阅读理解Directions: There are 4 passages in this part. Each passage is followed by some questions orunfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. You shoulddeicide the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet with a single linethrough the center.Passage ThreeNowadays if you ask most people what “rap” means, they’re likely to state that it’s the reciting of rhymes to the best of music. It’s a form of expression that has its roots deep, in ancient African culture and oral tradition. Throughout history here in America there has always been some form of verbal skills involving rhymes within the Afro-American community. School yard rhyme, prison “jail house’ rhymes and double Dutch jump rope’ rhymes are some of the names and ways that various forms of rap have manifested.Rap caught on because it offered young urban New Yorkers a chance to freely express themselves. This was basically the same reason why any of the verbal or rhyme games manifested themselves in the past. More importantly, it was an art form that anyone can use. One did not need a lot of money or expensive resources to rhyme. One didn’t have to invest in lessons, or anything like that. Rapping was a verbal skill that could be practiced and improve to perfection at almost anytime.Rap also became popular because it offered unlimited challenges. There were no real set rules, except to be original and to rhyme on time to the beat of music. Anything was possible. One cou1d make up a rap about the man in the moon or someone else. The final goal was to be regarded as being good by one’s peers. The praises and positive approval a rapper received put him or her on a par with any other urban hero (sports star, tough guy, comedian, etc.), which was another special attraction.Finally, rap, because of its inclusive aspects, allowed one to accurately and efficiently add their personality. If you were laid back, you could rap at a slow pace. If you were too much active, you could rap at a fast pace. No two people rapped the same, even when reciting the same rhyme. There were many people who would try and emulate someone’s style, but even that represented a particular personality.Rap continues to be popular among today’s urban youth for the same reasons it was a draw in the early days: it is still a form of self-expression capable of winning positive approval from one’s peers. Because rap has evolved to become such a big business, it has given many kids the false illusion that it is a quick escape from the harshness of inner city life. There are many kids out there under the belief that they need to do is write a few fresh rhymes arid they’re off to the good life.

阅读理解C Named for the dense shade of their thick pines, the Black Hills of South Dakota have for centuries been considered holy by the Lakota Sioux, once the most powerful tribe in the West

阅读理解 People are extraordinarily skilled at spotting cheats—much better than they are at detecting rule-breaking that does not involve cheating. A study showing that just how good we are at this adds weight to the theory that our exceptional brainpower arose through evolutionary pressures to acquire specific cognitive skills. The still-controversial idea that humans have specialized decision systems in addition to generalized reasoning ability has been around for decades. Its advocates point out that the ability to identify untrustworthy people should be favored evolutionally since cheats risk undermining the social interactions in which people trade goods or services for mutual benefit. To test whether we have a special ability to reason about cheating, Leda Cosmides, an evolutionary psychological test called the Wason selection test, which tests volunteers' ability to reason about 'if/then' statements. The researchers set up scenarios in which they asked undergraduate volunteers to imagine they were supervising workers sorting applications for admission to two schools: a good one in a district where school taxes are high, and a poor one on an equally wealthy, but lightly taxed district. The hypothetical workers were supposed to follow a rule that specified 'if a student is admitted to the good school, they must live in the highly taxed district'. Half the time, the test subjects are told that the workers had children of their own applying to the schools, thus having a motive to cheat; the rest of the time they were told the workers were merely absent-minded and sometimes made innocent errors. Then the test subjects were asked how they would verify that the workers were not breaking the rule. Cosmides found that when the 'supervisors' thought they were checking for innocent errors, just 9 of 33, or 27 percent, got the right answer—looking for a student admitted to the good school who did not live in the highly-taxed district. In contrast, when the supervisors thought they were watching for cheats, they did much better with 23 of 34, or 68 percent getting the right answer. This suggests that people are, indeed more adept at spotting cheat than at detecting mere rule-breaking. Cosmides says, 'Any cues that it's just an innocent mistake actually inactivate the detection mechanism.' The result is what you would expect if natural selection had favored this specific ability in early, pro-social humans—and is not at all what would happen under selection for generalized intelligence, Cosmides says. 'My claim is that there is nothing domain-general in the mind, just that that can't be the only thing going on in the mind.' Other psychologists remain skeptical of this conclusion. 'If you want to conclude that therefore there's a module in the mind for detecting cheater, I see zero evidence for that,' says Steven Sloman, a cognitive scientist at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. 'It's certainly possible that it's something we learned through experience. There is no evidence that it's anything innate.'

阅读理解Text 3 Progressives often support diversity mandates as a path to equality and a way to level the playing field

阅读理解Directions: There are 4 passages in this part. For each of them there are four choices marked A., B., C. and D. You should decide on the best choice.Passage 4The danger of misinterpretation is greatest, of course, among speakers who actually speak different native tongues, or come from different cultural backgrounds, because cultural difference necessarily implies different assumptions about natural and obvious ways to be polite.Anthropologist Thomas Kochman gives the example of a white office worker who appeared with a bandaged arm and felt rejected because her black fellow worker didn’t mention it. The doubly wounded worker assumed that her silent colleague didn’t notice or didn’t care. But the co-worker was purposely not calling attention to something her colleague might not want to talk about. She let her decide whether or not to mention it, being considerate by not imposing. Kochman says, based on his research, that these differences reflect recognizable black and white styles.An American woman visiting England was repeatedly offended—even, on bad days, enraged—when the British ignored her in setting in which she thought they should pay attention. For example, she was sitting at a booth in a railway-station cafeteria. A couple began to settle into the opposite seat in the same booth. They unloaded their luggage; they laid their coats on the seat; he asked what she would like to eat and went off to get it; she slid into the booth facing the American. And throughout all this, they showed no sign of having noticed that someone was already sitting in the booth.When the British woman lit up a cigarette, the American had a concrete object for her anger. She began ostentatiously looking around for another table to move to. Of course there was none; that’s why the British couple had sat in her booth in the first place. The smoker immediately crushed out her cigarette and apologized. This showed that she had noticed that someone else was sitting in the booth, and that she was not inclined to disturb her. But then she went back to pretending the American wasn’t there, a ruse in which her husband collaborated when he returned with their food and they ate it.To the American, politeness requires talk between strangers forced to share a booth in a cafeteria, if only a fleeting “Do you mind if I sit down?” or a conventional, “Is anyone sitting here?” even if it’s obvious no one is. The omission of such talk seemed to her like dreadful rudeness. The American couldn’t see that another system of politeness was at work. By not acknowledging her presence, the British couple freed her from the obligation to acknowledge theirs. The American expected a show of involvement; they were being polite by not imposing.An American man who had lived for years in Japan explained a similar politeness ethic. He lived, as many Japanese do, in extremely close quarters—a tiny room separated from neighboring rooms by paper-thin walls. In this case the walls were literally made of paper. In order to preserve privacy in this most un-private situation, his Japanese neighbor with the door open, they steadfastly glued their gaze ahead as if they were alone in a desert. The American confessed to feeling what I believe most American would feel if a next-door neighbor passed within a few feet without acknowledging their presence—snubbed. But he realized that the intention was not rudeness by omitting to show involvement, but politeness by not imposing.The fate of the earth depends on cross-cultural communication. Nations must reach agreements, and agreements are made by individual representatives of nations sitting down and talking to each other—public analogues of private conversation. The processes are the same, and so are the pitfalls. Only the possible consequences are more extreme.

阅读理解 'Dark patterns' may sound like the title of a horror film going straight to DVD, but it is also the latest buzzword in the congressional conversation about Internet governance. Senator Mark R. Warner and Deb Fischer have introduced a bill that would bar technology companies from employing deceptive techniques to get users to make choices they otherwise would not, including consenting to data collection. Another, less abnormal term for dark patterns is 'nudges'—tricks based on psychological biases that platforms design into their systems to encourage users to complete transactions. Maybe data-sharing is turned on by default and takes tens of clicks to turn off, or maybe users must navigate a digital maze to cancel their accounts. Maybe a false dirty mark appears on an advertisement so a smartphone user trying to wipe it off ends up clicking. Maybe a box to purchase insurance for a flight reservation is automatically checked 'yes.' Mr. Warner and Ms. Fischer's bill is about more than data protection, but Mr. Warner has said he hopes it can be incorporated into a larger privacy package from Congress all the same. That makes sense. The focus on companies' coercive practices is another much-needed acknowledgment that the notice-and-consent model defining the data economy today is inadequate. A privacy law including some sort of duty of care should restrict not only what companies can do with user data but also how they can exploit users' limitations against them to extract more information than consumers would otherwise provide. Banning dark patterns would also bear on how consumers can exercise any rights Congress grants them to access, correct and delete their data. Still, there is cause for caution. Distinguishing unethical coercion from design choices meant to make things run more smoothly may prove difficult. Other parts of the bill present similar balancing problems: The legislation requires that users be informed before they become subjects of behavioral studies. That's great, but some worry that the constraint would effectively bar platforms from testing site features against one another altogether, despite the bill's safe harbor for small experiments used to determine consumer preferences. A prohibition on addictive features in products directed toward children also leaves open exactly which platforms would be on the hook. There's a lot to like in the so-called Detour Act, but there's also a lot to hammer out. The good news is that this latest buzzword signals a broader shift in the data debate toward putting the responsibility on platforms not to trick users, instead of putting the responsibility on users not to get tricked.

阅读理解(impress) ______ by the young mans good qualifications, they offered him a job in their firm.

阅读理解Questions 11 to 15 are based on the following passage

阅读理解Passage 2 Once a circle missed a wedge

阅读理解Task 2 Directions :This task ( No.51 to No.55) is the same as Task l.It is a terrible illustration of man ' s weakness to nature , and the tsunami(海啸) that struck the Japanese coast in March,2021 has illustrated the difficulty of fighting against natural disasters,even for a prosperous nation.Totally preventing tsunami-damage is impossible.But there is much that can be done to minimize damage and loss of life. Measures that can be taken include designing solid buildings,and developing early-warming systems,public education programs and evacuation(疏散) strategies. Moreover,the approach of a tsunami is possibly picked up by the sensors of complicated international warming systems.Countries can use radio and television broadcasts as well as loudspeaker networks to warn the publiC、But an early warming system depends on how far the tsunami strikes, if it' s close by, the warning system is not going to be very effective.When people are faced with an unstoppable force like a tsunami the massive waves created by events like underwater earthquakes,the best course of action for them is to get inland and to the higher ground as quickly as possible.The first paragraph tells us that_____.

阅读理解When my wife, Meg, suffered a severe stroke that immobilized her left side, I knew we would be facing a grueling odyssey involving several hospitals, dozens of doctors and countless therapy sessions. What I wasn’t prepared for was the American Way of Managed Health Care, a system that is bureaucratic and often dysfunctional. Yes, medical practitioners in the United States are generally considered among the best in the world, and my wife primarily had first-rate care, but their back-office practice — a business dominated by third-party payers — is badly run at worst and woefully confusing at best.Meg’s stroke occurred while we were vacationing in the south of France last summer. After being stabilized in the emergency room of a small hospital, she was transferred immediately to a large teaching hospital, where she received excellent treatment in a world-renowned stroke pavilion. When I received the bill for her 2—1/2-week stay at the Pasteur Hospital in Nice, I asked the deputy administrator for an itemized statement. I knew I’d need to show it to our health-insurance company — the one-page invoice for more than 20,000 euro wouldn’t do. The administrator was puzzled. There were only two daily rates, he explained, one for soins intensifs — or intensive care — and another for non-acute care. There were no extra charges; the numerous ambulance transfers, MRI brain scans, X-rays and assorted tests associated with any serious injury or illness were all-inclusive. In fact, the only supplement was 10.67 Euros — about $13 — a day for food which, although not three-star bistro quality, was certainly a bargain, and better than anything you can eat in a U.S. hospital.I’m not arguing that the French health-care system should be a world benchmark, but compared with what we faced when we returned home; it was a model of simplicity and efficiency. Of course, everything in American medical care is a la carte, and the invoices are so dense with codes and abbreviations, it’s a wonder anyone can decipher them. I often wonder, how much does this cost the American public annually?At one New York hospital, we received bills from doctors we’d never heard of, including one who charged for an office visit when Meg couldn’t even get out of bed. The managed care provider’s computer sent him a check without question. Had he not billed us for the co-payment I never would have noticed the error. Over the past few months, I spent hours clearing up these kinds of mistakes. A doctor friend who heads a department in a large hospital admitted that these kinds of complaints are all too common.Meg’s medical tab has reached nearly $300,000, which seems monumental, even given the nature of her catastrophic injury. Thankfully, we were covered for most of it. Yet $90,000 of that figure had little or nothing to do with patient care. Roughly 30 cents of each health-care dollar goes to administration, or the processing of paperwork. If that figure could be reduced by a third, even $30,000 would go a long way toward extending her rehab treatments. (Meg’s 2004 benefits have run out.)When Meg was finally discharged after spending 56 days in hospitals, we received co-payment bills for her medical equipment, including an itemized statement for every extra on her wheelchair (no, the brake extensions, foot pedals, armrest, anti-tip bars, seat and seat belt are not included). But the provider billed us two ways, one for leasing the chair and another for purchase. Even now, after numerous phone calls, I still don’t know whether we own or are renting the wheelchair.The outpatient rehab therapy sessions presented their own set of challenges. The hospital sent a number of bills — printed in alphanumeric codes — for additional thousands of dollars even though we made the proper co-payments at the time of treatment. Billing administrators barely raised an eyebrow when I told them I had spent too much time on hold and would no longer bother calling to dispute the charges. (We have since received automated early-morning phone calls asking us to contact the hospital.)I’ve checked with others who have had protracted negotiations with health-care providers and insurers over complex medical treatment. They echo my frustration. Why is it incumbent on the recipient to spend countless hours rectifying the medical administration’s mistakes? How much extra does this process add to the nation’s annual health-care bill?Medicare — our government-subsidized system that cares for the elderly — has a much better record in administrative costs. It spends between three and four cents of every dollar on paperwork and processing. A single-payer system is easier and cheaper to run. We’ve had a two-tier health-care system in the United States for a while, and only one tier works. Isn’t it time for managed care to slim down and help its patients get better instead of burdening them with needlessly expensive paperwork?

阅读理解Questions 26 to 30 are based on the following passage

阅读理解Why are mobiles so popular? Because people love to talk to each other. And it is easier with a mobile phone. In countries like Russia and China, people use mobile phones in places where there is no ordinary telephone. Business people use mobiles when they''re traveling. In some countries, like Japan, many people use their mobile phones to send e-mail messages and access the Internet. They use a new kind of mobile phone called "i-mode". You can even use a mobile phone to listen to music. Mobile phones are very fashionable with teenagers. Parents buy mobile phones for their children. They can call home if they are in trouble and need help. So they feel safer. But teenagers mostly use them to keep in touch with their friends or play simple computer games. It''s cool to be the owner of a small expensive mobile. Research shows that teenage owners of mobile phones smoke less. Parents and schools are happy that teenagers are safer and smoke less. But many people dislike them. They hate it when the businessman opposite them on the train has a loud conversation on his phone, or when mobile phones ring in a cafe or restaurant. But there is a much more serious problem. It''s possible that mobiles can heat up the brain because we hold the phone so close to our head. Scientists fear that mobiles can perhaps be bad for your memory and even give you cancer.

阅读理解Passage 2 Nowadays, a cellphone service is available to everyone, everywhere

阅读理解Section C FLORENCE,ItalySvetlanaCojochrufeels hurt

阅读理解Passage B Engineering students are supposed to be examples of practicality and rationality,but when it comes to my college education I am an idealist and a fool

阅读理解PASSAGE THREE

阅读理解Property Prices Causing Distress Six out of 10 Chinese white collar workers say they are fatigued by work and other pressures, a survey has found

阅读理解Passage Two Drinking too much fluid when exercising vigorouslywhich is often recommended in trainingcan actually kill you, sports medicine expert Timothy Noakes has warned

阅读理解Questions 41 to 50 are based on the following passage