1 . Television has transformed politics in the United States by changing the way in which information is spread, by altering political campaigns, and by changing citizen’s patterns of response to politics. By giving citizens independent access to the candidates, television reduced the role of the political party in the selection of the major party candidates. By centering politics on the person of the candidate, television accelerated the citizen’s focus on character rather than issues.
Television has altered the forms of political communication as well. The messages on which most of us rely are briefer than they once were. The stump speech, a political speech given by traveling politicians and lasting 1 to 2 hours, which was popular in the nineteenth-century, has given way to the 30-second advertisement and the 10 second “sound bite” in broadcast news. Increasingly the audience for speeches is not that standing in front of the politician but rather the viewing audience who will hear and see a short video of the speech on the news.
In these simplified forms, much of what comprised the traditional political speech of earlier ages has been lost. In 15 or 30 seconds, a speaker cannot establish the historical context that shaped the issue in question, cannot detail the probable causes of the problem, and cannot examine alternative proposals to argue that one is preferable to others. In short videos, politicians assert (断言) but do not argue.
Because television is an intimate (亲密的) medium, speaking through it requires a changed political style that is more conversational, personal, and visual than that of the old-style stump speech. Reliance on television means that increasingly our political world contains memorable pictures rather than memorable words. Schools teach us to analyze words and print. However, in a world in which politics is increasingly visual, informed citizenship requires a new set of skills.
Recognizing the power of television’s pictures, politicians craft televisual, staged events designed to attract media coverage. Much of the political activity we see on television news has been crafted by politicians, their speechwriters, and their public relations advisers for televised consumption. Sound bites in news and answers to questions in debates increasingly sound like advertisements.
1. What do we know about “stump speech” in paragraph 2?A.It’s an event created by politicians to attract media attention. |
B.It’s an interactive discussion between two politicians. |
C.It’s a kind of political presentation typical of the nineteenth century. |
D.It’s a style of speech common to televised political events. |
A.politicians need to learn to become more personal |
B.attractive politicians are favored by citizens |
C.citizens tend to favor a politician who analyzed issues |
D.citizens need to learn how to evaluate visual political images |
A.Political presentations today are more like advertisements than in the past. |
B.Politicians today tend to be more familiar with the views of citizens than in the past. |
C.Citizens today are less informed about a politician’s character than in the past. |
D.Political speeches today focus more on details about issues than in the past. |
A.Television: an Agent of Change in Politics | B.Television: a Platform for Political Debate |
C.Television: an Alternative to Stump Speech | D.Television: a New Medium for Communication |
2 . Creative people are more likely to make the most of their idle (空闲的) time during a typical day by exploring their mind, a new study by University of Arizona researchers suggests.
In the study, the researchers divided the study into two parts. For the first experiment, the researchers asked each participant to sit alone in a room for 10 minutes without any access to digital devices. In the absence of any particular prompt (提示), the participants were asked to speak out their thoughts aloud in real time. The recorded files from 81 participants were then analyzed.
The researchers assessed the participants’ creativity through a thinking test, a lab-based verbal test that measures a person’s ability to think outside of the box. Participants who performed well in the thinking test had thoughts that flowed freely and were associated with one another, often indicated by phrases such as “this reminds me of” or “speaking of which”.
“While many participants had a tendency to jump between seemingly unrelated thoughts, creative individuals showed signs of thinking more associatively,” Raffaeli said, who was a senior author of the paper.
The first experiment also found that creative people were more engaged in their thoughts when they were left alone without distractions (干扰), such as the cellphone and Internet. “Creative people rated themselves as being less bored, even over those 10 minutes. They also spoke more words overall, which indicated that their thoughts were more likely to move freely,” Raffaeli said.
To further prove their initial findings, the researchers extended their study in the context of a much larger span of time—from 2020 to 2023 when many people were alone with their thoughts more often. For the second experiment, over 2,600 adults answered questions through a smartphone app called Mind Window. Participants who self-identified as being creative reported being less bored and more engaged in their thoughts during that period.
The researchers are continuing this line of work using their Mind Window app. They encourage people to download and use the app to help scientists understand how people across the world think in their everyday lives. “Understanding why different people think the way they do may lead to promising interventions to improve health and well-being,” Raffaeli said.
1. What were the participants asked to do in the first experiment?A.Play digital devices for just 10 minutes. |
B.Voice their thoughts quickly when asked. |
C.Observe and record each other’s performance. |
D.Make self-assessment in a thinking test. |
A.They often had associated ideas. |
B.They thought of anything as a reminder. |
C.They preferred to sit alone without being distracted. |
D.They tended to jump between unrelated thoughts. |
A.To analyze their own thoughts. | B.To try out the function of the app. |
C.To keep track of their thinking. | D.To improve their own mental well-being. |
A.Idle Time Makes Creative People |
B.Creative Thoughts Appear in Idle Time |
C.Creative People Are Less Affected by Distraction |
D.Creative People Enjoy Idle Time More Than Others |
In recent years, China has been working hard to improve living conditions in rural areas through a program called the New Rural Development Initiative.
One important aspect of the initiative is the improvement of rural infrastructure
Another key focus is the promotion of modern agricultural
machinery, farmers are able to increase their productivity and income
Furthermore, the initiative emphasizes the importance of preserving traditional culture and heritage in rural communities. Efforts
Through the initiative, China is working hard to create a more prosperous (繁荣的) and
4 . It’s commonly thought that boys perform better than girls in math and science. Researchers have challenged that stereotype (刻板印象) for a long time, and a recent study, published in the journal Nature Communications in September, found a new way to attack it.
The study found that women are better than men at sustaining (维持) their performance on longer tests, including math and science.
Researchers Pau Balart, from the University of the Balearic Islands in Spain, and Matthijs Oosterveen from Erasmus University in the Netherlands, analyzed (分析) data collected every three years from 2006 to 2015. The data came from 74 countries and regions, for the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). This is a standardized test of 15-year-old students’ performance in reading, math and science.
Their earlier results agreed with earlier findings that boys do better than girls in math and science. But when they compared the two groups’ scores at different stages of the test, girls tended to perform more stably (稳定地) in math and science, while boys started getting fewer correct answers.
Although boys seemed to show advantages from the start in math and science, the authors wrote, “This finding suggests that longer tests shrink it in math and science,” according to Nature. To prove this, the researchers analyzed another database with over 400 math tests, which lasted longer than PISA’s two hours. They found that, at least for math, the scoring gap between boys and girls decreased.
This isn’t the observation of better test endurance (忍耐力) in women. Oxford University used to add an extra 15 minutes to its math and computer science exams. They found female students’ scores improved.
Olga Shurchkov, an associate professor at Wellesley College in the US, told Newsweek: “This study is important because it provides cross-country evidence that suggests these gender (性别) gaps can be reduced.”
In her earlier study, she found that, given more time, women tended to be more careful and make fewer mistakes. They also were less likely to quit a task early. This also supports the finding of the present study.
1. What did the new study find?A.Boys are better than girls at math and science. |
B.Girls usually do better than boys in shorter tests. |
C.Girls prefer longer math and science tests than boys. |
D.The length of a test affects girls and boys’ scores. |
A.Make something smaller. |
B.Make something larger. |
C.Keep something the same. |
D.Make something appear. |
A.They were more likely to give up on longer tests. |
B.They were not as quick at thinking as male students. |
C.They tended to perform better at the beginning of a test. |
D.They tended to be more patient and careful on longer tests. |
A.It answered questions raised by earlier studies. |
B.It could help to reduce gender gaps on tests. |
C.It could attract girls to study math and science. |
D.It is the first cross-country study of gender gaps on tests. |
5 . Nowadays, people are increasingly interacting with others in social media environments where algorithms control the flow of social information they see. People’s interactions with online algorithms may affect how they learn from others, with negative consequences including social misperceptions, conflict and the spread of misinformation.
On social media platforms, algorithms are mainly designed to amplify (放大) information that sustains engagement, meaning they keep people clicking on content and coming back to the platforms. There is evidence suggesting that a side effect of this design is that algorithms amplify information people are strongly biased (偏向的) to learn from. We call this information “PRIME”, for prestigious, in-group, moral and emotional information.
In our evolutionary past, biases to learn from PRIME information were very advantageous: Learning from prestigious individuals is efficient because these people are successful and their behavior can be copied. Paying attention to people who violate moral norms is important because punishing them helps the community maintain cooperation. But what happens when PRIME information becomes amplified by algorithms and some people exploit (利用) algorithm amplification to promote themselves? Prestige becomes a poor signal of success because people can fake prestige on social media. News become filled with negative and moral information so that there is conflict rather than cooperation.
The interaction of human psychology and algorithm amplification leads to disfunction because social learning supports cooperation and problem-solving, but social media algorithms are designed to increase engagement. We call it functional mismatch. One of the key outcomes of functional mismatch is that people start to form incorrect perceptions of their social world, which often occurs in the field of politics. Recent research suggests that when algorithms selectively amplify more extreme political views, people begin to think that their political in-group and out-group are more sharply divided than they really are. Such “false polarization” might be an important source of greater political conflict.
So what’s next? A key question is what can be done to make algorithms facilitate accurate human social learning rather than exploit social learning biases. Some research team is working on new algorithm designs that increase engagement while also punishing PRIME information. This may maintain user activity that social media platforms seek, but also make people’s social perceptions more accurate.
1. What are social media algorithms targeted at?A.Improving social environment. | B.Generating PRIME information. |
C.Avoiding side effects of social media. | D.Raising the media platform click rate. |
A.To make an assumption. | B.To illustrate a conclusion. |
C.To explain a political issue. | D.To present an extreme case. |
A.boost engagement and regulate amplification |
B.strengthen social learning and delete biases |
C.identify biases and punish PRIME information |
D.monitor media platforms and guarantee users’ privacy |
A.PRIME information meets with misperceptions |
B.Algorithms control the flow of social information |
C.Social media algorithms twist human social learning |
D.Online algorithm designs face unexpected challenges |
6 . In a world that often feels fast-paced and restrained to routines, the desire for van (房车) life and mobile living has captured the hearts of many seeking an alternative lifestyle.
Liberation from Materialism
The confined space of a van encourages a minimalist lifestyle, where experiences are valued over possessions.
Exploration and Flexibility
The ability to follow adventure wherever it takes you is one of the most amazing aspects of living in a van. You can choose to wake up at dawn over the ocean one day and find yourself in a forested mountainside the next. Living in a van frequently involves being close to the outdoors surrounded by the beauty of nature.
Minimal Ecological Footprint
Through the open road, the beauty of nature, and the friendship of fellow adventurers, van life presents a unique avenue for enriching the human experience.
A.It’s thrilling to travel the world. |
B.Many van lifers tend to go green. |
C.Living in a van can often be more cost-effective. |
D.They’ll find a sense of freedom of constant exploration. |
E.The natural world becomes an essential part of your daily life |
F.Better yet, it offers a way to reconnect with the essence of living. |
G.The concept of van life offers benefits beyond just a change of scenery. |
1. What did the man use last weekend?
A.A shared bike. | B.A shared charger. | C.A shared umbrella. |
A.The proper ways to use the sharing product. |
B.Her attitude towards the sharing economy. |
C.The advantages of the sharing economy. |
8 . Since the AI chatbot ChatGPT was released in 2020, we’ve been hearing about the threat posed by artificial intelligence. A statement signed by academic experts and tech industry figures even branded AI an “extinction risk.”
In education, there have been concerns that ChatGPT could negatively affect the learning process of students. For example, students could ask ChatGPT to write their coursework for them, skipping the research and writing effort that leads to a better understanding of the topic in question. Perhaps a better approach would be to change and enhance how we teach and assess the outcomes of learning.
Making education more focused on practical skills and the use of knowledge in problem solving could ensure a deeper understanding on the part of students. AI could be used for guidance, in much the same way we currently use calculators, to help enrich people’s knowledge.
However, risks do exist. In May 2023, for example, a US lawyer admitted using ChatGPT for case research. The lawyer’s filing was found to reference legal cases that didn’t exist. The chatbot had made them up. It’s not the first time that these “AI hallucinations” have been reported.
Then we have the very real risk that AI could be used for illegal purposes such as identity theft. For example, criminals could use AI to clone someone’s voice. They could then phone family members and try to convince them to give out sensitive information that could be helpful for accessing bank accounts. A variant of AI-driven identity theft is the use of deepfake videos.
However, Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, sounds less worried than some other executives in Silicon Valley about the risks of artificial intelligence. In a blog post on Tuesday, he wrote, “This is not the first time a major innovation has introduced new threats that had to be controlled. We’ve done it before.”
1. What is a consequence of students’ using ChatGPT?A.Reduced learning time. | B.Improved academic performance. |
C.A lack of learning process. | D.Health issues. |
A.Reproducing real events. | B.Recommending irrelevant information. |
C.Providing incorrect recommendations. | D.Generating non-existent legal cases. |
A.Identity theft through AI techniques. |
B.Cloning someone’s voice using AI. |
C.The potential dangers of AI for illegal purposes. |
D.Deepfake videos as a form of AI-driven identity theft. |
A.He doesn’t care about them. | B.He thinks them controllable. |
C.He takes them very seriously. | D.He doubts their occurrence. |
1. Whom has the government promised to offer help to?
A.Some farmers. | B.Some pilots. | C.Some children. |
A.In Sydney. | B.In Melbourne. | C.In Queensland. |
A.Thankful. | B.Angry. | C.Sorry. |
A.They attended a musical concert. |
B.They enjoyed themselves in the sea. |
C.Their plane was forced to land shortly after takeoff. |
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