完型

Fluidintelligence is the type of intelligence that involves short-term memory andthe ability to think quickly, logically, and abstractly in order to solve newproblem. It?peaksin young adulthood (between the ages of 20 and 30), levels out for a period oftime, and then?generallystarts to slowly decline as we age. But?while?aging is inevitable, scientists arefinding out that certain changes in brain function may not be.

Onestudy found that muscle loss and the?accumulation?of body fat around the abdomen,which often begin in middle age and continue into advanced age, are associatedwith a decline in fluid intelligence. This suggests thepossibility?thatlifestyle factors, such as the type of diet you follow and the type and amountof exercise you get throughout the years to maintain more lean muscle, mighthelp prevent or?delaythis type of decline.

Theresearchers looked at data that?included?measurements of lean muscle, abdominal fat andsubcutaneous fat (the type of fat you can see and grab hold of) from more than4,000 middle-to-older-aged men and women andcompared?that data to reported changes influid intelligence over a six-year period. They found that middle-aged people?with?higher measuresof abdominal fat?scored?worse on measures of fluid intelligence as theyearswent by.

Forwomen, the association may be?attributable?to changes in immunity that resulted fromexcess abdominal fat; in men, the immune system did not appear to be?involved. Futurestudies could?explainthese differences and perhaps lead to different?treatments?for men and women.?

Meanwhile,there are steps you can?taketo help reduce abdominal fat and maintain lean muscle mass as you age in orderto protect both your physical and mental?well-being. The two most generally recommendedlifestyle approaches are maintaining or increasing your?levels?of aerobicexercise and following a Mediterranean-style?diet?that is high in fiber from whole grains,vegetables, and other plant foods and eliminates highly processed foods. If youcarry extra belly fat, speak with your health care provider to determine a planthat is best for you.

TEXT1

How can the train operatorspossibly justify yet another increase to rail passenger fares? It has become agrimly reliable annual ritual: every January the cost of travelling by trainrises, imposing a significant extra burden on those who have no option but touse the rail network to get to work or otherwise. This year’s rise, an averageof 2.7 per cent, may be a fraction lower than last year’s, but it is still wellabove the official Consumer Price Index (CPI) measure of inflation.

Successive Governments havepermitted such increases on the grounds that the cost of investing in andrunning the rail network should be borne by those who use it, rather than thegeneral taxpayer. Why, the argument goes, should a car-driving pensioner fromLincolnshire have to subsidise the daily commute of a stockbroker from Surrey?Equally, there is a sense that the travails of commuters in the South East,many of whom will face among the biggest rises, have received too muchattention compared to those who must endure the relatively poor infrastructureof the Midlands and the North.

However, over the past 12 months,those commuters have also experienced some of the worst rail strikes in years.It is all very well train operators trumpeting the improvements they are makingto the network, but passengers should be able to expect a basic level ofservice for the substantial sums they are now paying to travel. Theresponsibility for the latest wave of strikes rests on the unions. However,there is a strong case that those who have been worst affected by industrialaction should receive compensation for the disruption they have suffered.

The Government has pledged tochange the law to introduce a minimum service requirement so that, even whenstrikes occur, services can continue to operate. This should form part of awider package of measures to address the long-running problems on Britain’srailways. Yes, more investment is needed, but passengers will not be willing topay more indefinitely if they must also endure cramped, unreliable services,punctuated by regular chaos when timetables are changed, or planned maintenanceis managed incompetently. The threat of nationalisation may have been seen offfor now, but it will return with a vengeance if the justified anger ofpassengers is not addressed in short order.

21.The author holds that this year’s increase in rail passengersfares????? .

A.will ease train operation’s burden

B.has kept pace with inflation

C.is a big surprise to commuters

D. remains an unreasonable measure

22.The stockbroker in Paragraph 2 is used to stand for????? .

A.car drivers

B. rail travelers

C.local investors

D.ordinary taxpayers

23.It is indicated in Paragraph 3 that train operators????? .

A.are offering compensations to commuters

B.are trying to repair relations with the unions

C. have failed to provide an adequateservice

D.have suffered huge losses owing to the strikes

24.If unable to calm down passengers, the railways may have to face

A.the loss of investment

B.? the collapse of operations

C.a reduction of revenue.

D. a change of ownership

25.Which of the following would be the best title

forthe text?

A.Who Are to Blame for the Strikes?

B.Constant Complaining Doesn't Work

C.Can Nationalization Bring Hope?

D. Ever-rising Fares Aren't Sustainable

TEXT2

Last year marked the third year ina row that Indonesia’s bleak rate of deforestation has slowed in pace. Onereason for the turnaround may be the country’s antipoverty program.

In 2007, Indonesia started phasingin a program that gives money to its poorest residents under certainconditions, such as requiring people to keep kids in school or get regularmedical care. Called conditional cash transfers or CCTs, these socialassistance programs are designed to reduce inequality and break the cycle ofpoverty. They’re already used in dozens of countries worldwide. In Indonesia,the program has provided enough food and medicine to substantially reducesevere growth problems among children.

But CCT programs don’t generallyconsider effects on the environment. In fact, poverty alleviation andenvironmental protection are often viewed as conflicting goals, says PaulFerraro, an economist at Johns Hopkins University.

That’s because economic growth canbe correlated with environmental degradation, while protecting the environmentis sometimes correlated with greater poverty. However, those correlations don’tprove cause and effect. The only previous study analyzing causality, based onan area in Mexico that had instituted CCTs, supported the traditional view.There, as people got more money, some of them may have more cleared land forcattle to raise for meat, Ferraro says.

Such programs do not have tonegatively affect the environment, though. Ferraro wanted to see if Indonesia’spoverty-alleviation program was affecting deforestation. Indonesia has thethird-largest area of tropical forest in the world and one of the highestdeforestation rates.

Ferraro analyzed satellite datashowing annual forest loss from 2008 to 2012 — including during Indonesia’sphase-in of the antipoverty program — in 7,468 forested villages across 15provinces and multiple islands. The duo separated the effects of the CCTprogram on forest loss from other factors, like weather and macroeconomicchanges, which were also affecting forest loss. With that, “we see that theprogram is associated with a 30 percent reduction in deforestation,” Ferrarosays.

That’s likely because the ruralpoor are using the money as makeshift insurance policies against inclementweather, Ferraro says. Typically, if rains are delayed, people may clear landto plant more rice to supplement their harvests. With the CCTs, individualsinstead can use the money to supplement their harvests.

Whether this research translateselsewhere is anybody’s guess. Ferraro suggests the importance of growing riceand market access. And regardless of transferability, the study shows thatwhat’s good for people may also be good value of the avoided deforestation justfor carbon dioxide emissions alone is more than the program costs.”

26.According to the first two paragraphs, CCT programs aim to????? .

A.facilitate health care reform

B. help poor families get better off

C.improve local education systems

D.lower deforestation rates

27.The study based on an area in Mexico is cited to show that?????? .

A.cattle rearing has been a major means of livelihood for the pool

B.CCT programs have helped preserve traditional lifestyles

C.antipoverty efforts require the participation of local farmers

D. economic growth tends to causeenvironmental degradation

28.In his study about Indonesia, Ferraro intends to find out????? .

A.its acceptance level of CCTs

B.its annual rate of poverty alleviation

C. the relation of CCTs to its forestloss

D.the role of its forests in climate change

29.According to Ferraro, the CCT program in Indonesia is most valuable inthat????? .

Ait will benefit other Asian countries

B.it will reduce regional inequality

C. it can protect the environment

D.it can boost grain production

30.What is the text centered on?

A. The effects of a program.

B.The debates over a program.

C.The process of a study.

D. The transferability of a study.

TEXT3

As a historian who’s alwayssearching for the text or the image that makes us re-evaluate the past, I’vebecome preoccupied with looking for photographs that show our Victorianancestors smiling (what better way to shatter the image of 19th-century prudery?).I’ve found quite a few, and – since I started posting them on Twitter – theyhave been causing quite a stir. People have been surprised to see evidence thatVictorians had fun and could, and did, laugh. They are noting that theVictorians suddenly seem to become more human as the hundred-or-so years thatseparate us fade away through our common experience of laughter.

Of course, I need to concede thatmy collection of ‘Smiling Victorians’ makes up only a tiny percentage of thevast catalogue of photographic portraiture created between 1840 and 1900, themajority of which show sitters posing miserably and stiffly in front of paintedbackdrops, or staring absently into the middle distance. How do we explain thistrend?

During the 1840s and 1850s, in theearly days of photography, exposure times were notoriously long: thedaguerreotype photographic method (producing an image on a silvered copperplate) could take several minutes to complete, resulting in blurred images assitters shifted position or adjusted their limbs. The thought of holding afixed grin as the camera performed its magical duties was too much tocontemplate, and so a non-committal blank stare became the norm.

But exposure times were muchquicker by the 1880s, and the introduction of the Box Brownie and otherportable cameras meant that, though slow by today’s digital standards, theexposure was almost instantaneous. Spontaneous smiles were relatively easy tocapture by the 1890s, so we must look elsewhere for an explanation of whyVictorians still hesitated to smile.

One explanation might be the lossof dignity displayed through a cheesy grin. “Nature gave us lips to conceal ourteeth,” ran one popular Victorian saying, alluding to the fact that before thebirth of proper dentistry, mouths were often in a shocking state of hygiene. Aflashing set of healthy and clean, regular ‘pearly whites’ was a rare sight inVictorian society, the preserve of the super-rich (and even then, dentalhygiene was not guaranteed).

A toothy grin (especially whenthere were gaps or blackened teeth) lacked class: drunks, tramps, and musichall performers might gurn and grin with a smile as wide as Lewis Carroll’sgum-exposing Cheshire Cat, but it was not a becoming look for properly bredpersons. Even Mark Twain, a man who enjoyed a hearty laugh, said that when itcame to photographic portraits there could be “nothing more damning than asilly, foolish smile fixed forever”.

31.According to paragraph 1, the author’s posts on Twitter?????? .

A. changed people’s impression of theVictorians

B.highlighted social media’s role in Victorian studies

C.re-evaluated the Victorians notion of public image

D.illustrated the development of Victorian photography

32.Whatdoes author say about the Victorian portraits he has collected?

A.They are in popular use among historians.

B. They are rare among photographs ofthat age.

C.They mirror 19th-century social conventions.

D.They show effects of different exposure times.

33.What might have kept the Victorians from smiling for pictures in the 1890s?

A.Their inherent social sensitiveness.

B.Their tension before the camera.

C.Their distrust of new inventions.

D. Their unhealthy dental condition.

34.Mark Twain is quoted to show that the disapproval of smiles in pictureswas?????? .

A. a deep-root belief

B.a misguided attitude

C.a controversial view

D.a thought-provoking idea

35.Which of the following questions does the text answer?

A. Why did most Victorians look sternin photographs.

B.Why did the Victorians start to view photographs.

C.What made photography develop slowly in the Victorian period.

D. How did smiling in photographs become apost-Victorian norm.

TEXT4

From the early days of broadband,advocates for consumers and web-based companies worried that the cable andphone companies selling broadband connections had the power and incentive tofavor affliated websites over their rivals'. That’s why there has been such astrong demand for rules that would prevent broadband providers from pickingwinners and losers online, preserving the freedom and innovation that have beenthe lifeblood of the Internet.

Yet that demand has been almostimpossible to fill — in part because of pushback from broadband providers,anti-regulatory conservatives and the courts. A federal appeals court weighedin again Tuesday, but instead of providing a badly needed resolution, it onlyprolonged the fight.

At issue before the U.S. Court ofAppeals for the District of Columbia Circuit was the latest take of the FederalCommunications Commission (FCC) on net neutrality, adopted on a party-line votein 2017. The Republican-penned order not only eliminated the strict netneutrality rules the FCC had adopted when it had a Democratic majority in 2015,but rejected the commission’s authority to require broadband providers to domuch of anything. The order also declared that state and local Governmentscouldn’t regulate broadband providers either.

The commission argued that otheragencies would protect against anti-competitive behavior, such as abroadband-providing conglomerate like AT&T favoring its own video-streamingservice at the expense of Netflix and Apple TV. Yet the FCC also ended theinvestigations of broadband providers that imposed data caps on their rivals’streaming services but not their own.

On Tuesday, the appeals courtunanimously upheld the 2017 order deregulating broadband providers, citing aSupreme Court ruling from 2005 that upheld a similarly deregulatory move. ButJudge Patricia Millett rightly argued in a concurring opinion that “the resultis unhinged from the realities of modern broadband service,” and said Congressor the Supreme Court could intervene to “avoid trapping Internet regulation intechnological anachronism.”

In the meantime, the court threwout the FCC’s attempt to block all state rules on net neutrality, whilepreserving the commission’s power to preempt individual state laws thatundermine its order. That means more battles like the one now going on betweenthe Justice Department and California, which enacted a tough net neutrality lawin the wake of the FCC’s abdication.

The endless legal battles andback-and-forth at the FCC cry out for Congress to act. It needs to give thecommission explicit authority once and for all to bar broadband providers frommeddling in the traffic on their network and to create clear rules protectingopenness and innovation online.

36.There has long been concern that broadband provides would???????

A.bring web-based firms under control.

B.slow down the traffic on their network.

C. show partiality in treating clients.

D.intensify competition with their rivals.

37.Faced with the demand for net neutrality rules, the FCC???????

A.Sticks to an out-of-date order.

B. Takes an anti-regulatory stance.

C.Has issued a special resolution.

D.Has allowed the states to intervene.

38.What can be learned about AT &T from Paragraph 3?

A.It protects against unfair competition.

B. It engages in anti-competitivepractices.

C.It is under the FCC’s investigation.

D.It is in pursuit of quality service.

39.Judge Patricia Millett argues that the appeals court’s decision?????

A.focuses on trivialities.

B.conveys an ambiguous message

C.is at odds with its earlier rulings

D. is out of touch with reality.

40.What does the author argue in the last paragraph?

A. Congress needs to take action toensure net neutrality.

B.The FCC should be put under strict supervision.

C.Rules need to be set to diversify online services.

D.Broadband providers’ rights should be protected.

Part B

In the movies and on television,artificial intelligence is typically depicted as something sinister that willupend our way of life. When it comes to AI in business, we often hear about itin relation to automation and the impending loss of jobs, but in what ways isAI changing companies and the larger economy that don’t involve doom-and-gloommass unemployment predictions?

A recent survey of manufacturingand service industries from Tata Consultancy Services found that companiescurrently use AI more often in computer-to-computer activities than inautomating human activities. One common application? Preventing electronicsecurity breaches, which, rather than eliminating IT jobs, actually makes thosepersonnel more valuable to employers, because they help firms prevent hackingattempts.

Here are a few other ways AI isaiding companies without replacing employees:

Better hiring practices

Companies are using artificialintelligence to remove some of the unconscious bias from hiring decisions. “Thereare experiments that show that, naturally, the results of interviews are muchmore biased than what AI does,” says Domingos. In addition,?G?“AI looks at résumés in greater numbers than humans wouldbe able to, and selects the more promising candidates.”One company that’s doing this is called Blendoor. It uses analyticsto help identify where there may be bias in the hiring process.

More effective marketing

Some AI software can analyze andoptimize marketing email subject lines to increase open rates. One company inthe UK, Phrasee, claims their software can outperform humans by up to 10percent when it comes to email open rates. This can mean millions more inrevenue.?C.? There are also companies like Acquisio, whichanalyzes advertising performance across multiple channels like Adwords, Bingand social media and makes adjustments or suggestions about where advertisingfunds will be most effective.Theseare “tools that help people use data, not a replacement for people,” saysPatrick H. Winston, a professor of artificial intelligence and computer scienceat MIT.

Saving customers money

Energy companies can use AI tohelp customers reduce their electricity bills, saving them money while helpingthe environment. Companies can also optimize their own energy use and cut downon the cost of electricity. Insurance companies, meanwhile, can base theirpremiums on AI models that more accurately access risk.?E.?“Before, they might not insurethe ones who felt like a high risk or charge them too much,”says Domingos, “or they would charge them too little and then itwould cost [the company] money.”

Improved accuracy

“Machine learning often provides amore reliable form of statistics, which makes data more valuable,” saysWinston. It “helps people make smarter decisions.”?B.One accounting firm, EY, usesan AI system that helps review contracts during an audit. This process, alongwith employees reviewing the contracts, is faster and more accurate.

Protecting and maintaininginfrastructure

A number of companies,particularly in energy and transportation, use AI image processing technologyto inspect infrastructure and prevent equipment failure or leaks before theyhappen. “If they fail first and then you fix them, it’s very expensive,” saysDomingos.?D.??“You want to predict if something needs attention nowand point to where it’s useful for [employees] to goto.”

Part C?

WWII was the watershed event forhigher education in modern democratic societies.（46）Thosesocieties came out of the war with levels of enrollment that had been roughlyconstant at 3-5% of the relevant age groups during the decades before the war.But after the war, great social and political changes arising out of thesuccessful war against Fascism created a growing demand in European andAmerican economies for increasing numbers of graduates with more than asecondary school education.?（47）Andthe demand that rose in those societies for entry to higher education extendedto groups and strata that had not thought of going to university before thewar. These demands resulted in a very rapid expansion of the systems of highereducation, beginning in the 1960s and developing very rapidly though unevenlyin the 70s and 80s.The growth of higher education manifests itself in at leastthree quite different ways, and these in turn have given rise to different setsof problems.?（48）There was first therate of growth: in many countries of Western Europe the numbers of students inhigher education doubled within five-year periods during the decade of thesixties and doubled again in seven, eight, or ten years by the middle of the1970s. Second, growth obviously affected the absolute size both of systems andindividual institutions. And third, growth was reflected in changes in theproportion of the relevant age group enrolled in institutions of highereducation.? Each of these manifestationsof growth carried its own peculiar problems in its wake. For example,?ahigh growth rate placed great strains on the existing structures of Governance,of administration, and above all of socialization. When a very large proportionof all the members of an institution are new recruits, they threaten tooverwhelm the processes whereby recruits to a more slowly growing system areinducted into its value system and learn its norms and forms. When a faculty ordepartment grows from, say, 5 to 20 members within three or four years, and?（49）when the new staff arepredominantly young men and women fresh from postgraduate study, then theylargely define the norms of academic life in that faculty and its standards.And if the postgraduate student population also grows rapidly and there is lossof a close apprenticeship relationship between faculty members and students,then the student culture becomes the chief socializing force for newpostgraduate students, with consequences for the intellectual and academic lifeof the institution—this was seen in America as well as in France, Italy, WestGermany, and Japan. High growth rates increased the chances for academicinnovation;（50）?they also weakenedthe forms and processes by which teachers and students are inducted into acommunity of scholars during periods of stability or slow growth. In thesixties and seventies of the last century, European universities saw markedchanges in their Governance arrangements, with the empowerment of juniorfaculty and to some degree of students as well. They also saw higher levels ofstudent discontent, reflecting the weakening of traditional forms of academiccommunities.