C
The defeat of Lee Sedol, the world’s strongest Go (围棋) player, by a Google artificial intelligence (AI) program, looks like another milestone towards a world where computers can do almost anything a human can. It is not. There are uncountable things that only a human can do, and that no computer seems close to. The problem is that the purely human things are not economically useful to anyone. The things that computers can be taught to do are by contrast economically fantastic. But even the most powerful programs are not human, just as a shovel (铲车). They have no feelings. What they have is power, but this power is growing at a rate that should frighten us all.
It might be less frightening if computers were truly intelligent, but even the most powerful networks are less human than monstrous Martians (火星人). Their power will be used to make money for the firms that finance their development, and then for others quick and clever enough to take advantage of the new world. It is far more likely that they will increase inequality and still further remove the middle classes as we move towards an hourglass (以金钱来衡量的) society in which everyone is either very rich or very poor and likely indebted.
One of the ill effects of the spread of more intelligent computer networks is, at the same time, the spread of what might be called artificial stupidity. If AI is employed largely to replace unskilled labour, it is most productive when labour is kept unskilled or redefined that way. So much of the work in service industries is now simplified until it might be automated (自动化). And robots will never need pensions. AI is slowly reducing skilled work, like some forms of medical diagnosis (诊断), at the same time, as older doctors complain that the traditional human skills of diagnosis are falling out of medical training. The belief that everything worthwhile can be measured and then managed is far more damaging to humanity than the threat of artificial intelligence on its own.
But no victory in complicated Go games can bring us closer to truly human-like computers.
62. By mentioning the defeat of Lee Sedol, the author intends to tell us that ______.
A. computers can completely replace humans in everything
B. humans are of no practical economic values to the society
C. the power of computers is growing at a frightening rate
D. AI programs can not compare with humans economically
63. We can learn from Paragraph 2 that the power of computers will ______.
A. improve the quality of human life
B. promote equality at work places
C. make contributions to human development
D. widen the gap between the rich and the poor
64. What does “artificial stupidity” in Paragragh 3 mean?
A. Unskilled workers become stupid. B. AI discourages skilled work.
C. Computers don’t need pensions. D. AI is ruining medical training.
65. What is the author’s attitude towards the future of artificial intelligence?
A. Optimistic. B. Supportive. C. Sceptical. D. Cautious.
D
They don’t quite know how to cope with all the dam trouble they’ve got down in Hampden, Maine. And according to town manager Leslie Stanley, it doesn’t look as if things will improve any in the immediate future. “We’ve got a real annoying problem on our hands,” he says.
The annoyance began in late May. About three miles outside of town a group of beavers (河狸) built a dam near the mouth of a culvert (涵洞) that carries a stream under Canaan Road. Some 50 feet of roadway and several hundred feet of land on each side of the culvert were flooded. Stanley sent a road crew out to level the dam. The beavers rebuilt it. The crew tore it apart again. In fact, they tore it apart for ten mornings－and for ten straight nights the beavers rebuilt it.
On the eleventh day, the foreman tossed (扔) the problem back to the town manager. He, in turn, tossed it on to the local game warden (狩猎监督官). The warden, absorbed in beaver knowledge, moved quietly and carefully out one night and placed a petrol-soaked bag over the dam. (Any beaver expert will tell you the creatures just can’t tolerate petrol smell.)
In the morning the bag was found artistically woven (编织) into the dam.
The warden set out three steel traps that night. In the morning one was empty. The other two had been stolen by the beavers and used to strengthen the dam. The warden, cursing the state law against hunting beavers with firearms, got his traps back and set them out again and again. And every night the beavers stole them.
Town manager Stanley enlisted additional troops. He telephoned his police chief. Those beavers were breaking a state law against blocking up a natural watercourse. “Why aren’t you out there to uphold the law?” Stanley asked. “You’re the police chief. So remove them. Arrest them. Do something.”
Three mornings later, the police chief proudly announced the end of the dam. At 2:00 A.M., he said, he and a licensed dynamiter (炸药使用者) had blown it to small pieces. Stanley said he’d believe it when he saw it.
They drove out to the culvert and found a new dam already half-built. They also found the highway choked with mud and remains thrown up by the dynamite.
Stanley said maybe they should call in the Army Corps of Engineers. But the police chief’s faith in explosives was unshaken. He launched an all-out campaign，but the beavers always managed to have the holes plugged by the time the fire department appeared on the scene for its morning mop-up.
In time, the beavers tired of this nonsense and moved their dam “inside” the culvert－where it couldn’t be blown up without destroying the road too.
Stanley and his general staff held a council of war and agreed that fresh strategy was called for. Then they came up with an inspired idea. If we remove every branch of the dam by hand, we’ll force the beavers to go in search of new building material to replace what we’ve taken. Then we can place box traps along their runways and seized them.
The plan was completely approved. Moreover it worked. On July 30, town manager Stanley was able to announce that the beaver group had been trapped and removed to a remote wilderness area. And there was great joy in Hampden－until the middle of October, that is, when a group of young beavers was spotted swimming in the same waters from which its elders had recently been taken away.
But to make a long story short, the strategy that worked with the older beavers worked with the young ones too.
66. What was the annoying problem for the authorities in Hampden, Maine?
A. They failed to destroy the dam repeatedly built by the beavers.
B. They didn’t know who to send to deal with the dam trouble.
C. The beavers were building dams in every corner of the town.
D. The political situation in the town was becoming much worse.
67. What did the local game warden do?
A. He made steel traps to strengthen the dam.
B. He set out to hunt the beavers with firearms.
C. He learned a lot about the construction of the dam.
D. He used petrol-soaked bags to drive the beavers away.
68. Which is the correct order of the following events?
① The land on both sides of the culvert was flooded.
② The local leaders worked out a strategy.
③ The game warden set out steel traps.
④ The beavers rebuilt their dam inside the culvert.
⑤ The police chief used explosives to destroy the dam.
A. ①③②⑤④ B. ①③⑤④② C. ②①④③⑤ D. ②①⑤③④
69. The underline word “uphold” in Paragraph 6 probably means ________.
A. revise B. resist C. violate D. maintain
70. What can we learn about beavers from the passage?
A. The beavers seem to be stubborn about building dams.
B. The beavers are allowed to be killed when causing trouble.
C. The beavers can’t adapt themselves to living in wilderness.
D. The beavers finally returned to the culvert with their young.
第Ⅱ卷 (两部分 共35分)
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Deep reading, as opposed to superficial (shallow) reading we do on the Web, is an endangered practice, one we ought to take steps to preserve as we would a historic building or a significant work of art.
Recent research has illustrated that deep reading, characterized as a unique experience different kind from the mere understanding of words, is slow, immersive (沉浸的), rich in sensory detail and emotional and moral complexity. Although deep reading does not, strictly speaking, require a conventional book, the limits of the printed page are uniquely helpful to the deep reading experience. A book’s lack of hyperlinks (超链接), for example, frees the reader from making decisions—should I click on this link or not—allowing her to remain fully absorbed in the story.
That immersion is supported by the way the brain handles language rich in detail, indirect reference and figures of speech: by creating a mental representation that draws on the same brain regions that would be active if the scene were unfolding in real life. The emotional situations and moral dilemmas that are the material of literature are also vigorous (有活力的) exercise for the brain, driving us inside the heads of fictional characters and even, studies suggest, increasing our real-life capacity (能力) for recognition.
None of this is likely to happen when we’re browsing through a website. Although we call the activity by the same name, the deep reading of books and the information-driven reading we do on the Web are very different, both in the experience they produce and in the capacity they develop. A growing body of evidence suggests that online reading may be less satisfying, even for the “digital natives” to whom it is so familiar. Researchers reported that 39% of children and teens read daily using electronic devices, but only 28% read printed materials every day. Those who only read onscreen were three times less likely to say they enjoy reading very much and tell which book they like best. The study also found that young people who read daily only onscreen were nearly twice less likely to be above-average readers than those who read daily in print or both in print and onscreen.
All in all, the disappearance of deep reading would harm the intellectual and emotional development of generations growing up online, as well as the preservation of a critical part of our culture: the novels, poems and other kinds of literature that can be appreciated only by readers whose brains have been trained to understand them.
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