What defines who we are? Our habits? Our tastes? Our memories? Like many other people who speak more than one language, I often sense that I’ m a slightly different person in each of my languages — more confident in English, more relaxed in French, more sensitive in Czech. Is it possible that, my moral compass also points in somewhat different directions depending on the language I’ m using at the time?
Psychologists who study moral judgments have become very interested in this question. In a research led by Albert Costa, volunteers were presented with a moral dilemma known as the “trolleybus problem”: imagine that a trolleybus is moving quickly towards a group of five people standing on the tracks, unable to move. You are next to a switch that can shift the trolleybus to a different set of tracks, therefore sparing the five people, but resulting in the death of one who is standing on the side tracks. Do you pull the switch?
Most people agree that they would. But what if the only way to stop the trolleybus is by pushing a large stranger off a footbridge into its path? People tend to be very hesitant to say they would do this, even though in both situations, one person is sacrificed to save five. But Costa and his colleagues found that putting the dilemma in a language that volunteers had learned as a foreign tongue dramatically increased their willingness to push the person off the footbridge, from fewer than 20% of respondents working in their native language to about 50% of those using the foreign one.
According to one explanation, such judgments involve two separate and competing ways of thinking—one of these, a quick, natural “feeling”, and the other, careful consideration about the greatest good for the greatest number. When we use a foreign language, we unconsciously sink into the more cautious way simply because the effort of operating in our non-native language signals our cognitive system to prepare for difficult situation.
An alternative explanation is the differences between native and foreign tongues. There’s strong evidence that memory connects a language with the experiences and interactions through which that language was learned. Our childhood languages, learned in the middle of passionate emotion, become filled with deep feeling. By comparison, languages acquired late in life, especially if they are learned through limited interactions in the classroom or dully delivered over computer screens and headphones, enter our minds lacking the emotionality that is present for their native speakers.
1.What does “this question” in Paragraph 2 refer to?
A.What can contribute to improving one’s foreign language?
B.Is it necessary to learn more than one foreign language?
C.How do people deal with moral dilemmas in a foreign language?
D.Does the language one uses influence one’s moral judgments?
2.When the “trolleybus problem” was presented in a foreign language, volunteers were more likely to ________.
A.sacrifice the stranger on the footbridge B.care less about the five people
C.pull the switch to the side tracks D.remain hesitant about what to do
3.What can be inferred from the passage?
A.People who speak more than one language are less emotional than others.
B.Native language learning involves greater emotional reactions.
C.Moral judgments made in a foreign language are more careless.
D.Foreign language learning can be promoted by academic settings.
4.What is the author’s purpose in writing the passage?
A.To provide guidance on how to shape our life.
B.To stress the importance of judging in a foreign language.
C.To suggest a way of learning a foreign language.
D.To state the influence of a foreign language on moral judgments.
The English-language version of Wikipedia has almost six million articles. And if you’re a cheating student, that’s six million essays already written for you. But plagiarism isn’t really an effective way—just type the text into a search engine and the game is over. Then what about having a ghostwriter compose your final essay?
“Standard plagiarism software cannot detect this kind of cheating.” said Stephan Lorenzen, a data analyst at the University of Copenhagen. In Denmark, where he’s based, ghostwriting is a growing problem at high schools. So Lorenzen and his colleagues created a program called Ghostwriter that can detect the cheats.
At its central part is a neural network trained and tested on 130,000 real essays from 10,000 Danish students. After reading through tens of thousands of essays labeled as being written by the same author or not, the machine taught itself to possess the characteristics that might spot cheating. For example, did a student’s essays share the same styles of punctuation? The same spelling mistakes?
By examining inconsistencies like those, Ghostwriter was able to seek out a cheated essay nearly 90 percent of the time. The team presented the results at the European Meeting on Artificial Neural Networks, Computational Intelligence and Machine Learning. There’s one more aspect here that could help students. Your high school essays probably get better over time as you learn to write and the machine can detect that. The final idea is to detect students who are at risk because their development in writing style isn’t as you would expect. Teachers could thus give extra help to kids who really need it, while sniffing out the cheaters too.
1.When a student wants to cheat in writing an essay, ________.
A.his cheating may be detected in a certain way
B.essays offered by Wikipedia can’t be downloaded
C.he won’t hire a ghostwriter to write one for himself
D.ghostwriting can be detected by standard plagiarism software
2.Which aspect of the program “Ghostwriter” is talked about in Paragraph 3?
A.Its components. B.Its weaknesses.
C.Its influences. D.Its working theory.
3.Which one of the following is the function of “Ghostwriter”?
A.It never fails to find out a cheated essay. B.It can detect a student’s progress in writing.
C.It can help a student to correct his pronunciation. D.It can give extra help instead of teachers.
4.Where is the text most likely from?
A.A guidebook. B.A magazine.
C.A novel. D.A diary.
If you are reading this, you were probably born in the 2000s. The oh-ohs. The 21st century. That would make you young, creative, connected, global, and no doubt smart. Maybe good-looking, too. Right? But what do other people think about your generation?
Some adults worry that you’re more interested in the screen in front of you than the world around you. They think of you as the “face-down generation” because you use your phone so much and they wonder how you will deal with school, friends, and family. Are today’s teenagers too busy texting and taking selfies to become successful in real life—or “IRL”, as you would say?
Other adults worry that today’s youth are spoilt and don’t want to face the challenges of adult life. Many children born in the 1990s and 2000s were raised by “helicopter parents", who were always there to guide and help their children with a busy schedule filled with homework and after-class activities such as dancing, drawing, or sports. With parents who do everything for them, today’s youth seem to prefer to live like teenagers even when they are in their 20s or 30s.
With these taken into account, does the face down generation need a warning? Well, probably not. The fact is that many of today’s teenagers are better educated and more creative than past generations. They seem to be enthusiastic and willing to be become leaders. More young people than ever volunteer to help their communities. There are also brave young people such as Malala Yousafzai, the teenager who won the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize for pushing girls’ rights to go to school.
So if you’re one of the oh-ohs, there are reasons to be hopeful about the future. Things are looking up for the face-down generation. Chances are that you will do GR8 (great) and LOL (laugh out loud).
1.Which of the following words can not be used to describe the oh-ohs?
A.Creative. B.Caring.
C.Ignorant. D.Intelligent.
2.What does the underlined phrase “helicopter parents” in Paragraph 3 mean?
A.parents who are rich and travel by helicopter.
B.parents who always watch over their children.
C.parents who have a very busy schedule.
D.parents who only turn up when necessary.
3.What can we learn from the passage?
A.The writer is a member of the face-down generation.
B.The writer is optimistic about the future of the oh-ohs.
C.The oh-ohs are more good-looking than their parents.
D.The oh-ohs care about nothing other than their phones.
4.What can be a best title for the passage?
A.The “helicopter parents” B.The over-worried parents
C.The spoiled generation D.The face-down generation
Recently, as I watched my son Nathan play basketball for his high school team, I started to feel sorry for myself and for him. His team was facing adversity (逆境) — it was the opponent’s home gym filled with their supporters, and Nathan’s team was left behind for three quarters of the game.
As for me, I had been fired earlier in the day. I was prepared for it as I had experienced the same thing 14 years earlier, but, just like a punch in the mouth, the blow is never softened because you were expecting it.
As I watched the adversity on the court that my son was experiencing, I recalled my earlier events, packing up everything in a box and waving goodbye to a great group of colleagues with whom I’d had the pleasure of working. During my driving home, I kept telling myself “Just like that time, I will find work again in a short time—I am confident in my experience and abilities.” It was the same belief that I tried to teach my son.
The basketball game entered the fourth quarter with Nathan’s team still trailing. As Nathan and his teammates fought back, I saw the focus and determination on him, as well as his teammates’faces. Then, with a tie game and seconds on the clock, Nathan found himself with the ball. There was no room for self-doubt. With skill and confidence he was able to tune out all that could drive his attention away and make the throw as if he had done it a thousand times. The joy on his face, the cheering from the crowd, and the silence on the other side of the gym—it was a moment that would make any parent proud.
As I sat there, my heart bursting with pride, it dawned on me that I had taught him determination in the face of adversity, and he had just taught me the same lesson. That brief moment of self-doubt and feeling sorry for myself was blown away by the actions of my son on the basketball court. He will play in the finals, but it doesn’t matter if he wins or loses, at this moment.
1.What did the author intend to show by mentioning his experience 14 years ago?
A.He quit a job again. B.He disliked working with the colleagues.
C.He made a right career choice. D.He had confidence in his abilities.
2.What can we infer from the passage?
A.Nathan’s teammates couldn’t focus on the play.
B.The author was never worried about his son’s team.
C.Nathan’s team lost the game at last.
D.The game was in a tie at one time.
3.What is the passage mainly about?
A.A blow from losing a job. B.A lesson on the court.
C.The importance of teamwork. D.The rise and fall of a game.
现在有很多中学生缺乏良好的生活习惯，导致身体健康受损，影响了学习效率。请你写一篇短文，号召同学们注意养成良好的习惯。内容包括：
1.简述身边存在的两种不良生活习惯；
2.说明其可能造成的危害；
3.提出相应的改进措施。
注意：
1.词数100左右；
2.可适当增加细节，使行文流畅；
3.开头和结尾已经给出，不计入总词数。
Recently, I’ve noticed that many of my classmates have some bad habits.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Finally, I hope everyone can pay more attention to health and develop better habits.
下面短文中有10处语言错误。请在有错误的地方增加、删除或修改某个单词。
增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号（∧），并在其下面写上该加的词。
删除：把多余的词用斜线（\）划掉。
修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写上修改后的词。
注意：
1. 每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；
2. 只允许修改10处，多者（从第11处起）不计分。
Two years before, I traveled to Brazil and I rented for a car. Unfortunate, I had an accident and hit another car, and I needed to stay in a hospital for at least two week. I called my parents, so I did not tell them what had happened. I knew that they will be worried about myself because I was so farther away, and that my mother would not sleep if she knew. Therefore, I told them interested stories and how I was enjoying Brazil. As a result, nobody knew truth. I still think that it was the right thing to do.
