阅读理解Is computer coding a foreign language? A) As computer coding has become an increasingly sought-after skill, more K-12 schools are working it into their curriculums. Some states have considered allowing students to forgo (放弃) foreign language for coding classes, despite opposition from educators. B) There’s a debate over whether it’s appropriate to teach coding in elementary schools, with fierce opinions on each side. When it comes to allowing coding to fill foreign language requirements, though, most educators agree: Coding should be added to curriculums, but not at the expense of foreign language classes. C) The idea is that computer programming is a language, allowing people to communicate with machines and programs. It’s the language of the 21st century and more valuable than a natural language, some advocates argue. The computer science field is growing faster than schools can keep up because of budget constraints and a lack of skills training for teachers. D) According to the 2016 U.S. News/Raytheon STEM Index, computer science jobs have helped boost wages in the U.S., and computer-related jobs hold the top seven positions in STEM fields for highest number of workers. Foreign language interest, on the other hand, is declining for the first time since 1995. The number of higher education language enrollments declined between 2009 and 2013 by more than 111,000 spots, according to the Modern Language Association of America. E) "I think the opportunity to give people a choice is important," says Florida state Senator Jeremy Ring, who introduced a bill last year that would allow Florida students to choose between foreign language and coding classes for the purpose of university admissions requirements. "I think if you’re going to give two years of language in high school, you might as well do computer coding." F) The Florida bill died this year after passing 35:5 in the state Senate when the full Legislature failed to take action. It would have been the first state to try this initiative. Ring says that although he will be out of office, an identical bill will be reintroduced within the next year by others on his behalf. "In the speech I gave on the Senate floor, I said, ’We can be the first state to do this, or we can be the 50th state to do it. It’s our choice. It’s going to happen,’" Ring says. G) A Kentucky bill similar to the one in Florida was met with complaints from educators, and was then amended to promote computer science education initiatives with no mention of foreign language requirements. Instead, the state will provide support for higher quality certified teachers for programming classes. Under the Washington bill, public universities would accept two years of computer science classes in place of two years of foreign language for admission purposes. A report detailing the opinions of state university officials is due to the Legislature by November 2017. H) Texas passed a bill in 2013 that allows students to substitute computer coding only after they have attempted and performed poorly in a foreign language class. Srini Mandyam, CTO and co-founder of kid-friendly instructional coding company Tynker, believes allowing students to forgo foreign language because they struggle with it is unproductive because every subject, whether art, math or language, is a significant contribution to a well-rounded existence. "Many students don’t fare well with algebra but we never discuss eliminating it or … say chemistry is now counted as an algebra class," he said via email. "We teach algebra because it’s important and we should teach foreign language and coding for the same reason. Exposure to a wide breadth of subjects and material results in well-rounded students who are able to make informed decisions … about what they want to pursue." I) Computer science courses already fulfill a math or science high school graduation requirement in 28 states and the District of Columbia, up from only 12 states in 2013. And while advocates of the bills say they should count as foreign language instead, opponents stress the importance of balancing computer and foreign language skills. J) Studies show that bilingualism (双语) correlates with cognitive development, intelligence, memory and problem solving abilities, according to the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. A 2007 study showed that foreign language students outperformed their non-foreign language peers on standardized tests after only two to three years of study. And while a 2014 report from German and American universities suggests that programmers are using language (but not mathematical) regions of the brain when understanding code, critics remain wary. They say that regardless of cognitive functions, being monolingual is a disadvantage in the increasingly international economy, even if English has become the de facto (事实上的) language of business. K) "Our world is shrinking but its problems are really growing," says ACTFL National Language Teacher of the Year Ted Zarrow, who teaches high school Latin in Westwood, Massachusetts, and has also studied Spanish, French, German, Italian and Greek. "We need to find a way to put ourselves at the global table and to treat each other with mutual respect. And learning languages allows us to do that because language is not part of culture, language is culture." L) Even with the benefits and skill sets languages provide, recruiters and employers value computer skills more. According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers’ 2016 report, study abroad and foreign language fluency were not very influential in the employee hiring processes, but 55 percent of employers looked for computer skills on applicants’ resumes. However, although 2016 computer science graduates can expect to make the second highest starting salary compared with other jobs this year, the Bureau of Labor predicts the demand for computer programmers will decrease 8 percent or by 26,500 jobs by 2024. M) Ring says foreign language skills are important, but expresses doubt that school districts could work both coding and language into their curriculum in a significant way because they lack the time in the school day. "Nothing against language," he says. "I just think it’s something you have to start early and not just have something that you do for a couple years in high school," he says. N) Zarrow agrees that foreign language education should begin earlier, but says it is possible to work both computer programming and foreign language learning into schools evenly. He suggests an immersive, dual language program where students spend half the day in English and half the day in another language, as several schools around the country have successfully implemented. "The study of language fosters a respect for diversity, a respect for ethnicity and really a respect for language," Zarrow says. O) Though the benefits of computer programming skills are vast, foreign language and coding experts agree that computer science should be negotiated into curriculums rather than replacing foreign language outright. Mandyam says the two skill sets are essential but unrelated. "Coding is an incredibly important 21st century skill for our kids to learn, and that’s why we spend so much time trying to teach it," Mandyam says via email. "But I believe it is the same as or even really comparable to learning a foreign language. It would be a shame to lose something so important for the sake of adding something else, even something as important as coding. Clearly, education leaders must figure out a way to teach both."

阅读理解Fear of Nature: An Emerging Threat to Conservation [A] What do we lose when natural spaces and species disappear? Increasingly, research has shown that as species and ecosystems vanish, it also chips away at our ability to preserve what remains—because we no longer understand what we’re losing. [B] You probably see it all the time. The neighbor who puts pesticides on his lawn rather than deal with annoying bees. The politician who votes against wildlife protection because she’s never seen a wolf in the wild. The corporation that wants to bulldoze (用推土机推平) the habitat of a rare frog. [C] At best this can be termed "the extinction of experience," where our cultural and natural histories fade from our memories and therefore our reality. At its worst it becomes something even more concerning: "biophobia," the fear of living things and a complete aversion to nature. [D] This isn’t the fiction of living in a cold, empty dystopia (绝望的世界). Sadly, it’s becoming a way of life for too many people—especially children. A recent study in Japan paints a striking portrait of this problem. A survey of more than 5,300 school children in the Tochigi Prefecture examined their perception of 14 local insect species and one spider. The results? A collective "ew!" Most of the students saw the species as things to dislike or fear, or even as sources of danger. The less experience the students had with nature, the more negative their feelings. [E] The results were published earlier this year in the journal Biological Conservation. Lead researcher Masashi Soga with the University of Tokyo says the study stemmed from observations about today’s nature-deficient children. "Humans inherently avoid dangerous organisms such as bees, but children these days avoid even harmless animals such as butterflies and dragonflies (蜻蜓)," he says. "I have long wondered why so many of today’s children react like this." [F] Although the children’s reactions were somewhat expected, the new study did contain an unexpected rinding: Many of the surveyed children revealed that their parents also expressed fear or disgust of the same animals. In fact these parental emotions were strong enough to overwhelm any positive experiences the children might have gained from direct experiences in nature. As Soga and his coauthors wrote in their paper, "Our results suggest that there is likely a feedback loop in which an increase in people who have negative attitudes towards nature in one generation will lead to a further increase in people with similar attitudes in the next generation." [G] And that’s possibly the greater threat posed by extinction of experience. Soga suggests the generational loss—a condition previously dubbed environmental generational amnesia (遗忘)—could chip away at our societal ability to preserve what we’re losing. "I believe that increased biophobia is a major, but invisible, threat to global biodiversity," Soga says. "As the number of children who have biophobia increases, public interest and support for biodiversity conservation will gradually decline. Although many conservation biologists still consider that preventing the loss of wildlife habitat is the most important way to conserve biodiversity, I think preventing increased biophobia is also important for conservation." [H] What’s to be done about this? The paper makes several recommendations, the most obvious of which is that children should experience nature more often. The authors also suggest establishing policies to guide these natural experiences and increasing educational programs about the natural world. [I] Helping parents to see species around them in a new light would make a difference, too. And, of course, maintaining support for preserving the wild spaces where these "scary" creatures live is the most important thing of all. That’s a point reinforced by another recent study, which found that wild spaces located within urban areas—and the plants and animals that thrive in them—are particularly important for human health and well-being. [J] Published in the journal Frontiers in Sustainable Cities, the study examined attitudes toward Discovery Park, the heavily forested 534-acre public park in Seattle, Washington. It found that the public had the most appreciation for—and gained the most value from—the wildest parts of the park. "I have seen whales, seals, fish, eagles, shorebirds and many other sea creatures in their natural habitat," one survey participant wrote. "Coming here with people has allowed me to connect and talk with them about conversation that simply does not happen in everyday life," wrote another. [K] The participants reported that their most valuable experiences in the park included encountering wildlife, walking through open spaces, exploring the beach and finding beautiful views. "We saw that a large majority of participants’ interactions, especially their most meaningful interactions, depended on Discovery Park’s relative wildness," says lead author Elizabeth Lev, a master’s student in the University of Washington’s Human Interaction with Nature Lab. This is only possible because the park is relatively wild. After all, you can’t enjoy watching birds if there are no birds to follow; gaze at the sunset if it’s obscured by skyscrapers; or stop and smell the flowers if they don’t have room to grow. [L] And yet even this long-protected space could someday become less hospitable to nature. Over the past few years a lot of people and organizations have suggested developing parts of Discovery Park or the neighboring area. Most recently a plan proposed building 34 acres of much-needed affordable housing and parking spaces adjacent to the park, bringing with them noise, traffic and pollution. [M] If anything like that happened, both the park and the people of Seattle could lose something vital. And that would continue the trend of chipping away at Seattle’s—and the world’s—natural spaces, leaving just tiny pocket parks and green-but-empty spaces that offer little real value to wildlife, plants or people. [N] "It is true that any interaction with nature is better than none, but I don’t want people to be satisfied with any small bit of grass and trees," Lev says. "We have been in this cycle of environmental generational amnesia for a long time, where the baseline keeps shifting and we don’t even realize what we’re losing until it’s gone. If we can get people to understand how much meaning and value can come from having more experiences with more wild forms of nature, then maybe we can stop this cycle and move toward conserving and restoring what we have left." [O] Building this understanding in an ever-more fearful and disconnected world may be the biggest challenge. Peter Kahn, the senior author of Lev’s paper and the director of the Human Interaction with Nature lab, made several suggestions for bridging this gap in this 2011 book, Technological Nature. They echo the recommendation about getting children into nature, but also include telling stories of how things used to be, imagining what things might be like in the future, and developing a common language about nature, "a way of speaking about wild and domestic interaction patterns, and the meaningful, deep and often joyful feelings that they generate." [P] No matter what techniques we use, this growing field of research illustrates that saving nature requires encouraging people to experience it more often and more deeply. That calls for additional research-Lev and her coauthors have published a toolkit that other municipalities can follow to study the value of their own wild spaces—and clear communication of the results. "If we can continue to show people the benefits of these wild spaces," Lev says, "maybe people will begin to see more value in keeping these areas undeveloped—for the sake of our mutual benefit."

阅读理解Does the Internet Make You

阅读理解Why facts don’t change our minds A) The economist J. K. Galbraith once wrote, "Faced with a choice between changing one’s mind and proving there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy with the proof." B) Leo Tolstoy was even bolder: "The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him." C) What’s going on here? Why don’t facts change our minds? And why would someone continue to believe a false or inaccurate idea anyway? How do such behaviors serve us? Humans need a reasonably accurate view of the world in order to survive. If your model of reality is wildly different from the actual world, then you struggle to take effective actions each day. However, truth and accuracy are not the only things that matter to the human mind. Humans also seem to have a deep desire to belong. D) In Atomic Habits, I wrote, "Humans are herd animals. We want to fit in, to bond with others, and to earn the respect and approval of our peers. Such inclinations are essential to our survival. For most of our evolutionary history, our ancestors lived in tribes. Becoming separated from the tribe—or worse, being cast out—was a death sentence." E) Understanding the truth of a situation is important, but so is remaining part of a tribe. While these two desires often work well together, they occasionally come into conflict. In many circumstances, social connection is actually more helpful to your daily life than understanding the truth of a particular fact or idea. The Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker put it this way, "People are embraced or condemned according to their beliefs, so one function of the mind may be to hold beliefs that bring the belief-holder the greatest number of allies, protectors, or disciples (信徒), rather than beliefs that are most likely to be true." F) We don’t always believe things because they are correct. Sometimes we believe things because they make us look good to the people we care about. I thought Kevin Simler put it well when he wrote, "If a brain anticipates that it will be rewarded for adopting a particular belief, it’s perfectly happy to do so, and doesn’t much care where the reward comes from—whether it’s pragmatic (实用主义的) (better outcomes resulting from better decisions), social (better treatment from one’s peers), or some mix of the two." G) False beliefs can be useful in a social sense even if they are not useful in a factual sense. For lack of a better phrase, we might call this approach "factually false, but socially accurate." When we have to choose between the two, people often select friends and family over facts. This insight not only explains why we might hold our tongue at a dinner party or look the other way when our parents say something offensive, but also reveals a better way to change the minds of others. H) Convincing someone to change their mind is really the process of convincing them to change their tribe. If they abandon their beliefs, they run the risk of losing social ties. You can’t expect someone to change their mind if you take away their community too. You have to give them somewhere to go. Nobody wants their worldview torn apart if loneliness is the outcome. I) The way to change people’s minds is to become friends with them, to integrate them into your tribe, to bring them into your circle. Now, they can change their beliefs without the risk of being abandoned socially. J) Perhaps it is not difference, but distance, that breeds tribalism and hostility. As proximity increases, so does understanding. I am reminded of Abraham Lincoln’s quote, "I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better." K) Facts don’t change our minds. Friendship does. Years ago, Ben Casnocha mentioned an idea to me that I haven’t been able to shake: The people who are most likely to change our minds are the ones we agree with on 98 percent of topics. If someone you know, like, and trust believes a radical idea, you are more likely to give it merit, weight, or consideration. You already agree with them in most areas of life. Maybe you should change your mind on this one too. But if someone wildly different than you proposes the same radical idea, well, it’s easy to dismiss them as nuts. L) One way to visualize this distinction is by mapping beliefs on a spectrum. If you divide this spectrum into 10 units and you find yourself at Position 7, then there is little sense in trying to convince someone at Position 1. The gap is too wide. When you’re at Position 7, your time is better spent connecting with people who are at Positions 6 and 8, gradually pulling them in your direction. M) The most heated arguments often occur between people on opposite ends of the spectrum, but the most frequent learning occurs from people who are nearby. The closer you are to someone, the more likely it becomes that the one or two beliefs you don’t share will bleed over into your own mind and shape your thinking. The further away an idea is from your current position, the more likely you are to reject it outright. When it comes to changing people’s minds, it is very difficult to jump from one side to another. You can’t jump down the spectrum. You have to slide down it. N) Any idea that is sufficiently different from your current worldview will feel threatening. And the best place to ponder a threatening idea is in a non-threatening environment. As a result, books are often a better vehicle for transforming beliefs than conversations or debates. In conversation, people have to carefully consider their status and appearance. They want to save face and avoid looking stupid. When confronted with an uncomfortable set of facts, the tendency is often to double down on their current position rather than publicly admit to being wrong. Books resolve this tension. With a book, the conversation takes place inside someone’s head and without the risk of being judged by others. It’s easier to be open-minded when you aren’t feeling defensive. O) There is another reason bad ideas continue to live on, which is that people continue to talk about them. Silence is death for any idea. An idea that is never spoken or written down dies with the person who conceived it. Ideas can only be remembered when they are repeated. They can only be believed when they are repeated. I have already pointed out that people repeat ideas to signal they are part of the same social group. But here’s a crucial point most people miss: People also repeat bad ideas when they complain about them. Before you can criticize an idea, you have to reference that idea. You end up repeating the ideas you’re hoping people will forget—but, of course, people can’t forget them because you keep talking about them. The more you repeat a bad idea, the more likely people are to believe it. P) Let’s call this phenomenon Clear’s Law of Recurrence: The number of people who believe an idea is directly proportional to the number of times it has been repeated during the last year—even if the idea is false.

阅读理解The U.S. and China don’t agree on much these days. Germany and France share a border and a currency but are frequently at odds. The U.K. and India like to march to their own drum. But there’s one issue on which all these countries see eye to eye: Technology companies are too big, too powerful, and too profitable. And that power is only likely to intensify, leaving governments with no choice but to confront it head-on by taking the companies to court, passing new competition laws, and perhaps even breaking up the tech giants. China is the latest to implement an anti-trust crackdown, unveiling anti-monopoly rules last month. The draft rules followed the surprise suspension of a $37 billion stock offering by billionaire Jack Ma’s Ant Group Co., making clear that no company can evade the government’s regulation. The moves in China coincide with accelerating efforts in the U.S. and Europe to rein in Amazon.com, Apple, Facebook, and Google. "The big get bigger and bigger but without being better," says Andreas Schwab, a German member of the European Parliament who championed a 2014 resolution to break up Google. "Growing economic power, growing influence on local markets all over the world, and a growing concern of competitors and consumers altogether have made it happen now." In this new anti-trust era, the old focus on pricing power no longer applies, because several of the biggest tech companies have established trillion-dollar monopolies by charging consumers next to nothing. Tech giants are increasingly assuming powerful positions in banking, finance, advertising, retail, and other markets that force smaller businesses to rely on their platforms to reach customers. For years, Europe alone confronted the power of digital giants. Governments were alarmed that European companies were failing to match Silicon Valley’s innovations or to stop Google and Facebook from vacuuming up personal data and, with that, advertising revenue. Led by Margrethe Vestager, the European Union’s competition chief, countries have sought to police the market and encourage fair play. In China the crackdown has been driven at least partly by fear that the homegrown tech industry is becoming too powerful. The country has long championed Alibaba and Tencent, but their massive accumulation of data on the Chinese citizenry is a growing concern for Beijing. In the U.S., a new breed of anti-trust experts argues that consideration should be given to privacy, control over data, workers’ rights, and the overall impact on smaller companies. And the public in general have grown increasingly skeptical of social media companies. More than 60％ say the sector has a negative effect on the country, and almost half want more regulation for social media, according to a 2020 Pew Research Center study.

阅读理解Do music lessons really make children smarter? A) A recent analysis found that most research mischaracterizes the relationship between music and skills enhancement. B) In 2004, a paper appeared in the journal Psychological Science, titled "Music Lessons Enhance IQ." The author, composer and psychologist Glenn Schellenberg, had conducted an experiment with 144 children randomly assigned to four groups: one learned the keyboard for a year, one took singing lessons, one joined an acting class, and a control group had no extracurricular training. The IQ of the children in the two musical groups rose by an average of seven points in the course of a year; those in the other two groups gained an average of 4.3 points. C) Schellenberg had long been skeptical of the science supporting claims that music education enhances children’s abstract reasoning, math, or language skills. If children who play the piano are smarter, he says, it doesn’t necessarily mean they are smarter because they play the piano. It could be that the youngsters who play the piano also happen to be more ambitious or better at focusing on a task. Correlation, after all, does not prove causation. D) The 2004 paper was specifically designed to address those concerns. And as a passionate musician, Schellenberg was delighted when he turned up credible evidence that music has transfer effects on general intelligence. But nearly a decade later, in 2013, the Education Endowment Foundation funded a bigger study with more than 900 students. That study failed to confirm Schellenberg’s findings, producing no evidence that music lessons improved math and literacy skills. E) Schellenberg took that news in stride while continuing to cast a skeptical eye on the research in his field. Recently, he decided to formally investigate just how often his fellow researchers in psychology and neuroscience make what he believes are erroneous—or at least premature—causal connections between music and intelligence. His results, published in May, suggest that many of his peers do just that. F) For his recent study, Schellenberg asked two research assistants to look for correlational studies on the effects of music education. They found a total of 114 papers published since 2000. To assess whether the authors claimed any causation, researchers then looked for telltale verbs in each paper’s title and abstract, verbs like "enhance," "promote," "facilitate," and "strengthen." The papers were categorized as neuroscience if the study employed a brain imaging method like magnetic resonance, or if the study appeared in a journal that had "brain," "neuroscience," or a related term in its title. Otherwise the papers were categorized as psychology. Schellenberg didn’t tell his assistants what exactly he was trying to prove. G) After computing their assessments, Schellenberg concluded that the majority of the articles erroneously claimed that music training had a causal effect. The overselling, he also found, was more prevalent among neuroscience studies, three quarters of which mischaracterized a mere association between music training and skills enhancement as a cause-and-effect relationship. This may come as a surprise to some. Psychologists have been battling charges that they don’t do "real" science for some time—in large part because many findings from classic experiments have proved unreproducible. Neuroscientists, on the other hand, armed with brain scans and EEGs (脑电图), have not been subject to the same degree of critique. H) To argue for a cause-and-effect relationship, scientists must attempt to explain why and how a connection could occur. When it comes to transfer effects of music, scientists frequently point to brain plasticity—the fact that the brain changes according to how we use it. When a child learns to play the violin, for example, several studies have shown that the brain region responsible for the fine motor skills of the left hand’s fingers is likely to grow. And many experiments have shown that musical training improves certain hearing capabilities, like filtering voices from background noise or distinguishing the difference between the consonants (辅音) ’b’ and ’g’. I) But Schellenberg remains highly critical of how the concept of plasticity has been applied in his field. "Plasticity has become an industry of its own," he wrote in his May paper. Practice does change the brain, he allows, but what is questionable is the assertion that these changes affect other brain regions, such as those responsible for spatial reasoning or math problems. J) Neuropsychologist Lutz Jancke agrees. "Most of these studies don’t allow for causal inferences," he said. For over two decades, Jancke has researched the effects of music lessons, and like Schellenberg, he believes that the only way to truly understand their effects is to run longitudinal studies. In such studies, researchers would need to follow groups of children with and without music lessons over a long period of time—even if the assignments are not completely random. Then they could compare outcomes for each group. K) Some researchers are starting to do just that. The neuroscientist Peter Schneider from Heidelberg University in Germany, for example, has been following a group of children for ten years now. Some of them were handed musical instruments and given lessons through a school-based program in the Ruhr region of Germany called Jedem Kind ein Instrument, or "an instrument for every child," which was carried out with government funding. Among these children, Schneider has found that those who were enthusiastic about music and who practiced voluntarily showed improvements in hearing ability, as well as in more general competencies, such as the ability to concentrate. L) To establish whether effects such as improved concentration are caused by music participation itself, and not by investing time in an extracurricular activity of any kind, Assal Habibi, a psychology professor at the University of Southern California, is conducting a five-year longitudinal study with children from low-income communities in Los Angeles. The youngsters fall into three groups: those who take after-school music, those who do after-school sports, and those with no structured after-school program at all. After two years, Habibi and her colleagues reported seeing structural changes in the brains of the musically trained children, both locally and in the pathways connecting different parts of the brain. M)That may seem compelling, but Habibi’s children were not selected randomly. Did the children who were drawn to music perhaps have something in them from the start that made them different but eluded the brain scanners? "As somebody who started taking piano lessons at the age of five and got up every morning at seven to practice, that experience changed me and made me part of who I am today," Schellenberg said. "The question is whether those kinds of experiences do so systematically across individuals and create exactly the same changes. And I think that is that huge leap of faith." N) Did he have a hidden talent that others didn’t have? Or more endurance than his peers? Music researchers tend, like Schellenberg, to be musicians themselves, and as he noted in his recent paper, "the idea of positive cognitive and neural side effects from music training (and other pleasurable activities) is inherently appealing." He also admits that if he had children of his own, he would encourage them to take music lessons and go to university. "I would think that it makes them better people, more critical, just wiser in general," he said. O) But those convictions should be checked at the entrance to the lab, he added. Otherwise, the work becomes religion or faith. "You have to let go of your faith if you want to be a scientist."

阅读理解A new study has drawn a bleak picture of cultural inclusiveness reflected in the children’s literature available in Australia. Dr. Helen Adam from Edith Cowan University’s School of Education 【C1】 ________ the cultural diversity of children’s books. She examined the books 【C2】 ________ in the kindergarten rooms of four day-care centers in Western Australia. Just 18 percent of 2,413 books in the total collection contained any 【C3】 ________ of non-white people. Minority cultures were often featured in stereotypical or tokenistic ways, for example, by 【C4】 ________ Asian culture with chopsticks and traditional dress. Characters that did represent a minority culture usually had 【C5】 ________ roles in the books. The main characters were mostly Caucasian. This causes concern as it can lead to an impression that whiteness is of greater value. Dr. Adam said children formed impressions about ’difference’ and identity from a very young age. Evidence has shown they develop own-race 【C6】 ________ from as young as three months of age. The books we share with young children can be a valuable opportunity to develop children’s understanding of themselves and others. Books can also allow children to see diversity. They discover both similarities and differences between themselves and others. This can help develop understanding, acceptance and 【C7】 ________ of diversity. Census data has shown Australians come from more than 200 countries. They speak over 300 languages at home. Additionally, Australians belong to more than 100 different religious groups. They also work in more than 1,000 different occupations. "Australia is a multicultural society. The current 【C8】 ________ promotion of white middle-class ideas and lifestyles risks 【C9】 ________ children from minority groups. This can give white middle-class children a sense of 【C10】 ________ or privilege," Dr. Adam said. A) alienating F) investigated K)secondary B) appreciation G) overwhelming L) superiority C) bias H) portraying M) temperament D) fraud I) representation N) tentative E) housed J) safeguarded O) threshold

阅读理解The now extinct passenger pigeon has the dubious honor of being the last species anyone ever expected to disappear. At one point, there were more passenger pigeons than any other species of bird. Rough【C1】________of their population went as high as five billion and they accounted for around 40 percent of the total indigenous bird population of North America in the early 19th century. Despite their huge population, passenger pigeons were【C2】________to human intrusion into their nesting territory. Their nests were shabby things and two weeks after the eggs【C3】________. the parent pigeons would abandon their offspring, leaving them to take care of themselves. People discovered that these baby pigeons were really tasty, and the adult birds were also quite【C4】________. First the Native Americans and then the transplanted Europeans came to consider the birds a great【C5】________. By the 1850s, commercial trapping of passenger pigeons was proceeding at an【C6】________pace. Hundreds of thousands of the birds were being harvested every day to be made into popular pigeon pies. In addition, large【C7】________of the pigeons’ nesting territory were being cleared away for planting crops and creating pasture land. As numerous as the passenger pigeons were, they were not an【C8】________resource. By the 1880s, it was noticed that the bird population had become seriously【C9】________. The last passenger pigeons killed in the wild were shot in 1899. Eventually those billions and billions of birds shrank to a single remaining【C10】________. a passenger pigeon named Martha, who died on September 1, 1914, in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo. In addition to being the end of an era, it was also the first time humans were able to exactly time the extinction of a species. A) vulnerable F) refuge K) excerpts B) unprecedented G) plazas L) estimates C) tracts H) infinite M) edible D) specimen I) hatched N) depleted E) robust J) expired O) delicacy

阅读理解According to psychologist Sharon Draper, our clothing choices can absolutely affect our wellbeing. When we wear ill-fitting clothes, or feel over- or under-dressed for an event, it’s natural to feel self-conscious or even stressed. Conversely, she says, opting for clothes that fit well and【C1】________with your sense of style can improve your confidence. But can you improve your health through your【C2】________clothing, without having to dash out and buy a whole new【C3】________? "Absolutely," says Draper. If your goal is to improve your thinking, she recommends picking clothes that fit well and are unlikely to encourage restlessness, so, avoid bows, ties and unnecessary【C4】________. It also helps to opt for clothes you【C5】________as tying in with your goals, so, if you want to perform better at work, select pieces you view as professional. Draper says this fits in with the concept of behavioral activation, whereby【C6】________in a behavior (in this case, selecting clothes) can set you on the path to then achieving your goals (working harder). Another way to improve your【C7】________of mind is to mix things up. Draper says we often feel stuck in a rut (常规) if we wear the same clothes—even if they’re our favorites—thus opting for an item you don’t wear often, or adding something different to an outfit, such as a hat, can【C8】________shift your mood. On days when you’re really【C9】________to brave the world, Draper suggests selecting sentimental items of clothing, such as ones you wore on a special day, or given to you by a loved one, as clothes with【C10】________associations can help you tap into constructive emotions. A) accessories F) fond K) profile B) align G) frame L) prospering C) concurrently H) locations M) reluctant D) current I) perceive N) showcase E) engaging J) positively O) wardrobe

阅读理解Google recently introduced a new service that

阅读理解We often think of drawing as something that takes inborn talent, but this kind of thinking stems from our misclassification of drawing as, primarily, an art form rather than a tool for learning. Researchers, teachers, and artists are starting to see how drawing can positively impact a wide variety of skills and disciplines. Most of us have spent some time drawing before, but at some point, most of us stop drawing. There are people who don’t, obviously, and thank god for that: a world without designers and artists would be a very shabby one indeed. Some argue that so many adults have abandoned drawing because we’ve miscategorized it and given it a very narrow definition. In his book, Stick Figures: Drawing as a Human Practice, Professor D. B. Dowd argues that we have misfiled the significance of drawing because we see it as a professional skill instead of a personal capacity. We mistakenly think of "good" drawings as those which work as recreations of the real world, as realistic illusions. Rather, drawing should be recategorized as a symbolic tool. Human beings have been drawing for 73,000 years. It’s part of what it means to be human. We don’t have the strength of chimpanzees (大猩猩) because we’ve given up animal strength to manipulate subtle instruments, like hammers, spears, and—later—pens and pencils. The human hand is an extremely dense network of nerve endings. In many ways, human beings are built to draw. Some researchers argue that doodling (涂画) activates the brain’s so-called default circuit— essentially, the areas of the brain responsible for maintaining a baseline level of activity in the absence of other stimuli. Because of this, some believe that doodling during a boring lecture can help students pay attention. In one study, participants were asked to listen to a list of names while either doodling or sitting still. Those who doodled remembered 29 percent more of the names than those who did not. There’s also evidence that drawing talent is based on how accurately someone perceives the world. The human visual system tends to misjudge size, shape, color, and angles but artists perceive these qualities more accurately than non-artists. Cultivating drawing talent can become an essential tool to improve people’s observational skills in fields where the visual is important. Rather than think of drawing as a talent that some creative people are gifted in, we should consider it as a tool for seeing and understanding the world better—one that just so happens to double as an art form. Both absent-minded doodling and copying from life have been shown to positively affect your memory and visual perception, so complain loudly the next time your school board slashes the art department’s budget.

阅读理解If you think life is wonderful and expect it to stay that way, then you may have a good chance of living to a ripe old age, at least that is what the findings of a new study suggest. That study found that participants who reported the highest levels of optimism were far more likely to live to age 85 or【C1】________. This was compared to those participants who reported the lowest levels of optimism. It is【C2】________that the findings held even after the researchers considered factors that could【C3】________the link, including whether participants had health conditions such as heart disease or cancer, or whether they experienced depression. The results add to a growing body of evidence that certain psychological factors may predict a longer life【C4】________. For example, previous studies have found that more optimistic people have a lower risk of developing chronic diseases, and a lower risk of【C5】________death. However, the new study appears to be the first to【C6】________look at the relationship between optimism and longevity. The researchers【C7】________that the link found in the new study was not as strong when they factored in the effects of certain health behaviors, including exercise levels, sleep habits and diet. This suggests that these behaviors may, at least in part, explain the link. In other words, optimism may【C8】________good habits that bolster health. It is also important to note that the study found only a【C9】________. as researchers did not prove for certain that optimism leads to a longer life. However, if the findings are true, they suggest that optimism could serve as a psychological【C10】________that promotes health and a longer life. A) affect F) henceforth K) reconciled B)beyond G) lofty L)span C)conceded H) noteworthy M) specifically D) correlation I) plausibly N) spiral E) foster J) premature O) trait

阅读理解The Doctor Will Skype You Now A) Fazila is a young woman that has been dealing with eczema (湿疹), a common skin condition, for the past five years, but never got it treated. The nearest hospital is an hour away, by boat and bus, and her skin condition didn’t seem serious enough to make the trek, so she ignored it—until a new technology brought the doctor to her. Fazila lives on one of the remote river islands in northern Bangladesh. These islands are low-lying, temporary sand islands that are continuously formed and destroyed through sand buildup and erosion. They are home to over six million people, who face repeated displacement from flooding and erosion—which may be getting worse because of climate change-and a range of health risks, including poor nutrition, malaria (疟疾) and other water-borne diseases. B) The most dangerous thing for these remote island dwellers is land erosion. The second is lack of access to medical supplies and doctors. There are no doctors within miles, and while child mortality and maternal death have gone down in the rest of the country, this is not the case for the islands. The medical situation is so bad that it really takes away from the quality of their life. Yet for many island inhabitants—some of Bangladesh’s poorest—paying for health care is a costly ordeal. Victims of erosion lose their houses, agricultural land and jobs as farmers, fishermen and day laborers. Though government hospitals are free, many people hesitate to go, citing long commutes, endless lines and questionable diagnoses. For convenience’s sake, one-third of rural households visit unqualified village doctors, who rely on unscientific methods of treatment, according to a 2016 study in the peer-reviewed journal Global Health Action. C) On the islands, there’s even a colloquial (口头的) expression for the idea of making medical care your lowest priority: It’s known as "rog pushai rakha" in Bengali, which roughly translates to "stockpiling their diseases"—waiting to seek medical attention until a condition becomes extremely serious. Now, a new virtual medical service called Teledaktar (TD) is trying to make health care more easily accessible. Every week, TD’s medical operators travel to the islands by boat, carrying a laptop, a portable printer for prescriptions and tools to run basic medical screenings such as blood pressure, blood sugar, body temperature and weight. They choose an area of the island with the best Internet reception and set up a makeshift (临时凑合的) medical center which consists of plastic stools and small tables borrowed from the locals’ homes, a tent in case of rain and a sheet that is strung up to give the patients privacy during their session. D) Launched in October 2018, TD has eight centers in towns and villages across rural Bangladesh and on three islands. It is funded by a nonprofit organization founded by Bangladeshi entrepreneurs, finance and technology professionals. Inside the center, the laptop screen lights up to reveal Dr. Tina Mustahid, TD’s head physician, live-streamed (网络直播) from the capital city of Dhaka for free remote medical consultations. Affectionately called Doctor Apa— "older sister" in Bengali—by her patients, she is one of three volunteer doctors at TD. E) "I diagnose them through conversation," says Dr. Mustahid. "Sometimes it’s really obvious things that local doctors don’t have the patience to talk through with their patients. For example, a common complaint mothers come in with is that their children refuse to eat their meals. The mothers are concerned they are dealing with indigestion, but it’s because they are feeding the children packaged chips which are cheap and convenient. I tell them it is ruining their appetite and ask them to cut back on unhealthy snacks." Dr. Mustahid says building awareness about health and nutrition is important for island patients who are cut off from mainland resources. F) Even off the islands, Bangladesh faces a critical deficit of health services. The country has half the doctors-per-person ratio recommended by the World Health Organization: roughly one doctor per 2,000 people, instead of one doctor per 1,000 people. And of those physicians, many are concentrated in cities: 70％ of the country’s population live in rural areas, yet less than 20％ of health workers practice there. Over 70％ of TD’s 3,000 patients are female, in part because many are not comfortable speaking with local doctors who tend to be male. The rural women are mostly not literate or confident enough to travel on their own to the nearest town to visit medical facilities. Many have spent their entire lives rebuilding their homes when the islands flood. Early marriage and young motherhood, which are prevalent in these parts of Bangladesh, also contribute to the early onset of health problems. G) For most TD patients on the islands, Dr. Mustahid is the first big-city doctor that they’ve ever consulted. TD doctors are not meant to treat serious illnesses or conditions that require a doctor to be physically present, such as pregnancy. But they can write prescriptions, diagnose common ailments—including digestive issues, joint pain, skin diseases, fever and the common cold—and refer patients to doctors at local hospitals. The visit is also an opportunity for the patients, especially women, to air their concerns about aging, motherhood and reproductive health according to Dr. Mustahid. The doctors also offer health, dietary and lifestyle advice where necessary, including insight on everything from recognizing postnatal (产后的) depression to daily exercise. Dr. Mustahid regularly recommends her patients to take a daily thirty-minute morning walk before the sun gets too intense. H) After a few sessions about general health issues Fazila finally opened up about something else that was bothering her: her persistent skin condition. It can get expensive to travel to the doctor, so usually the women living on the islands describe their illness to their husbands. The husbands then go to the pharmacy, try to describe the issue and return home with some random medicines. Nothing worked for Fazila until she started seeing Dr. Apa. I) Other nonprofits are also starting to provide health services on the islands. A local non-governmental organization called Friendship operates floating boat hospitals that provide health services to islands all over Bangladesh, docking at each for two months at a time. Friendship also runs satellite clinics in which one doctor and one clinic aide who are residents of the community disperse health and hygiene information. J) TD still has a few major challenges. Many residents complain the medicines they are prescribed are sometimes unaffordable, but the government isn’t doing enough for them. Patients often ask why the medicine isn’t free along with the consultation from the doctors. The organizations are linked to local pharmacies and offer discounts to the patients and make sure to prescribe the most cost-effective brands, but still many residents can’t afford even that. K) Nevertheless, TD’s remote consultations seem to be popular: Of 3,000 patients, at least 200 have returned for follow-ups, according to TD. The reason, explains one resident, might be the simple gesture of treating the island inhabitants with respect. "Dr. Apa is patient," he says, "At government hospitals, the doctors treat us very badly, but here they listen to us, I can repeat myself many times and no one gets annoyed."

阅读理解 井冈山地处湖南江西两省交界处，因其辉煌的革命历史被誉为“中国革命红色摇篮”。1927年10月，毛泽东、朱德等老一辈革命家率领中国工农红军来到这里，开展了艰苦卓绝的斗争，创建了第一个农村革命根据地，点燃了中国革命的星星之火，开辟了“农村包围besiege城市，武装夺取政权”这一具有中国特色的革命道路，中国革命从这里迈向胜利。井冈山现有100多处革命旧址，成为一个“没有围墙的革命历史博物馆”，是爱国

阅读理解Is computer coding a foreign language? A) As computer coding has become an increasingly sought-after skill, more K-12 schools are working it into their curriculums. Some states have considered allowing students to forgo (放弃) foreign language for coding classes, despite opposition from educators. B) There’s a debate over whether it’s appropriate to teach coding in elementary schools, with fierce opinions on each side. When it comes to allowing coding to fill foreign language requirements, though, most educators agree: Coding should be added to curriculums, but not at the expense of foreign language classes. C) The idea is that computer programming is a language, allowing people to communicate with machines and programs. It’s the language of the 21st century and more valuable than a natural language, some advocates argue. The computer science field is growing faster than schools can keep up because of budget constraints and a lack of skills training for teachers. D) According to the 2016 U.S. News/Raytheon STEM Index, computer science jobs have helped boost wages in the U.S., and computer-related jobs hold the top seven positions in STEM fields for highest number of workers. Foreign language interest, on the other hand, is declining for the first time since 1995. The number of higher education language enrollments declined between 2009 and 2013 by more than 111,000 spots, according to the Modern Language Association of America. E) "I think the opportunity to give people a choice is important," says Florida state Senator Jeremy Ring, who introduced a bill last year that would allow Florida students to choose between foreign language and coding classes for the purpose of university admissions requirements. "I think if you’re going to give two years of language in high school, you might as well do computer coding." F) The Florida bill died this year after passing 35:5 in the state Senate when the full Legislature failed to take action. It would have been the first state to try this initiative. Ring says that although he will be out of office, an identical bill will be reintroduced within the next year by others on his behalf. "In the speech I gave on the Senate floor, I said, ’We can be the first state to do this, or we can be the 50th state to do it. It’s our choice. It’s going to happen,’" Ring says. G) A Kentucky bill similar to the one in Florida was met with complaints from educators, and was then amended to promote computer science education initiatives with no mention of foreign language requirements. Instead, the state will provide support for higher quality certified teachers for programming classes. Under the Washington bill, public universities would accept two years of computer science classes in place of two years of foreign language for admission purposes. A report detailing the opinions of state university officials is due to the Legislature by November 2017. H) Texas passed a bill in 2013 that allows students to substitute computer coding only after they have attempted and performed poorly in a foreign language class. Srini Mandyam, CTO and co-founder of kid-friendly instructional coding company Tynker, believes allowing students to forgo foreign language because they struggle with it is unproductive because every subject, whether art, math or language, is a significant contribution to a well-rounded existence. "Many students don’t fare well with algebra but we never discuss eliminating it or … say chemistry is now counted as an algebra class," he said via email. "We teach algebra because it’s important and we should teach foreign language and coding for the same reason. Exposure to a wide breadth of subjects and material results in well-rounded students who are able to make informed decisions … about what they want to pursue." I) Computer science courses already fulfill a math or science high school graduation requirement in 28 states and the District of Columbia, up from only 12 states in 2013. And while advocates of the bills say they should count as foreign language instead, opponents stress the importance of balancing computer and foreign language skills. J) Studies show that bilingualism (双语) correlates with cognitive development, intelligence, memory and problem solving abilities, according to the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. A 2007 study showed that foreign language students outperformed their non-foreign language peers on standardized tests after only two to three years of study. And while a 2014 report from German and American universities suggests that programmers are using language (but not mathematical) regions of the brain when understanding code, critics remain wary. They say that regardless of cognitive functions, being monolingual is a disadvantage in the increasingly international economy, even if English has become the de facto (事实上的) language of business. K) "Our world is shrinking but its problems are really growing," says ACTFL National Language Teacher of the Year Ted Zarrow, who teaches high school Latin in Westwood, Massachusetts, and has also studied Spanish, French, German, Italian and Greek. "We need to find a way to put ourselves at the global table and to treat each other with mutual respect. And learning languages allows us to do that because language is not part of culture, language is culture." L) Even with the benefits and skill sets languages provide, recruiters and employers value computer skills more. According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers’ 2016 report, study abroad and foreign language fluency were not very influential in the employee hiring processes, but 55 percent of employers looked for computer skills on applicants’ resumes. However, although 2016 computer science graduates can expect to make the second highest starting salary compared with other jobs this year, the Bureau of Labor predicts the demand for computer programmers will decrease 8 percent or by 26,500 jobs by 2024. M) Ring says foreign language skills are important, but expresses doubt that school districts could work both coding and language into their curriculum in a significant way because they lack the time in the school day. "Nothing against language," he says. "I just think it’s something you have to start early and not just have something that you do for a couple years in high school," he says. N) Zarrow agrees that foreign language education should begin earlier, but says it is possible to work both computer programming and foreign language learning into schools evenly. He suggests an immersive, dual language program where students spend half the day in English and half the day in another language, as several schools around the country have successfully implemented. "The study of language fosters a respect for diversity, a respect for ethnicity and really a respect for language," Zarrow says. O) Though the benefits of computer programming skills are vast, foreign language and coding experts agree that computer science should be negotiated into curriculums rather than replacing foreign language outright. Mandyam says the two skill sets are essential but unrelated. "Coding is an incredibly important 21st century skill for our kids to learn, and that’s why we spend so much time trying to teach it," Mandyam says via email. "But I believe it is the same as or even really comparable to learning a foreign language. It would be a shame to lose something so important for the sake of adding something else, even something as important as coding. Clearly, education leaders must figure out a way to teach both."

阅读理解Nicola Sturgeon’s speech last Tuesday setting out the Scottish government’s legislative programme for the year ahead confirmed what was already pretty clear. Scottish councils are set to be the first in the UK with the power to levy charges on visitors, with Edinburgh likely to lead the way. Tourist taxes are not new. The Himayalan kingdom of Bhutan has a longstanding policy of charging visitors a daily fee. France’s tax on overnight stays was introduced to assist thermal spa (温泉) towns to develop, and around half of French local authorities use it today. But such levies are on the rise. Moves by Barcelona and Venice to deal with the phenomenon of "over-tourism" through the use of charges have recently gained prominence. Japan and Greece are among the countries to have recently introduced tourist taxes. That the UK lags behind is due to our weak, by international standards, local government, as well as the opposition to taxes and regulation of our aggressively pro-market ruling party. Some UK cities have lobbied without success for the power to levy a charge on visitors. Such levies are no universal remedy as the amounts raised would be tiny compared with what has been taken away by central government since 2010. Still, it is to be hoped that the Scottish government’s bold move will prompt others to act. There is no reason why visitors to the UK, or domestic tourists on holiday in hotspots such as Cornwall, should be exempt from taxation—particularly when vital local services including waste collection, park maintenance and arts and culture spending are under unprecedented strain. On the contrary, compelling tourists to make a financial contribution to the places they visit beyond their personal consumption should be part of a wider cultural shift. Westerners with disposable incomes have often behaved as if they have a right to go wherever they choose with little regard for the consequences. Just as the environmental harm caused by aviation and other transport must come under far greater scrutiny, the social cost of tourism must also be confronted. This includes the impact of short-term lets on housing costs and quality of life for residents. Several European capitals, including Paris and Berlin, are leading a campaign for tougher regulation by the European Union. It also includes the impact of overcrowding, litter and the kinds of behaviour associated with noisy parties. There is no "one size fits all" solution to this problem. The existence of new revenue streams for some but not all councils is complicated, and businesses are often opposed, fearing higher costs will make them uncompetitive. But those places that want them must be given the chance to make tourist taxes work.

阅读理解How Marconi Gave Us the Wireless World A) A hundred years before iconic figures like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs permeated our lives, an Irish-Italian inventor laid the foundation of the communication explosion of the 21st century. Guglielmo Marconi was arguably the first truly global figure in modern communication. Not only was he the first to communicate globally, he was the first to think globally about communication. Marconi may not have been the greatest inventor of his time, but more than anyone else, he brought about a fundamental shift in the way we communicate. B) Today’s globally networked media and communication system has its origins in the 19th century, when, for the first time, messages were sent electronically across great distances. The telegraph, the telephone, and radio were the obvious predecessors of the Internet, iPods, and mobile phones. What made the link from then to now was the development of wireless communication. Marconi was the first to develop and perfect this system, using the recently-discovered "air waves" that make up the electromagnetic spectrum. C) Between 1896, when he applied for his first patent in England at the age of 22, and his death in Italy in 1937, Marconi was at the center of every major innovation in electronic communication. He was also a skilled and sophisticated organizer, an entrepreneurial innovator, who mastered the use of corporate strategy, media relations, government lobbying, international diplomacy, patents, and prosecution. Marconi was really interested in only one thing: the extension of mobile, personal, long-distance communication to the ends of the earth (and beyond, if we can believe some reports). Some like to refer to him as a genius, but if there was any genius to Marconi it was this vision. D) In 1901 he succeeded in signaling across the Atlantic, from the west coast of England to Newfoundland in the USA, despite the claims of science that it could not be done. In 1924 he convinced the British government to encircle the world with a chain of wireless stations using the latest technology that he had devised, shortwave radio. There are some who say Marconi lost his edge when commercial broadcasting came along; he didn’t see that radio could or should be used to frivolous (无聊的) ends. In one of his last public speeches, a radio broadcast to the United States in March 1937, he deplored that broadcasting had become a one-way means of communication and foresaw it moving in another direction, toward communication as a means of exchange. That was visionary genius. E) Marconi’s career was devoted to making wireless communication happen cheaply, efficiently, smoothly, and with an elegance that would appear to be intuitive and uncomplicated to the user—user-friendly, if you will. There is a direct connection from Marconi to today’s social media, search engines, and program streaming that can best be summed up by an admittedly provocative exclamation: the 20th century did not exist. In a sense, Marconi’s vision jumped from his time to our own. F) Marconi invented the idea of global communication—or, more straightforwardly, globally networked, mobile, wireless communication. Initially, this was wireless Morse code telegraphy (电报通讯), the principal communication technology of his day. Marconi was the first to develop a practical method for wireless telegraphy using radio waves. He borrowed technical details from many sources, but what set him apart was a self-confident vision of the power of communication technology on the one hand, and, on the other, of the steps that needed to be taken to consolidate his own position as a player in that field. Tracing Marconi’s lifeline leads us into the story of modern communication itself. There were other important figures, but Marconi towered over them all in reach, power, and influence, as well as in the grip he had on the popular imagination of his time. Marconi was quite simply the central figure in the emergence of a modern understanding of communication. G) In his lifetime, Marconi foresaw the development of television and the fax machine, GPS, radar, and the portable hand-held telephone. Two months before he died, newspapers were reporting that he was working on a "death ray," and that he had "killed a rat with an intricate device at a distance of three feet." By then, anything Marconi said or did was newsworthy. Stock prices rose or sank according to his pronouncements. If Marconi said he thought it might rain, there was likely to be a run on umbrellas. H) Marconi’s biography is also a story about choices and the motivations behind them. At one level, Marconi could be fiercely autonomous and independent of the constraints of his own social class. On another scale, he was a perpetual outsider. Wherever he went, he was never "of" the group; he was always the "other," considered foreign in Britain, British in Italy, and "not American" in the United States. At the same time, he also suffered tremendously from a need for acceptance that drove, and sometimes stained, every one of his relationships. I) Marconi placed a permanent stamp on the way we live. He was the first person to imagine a practical application for the wireless spectrum, and to develop it successfully into a global communication system in both terms of the word; that is, worldwide and all-inclusive. He was able to do this because of a combination of factors most important, timing and opportunity—but the single-mindedness and determination with which he carried out his self-imposed mission was fundamentally character-based; millions of Marconi’s contemporaries had the same class, gender, race, and colonial privilege as he, but only a handful did anything with it. Marconi needed to achieve the goal that was set in his mind as an adolescent; by the time he reached adulthood, he understood, intuitively, that in order to have an impact he had to both develop an independent economic base and align himself with political power. Disciplined, uncritical loyalty to political power became his compass for the choices he had to make. J) At the same time, Marconi was uncompromisingly independent intellectually. Shortly after Marconi’s death, the nuclear physicist Enrico Fermi—soon to be the developer of the Manhattan Project—wrote that Marconi proved that theory and experimentation were complementary features of progress. "Experience can rarely, unless guided by a theoretical concept, arrive at results of any great significance…on the other hand, an excessive trust in theoretical conviction would have prevented Marconi from persisting in experiments which were destined to bring about a revolution in the technique of radio-communications." In other words, Marconi had the advantage of not being burdened by preconceived assumptions. K) The most controversial aspect of Marconi’s life—and the reason why there has been no satisfying biography of Marconi until now—was his uncritical embrace of Benito Mussolini. At first this was not problematic for him. But as the regressive (倒退的) nature of Mussolini’s regime became clear, he began to suffer a crisis of conscience. However, after a lifetime of moving within the circles of power, he was unable to break with authority, and served Mussolini faithfully (as president of Italy’s national research council and royal academy, as well as a member of the Fascist Grand Council) until the day he died—conveniently—in 1937, shortly before he would have had to take a stand in the conflict that consumed a world that he had, in part, created.

阅读理解Saving Our Planet A) In the long view, the human relationship with forests has been one of brutal destruction, but even it carries elements of slow hope. In the Middle Ages, there was no shortage of timber in most parts of the world, and few saw cutting down forests as a problem. Yet in 1548 the people of Venice estimated that an important timber supply would last only 30 years at their current rate of usage—but different forest management would make it possible to meet the demand for many centuries to come. The idea of preserving resources came out of a concern for the future: a fear of using up resources faster than they could be replenished (补充). B) Economic interests were at the core of this understanding of trees and forests. It would take more than three centuries before scientists began to understand that timber production is not the only, and possibly not the most important, function of forests. The late 19th and early 20th century saw an increasing recognition that forests serve as habitats for countless animal and plant species that all rely on each other. They take over protective functions against soil erosion and landslides (塌方); they make a significant contribution to the water balance as they prevent surface runoff; they filter dirt particles, greenhouse gases and radioactive substances from the air; they produce oxygen; they provide spaces for recreation and they preserve historic and prehistoric remains. As a result, forests around the world have been set aside as parks or wilderness areas. C) Recent years have seen a big change in our view of forests. Peter Wohlleben’s book The Hidden Life of Trees (2015), an international bestseller, suggests that trees can warn each other of danger through a "wood wide web" of roots and fungi (真菌). They support each other through sharing of nutrients and information, and they even keep ancient stumps alive by feeding them solutions of sugars. Such insights have made us aware of deep ecological relationships between humans and the more-than-human world. D) Awareness of ecologies is a recent phenomenon. It was not until the 1940s that the concept of the "environment" embracing all living and nonliving things developed. In the 1970s, the term "environment" gained currency, becoming widely adopted in the English and Romance languages, and as "Umwelt" ("surrounding world") in German. The emergence of the idea led to the rise of environmental agencies, regulations and environmental studies, and to environmental science as new, integrated academic disciplines. It was in 1956 that the very first bachelor of science in environmental studies was awarded, at the State University of New York College of Forestry at Syracuse. Since the 1970s—with the rise of "environmentalism"—environmental studies programmes have sprung up at hundreds of universities. There is (slow) hope in the fact that scholars from many different disciplines have adopted the term "environment" over the past decades. They are exploring intricate connections within and between complex ecologies, as well as the impact that human environment-making (through techno-industrial, economic and other manipulative developments) has had on the biosphere. E) The rise of the idea of the environment and a scholarly understanding of ecological processes has influenced new technologies and also politics. We have come to ask questions about vulnerability and risk, world ecologies, and the relationship between nature and power. The search for an adequate response to climate change occupies centre stage in international diplomacy. F) Social and environmental activists, scientists and indigenous groups have called the Paris Agreement of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in December 2015 insufficient, weak, or compromised. To some extent, they are right: climate change has already destroyed tens of thousands of livelihoods, and the situation will worsen in the near future for millions of mostly poorer people, who will join the ranks of those who have already been displaced by climate change and extreme weather events. But the Paris Conference nevertheless marked a historic step toward the recognition of the need for action on climate change, the cutting of carbon emissions, and world cooperation. There were 195 nations that came to the table in Paris and agreed to limits on emissions. Historically, nothing comparable had happened prior to this. Before the 20th century, a handful of scientists had been interested in the theoretical relationship between greenhouse gases and climate change, but only the empirical evidence accumulated since the late 20th century established a clear connection between the burning of fossil fuels and a vastly accelerated rise in global temperatures. G) The current crisis is not the first that humans have encountered, and a look at the struggles with pollution in recent history reveals transformations that once seemed unimaginable. The "London fog" that came to define the capital through British novels and thrillers is in reality smog or smoke, a legacy of industrialisation. After a century of ignorance, London was hit by the Great Smog of December 1952—the worst air-pollution event in the history of the United Kingdom which caused the deaths of approximately 12,000 people. Shortly thereafter, public initiatives and political campaigns led to strict regulations and new laws, including the Clean Air Act (1956). Today, London has effectively reduced traffic emissions through the introduction of a Congestion Charge Zone in 2003, and an Ultra Low Emission Zone in 2019. H) Scientific evidence that we are living in an era of climate change, resource exhaustion and potential ecological disaster is overwhelming. How do we motivate a public exhausted by never-ending scenarios of doom and disaster, when the challenges seem so huge and so impossible to solve? Statistics about extinction and the gloom of decline will not in themselves get us out of our often self-created ecological traps: instead, they are more likely to result in paralysis and inaction. I) We need stories and histories of change and transformation: ecological stories that make us confront the fact that human power is potentially destructive, and that the survival of our species on this planet depends on the preservation of soil and water, and the habitats and ecological systems. J) It is time that we showed successes and accelerations in ecological awareness, action and restoration: stories that include past successes and future visions about the rise of urban gardening and of renaturalised riverscapes, of successful protests against polluted air and water, of the rise of regional markets and slow food, and the planting of trees around the globe, of initiatives and enterprises that work towards ecological restoration. The reality of ecological curses seems far greater than the power of the hopes left at the bottom of Pandora’s box. But if we believe that nothing can be changed, then we are giving up our opportunity to act. K) Today’s saving powers will not come from a deus ex machina (解围之神). In an ever-more complex and synthetic world, our saving powers won’t come from a single source, and certainly not from a too-big-to-fail approach or from those who have been drawn into the whirlpool of our age of speed. Hope can work as a wakeup call. It acknowledges setbacks. The concept of slow hope suggests that we can’t expect things to change overnight. If the ever-faster exhaustion of natural resources (in ecological terms) and the "shrinking of the present" (in social terms) are urgent problems of humans, then cutting down on exhaustive practices and working towards a "stretching of the present" will be ways to move forward.

阅读理解We often think of agriculture as planting

阅读理解How can one person enjoy good health, while another person looks old before her time? Humans have been asking this question for thousands of years, and recently, it’s becoming clearer and clearer to scientists that the differences between people’s rates of aging lie in the complex interactions among genes, social relationships, environments and lifestyles. Even though you were born with a particular set of genes, the way you live can influence how they express themselves. Some lifestyle factors may even turn genes on or shut them off. Deep within the genetic heart of all our cells are telomeres, or repeating segments of noncoding DNA that live at the ends of the chromosomes (染色体). They form caps at the ends of the chromosomes and keep the genetic material together. Shortening with each cell division, they help determine how fast a cell ages. When they become too short, the cell stops dividing altogether. This isn’t the only reason a cell can age—there are other stresses on cells we don’t yet understand very well—but short telomeres are one of the major reasons human cells grow old. We’ve devoted most of our careers to studying telomeres, and one extraordinary discovery from our labs is that telomeres can actually lengthen. Scientists have learned that several thought patterns appear to be unhealthy for telomeres, and one of them is cynical hostility. Cynical hostility is defined by high anger and frequent thoughts that other people cannot be trusted. Someone with hostility doesn’t just think, "I hate to stand in long lines"; they think, "Others deliberately sped up and beat me to my rightful position in the line!"—and then get violently agitated. People who score high on measures of cynical hostility tend to get more heart disease, metabolic disease and often die at younger ages. They also have shorter telomeres. In a study of British civil servants, men who scored high on measures of cynical hostility had shorter telomeres than men whose hostility scores were low. The most hostile men were 30％ more likely to have short telomeres. What this means: aging is a dynamic process that could possibly be accelerated or slowed—and, in some aspects, even reversed. To an extent, it has surprised us and the rest of the scientific community that telomeres do not simply carry out the commands issued by your genetic code. Your telomeres are listening to you. The foods you eat, your response to challenges, the amount of exercise you get, and many other factors appear to influence your telomeres and can prevent premature aging at the cellular level. One of the keys to enjoying good health is simply doing your part to foster healthy cell renewal.