The power and ambition of the giants of the digital economy is astonishing —Amazon has just announced the purchase of the upmarket grocery chain Whole Foods for $13.5bn, but two years ago Facebook paid even more than that to acquire the WhatsApp messaging service, which doesn’t have any physical product at all. What WhatsApp offered Facebook was an intricate and finely detailed web of its users’ friendships and social lives.
Facebook promised the European commission then that it would not link phone numbers to Facebook identities, but it broke the promise almost as soon as the deal went through. Even without knowing what was in the messages, the knowledge of who sent them and to whom was enormously revealing and still could be. What political journalist, what party whip, would not want to know the makeup of the WhatsApp groups in which Theresa May’s enemies are currently plotting? It may be that the value of Whole Foods to Amazon is not so much the 460 shops of owns, but the records of which customers have purchased what.
Competition law appears to be the only way to address these imbalances of power. But it is clumsy. For one thing, it is very slow compared to the pace of change within the digital economy. By the time a problem has been addressed and remedied it may have vanished in the marketplace, to be replaced by new abuses of power. But there is a deeper conceptual problem, too. Competition law as presently interpreted deals with financial disadvantage to consumers and this is not obvious when the users of these services don’t pay for them. The users of their services are not their customers. That would be the people who buy advertising from them — and Facebook and Google, the two virtual giants, dominate digital advertising to the disadvantage of all other media and entertainment companies.
The product they’re selling is data, and we, the users, convert our lives to data for the benefit of the digital giants. Just as some ants farm the bugs called aphids for the honeydew they produce when they feed, so Google farms us for the data that our digital liver yield. Ants keep enemy insects away from where their aphids(蚜虫) feed; Gmail keeps the spammers out of our inboxes. It doesn't feel like a human or democratic relationship, even if both sides benefit.
1.According to Paragraph1，Facebook acquired WhatsApp for its________.
A. digital products B. user information
C. physical assets D. quality service
2.Linking phone numbers to Facebook identities may________.
A. worsen political disputes B. mess up customer records
C. pose a risk to Facebook users D. mislead the European commission
3.Competition law as presently interpreted can hardly protect Facebook users because________.
A. they are no defined as customers B. they are not financially reliable
C. these services are generally digital D. the services are paid for by advertisers
4.The ants analogy is used to illustrate_________.
A. a win-win business model between digital giants
B. a typical competition pattern among digital giants
C. the benefits provided for digital giants' customers
D. the relationship between digital giants and their users
Social norms of right and wrong are vital to a well-functioning society. However, such moral standards are changeable and the psychological mechanisms(机制) driving this change are unknown. Now, researchers at Karolinska Institute report that our view of selfish and unselfish behaviors changes depending on how common they are.
The results are based on a combination of behavioral experiments, mathematical models and computer simulations. In the experiments, the participants first observed other people's behavior in a so-called "public goods game," in which players receive a sum of money and then choose either to invest it to varying degrees so that it benefits everyone in the group, or to keep it for themselves. After every round, the participants were asked to judge the different choices as morally right or wrong, and whether the choices ought to be punished with a reduction in how much the players gained.
Unselfish behavior was considered more morally right than selfish, but both behaviors were judged to be more moral and less deserving of punishment if the majority exhibited them than if they were uncommon. The commonness of the selfish behavior also affected the participants' willingness to themselves pay to punish selfishness.
"Tolerance of selfish behavior increased when the majority of the players kept the money for themselves, which surprised me," says principal investigator Andreas Olsson, senior lecturer at Karolinska Institutet's Department of Clinical Neuroscience. "The fact that a behavior is common doesn't automatically mean that it's right -- this idea is based on faulty logic that confuses facts with moral values."
The study shows our view of what is morally right and wrong has strong similarities with social conformity, in that we tend to adapt ourselves to the people around us and how they behave. This means that changes in our social environment can quickly alter our moral compass.
"This is interesting from several angles, and could explain why moral attitudes change over time, such as those towards public goods or legality," says Björn Lindström, postdoc at University of Zürich and Karolinska Institutet's Department of Clinical Neuroscience.
1.According to Andreas Olsson’s analysis, if people accept selfish behavior, they actually________.
A. get facts and moral values mixed up B. misunderstand social mechanisms
C. follow the logic of their own D. consider it correct and reasonable
2.It can be concluded that the participants in the experiments are punished if _________.
A. they can’t play "public goods game"
B. invest the money to benefit group members
C. they behave differently from the majority
D. they keep the money for themselves
3.According to the passage, what is morally right or wrong is shaped by the following Except________.
A. the way people around us behave
B. changes in our social environment
C. personal standards of values and attitudes
D. how widespread a particular behavior is
4.Which of the following might be the best title of the passage?
A. The psychological mechanisms behind attitude change
B. Behavior is considered more moral the more common it is
C. Our view of selfish and unselfish behaviors
D. Moral standards of selfish and unselfish behaviors
The study of psychology is facing a crisis. The Research Excellence Framework(the Ref) has led to a research culture which is holding back attempts to stabilize psychology in particular, and science in general. The Ref encourages universities to push for groundbreaking, novel, and exciting research in the form of 4* papers, but it does not reward the efforts of those who replicate(复制) studies.
The point of replicating a study is to test whether a statistically significant result will appear again if the experiment is repeated. Of course, a similar result may not appear – casting into question the validity(有效性) of the results from the first experiment.
Last year, the Open Science Collaboration attempted to replicate 100 studies from highly ranked psychological journals. While 97% of the original studies had a statistically significant result, just 36% of the replications had the same outcome. Equally worrying: when an effect did appear, it was often much smaller than previously thought.
Recent data calls into question some widely influential findings in psychological science. These problems are not confined to psychology however – many findings published in scientific literature may actually be false.
Science is supposed to be self-correcting and reproducibility is a cornerstone of the scientific method. Yet, we simply aren’t invested in replicating findings. We all want to be good researchers and understand more about how the world works. So why are we so reluctant to check our conclusions are valid?
Because no incentive is provided by the system we carry out our research in. In the UK, the Ref ranks the published works of researchers according to their originality (how innovative is the research?), significance (does it have practical or commercial importance?), and rigour (is the research technically right?). Outputs are then awarded one to four stars. 4* papers are considered world-leading. The cumulative total of 3* and 4* papers determines research funding allocation and has a knock-on effect on institutional position in league tables(排名表) and therefore attractiveness to students. Obviously, the more publications the better.
Worryingly, many academics admit to engaging in at least one questionable research practice in order to achieve publication. Examples of this include: coming up with a theory after data is collected, stopping collecting data when an effect appears in case it disappears later, or only reporting the significant effects from collected data. Others simply fabricate data – Dutch psychologist Diederik Stapel shockingly falsified data from more than 50 studies.
The Ref completely harms our efforts to produce a reliable body of knowledge. Why? The focus on originality – publications exploring new areas of research using new paradigms, and avoiding testing well-established theories – is the exact opposite of what science needs to be doing to solve the troubling replication crisis. According to Ref standards, replicating an already published piece of work is simply uninteresting.
With the next Ref just four years away, many researchers are effectively faced with a choice: be a good scientist, or be a successful academic who gets funding and a promotion.
1.What crisis is the study of psychology facing?
A. The Ref has led to a revolution in not-only psychology but also science.
B. The universities are encouraged to generate more groundbreaking research.
C. The Ref tends to set up a different standard of replications of studies.
D. The Ref’s indifference to replications of studies has led to worrying effects.
2.The Ref’s focus on originality has brought about _______.
A. a reliable body of knowledge
B. publications exploring new areas
C. tests of well- established theories
D. uninteresting replications of studies
3.We can infer from the passage that the Ref _______.
A. is a system for assessing the quality of research in UK universities
B. provides UK researchers with funding and job opportunities
C. recognizes researchers’ work and adds to their attractiveness to students
D. is planning to change its standard before the next Ref submission
4.What does the writer mean by saying “be a good scientist”?
A. Contribute to the solution to the replication crisis.
B. Reform the standards that have been set up by the Ref.
C. Give up possible funding and promotion given by universities.
D. Avoid using false research practices to test old theories.
Traditional surgical procedures require surgeons to make large incisions(伤口) in a patient’s body in order to gain access to the internal organs. It was once common for heart surgeons, who perform highly specialized and complex procedures, to make long incisions in a patient’s chest and then split the breastbone to reach the heart. Patients who undergo surgery are often at the risk of infection, as bacteria can infect the cut in the skin. In addition, there is often a lengthy recovery period.
A surgical technique known as “keyhole surgery” has become more common in recent years. In general, the surgeon will make a couple of small incisions around the area where the operation is going to be performed. Tubes are pushed into the holes, and a tiny camera, which is called an endoscope, is put into the body. The camera is attached to a large monitor screen that is positioned so that the doctor can see it while he performs the operation. In addition to the camera, doctors also push their tiny surgical instruments through the tubes. The awkward part of keyhole surgery is that it is counterintuitive; that is to say, if a surgeon wants to move the tool to the left, he or she must push it to the right.
Other advancements in technology are also being used today in the OR (operation room). A new machine called the “da Vinci Surgical System” has been tested in hospitals in the U.S.. Unlike keyhole surgery, the da Vinci’s robot’s moving parts are designed to imitate the natural hand and wrist movement of a surgeon, thus providing better control and sensitivity. The system is controlled by a surgeon from a console(控制台). Sitting at a console a few feet from the patient, the surgeon can perform an operation by holding and moving highly sensitive pads that enable him or her to control the instruments. The area of the body on which the surgeon is working is enlarged on a screen, which is attached to the console. This gives surgeons a realistic three-dimensional view of the area — similar to what they would see during a traditional surgical procedure.
Although the da Vinci Surgical System is undergoing some trials for some procedures, it has been welcomed as revolutionary by many surgeons. Patients with serious illnesses must still undergo major surgery, but the smaller incisions and less invasive procedures typically mean that a shorter recovery time is needed. In some cases, the patient’s stay in the hospital has been cut in half when the da Vinci Surgical System was used. On the downside, some operations have taken up to fifty minutes longer because surgeons are inexperienced at using the new technology. As surgeons become more familiar with the machines, the time needed for surgical procedures is likely to decrease.
1.What can be learned about the traditional surgery according to the passage?
A. The cost of the traditional surgery is very high.
B. It often leaves a large wound in a person’s body.
C. Long incisions are made in a patient’s chest.
D. The incision is often infected after the operation.
2.Which of the following is one DISADVANTAGE of keyhole surgery?
A. It requires the use of long, thin tools and a tiny camera.
B. The doctor can not view the inside of the patient’s body clearly.
C. The direction in which a doctor moves the surgical tools is reversed.
D. An endoscope has to be inserted into the patient’s body in advance.
3.The da Vinci Surgical System differs from keyhole surgery in that _______.
A. requires that a surgeon make more small incisions on a patient
B. reduces the amount of time it takes to perform a surgical procedure
C. allows the surgeon to use the surgical instruments more sensitively
D. eliminates the need for surgeons to make large incisions on patients
4.The passage mainly tells the reader ________.
A. the challenges brought about by new technology
B. the benefits and drawbacks of the da Vinci Surgical System
C. the reflections on the development in medical science
D. the application of new technologies in modern surgery
By now you’ve probably heard about the “you’re not special” speech, when English teacher David McCullough told graduating seniors at Wellesley High School: “Do not get the idea you’re anything special, because you’re not.” Mothers and fathers present at the ceremony — and a whole lot of other parents across the Internet — took issue with McCullough’s ego-puncturing words. But lost in the uproar was something we really should be taking to heart: our young people actually have no idea whether they’re particularly talented or accomplished or not. In our eagerness to elevate their self-esteem, we forgot to teach them how to realistically assess their own abilities, a crucial requirement for getting better at anything from math to music to sports. In fact, it’s not just privileged high-school students: we all tend to view ourselves as above average.
Such inflated self-judgments have been found in study after study, and it’s often exactly when we’re least competent at a given task that we rate our performance most generously. In a 2006 study published in the journal Medical Education, for example, medical students who scored the lowest on an essay test were the most charitable in their self-evaluations, while high-scoring students judged themselves much more stringently. Poor students, the authors note, “lack insight” into their own inadequacy. Why should this be? Another study, led by Cornell University psychologist David Dunning, offers an enlightening explanation. People who are incompetent, he writes with coauthor Justin Kruger, suffer from a “dual burden”: they’re not good at what they do, and their very ineptness prevents them from recognizing how bad they are.
In Dunning and Kruger’s study, subjects scoring at the bottom of the heap on tests of logic, grammar and humor “extremely overestimated” their talents. Although their test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they guessed they were in the 62nd. What these individuals lacked (in addition to clear logic, proper grammar and a sense of humor) was “metacognitive skill”: the capacity to monitor how well they’re performing. In the absence of that capacity, the subjects arrived at an overly hopeful view of their own abilities. There’s a paradox here, the authors note: “The skills that engender competence in a particular domain are often the very same skills necessary to evaluate competence in that domain.” In other words, to get better at judging how well we’re doing at an activity, we have to get better at the activity itself.
There are a couple of ways out of this double bind. First, we can learn to make honest comparisons with others. Train yourself to recognize excellence, even when you yourself don’t possess it, and compare what you can do against what truly excellent individuals are able to accomplish. Second, seek out feedback that is frequent, accurate and specific. Find a critic who will tell you not only how poorly you’re doing, but just what it is that you’re doing wrong. As Dunning and Kruger note, success indicates to us that everything went right, but failure is more ambiguous: any number of things could have gone wrong. Use this external feedback to figure out exactly where and when you screwed up.
If we adopt these strategies — and most importantly, teach them to our children — they won’t need parents, or a commencement（毕业典礼） speaker, to tell them that they’re special. They’ll already know that they are, or have a plan to get that way.
1.Which can be the best title of this passage?
A. Special or Not? Teach Kids To Figure It Out
B. Let's Admit That We Are Not That Special
C. Tips On Making Ourselves More Special
D. Tell The Truth: Kids Overestimate their Talents
2.The author thinks the real problem is that ______.
A. we don't know whether our young people are talented or not
B. young people don't know how to assess their abilities realistically
C. no requirement is set up for young people to get better
D. we always tend to consider ourselves to be privileged
3.Which is NOT mentioned about poor students according to the passage?
A. They usually give themselves high scores in self-evaluations.
B. They tend to be unable to know exactly how bad they are.
C. They are intelligently inadequate in tests and exams.
D. They lack the capacity to monitor how well they are performing.
4.We can infer from the passage that those high-scoring students ______.
A. know how to cultivate clear logic and proper grammar
B. don't know how well they perform due to their stringent self-judgement
C. don't view themselves as competent because they know their limits
D. tend to be very competent in their high-scoring fields.
5.The strategies of becoming special suggest that ______.
A. we need internal honesty with ourselves and external honesty from others
B. the best way to get better is to carefully study past success and failure
C. through comparison with others, one will know where and when he fails
D. neither parents nor a commencement speaker can tell whether one is special
Ladies and gentlemen,
I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work - a life's work in the agony（痛苦） and sweat of the human spirit. But I would like to use this moment as a climax from which I might be listened to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same agony and sweat, among whom is already that one who will someday stand here where I am standing.
Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.
He, the writer, must learn them again. He must teach himself that the worst of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is short-lived and doomed - love and honor and pity and pride and sympathy and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse（诅咒）. He writes not of love but of desire, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or sympathy. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands（腺体）.
Until he relearns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of sympathy and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and sympathy and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the pillars to help him endure and prevail.
1.The word “that” in the 2nd paragraph probably means ______.
A. the agony and sweat of the human spirit
B. the general and universal physical fear
C. the sustenance and endurance for a long time
D. the human heart in conflict with itself
2.According to the speaker, the old truths of the heart are so important that ______.
A. they are love, honor, pity, pride, sympathy and sacrifice
B. they prolong a writer’s life and protect him from curses
C. they are the soul of a real and powerful piece of writing
D. they can effectively stop the trend towards the end of man
3.How can poets / writers help man endure and prevail?
A. By inspiring man with his past glories through words.
B. By helping man endure the end through endless voices.
C. By recording sympathy, sacrifice and endurance in his soul.
D. By building spiritual pillars through immortal hearts.
4.The speaker may probably agree that ______.
A. the award was not fair because his life was too painful
B. young writers now are too fearful to bear the agony and sweat
C. the biggest obstacle to good writing is the writer’s fear
D. writing about man’s soul signals his final prevalence
