Directions: Read the following passage. Summarize the main idea and the main point(s) of the passage in no more than 60 words. Use your own words as far as possible.
The Zeigarnik Effect
Have you ever found yourself thinking about a partially finished project for school or work when you were trying to focus on other things? Or perhaps you wondered what would happen next in your favorite TV show or film series. If you have, you’ve experienced the Zeigarnik effect. You tend to remember unfinished tasks better than finished tasks. Knowledge of the Zeigarnik effect can be put into use in everyday life.
The effect is especially well suited for helping overcome procrastination or delaying an action to a later time. We often put off big tasks that seem overwhelming. However, the Zeigarnik effect suggests that the key to overcoming procrastination is to just get started. The first step could be something small and seemingly insignificant. In fact, it’s probably best if it’s something fairly easy.
The Zeigarnik effect can be useful for students who are studying for an exam. The effect tells us that breaking up study periods can actually improve recall. So instead of cramming for an exam all in one sitting, breaks should be scheduled in which the student focuses on something else. This will cause intrusive（侵入的）thoughts, enabling students to rehearse and consolidate the information that must be remembered, leading to better recall when they take the exam.
The Zeigarnik effect also points to reasons why people may experience mental health problems. If an individual leaves important tasks incomplete, the intrusive thoughts that result can lead to stress, anxiety, difficulty sleeping, and emotional distress. Conversely, completing a task can give an individual a sense of accomplishment and lead to a feeling of closure that can improve psychological well - being.
The Zeigarnik effect can actually be used to positively impact your work productivity.
Directions: Read the passage carefully. Fill in each blank with a proper sentence given in the box. Each sentence can be used only once. Note that there are two more sentences than you need.
Is Multitasking Always Good?
Not only do smart-phones provide unrestricted access to information, they provide perfect opportunities to multitask. Any activity can be accompanied by music, selfies or social media updates. Of course, some people pick poor times to tweet or text, and lawmakers have steeped in. 1. In Honolulu, it’s illegal to text or even look at your phone while crossing the street, and in the Netherlands they’ve banned texting while biking.
2. You need to self-regulate. Understanding how the brain multitasks and why we find multitasking so appealing will help you realize the danger or pulling out your phone.
Multitasking feels like doing two things at the same time, so it seems the danger lies in asking one mental process to do two unrelated things -- for texting drivers, watching the screen and the road.
Twenty states have instituted bans on driving using a hand - held phone while still allowing hands - free calls. Yet hands - free or hand - held makes no difference. 3. The real problem is the switch of attention between the conversation and road, and that affects performance.
Please sense this, and when on the phone they drive slower and increase their following distance, but they are far too confident that these measures reduce risks. This overconfidence extends to other activities. A 2015 survey showed that a majority of students who use social media, text or watch TV while studying think that they can still comprehend the material they’re studying.
People multitask merely because they see no harm in it; they see benefits. 4. Most people will still choose to multitask. But they should, at the very least , be fully aware of how that choice affects them and the potential consequences for themselves and others. They need to pay attention to how much -- or how little -- they are paying attention.
A. But legislation（法律）won’t ban all situations in which multitasking is unwise.
B. They multitask for efficiency, to fight boredom or to keep up with social media.
C. Forty - eight states have banned texting while driving.
D. However, texting while biking seems so undemanding as to be harmless.
E. They damage driving equivalently as far as external dangers go.
F. Instead of multitasking, they take more rest breaks and get a social media fix during a break.
For several decades, there has been an extensive and organized campaign intended to generate distrust in science, funded by regulated industries and libertarian think tanks（自由主义智囊团）whose interests and beliefs are threatened by the findings of modern science. In response, scientists have tended to stress the success of science. After all, scientists have been right about most things, from the structure of the universe to the relativity of time and space.
Quoting successes isn’t wrong, but for many people it’s not persuasive. What is typically declared to be the scientific method -- develop a supposition, then design an experiment to test it -- isn’t what scientists actually do. Science is active so that new methods get invented and old ones get abandoned. The scientific method doesn’t always work. False theories can produce true results, so even if an experiment works, it doesn’t prove that the theory it was designed to test it true.
If there is no identifiable scientific method, then what is the guarantee for trust in science?
The answer is the methods by which those claims are evaluated. A scientific claim is never accepted as true until it has gone through a long process of examination by fellow scientists. Until this point, scientific feedback is typically fairly friendly. But the next step is different: once the paper is ready, it is presented to a scientific journal, where things get a whole lot tougher. Editors deliberately send scientific papers to people who are not friends or colleagues of the authors, and the job of the reviewer is to find errors or other inadequacies. We call this process “peer review” because the reviewers are scientific peers but they act in the role of a superior who has both the right and the obligation to find fault. It is only after the reviewers and the editor are satisfied that any problems have been fixed that the paper is accepted for publication and enters the body of “science.”
Does this process ever go wrong? Of course. Scientists are human. But if we look carefully at historical cases where science went wrong, typically there was no agreement reached by all. Some people argue that we should not trust science because scientists are “always changing their minds.” While examples of truly settled science being overturned are far fewer than is sometimes claimed, they do exist. But the beauty of this scientific process is that it explains what might otherwise appear paradoxical（矛盾的）: that science produces both novelty（新颖性）and stability. New observations, ideas, interpretations introduce novelty: trans-formative questioning leads to collective decisions and the stability of scientific knowledge. Scientists do change their minds in the face of new evidence, but this is a strength of science, not a weakness.
1.Distrust in science has been found because _________.
A.scientists’ citing successes isn’t persuasive for many people to some extent
B.most scientists have tended to lay too much emphasis on the success of science
C.a wide - ranging and organized campaign has been founded in some industries and think tanks
D.someone’s benefits and beliefs are endangered by the findings of modern science
2.Which of the following statements will the author agree with about a scientific method?
A.A scientific method doesn’t necessarily take effect because science is changing.
B.A scientific method is not right because it isn’t what scientists actually do.
C.A successful experiment can guarantee the truthfulness of a claim by a scientific method.
D.True theories can produce false results because the scientific method doesn’t work.
3.What purpose does “peer review” in evaluating a scientific claim mainly serve?
A.The scientific claim can be completely accepted by the reviewers in the same field.
B.The scientific peers can draw right conclusions by finding its faults or other inadequacies.
C.The scientific claim can be published and recognized as true in science.
D.The scientific paper can be successfully submitted to a scientific journal.
4.It can be inferred from the last paragraph that _________.
A.Not all the claims about the falsehood of well-established science lead to its being overturned
B.It is inevitable that science sometimes goes wrong because it appears paradoxical
C.The beauty of science lies in the paradox of being both novel and stable
D.Science is not trustful because scientists always change their minds.
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A.①③ B.①③④
C.②③④ D.①②③
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People worry that developments in Artificial Intelligence, or A.I., will bring about a point in history when A. I. overtakes human intelligence, leading to an unimaginable revolution in human affairs. Or they wonder whether instead of our controlling artificial intelligence, it will control us.
The situation may not arise for hundreds of years to come, but this doesn’t mean we have nothing to worry about. On the contrary, The A. I. products that now exist are improving faster than most people realize and promise to fundamentally transform our world, not always for the better. They are only tools, not a competing form of intelligence. But they will reshape what work means and how wealth is created.
Unlike the Industrial Revolution and the Computer Revolution, the A. I. revolution is not taking certain jobs and replacing them with other jobs. Instead, it is believed to cause a wide - scale elimination of jobs -- mostly lower - paying jobs, but some higher - paying ones, too.
This transformation will result in enormous profits for the companies that develop A.I., as well as for the companies that adopt it. We are thus facing two developments that do not sit easily together; enormous wealth concentrated in relatively few hands and enormous numbers of people out of work. What is to be done?
Part of the answer will involve educating or retraining people in tasks A.I. tools aren’t good at. Artificial intelligence is poorly suited for jobs involving creativity, planning and “cross - field” thinking. But these skills are typically required by high - paying jobs that may be hard to retrain displaced workers to do. More promising are lower - paying jobs involving the “people skills” that A.I. lacks: social workers, barmen, doormen -- professions requiring human interaction. But how many barmen does a society really need?
The solution to the problem of mass unemployment will involve “service jobs of love.” These are jobs that A. I. cannot do, that society needs and that give people a sense of purpose. Examples include accompanying an older person to visit a doctor, helping at an orphanage and serving as a sponsor at charity organization. The volunteer service jobs of today, in other words, may turn into the real jobs of the future.
Other volunteer jobs may be higher - paying and professional, such as compassionate medial service providers. In all cases, people will be able to choose to work fewer hours than they do now.
1.In what aspect is the
A.I. revolution different from the Industrial or the Computer revolution?
A. The A.I. revolution will finally become one beyond human’s control.
B.A. I. is believed to lead to a point in history when it takes over human intelligence.
C.Higher - paying jobs will take the place of lower-paying ones in the A.I. revolution.
D.It may bring about mass unemployment to matter how much employees are paid.
2.The underlined word “promising” in paragraph 5 is closest in meaning to _______.
A.promotional B.demanding
C.guaranteed D.potential
3.What does the author suggest in the face of the A.I. revolution?
A.It is sensible to encourage people to take volunteer jobs.
B.People should be instructed to do less demanding jobs.
C.The problem of job loss can be solved by creating lower-paying jobs.
D.Jobs requiring knowledge in different fields are suitable for displaced workers.
4.Which of the following may serve as the best title of the passage?
A.The A.I. Revolution Creates New Job Opportunities.
B.Challenges the A. I. Revolution Brings to Job Market.
C.A Double - edged Sword: the A.I. Revolution.
D.Interrelationship between A.I. and Unemployment.
Amazon.com Inc. is checking out of China’s fiercely competitive domestic e-commerce market. The company told sellers on Thursday that it would no longer ______ its third - party online marketplace or provide seller services on its Chinese website, Amazon.cn. ________,domestic companies will no longer be able to sell products to Chinese consumers on its e-commerce platform.
The decision marks an end to a long ________ by America’s e-commerce giants in the Chinese market. The firms entered the Chinese market with great attention in the early 2000s, only to ________ in the face of competition from China’s faster - moving Internet giants.
Amazon has been in talks to ________ its e-commerce business for goods imported into China with a Chinese competitor, NetEase Inc.’s Kaola, in a stock - for - stock transaction（交易）, according to a person familiar with the matter. That would remove the Amazon name from ________ e-commerce in China. Neither company would confirm the progress or details of those ________, nor would they say if they are continuing.
In a written statement, Amazon said it remained ________ to China through its global stores, Kindle businesses and web services. Amazon China’s president would leave to take on another role within the company, the company said. The China consumer - business team will report ________ to the company’s global team.
When Amazon first entered China in 2004 with the _________ of Joyo.com, it was the largest online seller for books, music and video there. Most Chinese consumers were using cash - on - delivery as their to form of ________. Today, Amazon China chiefly caters to customers looking for imported international goods such as cosmetics and milk powder and is a(n) ________ player in the booming Chinese e-commerce market.
Amazon China commanded just 6% of gross market volume in the niche（细分的）cross - border e-commerce market in the fourth quarter of 2018, versus NetEase Kaola’s 25% ________ and the 32% held by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s Tmall International
Chinese consumers are becoming more fascinated with ________ brands. In 2011, 85% of Chinese consumers said they would always buy a foreign brand over a domestic one. By 2016, 60% of respondents said they preferred domestic over foreign brands. Shaun Rein, China Market research’s founder, said American e-commerce giants ________ obstacles in China because they didn’t offered the products or user experience that consumers were looking for.
1.A.assist B.expand C.operate D.tailor
2.A.As a result B.By contrast C.For example D.In addition
3.A.criticism B.negotiation C.struggle D.resolution
4.A.interact B.withdraw C.split D.survive
5.A.associate B.combine C.exchange D.supply
6.A.time - consuming B.long - suffering C.ever - lasting D.consumer - facing
7.A.talks B.businesses C.competitions D.instructions
8.A.related B.accustomed C.exposed D.committed
9.A.automatically B.directly C.regularly D.secretly
10.A.breakdown B.improvement C.purchase D.participation
11.A.refund B.payment C.sponsorship D.trade
12.A.complicated B.critical C.original D.insignificant
13.A.share B.budget C.volume D.maximum
14.A.foreign B.luxurious C.domestic D.fashionable
15.A.dealt with B.forgot about C.got through D.came across
