1 . Ariel Procaccia has thought a lot about how to cut a cake over the last 15 years. As the father of three children, he knows how hard it is to divide a birthday cake to everyone’s satisfaction. But it’s also because Procaccia’s work focuses on exploring the mathematical rules for dividing stuff up fairly. One way to do that is to think abstractly about dessert.
For decades, researchers have been asking the seemingly simple question of how to cut a cake fairly. The answer reaches far beyond birthday parties. A mathematical problem at its heart, cake cutting connects strict reasoning to real-world issues of fairness, and so attracts not only mathematicians, but also social scientists, economists and more. “It’s a very elegant model in which you can distill what fairness really is, and reason about it,” Procaccia says.
The simplest approach is called the “divider-chooser” method, where one person cuts the cake into two equal pieces in his view, and the other person picks first. Each receives a piece that they feel is as valuable as the other’s. But when personal preferences are taken into account, even the easiest rule becomes complicated. Suppose Alice and Bob are to divide a cake, and Alice knows Bob prefers chocolate, she may knowingly divide the cake unequally so the smaller piece contains more chocolate. Then Bob will choose according to his preference, and Alice will get the larger piece. Both of them are satisfied with what they get, but the meaning of fairness changes in this situation.
The cake is a symbol for any divisible good. When cake-cutting principles are employed to settle disagreements, they are potentially helping the world find solutions. Procaccia has used fair division algorithms (算法) to model food distribution. Social scientist Haris Aziz is exploring situations ranging from how to divide up daily tasks to how to best schedule doctors’ shifts in hospitals.
Even after decades of investigation, cake cutting isn’t like a simple jigsaw puzzle (拼图) with a well-defined solution. Instead, over time, it has evolved into a kind of mathematical sandbox, a constructive playground that brings together abstract proofs and easy applications. The more researchers explore it, the more there is to explore.
1. What does the underlined word “distill” in paragraph 2 mean?| A．Get the essence of. | B．Find the opposite of. |
| C．Keep the focus on. | D．Reduce the impact on. |
| A．Its standard is stable. | B．It prevents unequal division. |
| C．Its concept is complex. | D．It dominates personal preferences. |
| A．The application of its rules. | B．The details of its process. |
| C．The problems it produces. | D．The harmony it symbolizes. |
| A．Who benefits most from fairness? |
| B．How has fairness changed over time? |
| C．What method works best in cake-cutting? |
| D．Why are researchers so interested in cake-cutting? |
In today’s urban centers, traffic jam is a common sight, characterized by long lines of vehicles
Due to the congestion, it’s easy to become disillusioned with the daily grind.(日常琐事) However, there’s hope in the form of nation-driven initiatives
These initiatives are not environmentally friendly
Implementing innovative approaches to traffic issues in urban centers helps promote a
3 . Leading museums in the United States are covering up or closing displays featuring Native American cultural objects owing to new federal rules. The new regulations require museums to obtain “free, prior and informed permission” from tribal leaders before displaying ancestral heritage items.
The American Museum of Natural History in New York City, the largest natural history museum in the world, announced on Jan 26 that it would close two halls spanning 10,000 square feet with Native American exhibits, as the exhibits are “severely outdated”. “The halls we are closing contain artifacts(历史文物) of an era when museums such as ours did not respect the values, perspectives and indeed shared humanity of Native Americans,” museum President Sean Decatur said in a letter to the staff, The New York Times reported. “The number of cultural objects on display in these halls is significant, and because these exhibits are also severely outdated, we have decided that rather than just covering or removing specific items, we will close the halls,” Decatur said. The move comes because of the implementation(执行) in early January of update d regulations under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).
Over the next five years, museums, universities, art institutions and similar places are required to undertake essential updates to prepare all human remains and related funerary(葬礼的) objects for repatriation(遣送),making sure that tribes have more power and increased authority throughout the process. “The ultimate goal of the law is not to cover up exhibitions. It’s not to prevent appropriate education about diverse native cultures. It’s about repairing and repatriating items that have been stolen over the last couple of centuries and returning them to the rightful people,” Shannon O’Loughlin, the CEO of the Association on American Indian Affairs said.
Chicago’s Field Museum earlier this month also closed several displays featuring Native American cultural items. The Field Museum has one of the biggest collections of Native American remains in the country and opened a new permanent exhibition in the spring of 2022 that displaced the museum’s longstanding Native American exhibition since the 1950s.
Harvard University, which has more than 5,000 Native American human remains, has said it will remove all Native American funerary items from its exhibits. “Exhibitions have always been discussed during tribal discussions and cultural items have been removed from display at the tribal request. With the new NAGPRA regulations, the museum is in the process of removing all the funerary belongings and likely funerary belongings off display,” Harvard University’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, said in a statement.
1. Which has the same meaning as the underlined word “perspectives” in Paragraph 2?| A．Occupations. | B．Faults. | C．Challenges. | D．Viewpoints. |
| A．It opened a new permanent exhibition. |
| B．It collected some Native American belongings. |
| C．It handed funerary objects to American Indians. |
| D．It set about displaying Native American cultural objects. |
| A．By selling them to other people. | B．By putting them in some labs. |
| C．By taking them away from its exhibits. | D．By covering them with pieces of cloth. |
| A．US New NAGPRA regulations scheduled to be in effect |
| B．US museums stop displaying Native American exhibits |
| C．US museums feature Native American cultural items |
| D．US museums prefer ancestral heritage items |
4 . I was watching a TV program when I came across a sorrowful sight: homeless people lying near the wall of a busy Manhattan train station. Dan Rather, a reporter, was covering the event. He
One woman took the
Dan Rather then went along with a homeless person to the welfare office. It took the man three days to just fill out the proper applications. The complete
After watching this program, I gave
| A．gathered | B．described | C．interviewed | D．observed |
| A．recognized | B．assisted | C．worried | D．believed |
| A．car | B．subway | C．bus | D．train |
| A．eventually | B．obviously | C．rarely | D．temporarily |
| A．landed | B．designed | C．quit | D．shared |
| A．libraries | B．hospitals | C．stadiums | D．shelters |
| A．admit | B．explain | C．understand | D．predict |
| A．In comparison | B．Without doubt | C．Without difficulty | D．In return |
| A．brought up | B．cared for | C．referred to | D．depended on |
| A．ceremony | B．conversation | C．experiment | D．process |
| A．hand | B．option | C．honour | D．gift |
| A．improved | B．lost | C．applied | D．succeeded |
| A．different | B．impractical | C．serious | D．unnecessary |
| A．factory | B．society | C．party | D．club |
| A．end | B．strengthen | C．copy | D．rebuild |
5 . The UK is experiencing a boom in book clubs, according to new data from event listing companies. Book club listings on the ticketing site Eventbrite increased by 350% between 2019 and 2023. Between 2022 and 2023 alone, book club listings on the site rose by 41%. Another event listing site, Meetup, reported a 14% increase in the number of RSVPs to book clubs between January 2023 and January 2024, compared with a 4% increase in RSVPs for all UK-based events.
Victoria Okafor, who co-runs the book club Between2Books, said the heightened interest in reading may be partly the result of a general “shift in hobbies”, as GenZ (the generation around 00s) turned to other ways to spend their free time. Besides, during the global health crisis period, many people were forced to slow down and pick up or reignite hobbies, and online book clubs provided a platform to connect with others.
Social media may be helping with the visibility of book clubs, too, said Okafor. “People may come across your page accidentally, but from there people have the knowledge to attend should they wish. I think this makes a big difference compared to just hearing things from word of mouth.”
Many of the book clubs listed on Eventbrite carry specific themes — Sheffield Feminist Book Club, Bring Your Baby Book Club, and Modern Chinese Literature Online Book Club.
Okafor’s club, Between2Books, focuses on books by writers traditionally excluded (排除) from the classics. She thought she began seeking out such stories “embarrassingly late”. “Reading authors of color brought back a joy to my reading that came from not only seeing elements of myself and culture reflected in novels but also reading stories that could be funny or empowering as opposed to the accounts of struggle that can often surround stories of people of color,” she said. “The variety of books makes reading and discussion so rich and I think that’s what attenders are drawn to.”
1. How is paragraph 1 mainly developed?| A．By giving examples. | B．By listing figures. |
| C．By analyzing causes. | D．By presenting theories. |
| A．Return. | B．Reward. | C．Regain. | D．Reconnect. |
| A．The influence of social media. | B．The recommendation of old generations. |
| C．GenZ having a stronger thirst for knowledge. | D．Some people shifting the focus of their lives. |
| A．The diversity of books. | B．The reputation of writers. |
| C．The humor of the works. | D．The suggestion of the organizer. |
6 . Earlier this month, an opinion study said about 75 percent of the French public want to ban bullfighting (斗牛). But a small group of supporters say it is a tradition that should continue.
Baptiste is a 16-year-old boy training to be a bullfighter who lives in Arles, a town in southern France. He says opponents do not understand bullfighting. “Bullfighting is a tradition, an art, a dance with the bull,” Baptiste said. He is one of 12 students in Arles learning how to fight bulls.
Opponents wonder how it can be called “an art” when an innocent animal is killed in the end. During a recent protest march, one sign read: “Bullfighting is not a fight; it’s the killing of a tortured (折磨) innocent.”
Aymeric Caron is a French lawmaker who sent a bill to Parliament that would ban bullfighting. It is currently being debated. He said some parts of France permit bullfighting as long as fewer than 1,000 bulls are killed each year. Just because it is a tradition, he said, does not “morally justify a practice”.
Other lawmakers in Caron’s party are not supporting his bill, so it is unlikely to pass. But the news of the anti-bullfighting proposal started a discussion throughout France.
Frederic Pastor oversees the bullfights in the city of Nimes. He said the bull is “glorified (给予荣耀)” during the fight although it is killed. Nimes is home to 14 bullfighting shows each year. They bring in over $60 million to the city.
Tiphanie Senmartin Laurent is one of the protesters. She said most people are against bullfighting. “Torture is not a show,” she said.
Spain is considered the place where bullfighting began. People there are also questioning the practice. Bullfighting was banned in the Spanish province of Catalonia in 2010 but later brought back. A major court in Spain called the practice a “cultural asset”. That means it is considered a tradition that has value. A new proposal on animal safety in Spain does not discuss bulls.
1. What can be known about Baptiste from paragraph 2?| A．He is expert in bullfighting. |
| B．He is far from opposed to bullfighting. |
| C．He comes from a northern French town. |
| D．He doesn’t understand why bullfighting becomes a tradition. |
| A．It is sort of an art. |
| B．It means a lot of harm to the innocent animal. |
| C．It is a symbol of culture in Spain. |
| D．It makes humans know more about the bull. |
| A．Bullfighting’s being banned. |
| B．The public’s interest in the sport. |
| C．A national discussion on bullfighting. |
| D．The higher frequency of bullfighting shows in France. |
| A．Bullfighting Is Increasingly Popular in France |
| B．Challenges Faced by Bullfighting |
| C．The Rise and Fall of Bullfighting |
| D．France Considers a Ban on Bullfighting |
7 . The number of universities has grown very fast in recent decades. Higher-education institutions across the world now employ 15 million researchers, up from 4 million in 1980. Governments are also happy to spend on higher education because it is supposed to produce scientific breakthroughs that can be available to all. In theory, therefore, universities should be an excellent source of productivity growth.
In practice, however, the productivity has slowed down during the last decades. In the 1950s and 1960s, workers’ output per hour across the rich world rose by 4% a year. But in the last decade, 1% a year was the norm. Even with the wave of innovation in artificial intelligence (AI), productivity growth remains weak — less than 1% a year, which is bad news for economic growth.
A new paper by Ashish Arora and his team suggests that universities’ rapid growth and the rich world’s slowdown productivity could be two sides of the same coin. The paper suggests that scientific breakthroughs from public institutions “caused little or no response from businesses” over a number of years. A scientist in a university lab might publish brilliant paper after brilliant paper. Often, however, this has no impact on corporations’ own patents, with life sciences being the exception. And this, in turn, points to a small impact on the overall productivity.
Why do companies struggle to use ideas produced by universities?
The paper says that, free from the demands of the market, researchers in university labs focus more on satisfying their curiosity than finding breakthroughs that will change the world or make money. “To some degree, such kind of research is not a bad thing; some breakthrough technologies, such as penicillin, were discovered almost by accident,” it writes, “But if everyone is doing that, the economy suffers.”
Perhaps, with time, universities and the business world will work together more tightly. Tougher competition could force businesses to beef up their internal research. In fact, researchers in companies’ labs, rather than universities, are driving the current AI innovations. At some point, governments will need to ask themselves hard questions. In a world of weak economic growth, huge spending on universities may come to seem an unjustifiable luxury.
1. What are the statistics in paragraph 2 mainly about?| A．The weak economy around the globe. | B．Universities’ contribution to employment. |
| C．Governments’ spending on higher education. | D．The slow productivity growth in the rich world. |
| A．The investors. | B．The workers. | C．Life sciences. | D．Al industries. |
| A．They are very eager to make more money. | B．They are less concerned about applications. |
| C．They usually find breakthroughs by accident. | D．They should be left alone to do their research. |
| A．A Study Suggests Universities Fail to Increase Productivity |
| B．Universities and the Business World May Work Together Soon |
| C．It Is Important for Companies’ Labs to Lead the AI Innovation |
| D．It Is a Big Waste to Spend So Much Money on Higher Education |
8 . Keith Payne realized he was poor for the first time when he was in the fourth grade. The awareness came to him when a new lunch lady in the cafeteria asked him to pay for his lunch.
“Previously, the lunch lady had just waved me on because I’d always been on free lunch,” he says. “But this new lady didn’t know how things worked, and it was the first time that I had been asked to pay for my lunch.”
It was an agonizing moment and all of a sudden, he realized why he got free lunch while many of his classmates were paying for their meals every day.
“It’s not like I was poorer the day after that than I was before. Nothing objective had changed. But because of that subjective awareness, I began constantly comparing myself with my classmates and felt really unhappy,” he says.
Keith Payne is now a social psychologist at the University of North Carolina and shares how the awareness of inequality affects the way that both our minds and our bodies respond.
“As we walk through the world, it is very natural for us to compare our lives with those of others. We think about ourselves in terms of being on a certain ladder (梯子) with some people above us and it can cause serious psychological consequences,” he says.
One is that it makes us more willing to seek out risks and engage in high-risk, high-reward sort of behaviors. It affects us in ways that are similar to physical threats.
“But I think there are wiser and less wise ways to make those social comparisons,” he says. “Upward social comparisons feel terrible, but they can be motivating. Downward social comparisons feel great, and yet they can be demotivating. So one of the things I recommend is that we can be more strategic in making upward and download social comparisons, Neither one is good in itself. It just depends on what your goal is.”
1. Which of the following best explains “agonizing” underlined in paragraph 3?| A．Painful. | B．Brief. | C．Important. | D．Happy. |
| A．Poor people should be treated equally. |
| B．He wants to blame the new lunch lady. |
| C．There were a lot of poor people in his country. |
| D．We can be influenced by the awareness of inequality. |
| A．Unimportant. | B．Acceptable. | C．Annoying. | D．Unnecessary. |
| A．Talk to psychologists immediately. | B．Hang out with top performers. |
| C．Compare with less successful persons. | D．Stay alone and enjoy ourselves. |
9 . Text message acronyms (缩略词) caused plenty of confusion for the older generations when mobile phones became commonplace — now emojis are making the embarrassment become more serious.
Slack, a workplace messaging service, surveyed 9,400 office workers worldwide including 1,000 in the UK. It found the biggest emoji socially embarrassing action or mistake at work was pictures of lips. Most older workers did not realize the double meaning of the peach emoji, which for younger users means hips. Olivia Grace, a director at Slack, said, “The findings of our research are very clear — be careful when communicating with emojis across generations. Emojis offer a great way to communicate emotion, whether it’s a joke, support or something else, but it’s good to be aware that different meanings may exist to avoid any awkward interpretations.”
The simple smiling face was also a source of misunderstanding — 60 percent of over-40s used it to show happiness or pleasure but a significant number of younger workers used it to convey “deep anger”. An image of someone painting their nails was the most confusing — it meant nothing to the older generation, while the under-25s said they used it to say “there is gossip”, and the 25 to 40-year-olds used it to communicate making themselves more beautiful. However, all ages agreed on the meaning of some emojis, such as a face with tears of laughter and a crying emoji.
Speaking about its reasons for conducting the survey, Slack said, “Are there certain emojis that should restrict your boss from using them? Have your international colleagues ever misunderstood an emoji? And do you usually wait to build a relationship before sending emojis at work?” It added that with thousands of emojis at users’ treatment, “there’s a lot of potential” to communicate by mistake.
Emojis are not technically a form of language, as they lack grammar. The original user of a particular emoji has no copyright on how it is to be understood. The significance of emojis belongs to those who use them, and they have a truly valuable role in written communication.
1. What did Slack find about emojis?| A．Acronyms cause more confusion than them. | B．People understand some of them differently. |
| C．It’s popular for office workers to use them. | D．They can avoid many awkward situations. |
| A．By analyzing causes. | B．By raising questions. |
| C．By following time order. | D．By making comparisons. |
| A．To help people use emojis properly. | B．To find original emojis. |
| C．To prove the convenience of emojis. | D．To explain some special emojis. |
| A．Unclear. | B．Dismissive. | C．Doubtful. | D．Approving. |
10 . These days, there’s barely a world leader who doesn’t talk up science. For example, the India’s Prime Minister was the main performer at the annual Indian Science Congress, held in Nagpur, where he encouraged the nation’s researchers to do the science needed to make India self-reliant.
The message to researchers is crystal clear: leaders see science as essential to national prosperity, well-being and, of course, competitiveness. So, is research fit for the challenge of advancing, refining or critiquing these goals? Not exactly. And it won’t be until there is fundamental reform to the gateway to a research career: PhD training.
As Nature and other publications have frequently reported, PhD training worldwide has been in trouble for some time. Students’ stipends (生活津贴) are not enough in most countries, creating a cost-of-living crisis. Early-career researchers constantly report concerns about a constant lack of support and poor-quality supervision, with senior researchers rarely trained in mentorship (指导).
Furthermore, PhD candidates are inadequately prepared for the cross-disciplinary working and large teams that characterize cutting-edge science today. This is especially true for careers outside academic research, where the overwhelming majority of PhD candidates will be heading.
It is not all bad. Universities in a small number of high-income countries have reformed, or are reforming, PhD assessment. But in most places, and especially in low- and middle-income countries, a candidate’s work is still evaluated using a single-authored paper. In many countries, candidates must publish in a journal before they get a PhD, something that critics say could fuel profitable publishing.
The system’s strains have become more obvious because the number of people doing PhD training has been rising sharply. According to the 2022 book Towards a Global Core Value System in Doctoral Education, the number of PhDs awarded in India increased from 17,850 in 2004 to 25,095 in 2016; US figures climbed from 48,500 to 69,525 over the same period. If researchers are to meet society’s expectations, their training and mentoring must escape the nineteenth century.
1. Why is the India’s Prime Minister mentioned in the first paragraph?| A．To indicate India’s serious scientific landscape. |
| B．To imply more researchers are in great demand in India. |
| C．To show leaders’ emphasis on scientific research. |
| D．To demonstrate more and more people take an interest in science. |
| A．The reforms in science. | B．The significance of mentorship. |
| C．The creation of academic culture. | D．The issues early-career researchers face. |
| A．Disappointed. | B．Satisfied. | C．Indifferent. | D．Enthusiastic. |
| A．PhD education is developing gradually. |
| B．The reforms in PhD training admit of no delay. |
| C．The number of PhDs awarded has increased in India and the US. |
| D．The demand for researchers’ meeting society’s expectations is pressing. |
