1 . New Scientist magazine’s chief reporter Adam recently published “Net-zero living: how your day will look in a carbon-neutral (碳中和) world”. Here, he imagines what a typical day would be like in the future — through the eyes of Isla, a child in 2050.
Isla lives in the south of the United Kingdom and her life looks pretty much like life does today: she has a house, a car, a job, and a cup of tea in the morning. There are great forests, and giant machines sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. It all sounds like a green and pleasant land, but it didn’t sound like the future to me.
It’s an interesting exercise, imagining what it will be like in about 30 years. I thought I would give it a try: here is some speculative fiction about Edie, living in Toronto, Canada in 2050.
Edie lives in the garage in an old house that is her apartment and workshop. She considers herself to be very lucky to have this garage in what was her grandparents’ house. The only people who live in houses these days either get the houses from their parents or are multi-millionaires from all over the world, desperate to move to Canada with its cooler climate and plentiful water and are able to afford the million-dollar immigrant visa fee.
Edie is lucky to be working. There are no office or industrial jobs anymore: Artificial Intelligence and robots took care of that. The few jobs left are in service, culture, craft, health care, or real estate (房地产). In fact, selling real estate has become the nation’s biggest industry.
There may be lots of electricity from wind and solar farms, but even running tiny heat pumps for cooling is really expensive at peak times. The streets are unpleasantly hot, so many people sleep through the midday.
Now Edie is checking the balance in her Personal Carbon Allowance (PCA) account to see if she has enough to buy another imported battery for her e-bike. If she doesn’t have enough then, she will have to buy carbon credits, and they are expensive. She sets her alarm for 6:00 p.m. when the streets of Toronto will come alive again on this hot November day.
1. What does the author think of Isla’s life?| A．Desirable. | B．Unappealing. |
| C．Unachievable. | D．Exciting. |
| A．Many people will immigrate abroad. | B．Its climate will get colder and colder. |
| C．Electricity will be very cheap to use. | D．The house prices will be extremely high. |
| A．The house problem. | B．Being out of work. |
| C．The balance of her bank account. | D．The energy consumption. |
| A．To point out Adam’s unreasonable thinking. |
| B．To compare the present life and the future life. |
| C．To imagine the life after reducing carbon emissions. |
| D．To raise people’s awareness of environmental protection. |
2 . There’s a classic short story in which a young man travels years ahead and meets his future self. Narratives like this have always been related to science fiction. But what if you could meet your future self?
I’m a psychologist and professor. My research over the past 15 years isn’t far from this theme. I’ve largely focused on how people think about and relate to their future selves, and explored the reasons why we have such a hard time making long-term decisions. In my research, I’ve learnt that we often imagine our future selves like strangers, which can impede us in making long-term choices. One way to bridge the emotional gap is to think of future selves in more concrete and vivid ways, like writing letters to and from one’s future self, which can strengthen the connection between current and future selves.
Admittedly, having people engage in an imagined conversation is a far cry from actually meeting one’s future self. But it’s believed that far richer interactions may happen in the near future through artificial intelligence (AI). It wouldn’t be predicting exactly what choices you’d make. It’d be more about showing your potential, based on the lives of people similar to you: not just one possible life for you, but rather, the most possible life path for you. Such interactions could offer valuable insights into our potential future selves.
So, to return to my original question: if you could time-travel to meet your future self, what aspects of your life would you want to know more about? I realized, through thorough reflections, that the most powerful questions would be ones that helped me make better choices today —questions exploring personal growth, regrets and unfulfilled actions.
Actually, you don’t need to wait for time travel or advanced AI for answers that you can act on. Through my research, I’ve learnt that simply taking a bit of time to picture this meeting can help you make better choices now. All you need is a little imagination, and the willingness to put yourself in the shoes of a person you currently treat as a stranger.
1. Why is it difficult for people to make long-term decisions according to the author?| A．Technology for time travel is not available. |
| B．Strangers cannot help with decision-making. |
| C．Writing letters to one’s future self is impractical. |
| D．People find it hard to connect with their distant selves. |
| A．contradictory to | B．very different from |
| C．not as convenient as | D．less popular than |
| A．Why hasn’t my hard work ever paid off? |
| B．What can AI do to help people become better persons? |
| C．If given the chance, what would you have done differently? |
| D．How can I succeed without going through all the difficulties in life? |
| A．Time travel: What if you met your future self? |
| B．My research: How do people view their future selves? |
| C．Emotional gap: Why can’t we talk with our future selves? |
| D．Artificial intelligence: Is it possible to meet your future self? |
3 . Our future selves used to be a riddle. Now, thanks to social media filters (滤镜), we can stare them right in the face. People fell in love with TikTok this month to share themselves “aging” in real time using a filter “time travel”. Set to a sad song, the effect shows the user’s face slowly getting older, complete with wrinkles (皱纹) and sunspots.
Camera filters that age you have been around for years. But advancements in AI are making the results more real. Doctor Aleksandra Brown said the TikTok time travel filter does well in guessing how a given face would age.
As we get older, our facial skin thins, fat dissolves (溶解) and gravity pulls everything downward. Not everyone is pleased about this. One of Brown’s friends didn’t like watching time fly past. She couldn’t stand watching herself age 50 years in 15 seconds-could life really go by that fast? Brown cried herself after using the aging effect on her own young daughter. She won’t live to see her daughter get that old, she pointed out.
For other people, the time travel filter brought up unexpected positive feelings. Actor Jonathan Bennett shared a video saying his own filtered face recalled happy memories of his late father. Nicole Loehle, a 24-year-old in New Jersey, tested the effect with her boyfriend. It gave her a new viewpoint, she said, she could imagine the relationship lasting into their old age.
There’s no correct way to age. But it’s important to remember that no one can stop time or undo its effects. “I keep trying to view aging as a gift.” Brown said, “Some people don’t get to age, unfortunately?”
1. What can people do with the filter “time travel”?| A．Find their partners. | B．See their aging faces. |
| C．Experience others’ lives. | D．Guess their future success. |
| A．Reminders of the good old days. | B．Reasons for using the aging effect. |
| C．Reflections on close personal relationships. | D．Responses to the aging effect of “time travel”. |
| A．It’s good to watch time fly past. | B．The “time travel” needs advancements. |
| C．Not everyone is fortunate enough to get old. | D．TickTok invented the first app with aging effect. |
| A．TikTok’s “time travel”: slowly or quickly | B．TikTok’s “time travel”: backward or forward |
| C．TikTok’s “time travel”: to enjoy or to suffer | D．TikTok’s “time travel”: to develop or to drop |
4 . Travel is predicted to look extremely different in 2070.
Take airports for example, paperwork will be a thing of the past. Instead of paper passports,your information will be stored in the cloud. This type of technology won’t just include what we are familiar with today——like fingerprints or face scans—but also your heartbeat, as everyone’s heartbeat is unique.
There will be no need to check in. The facial recognition programme will instead be able to recognise you, match you with your booked flight and send messages to your phone as you walk through the airport without stopping.
Your bags, especially the heavy ones, will be sent directly from your train or taxi to the right plane. And that taxi will not be like the ones we know today. People will be expected to travel to the airport--and around their holiday destinations-in eVTOLs, which refers to électric air taxis that can take off and land without a runway.
As for the trouble of packing, 3D printers will provide perfect solutions. Simply provide your destination with your size using a body scan before you fly and, upon arrival, you will find a wardrobe(衣橱) filled with 3D-printed clothes. When you leave, these clothes will be recycled and. reprinted for the next tourist. Not only will this solve the problem of packing, but also make holiday fashion more environment-friendly.
While the predictions might seem unbelievable now, you only have to look back 50 years to realize it’s all possible. Think back to 1973 when smartphones were just a wild dream. “Google” seemed like a made-up word then, and notebook computers were still almost years away from being invented. Similarly, when we look forward to the next 50 years, the possibilities for development in technology for travel are endless.
1. What can we learn about the check-in at the airport in 2070?| A．You’ll have to carry your paper passports. |
| B．It won’t need your heartbeat information. |
| C．You must stop to check the phone for boarding. |
| D．It is no longer needed because of the facial recognition programme. |
| A．your bag will be sent to you by taxi |
| B．a body scan will work out your size |
| C．the clothes of your size will be ready for you |
| D．your packing may do harm to the environment |
| A．To prove the predictions are possible. |
| B．To show the inventions are necessary. |
| C．To list the achievements of the year. |
| D．To express the confidence for travel. |
| A．A new type of air taxi.。 | B．Prediction for future of travel. |
| C．The advantage of 3D prints. | D．The solution to future packing. |
5 . Whenever humans consider the future of AI, they have one big question in mind: will robots take my job? While it’s true that some jobs will disappear, new ones that involve working specifically with AI will arise.
AI has already changed almost every industry, but the future of AI promises to revolutionize even more businesses.
Health care:
Service industry: In the future, robots and machines run by AI could replace customer service representatives and cashiers.
Law enforcement: Some day soon, intelligent robots could even replace police officers to catch potential criminals.
Transportation: Say goodbye to taxi and drivers. In the future, cars will be able to drive themselves (some already do).
Marketing: AI already targets you with customized ads on social media sites, but soon it may even be able to create the ads you see or articles you read.
| A．We can also have AI-equipped robot cooks. |
| B．We may also see automated trains and airplanes. |
| C．The biggest change may be in what we get from work. |
| D．With AI, doctors will be able to better diagnose illnesses. |
| E．AI-run robots are already used as security officers in some businesses. |
| F．There are already articles that are almost as good as what a human creates. |
| G．You use AI when you use Google Maps to find your way to an off-site meeting. |
6 . The future of the city is here. Sidewalk Labs, a company owned by Alphabet(which also owns Google), won a competition to design a neighborhood by Lake Ontario, Canada. The competition was held as a way to improve the building, public spaces, and transportation in the area .
The city of Toronto has promised $1.25 billion for roads, sidewalks, electricity, water, and so on. Sidewalk Labs has already put $50 million into the project.
The neighborhood has already been given the name "Quayside. "When finished, it will include many high-tech and environmentally friendly designs. These include heated sidewalks and cycle tracks to melt（融化）snow and self-driving buses. There will also be narrower street with less car and more room for public spaces like parks. The buildings will be made of plastic to make them more affordable and easier to change. Underground passages will be used for rubbish collection and for repair.
There will also be environmentally friendly energy use, changeable traffic lights, and continuous improvement through data (数据) collection and studies. This data will come from sensors(传感器) collecting information about traffic or noise levels, energy use, waste output, etc.
There are, of course, some worries about the project. One is that there is already a housing shortage in Toronto, and making an expensive, high-tech neighborhood won't help with that. It is important for Quayside to be used by the elderly, the disabled, the poor and people of different races, not only by people who work at tech companies.
Another worry is about data collection and people' s privacy. Dan Dctoroff, the CEO of Sidewalk Labs, said that the data collection will only be used to improve people's life in Quayside. He added that privacy can be put into every part of the neighborhood.
Since this kind of neighborhood is new, no doubt there will be many problems, and new laws will have to be made for this kind of high-tech housing. But hopefully, we will be able to see such a futuristic neighborhood soon.
1. How will Sidewalk Labs carry out its project?| A．By developing advanced technology |
| B．By cooperating with the city of Toronto |
| C．By collecting enough money. |
| D．By calling on people to take part in it. |
| A．Details of upcoming neighborhood. |
| B．Technologies offered by project |
| C．High-tech designs of Quayside |
| D．Equipment in the unique neighborhood |
| A．Because they have to spend much time on it |
| B．Because Quayside is only available to the elderly, the disable and the poor |
| C．Because they fear their privacy will be probably given away |
| D．Because not all people want to live in such a neighborhood. |
| A．Positive | B．Negative. | C．Worried | D．Doubtful |
7 . 2050 seems a long way away, but it is not impossible to predict the future though. With the speed we are moving now so many amazing things are going to happen in the future.
·The Internet will be free for everyone.
The Internet is really a key driver these days.
·
With the increasing population, it is not very hard to predict that common methods of transportation will not be enough. There will be much heavier traffic on the road. So in this case personal airplanes will be a handy method of transportation for common people.
Of course, there will be proper air traffic control for these personal airplanes.
·Most cancers will be treated successfully.
·Humans will live on other planets.
There will be great achievements in space research.
We will receive more intelligent signals from space. Chances are we will be able to find the next Earth-like planet.
| A．But it is not free for everyone yet. |
| B．So where is technology going in the future? |
| C．The world's population will cross 9.6 billion. |
| D．What do you think of my predictions of 2050? |
| E．In the year 2050, humans will be able to live on Mars. |
| F．Personal airplanes will be used widely for short journeys. |
| G．The number of deaths caused by cancers will be greatly reduced. |
8 . Where is the future going?
Our work habits have changed a lot over the past thirty years. While our parents may have expected to stay in one job, with one company, for their whole life, we are faced with the possibility of changing jobs and even careers several times. Our understanding of education, work and society is different from that of earlier generations.
People in the future will still need food, of course, but the way we produce food will not be the same.
What about people who work with computers? Well, things will change for them, too. More advanced computer programs and new technologies will remove the need for computer operators who perform simple actions. Modern search engines can do many of the things that yesterday's computer operators did. Word processing and simple information handling can be done automatically.
A rapidly changing job market also creates new challenges for students, teachers and parents.
| A．What life will be like in the future is difficult to predict. |
| B．Not only the way we work and view the job has changed. |
| C．It is hard to imagine where all these advanced technologies will lead us. |
| D．For people with these skills, there will be new jobs as database managers. |
| E．Where is the future going and what can we do to find a place for ourselves in it? |
| F．Small farms that use old methods will be replaced by large farms with high efficiency. |
| G．The difference in values, skills, education and desires between two generations is growing. |
9 . Since time immemorial, people have been searching for the fountain of youth. Surprisingly, the dream of human immortality is, according to some scientists, not so far out of reach.
Professor Brian Cox, Google's Ray Kurzweil, and Tesla head Elon Musk all agree on not only the possibility of human immortality but also that it is not too far away. The solution, they say, is something called the “technological singularity”.
The singularity is a combination of humankind with computers, namely uploading the contents of one's brain onto a hard drive. In that way, a person's consciousness can stay alive after a physical body gets worse. This is based on the idea that a human brain is simply a machine, and there is, according to Professor Cox, “no reason at all why we cannot simulate (模拟) human intelligence,” using a computer.
Although Professor Cox did not say when the singularity would occur, Google's Ray Kurzweil predicts that the singularity will happen as early as 2045. By 2100, he says, human body parts will be replaceable by machine parts. Further, by uploading our brains onto a computer, we will be able to toy with it, and become “able to expand the scope of our intelligence a billion fold. ”
Elon Musk agreed with the asessments of the other scientists, even going so far as saying that the chances that we are not in a computer simulation right now are “one in billions” .
Google is preparing for a future where you can download personalities onto robots. For example, you might be able to download onto your robot a celebrity personality, or of the personality of your deceased grandmother.
The search engine giant filed a patent for this download process recently. So they definitely believe that the singularity is just around the corner. All you have to do is hold on until 2045, and soon you can effectively live in the cloud.
1. What does the underlined word “immortality” in paragraph 1 probably mean?| A．Living forever. | B．Rebirth after death. |
| C．Being perfect. | D．Continuous improvement. |
| A．By giving examples. | B．By presenting quotations. |
| C．By logically reasoning. | D．By making a description. |
| A．Computers are much smarter than humankind. |
| B．Computers can never surpass humankind at all. |
| C．Computers and humankind are quite different. |
| D．Computers can be another version of humankind. |
| A．Physically and intelligently. | B．Individually and corporately. |
| C．Psychologically and spiritually. | D．Emotionally and materially. |
