1 . Research spanning several decades demonstrates that you are more likely to think the information that is repeated to be true than the information you hear only once. You usually assume that if people put in effort to repeat a statement, this reflects the truth of the statement. This tendency-also called the truth effect-is a bias (偏见) that can lead you to draw incorrect conclusions.

To what degree are people aware of the truth effect? This question was addressed in a paper in the journal Cognition early this year.

In the critical study in this paper, participants did two sessions. In one session, they read about a hypothetical (虚构的) study in which they were exposed to some statements and then were asked whether both statements they had heard before as well as these new statements were true. They were asked to predict the proportion (比例) of each statement that would be judged as true. They did this both as a prediction of other people’s performance as well as a prediction of how they would do in this study.

At another session a few days later, participants actually performed this study, reading a set of 20 statements in the hypothetical study again and then judging the truth of altogether 40 statements, half of which were from the hypothetical study and the other half of which were new.

This study did replicate the well known truth effect. People were more likely to judge statements they had seen before as true than statements that were new. Two interesting findings emerged from the prediction. First, participants tended to underestimate the size of the truth effect for everyone. T hat is, while they did expect some difference in judgments between the statements seen before and those that were new, they thought this difference would be smaller than it actually was. Second, participants more significantly underpredicted the truth effect for themselves compared to that for other people.   

This study is particularly important in light of the amount of misinformation present in social media. Many people have the power to influence public opinion about important matters. Flooding social media feeds with misinformation will lead people to believe this information is true just because it is stated. Recognizing that we are all susceptible to this influence of repeated information should lead us to mistrust our intuition (直觉) about what is true and to look up important information prior to using it to make important judgments and decisions.

1. In the first paragraph, the author intends to ______.

A．clarify a misconception	B．present a phenomenon
C．challenge a statement	D．confirm a theory

2. What can we learn from the study?

A．Impacts of the truth effect require further studies.

B．Making predictions before judgments is significant.

C．People have hardly any awareness of the truth effect.

D．People tend to believe they can make wiser judgments.

3. What does the word “susceptible” underlined in the last paragraph most probably mean?

A．Critical.

B．Subject.

C．Opposed.

D．Adapted.

2 . Evan Selinger, professor in RIT’s Department of Philosophy, has taken an interest in the ethics (伦理标准) of Al and the policy gaps that need to be filled in. Through a humanities viewpoint, Selinger asks the questions, “How can AI cause harm, and what can governments and companies creating Al programs do to address and manage it?” Answering them, he explained, requires an interdisciplinary approach.

“AI ethics go beyond technical fixes. Philosophers and other humanities experts are uniquely skilled to address the nuanced (微妙的) principles, value conflicts, and power dynamics. These skills aren’t just crucial for addressing current issues. We desperately need them to promote anticipatory (先行的) governance, ” said Selinger.

One example that illustrates how philosophy and humanities experts can help guide these new, rapidly growing technologies is Selinger’s work collaborating with a special AI project. “One of the skills I bring to the table is identifying core ethical issues in emerging technologies that haven’t been built or used by the public. We can take preventative steps to limit risk, including changing how the technology is designed, ”said Selinger.

Taking these preventative steps and regularly reassessing what risks need addressing is part of the ongoing journey in pursuit of creating responsible AI. Selinger explains that there isn’t a step-by-step approach for good governance. “AI ethics have core values and principles, but there’s endless disagreement about interpreting and applying them and creating meaningful accountability mechanisms, ” said Selinger. “Some people are rightly worried that AI can become integrated into ‘ethics washing’-weak checklists, flowery mission statements, and empty rhetoric that covers over abuses of power. Fortunately, I’ve had great conversations about this issue, including with some experts, on why it is important to consider a range of positions. ”

Some of Selinger’s recent research has focused on the back-end issues with developing AI, such as the human impact that comes with testing AI chatbots before they’re released to the public. Other issues focus on policy, such as what to do about the dangers posed by facial recognition and other automated surveillance(监视) approaches.

Selinger is making sure his students are informed about the ongoing industry conversations on AI ethics and responsible AI. “Students are going to be future tech leaders. Now is the time to help them think about what goals their companies should have and the costs of minimizing ethical concerns. Beyond social costs, downplaying ethics can negatively impact corporate culture and hiring, ” said Selinger. “To attract top talent, you need to consider whether your company matches their interests and hopes for the future. ”

1. Selinger advocates an interdisciplinary approach because ________.

A．humanities experts possess skills essential for AI ethics

B．it demonstrates the power of anticipatory governance

C．AI ethics heavily depends on technological solutions

D．it can avoid social conflicts and pressing issues

2. To promote responsible AI, Selinger believes we should ________.

A．adopt a systematic approach	B．apply innovative technologies
C．anticipate ethical risks beforehand	D．establish accountability mechanisms

3. What can be inferred from the last two paragraphs?

A．More companies will use AI to attract top talent.

B．Understanding AI ethics will help students in the future.

C．Selinger favors companies that match his students’ values.

D．Selinger is likely to focus on back-end issues such as policy.

3 . On Feb. 21, four students were standing on the side of Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu when a driver going 110 miles per hour lost control of his car and it crashed into the parked vehicles.12 people were killed at the scene, including 2 drivers.

This kind of traffic death shouldn’t be called an accident. In Los Angeles, we seem to have accepted constant carnage (屠杀) in our streets in exchange for maximizing driver speed and convenience. The official responses to proven traffic dangers are mere gestures, if even that.

Los Angeles is a uniquely deadly city with a death rate that is four times the national average. Unsurprisingly, it’s also a city that has been designed with one thing in mind: a concept called level of service, which grades streets on how well they serve those in automobiles. To many Angelenos, that makes sense — to design our streets for car traffic, which is the way many get around the city. Unfortunately, we don’t recognize that there’s a trade-off. We can either have streets bettered for free-flowing traffic, or we can design streets for people to move around safely outside of cars.

City leaders consistently choose for the easy but deadly option. In one recent example, a resident asked the city’s Department of Transportation to block drivers from using Cochran Avenue at Venice Boulevard as a cut-through street, as they were speeding through a quiet residential neighbourhood. The department responded by suggesting a “speed awareness campaign” in which neighbours put up yard signs urging drivers to slow down.

People don’t drive based on signage, but they drive on the design of the street. The trunk roads of Los Angeles such as Venice Boulevard all need to be revised so that people are prioritized over cars. This would include narrowing travel lanes (道), building bike lanes, and banning right turns at red lights. These measures would make drivers feel like they’re in a city and not on a highway. A recent John Hopkins study says this would have substantial safety benefits.

With more than 7,500 miles of streets in the city of Los Angeles, they won’t all be rebuilt anytime soon. But with each road construction project, or each crash, we should be revising streets to make them safer for all road users.

The solution to traffic jam isn’t to make more space for cars. It’s to design the streets to be safe enough for alternatives such as biking, walking and mass transit, especially for the 50% of trips daily in Los Angeles that are less than three miles. The solution to protecting people dining outdoors isn’t crash barriers. It’s a street design that forces drivers to go slowly. The problem is carnage in the streets, and we know the solutions.

1. Why should the traffic death in Los Angeles be called “constant carnage”?

A．The traffic accidents happen quite often.

B．Too many people are killed in the traffic accidents.

C．The drivers’ speeding is to blame for the traffic death.

D．City leaders’ consistent choice contributes to the traffic death.

2. What does the word “trade-off” underlined in Paragraph 3 most probably mean?

A．Balance.

B．Guideline.

C．Conflict.

D．Resolution.

3. According to the passage, which is a likely solution to the traffic problem?

A．To widen travel lanes.	B．To add more crosswalks.
C．To arrange more traffic police.	D．To punish speeding drivers.

4. Which would be the best title for the passage?

A．Drivers first or walkers first?	B．Traffic death or constant carnage?
C．More warning signs or safer designs?	D．More narrow lanes or speedy highways?

5 . 阅读下面短文，根据题目要求用英文回答问题。

In order to fit in and make friends in a new school, Amanda observed how her classmates behaved and interacted with each other. Gradually, she perfectly adopted the mannerisms of   the classmates around her, laughing at their jokes, nodding in agreement with their opinions, hiding herself into someone she thought others wanted her to be. We’ve all done these. This is social masking, the process of holding back or hiding our natural way of interacting with others so we can feel accepted.

In a world that often tells us to just be ourselves, you might wonder why many of us rely on social masking. “Social masking happens because we as a species want to be included,” says psychologist Dipti Tait. “It’s a tribal (群体的) thing of being together rather than being on our own. We all have certain masks to protect ourselves from exposure and difference.” While masking can help us deal with social situations, it can also come with negative consequences. Hiding our behaviours and interests constantly can lead to a strong feeling of separation, disconnection, and internal conflict. As a result, we may experience a heightened and increased possibility of developing depression as westruggle to understand social situations and signs that others take for granted.

Fortunately, a mask is not our own skin. We may feel extremely tired after social engagements and want to spend time alone in order to feel like ourselves. “The goal is to feel safe enough to remove the mask,” says Tait. “It’s crucial for individuals to receive acceptance and support for who they are, rather than feeling like they need to hide their true selves in order to fit in.”

1. What is social masking?
_____________________________________________________________
2. Why do many of us rely on social masking?
_____________________________________________________________
3. Please decide which part is false in the following statement, then underline it and explain why.
When people struggle to understand social situations that others consider normal, they will feel less depressed.
_____________________________________________________________
4. In addition to masking, what else can you do to fit in when you are in a new environment? (In about 40 words)
_____________________________________________________________

6 . “Find your passion!” When discussing future career options or selecting a major in college, your parents often say this. The very expression is meant to inspire. But is it good advice?

“Finding” a passion implies that it already exists and is simply waiting to be discovered. Unfortunately, this idea is not what science tells us.     1    

To study this, researchers use a framework of   “fixed” and “growth” mindsets.They argue that encouraging people to “find” their passion may cause them to eventually believe that interests and passions are inborn and relatively unchangeable.     2     In contrast, people who view interests and passions as developed have a growth mindset of interest.

Researchers have revealed that a fixed mindset of interest can decrease creativity. If people believe they are limited to only a few inborn interests and, in consequence, do not explore other areas, they may miss seeing important connections across domains.     3    

Evidently, people can do a lot to embrace a growth mindset of interest. First, realize that your interests and passions aren’t pre-existing. Take an active role in developing your passions. Second, practise positive self-talk. When you lack interest in a new task, pay attention to your inner dialogue.     4    For example, change “I’m not interested in this” to “I’m not interested in this yet, but I know that interest can develop with time and engagement.”

    5    But a growth mindset of interest will help you remain open and curious. The science tells us we should work toward loving what we do. We might become more creative and resilient as a result.

A．So can a growth mindset of interest be taught?

B．Instead passions, like interests, are developed.

C．People who think this have a fixed mindset of interest.

D．Of course, not every activity will become a burning passion.

E．As such,seeing interests as fixed limits their creative potential.

F．Don’t expect that pursuing new interests will always be easy or exciting.

G．Replace self-critical thoughts with positive ones that encourage growth and learning.

7 . Nowadays, the world is slowly becoming a high-tech society and we are now surrounded by technology. Facebook and Twitter are innovative tools; text messaging is still a somewhat existing phenomenon and even e-mail is only a flashing spot on the screen when compared with our long history of snail mail. Now we adopt these tools to the point of essentialness, and only rarely consider how we are more fundamentally affected by them.

Social media, texting and e-mail all make it much easier to communicate, gather and pass information, but they also present some dangers. By removing any real human engagement, they enable us to develop our abnormal self-love without the risk of disapproval or criticism. To use a theatrical metaphor (隐喻), these new forms of communication provide a stage on which we can each create our own characters, hidden behind a fourth wall of tweets, status updates and texts. This unreal state of unconcern can become addictive as we separate ourselves a safe distance from the cruelty of our fleshly lives, where we are imperfect, powerless and insignificant. In essence, we have been provided not only the means to be more free, but also to become new, to create and project a more perfect self to the world. As we become more reliant on these tools, they become more a part of our daily routine, and so we become more restricted in this fantasy.

So it is that we live in a cold era, where names and faces represent two different levels of closeness, where working relationships occur only through the magic of email and where love can start or end by text message. An environment such as this reduces interpersonal relationships to mere digital exchanges.

Would a celebrity have been so daring to do something dishonorable if he had had to do it in person? Doubtful. It seems he might have been lost in a fantasy world that ultimately convinced himself into believing the digital self could obey different rules and regulations, as if he could continually push the limits of what’s acceptable without facing the consequences of “real life.”

1. What can we know about new communication tools?

A．Destroying our life totally.	B．Posing more dangers than good.
C．Helping us to hide our faults.	D．Replacing traditional letters.

2. What is the potential threat caused by the novel communication tools?

A．Sheltering us from virtual life.	B．Removing face-to-face interaction.
C．Leading to false mental perception.	D．Making us rely more on hi-tech media.

3. What can be inferred from the last two paragraphs?

A．Technologies have changed our relationships.

B．The digital world is a recipe for pushing limits.

C．Love can be better conveyed by text message.

D．The digital self need not take responsibility.

4. Which of the following is a suitable title for the text?

A．Addiction to the Virtual World	B．Cost of Falling into Digital Life
C．Interpersonal Skills on the Net	D．The Future of Social Media

9 . It is rapidly emerging as one of the most important technological, and increasingly ideological, divides of our times: should powerful generative artificial intelligence systems be open or closed?

Supporters say they broaden access to the technology, stimulate innovation and improve reliability by encouraging outside scrutiny. Far cheaper to develop and deploy, smaller open models also inject competition into a field dominated by big US companies such as Google. Microsoft and OpenAI that have invested billions developing massive, closed and closely controlled generative Al systems.

But detractors argue open models risk lifting the lid on a Pandora’s box of troubles. Bad actors can exploit them to spread personalised disinformation, while terrorists might use them to manufacture cyber or bio weapons. “The danger of open source is that it enables more crazies to do crazy things, “Geoffrey Hinton, one of the pioneers of modern AI, has warned.

The history of OpenAI, which developed the popular ChatGPT chatbot, is itself instructive. As its name suggests, the research company was founded in 2015 with a commitment to develop the technology as openly as possible. But it later abandoned that approach for both competitive and safety reasons. Once OpenAI realised that its generative AI models were going to be “unbelievably potent”, it made little sense to open source them, Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI’s chief scientist said.

Supporters of open models hit back, ridiculing the idea that open generative AI models enable people to access information they could not otherwise find from the internet or a rogue scientist. They also highlight the competitive self-interest of the big tech companies in shouting about the dangers of open models, whose intention is to establish their own market dominance strongly.

But there is an ideological dimension to this debate, too. Yann LeCun, chief scientist of Meta, has likened the arguments for controlling the technology to medieval obscurantism (蒙昧主义): the belief that only a self-selecting priesthood of experts is wise enough to handle knowledge.

In the future, all our interactions with the vast digital repository of human knowledge will be mediated through Al systems. We should not want a handful of Silicon Valley companies to control that access. Just as the internet flourished by resisting attempts to enclose it, so AI will thrive by remaining open, LeCun argues.

Wendy Hall, royal professor of computer science at Southampton university, says we do not want to live in a world where only the big companies run generative Al. Nor do we want to allow users to do anything they like with open models. “We have to find some compromise,” she suggests.

We should certainly resist the tyranny (暴政) of the binary (二进制) when it comes to thinking about AI models. Both open and closed models have their benefits and flaws. As the capabilities of these models evolve, we will constantly have to tweak the weightings between competition and control.

1. What does the underlined word “potent” in Paragraph 4 most probably mean?

A．Accessible.

B．Powerful.

C．Significant.

D．Unnoticeable.

2. What can we learn from this passage?

A．It needs billions of dollars to develop and deploy open-source models.

B．The field of generative AI systems is dominated by big companies.

C．Only self-selecting experts can handle open models wisely.

D．Users can do anything they like with open models at this moment.

3. Regarding Wendy Hall’s suggestions, the author is ______.

A．sympathetic

B．puzzled

C．unconcerned

D．opposed

4. Which of the following would be the best title for the passage?

A．How to Keep the Lid on the Pandora’s Box of Open AI

B．Divides on Open AI: technology and ideology

C．Where does the Debate on Open AI End

D．Pros and Cons of Open AI

10 . EVs are in the middle of an obesity epidemic

Fisker, an electric vehicle, unveiled the future line-up on August 3rd. It included: a souped-up, off-road version of the Ocean. Though Fisker says sustainability is one of its founding principles, it is indulging in a trait almost universal among car firms: building bigger, stronger cars, even when they are electric.

There are two reasons for this. The first is profit. As with conventional cars, bigger EVs generate higher margins. The second is consumer preference. For decades, drivers have been opting for SUVs and pickup trucks rather than smaller cars, and this now applies to battery-charged ones. EV drivers, who worry about the availability of charging infrastructure, want more range, hence bigger batteries. That may help make for a more reassuring ride. But eventually the supersizing trend will prove to be unsustainable and unsafe.

For now, carmakers can argue that however big the electric rigs, they have a positive impact on the planet. Though manufacturing EVs—including sourcing the metals and minerals that go into them—generates more greenhouse gases than a conventional car, they quickly compensate for that through the absence of tallpipe emissions.

But in the long run the trend for bigger butteries may backfire, for economic and environmental reasons. First, the bigger the battery, the more pressure there will be on the supply chain. If battery sizes increase there are likely to be looming seareitles of lithium and nickel. That will push up the cost of lithium-ion batteries, undermining carmakers’ profitability. Second, to charge bigger batteries in a carbon-neutral way requires more low-carbon electricity. That may create bottlenecks on the grid. Third, the more pressure on scarce resources vital for EV production, the harder it will be to make affordable electric cars critical for electrifying the mass market. That will slow the overall decarbonisation of transport. Finally, there is safety. Not only is a battle tank that does zero to 100 kilometres per hour in the blink of an eye a liability for anyone that happens to be in its way.

Governments have ways to encourage EVs to shrink. The most important is to support the expansion of charging infrastructure, which would reduce range anxiety and promote smaller cars. Taxes could punish heavier vehicles and subsidies could promote lighter ones.

Ultimately, the industry is almost sure to realise the folly of pursuing size for its own sake. The penny is starting to drop. Ford’s CEO, Jim Farley, recently said carmakers could not make money with the longest-range batteries. His opposite number at General Motors, Mary Barra, has taken the unexpected step of reversing a plan to retire the affordable Chevy Bolt EV. In Europe, carmakers like Volkswagen are building smaller, cheaper EVs. Tesla is said to be planning a compact model made in Mexico.

1. Consumers want EVs with more range and bigger batteries because ______.

A．they can bring more profits

B．they can reduce tailpipe emissions

C．they are more secure

D．there are insufficient charging facilities for them

2. From the passage, we know that ______.

A．Rising cost of batteries will increase profitability

B．Conventional cars produce more greenhouse gases than EVs in production

C．Bigger batteries may create more pressure on the supply chain

D．The demand on scarce resources in EVs makes electric cars more affordable

3. What is the passage trying to tell us?

A．Lighter electric vehicles should be encouraged.

B．Bigger, stronger cars are safer and more sustainable.

C．Supersizing electric vehicles have a positive impact on the planet.

D．EVs with bigger batteries may help make for a more comfortable ride.