.”
1. What is the author’s attitude towards Shahid Ali?| A．Critical. | B．Merciless. | C．Indifferent. | D．Sympathetic. |
| A．The prices of oil and gas have been increasing. |
| B．Tons of wastes travel so far before being recycled. |
| C．Recyclable products are not really recycled. |
| D．Governments don’t support the recycling industry. |
| A．Out of stock. | B．Far from pleased. | C．Full of energy. | D．Out of order. |
| A．To illustrate how plastic waste has been recycled in the world. |
| B．To warn people that the global waste trade is essentially broken. |
| C．To analyze the relationship between consumers and factories. |
| D．To solve the conflict between the recycling industry and governments. |
5 . In much of the western United States, drought and access to fresh water is a critical issue. However, recently California came up with a novel solution. The state approved regulations that allow agencies to purify wastewater for drinking. This recycled wastewater may be consumed in homes, schools, and businesses.
As the population in California has exploded in recent decades, the state has struggled to meet demands for fresh water. Recycled wastewater will allow the state to increase access to the precious resource.
Recycled wastewater is not new to the state. It has previously been used in ice hockey rinks (冰球场), for crops, and to generate artificial snow. But now, water agencies will have the option to put recycled wastewater back into pipes for drinking. California is only the second state to allow purified wastewater to be consumed. The first was Colorado in 2022.
While the idea of drinking recycled wastewater may be off-putting, regulators spent more than a decade developing rules and regulations to ensure safety. Independent panels of scientists also reviewed the state’s rules around recycled wastewater consumption. All water will be treated for pathogens (病原体) and viruses before being available for consumption.
So far, the state’s plan has been met with approval from large water agencies. Many of them have plans to construct wastewater recycling plans over the next few years. In Southern California, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has set a goal aiming to produce 150 million gallons of direct and indirect recycled water per day. This water will be in the pipes of the 19 million people throughout the six counties that the agency serves.
Officials are aware that a certain amount of public convincing may still be necessary. However, they remain optimistic about the future of the project, reminding consumers that the water is safe, and that recycled water is already in use in California.
1. Why does California pass new regulations about recycled wastewater?| A．To ease the pressure of drought. | B．To increase the supply of fresh water. |
| C．To recycle the wastewater for industry. | D．To reduce the pollution of the wastewater. |
| A．Surprising. | B．Necessary. | C．Funny. | D．Awful. |
| A．The goal of wastewater recycling is hard to achieve. |
| B．The state’s plan will be conducted by water agencies. |
| C．Southern California will reduce its water production. |
| D．People in California tend to prefer recycled water. |
| A．Many people still disapprove of the project. |
| B．The public are optimistic about the project. |
| C．It will never be suitable to use recycled water. |
| D．The project is the only solution to water shortage. |
6 . Marian Bechtel sits at West Palm Beach’s Bar Louie counter by herself, quietly reading her e-book as she waits for her salad. What is she reading? None of your business! Lunch is Bechtel’s “me” time. And like more Americans, she’s not alone.
A new report found 46 percent of meals are eaten alone in America. More than half (53 percent) have breakfast alone and nearly half (46 percent) have lunch by themselves. Only at dinnertime are we eating together anymore, 74 percent, according to statistics from the report.
“I prefer to go out and be out. Alone, but together, you know?” Bechtel said, looking up from her book. Bechtel, who works in downtown West Palm Beach, has lunch with coworkers sometimes, but like many of us, too often works through lunch at her desk. A lunchtime escape allows her to keep a boss from tapping her on the shoulder. She returns to work feeling energized. “Today, I just wanted some time to myself,” she said.
Just two seats over, Andrew Mazoleny, a local videographer, is finishing his lunch at the bar. He likes that he can sit and check his phone in peace or chat up the barkeeper with whom he’s on a first-name basis if he wants to have a little interaction (交流). “I reflect on how my day’s gone and think about the rest of the week,” he said. “It’s a chance for self-reflection. You return to work recharged and with a plan.”
That freedom to choose is one reason more people like to eat alone. There was a time when people may have felt awkward about asking for a table for one, but those days are over. Now, we have our smartphones to keep us company at the table. “It doesn’t feel as alone as it may have before all the advances in technology,” said Laurie Demeritt, whose company provided the statistics for the report.
1. What are the statistics in paragraph 2 about?| A．Food variety. |
| B．Eating habits. |
| C．Table manners. |
| D．Restaurant service. |
| A．He makes videos for the bar. |
| B．He’s fond of the food at the bar. |
| C．He interviews customers at the bar. |
| D．He’s familiar with the barkeeper. |
7 . It’s commonly acknowledged that our lives are ruled by algorithms (算法), but have we really collectively understood how they have transformed our culture and personality?
In Filterworld: How algorithms flattened culture, Kyle Chayka argues convincingly that the rise of algorithm-driven feeds, used everywhere online from Instagram to Spotify, has led to a more uniform culture. Our tastes and desires increasingly don’t belong to us, but to algorithms that are designed to keep people engaged at all costs. If the collection of our tastes truly shapes our entire personality, then this loss is more psychologically damaging than it first appears. Aimlessly scrolling (滚屏) through Netflix or TikTok may seem harmless, but over days, months or years, we lose touch with what we like and enjoy.
Taste-making algorithms are inescapable. Chayka shows this by working through all corners of life: what we wear(TikTok), where we eat(Google Maps), music we listen to(Spotify), even who we date or marry(Tinder). This universe of algorithm-driven decisions has society-wide implications: “It extends to influence our physical spaces, our cities, and the routes we move through…flattening them in turn.” No one gets out of the Filterworld untouched.
If you’re lucky enough not to need any sort of algorithm-based system for your work, then you have the option to step back from algorithms for a while. But if your friend suggests a film recommended on X/Twitter or you feel the need to buy those shoes suddenly everyone has started wearing after social media advertisements, what are you to do? It all feels fruitless.
This Filterworld may be inescapable, but there is hope. You can start by engaging more with the media you do choose to consume. This could mean reading up about a film you watched or paying artists you like directly. Even the thoughtful act of recommending an album (专辑) to a friend is more rewarding than a random TikTok feed. As Chayka says, resistance to algorithms “requires an act of willpower, a choice to move through the world in a different way.”
1. What is Kyle Chayka’s opinion on algorithms?| A．They improve our tastes. | B．They make our culture more alike. |
| C．They help to identify our personality. | D．They contribute to psychological problems. |
| A．The society with advanced technology. | B．The world without social media platforms. |
| C．The network of algorithm-driven decisions. | D．The community free from algorithmic influence. |
| A．Limiting the use of social media platforms. | B．Making choices based on friends’ suggestions. |
| C．Getting more involved with the selected media. | D．Disconnecting from social media advertisements. |
| A．Algorithms: Cultural Takeover | B．The Secret of Algorithms |
| C．Social Media: Cultural Messenger | D．The Rise of Digital Platforms |
8 . This question has fascinated behavioural scientists for decades: why do we give money to charity?
The explanations for charitable giving fall into three broad categories, from the purely altruisic (利他的)— I donate because I value the social good done by the charity. The “impurely” altruistic— I donate because I extract value from knowing I contribute to the social good for the charity. And the not-at-all altruistic— I donate because I want to show off to potential mates how rich I am.
But are these motives strong enough to enable people to donate as much as they would want to? Most people support charities in one way or another, but often we struggle to make donations as often as we think we should. Although many people would like to leave a gift to charity in their will, they forget about it when the time comes.
Many people are also aware that they should donate to the causes that have the highest impact, but facts and figures are less attractive than narratives. In a series of experiments, it was found that people are much more responsive to charitable pleas that feature a single, identifiable beneficiary(受益者), than they are to statistical information about the scale of the problem being faced. When it comes to charitable giving, we are often ruled by our hearts and not our heads.
The good news is that charitable giving is contagious—seeing others give makes an individual more likely to give and gentle encouragement from an important person in your life can also make a big difference to your donation decisions— more than quadrupling them in our recent study. Habit also plays a part— in three recent experiments those who volunteered before were more likely to do donate their time than those who had not volunteered before.
In summary, behavioural science identifies a range of factors that influence our donations, and can help us to keep giving in the longer term. This is great news not just for charities, but also for donors.
1. What can we learn about people who do charitable giving?| A．Most people support charity as often as they think they should. |
| B．Some people don’t want to leave a gift to charity until the time comes. |
| C．Those who donate because they can gain an advantage are purely altruistic. |
| D．Some people send money to charity simply to tell others they are wealthy. |
| A．Not revealing the names of the donors. |
| B．Showing figures about the seriousness of the problem. |
| C．Telling stories that feature a single, recognizable beneficiary. |
| D．Reminding people to write down what to donate in the will in advance. |
| A．People will learn from others and follow the suit. |
| B．Many people are familiar with charitable giving. |
| C．Charitable giving helps the beneficiary in all aspects. |
| D．Charitable giving can bring a lot of benefits to donors. |
| A．To persuade more people to donate. |
| B．To explain the science behind why people donate. |
| C．To criticize some false charitable giving behaviours. |
| D．To explore approaches to making people donate more. |
9 . Time to end Santa’s “naughty list”?
Many of us have magical memories of Santa secretly bringing gifts and joy to our childhood homes — but is there a darker side to the beloved Christmas tradition?
I was — and I’m happy to admit it — a loyal believer of Santa. I absolutely loved the magic of Christmas, especially Santa Claus, and my parents went above and beyond to encourage it. However, as I begin to construct my own Santa Claus myth for my daughter, I can’t help but feel guilty. Could it undermine her trust in me?
I guess it’s not all that surprising.
The “Santa lie” can reduce trust between a parent and a child.
| A．But the biggest danger is the anti-critical thinking lessons that he is teaching. |
| B．It’s this emphasis on belief over imagination that he sees as harmful. |
| C．Interestingly, belief in Santa Claus has actually promoted children’s critical thinking. |
| D．There are plenty of cultural evidences we create for the existence of Santa. |
| E．He begins to probe and question the things he has seen and heard. |
| F．Fascinatingly, belief in Santa Claus has remained remarkably consistent. |
10 . At 11:50, the bell rings. We students rush to the canteen at an amazing speed to enjoy our lunch. Have we ever stopped to see what happens after the meal?
This irresponsible food waste deed can never be tolerated. It reflects poorly on our hygiene practice (食品良好卫生规范).
Let’s learn from a Michelin-star chef who says that he will always respect the fish he cooks. Why?
Let’s respect our food and share the joy of living well through giving food to those in need.
| A．Some unfinished food is taken away to the dormitory. |
| B．We can also pack food from home or buy canned food or biscuits to give to the needy. |
| C．The ideal picture would be this: the chef sees his hard work being rewarded when piles of empty. |
| D．Simply, he recognizes the sacrifices the fisherman makes. |
| E．Similarly, we should respect and appreciate our food more. |
| F．And some of these foods have not even touched the students’ lips. |
| G．It also shows that little thought has been put in preventing food wastage. |
