深度阅读理解训练核心：句型和词汇的把握。
示例：A combination of climate change-related impacts, such as increased dryness, along with deforestation to make way for agriculture, could cause a decline in Amazon tree species richness of nearly 60 percent. （What are the possible reasons for the decreasing number of Amazon tree species?）Among the annoying challenges facing the middle class is one that will probably go unmentioned in the next presidential campaign: What happens when the robots come for their jobs?Don't dismiss that possibility entirely. About half of U.S. jobs are at high risk of being automated, according to a University of Oxford study, with the middle class disproportionately squeezed. Lower-income jobs like gardening or day care don't appeal to robots. But many middle-class occupations-trucking, financial advice, software engineering — have aroused their interest, or soon will. The rich own the robots, so they will be fine.1.Who will be most threatened by automation? _____. （关键词）[A] Leading politicians. [B]Low-wage laborers.[C] Robot owners. [D]Middle-class workers.The first step, as Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee argue in The Second Machine Age, should be rethinking education and job training. Curriculums —from grammar school to college- should evolve to focus less on memorizing facts and more on creativity and complex communication. Vocational schools should do a better job of fostering problem-solving skills and helping students work alongside robots. Online education can supplement the traditional kind. It could make extra training and instruction affordable. Professionals trying to acquire new skills will be able to do so without going into debt.2. Education in the age of automation should put more emphasis on _____. （句型）[A] creative potential. [B]job-hunting skills.[C] individual needs. [D]cooperative spirit.The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) continues to bleed red ink. It reported a net loss of $5.6 billion for fiscal 2016, the 10th straight year its expenses have exceeded revenue. Meanwhile, it has more than $120 billion in unfunded liabilities, mostly for employee health and retirement costs. There are many bankruptcies. Fundamentally, the USPS is in a historic squeeze between technological change that has permanently decreased demand for its bread-and-butter product, first-class mail, and a regulatory structure that denies management the flexibility to adjust its operations to the new reality3. The financial problem with the USPS is caused partly by _____. （句型、短语）[A] its unbalanced budget. [B] its rigid management.[C] the cost for technical upgrading. [D] the withdrawal of bank support.And interest groups ranging from postal unions to greeting-card makers exert self-interested pressure on the USPS’s（美国邮政署）ultimate overseer—Congress--insisting that whatever else happens to the Postal Service, aspects of the status quo they depend on get protected. This is why repeated attempts at reform legislation（立法）have failed in recent years, leaving the Postal Service unable to pay its bills except by deferring vital modernization.4. The USPS fails to modernize itself due to_____. （句子间逻辑，指代词）[A] the interference from interest groups. [B] the inadequate funding from Congress.[C] the shrinking demand for postal service. [D] the incompetence of postal unions.Now comes word that everyone involved---Democrats, Republicans, the Postal Service, the unions and the system's heaviest users—has finally agreed on a plan to fix the system. Legislation is moving through the House that would save USPS an estimated $28.6 billion over five years, which could help pay for new vehicles, among other survival measures. Most of the money would come from a penny-per-letter permanent rate increase and from shifting postal retirees into Medicare. The latter step would largely offset the financial burden of annually pre-funding retiree health care, thus addressing a long-standing complaint by the USPS and its union.5. The long-standing complaint by the USPS and its unions can be addressed by_____.（句型）[A] removing its burden of retiree health care.[B] making more investment in new vehicles.[C] adopting a new rate-increase mechanism.[D] attracting more first-class mail users.Financial regulators in Britain have imposed a rather unusual rule on the bosses of big banks. Starting next year, any guaranteed bonus of top executives could be delayed 10 years if their banks are under investigation for wrongdoing. The main purpose of this “clawback” rule is to hold bankers accountable for harmful risk-taking and to restore public trust in financial institutions. Yet officials also hope for a much larger benefit: more long-term decision-making, not only by banks but by all corporations, to build a stronger economy for future generations.6. One motive in imposing the new rule is to_____.（同义词）A. guarantee the bonuses of top executives.B. enhance bankers’ sense of responsibility.C. build a new system of financial regulation.D. help corporations achieve larger profits.“Short-termism,” or the desire for quick profits, has worsened in publicly traded companies, says the Bank of England’s top economist, Andrew Haldane. He quotes a giant of classical economics, Alfred Marshall, in describing this financial impatience as acting like “children who pick the plu ms out of their pudding to eat them at once” rather than putting them aside to be eaten last.7. Alfred Marshall is quoted to indicate_____.（指代词）A. the solid structure of publicly traded companies.B. governments’ impatience in decision-making.C. the conditions for generating quick profits.D. “short-termism” in economic activities.The average time for holding a stock in both the United States and Britain, he notes, has dropped from seven years to seven months in recent decades. Transient investors, who demand high quarterly profits from companies, can hinder a firm’s efforts to invest in long-term research or to build up customer loyalty. This has been dubbed “quarterly capitalism.”8. It is argued that the influence of transient investment on public companies can be （词汇）A. minimal.B. indirect.C. adverse.D. temporary.F or the past several decades, it seems there’s been a general consensus on how to get ahead in America: Get a college education, find a reliable job, and buy your own home. (17.12.2) P209. It used to be commonly acknowledged that to succeed in America, one had to have （上下文）A.An advanced academic degree.B. an ambition to get aheadC. A firm belief in their dreamD. a sense of drive and purposeIn the US, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 has pushed most public companies to defer performance bonuses for senior executives by about a year, slightly helping reduce “short-termism.” In its latest survey of CEO pay, The Wall Street Journal finds that “a substantial part” of executiv e pay is now tied to performance.Much more could be done to encourage “long-termism,” such as changes in the tax code and quicker disclosure of stock acquisitions. In France, shareholders who hold onto a company investment for at least two years can sometimes earn more voting rights in a company.10. The US and France examples are used to illustrate_____.（主题句、段落逻辑关系）A. the approaches to promoting “long-termism.”B. the prevalence of short-term thinking.C. the significance of long-term thinking.D. the obstacles to preventing “short-termism.”Grade inflation – the gradual increase in average GPAs (grade-point averages) over the past few decades – is often considered a product of a consumer era in higher education, in which students are treated like customers to be pleased. But another, related force – a policy often buried deep in course catalogs called “grade forgiveness” – is helping raise GPAs.11. What is commonly regarded as the cause of grade inflation? _____.（短语）A. Colleges’ neglect of GPAs.B. The influence of consumer culture.C. Students’ indifference to GPAs.D. The change of course catalogs.On June 7 Google pledged（保证）not to “design AI” that would cause “overall harm”. While the statement is vague, it represents one starting point. So does the idea that decisions made by AI systems should be explainable, transparent, and fair.12. The author’s attitude toward Google’s pledges is one of _____. （连词用法）A. contempt.B. skepticism.C. respect.D. affirmation.The World Cup is also chiefly responsible for sleep deprivation(剥夺).The worst night for sleep in the U.K. was the night of the England-Italy match on June 14.Brits stayed up a half-hour later to watch it, and then they woke up earlier than usual the next morning thanks to summer nights, the phenomenon in which the sun barely sets in northern countries in the summertime. That was nothing, though, compared to Germans, Italians, and the French, who stayed up around an hour and a half later on various days throughout the summer to watch the Cup.13. What is the major cause for Europeans’ loss of sleep?（主题句）A) The daylight savings time. B) The World Cup.C) The colorful night life. D) The summertime.The endless debate about“work—life balance”often contains a hopeful footnote about stay at home dads. If American society and business won’t make it easier on future female leaders who choose to have children，there is still the ray of hope that increasing numbers of full—time fathers will. But based on today’s socioeconomic trends，this hope is，unfortunately，misguided.14．What gives women a ray of hope to achieve work life balance? （上下文，句型）A. More men taking an extended parental leave．B. People’s changing attitudes towards family．C. More women entering business management．D. The improvement of their socioeconomic status．Could you reproduce Silicon Valley elsewhere, or is there something unique about it?It wouldn’t be surprising if it were hard to reproduce in other countries, because you couldn’t reproduce it in most of the US either. What does it take to make a Silicon Valley?It’s the right people. If you could get the right ten thousand people to move from Silicon Valley to Buffalo, Buffalo would become Silicon Valley.You only need two kinds of people to create a technology hub（中心）: rich people and nerds（痴迷科研的人）.Observation bears this out. Within the US, towns have become startup hubs if and only if they have both rich people and nerds. Few startups happen in Miami, for example, because although it’s full of rich people, it has few nerds. It’s not the kind of place nerds like.Whereas Pittsburg has the opposite problem: plenty of nerds, but no rich people. The top US Computer Science departments are said to be MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, and Carnegie-Mellon. MIT yielded Route 128. Stanford and Berkeley yielded Silicon Valley. But what did Carnegie-Mellon yield in Pittsburgh? And what happened in Ithaca, home of Cornell University, which is also high on the list？I grew up in Pittsburgh and went to college at Cornell, so I can answer for both. The weather is terrible, particularly in winter, and there’s no interesting old city to make up for it, as there is in Boston. Rich people don’t want to live in Pittsburgh or Ithaca. So while there are plenty of hackers（电脑迷）who could start startups, there’s no one to invest in them.Do you really need the rich people? Wouldn’t it work to have the government invest the nerds? No, it would not. Startup investors are a distinct type of rich people. They tend to have a lot of experience themselves in the technology business. This helps them pick the right startups, and means they can supply advice and connections as well as money. And the fact that they have a personal stake in the outcome makes them really pay attention.1. What do we learn about Silicon Valley from the passage?A) Its success is hard to copy anywhere else.B) It is the biggest technology hub in the US.C) Its fame in high technology is incomparable.D) It leads the world in information technology.2. What makes Miami unfit to produce a Silicon Valley?A) Lack of incentive for investments. B) Lack of the right kind of talents.C) Lack of government support. D) Lack of famous universities.3. In that way is Carnegie-Mellon different from Stanford, Berkeley and MIT?A) Its location is not as attractive to rich peopleB) Its science department are not nearly as goodC) It does not produce computer hackers and nerdsD) It does not pay much attention to business startups4. What does the author imply about Boston?A) It has pleasant weather all year round.B) It produces wealth as well as high-techC) It is not likely to attract lots of investor and nerds.D) It is an old city with many sites of historical interest.5. What does the author say about startup investors?A) They are especially wise in making investments.B) They have good connections in the government.C) They can do more than providing money. D) They are enough to invest in nerds.Professor Stephen Hawking has warned that the creation of powerful artificial intelligence (AI) will be “either the best, or the worst thing, ever to happen to humanity”, and praised the creation of an academic institute dedicated to researching the future of intelligence as “crucial to the future of our civilisation and our species”.Hawking was speaking at the opening of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence(LCFI) at Cambridge University, a multi-disciplinary institute that will attempt to tackle some of the open-ended questions raised by the rapid pace of development in AI research. “We spend a great deal of time study in history,” Hawking said, “which, let’s face it, is mostly the history of stupidity. So it’s a welcome change that people are studying instead the future of intelligence.”While the world-renowned physicist has often been cautious about AI, raising concerns that humanity could be the architect of its own destruction if it creates a super-intelligence with a will of its own, he was also quick to highlight the positives that AI research can bring. “The potential benefits of creating intelligence are huge,” he said. “We cannot predict what we might achieve when our own minds are amplified(增强) by AI.Perhaps with the tools of this new technological revolution, we will aim to finally eradicate disease and poverty. And every aspect of our lives will be transformed. In short, success in creating AI could be the biggest event in the history of our civilisation.” AI pioneer Margaret Boden, professor of cognitive science at the University of Sussex, praised the progress of such discussions. As recently as 2009, she said, the topic wasn’t taken seriously, even among AI researchers. “AI is hugely exciting,” she said, “but it has limitations, which present grave dangers given uncritical use.”The academic community is not alone in warning about the potential dangers of AI as well as the potential benefits. A number of pioneers from the technology industry, most famously the entrepreneur Elon Musk, have also expressed their concerns about the damage that a super-intelligent AI could do to humanity.1. What did Stephen Hawking think of artificial intelligence?A) It would be vital to the progress of human civilisation.B) It might be a blessing or a disaster in the making.C) It might present challenges as well as opportunities.D) It would be a significant expansion of human intelligence.2. What did Hawking say about the creation of the LCFI?A) It would accelerate the progress of AI research.B) It would mark a step forward in the AI industry.C) It was extremely important to the destiny of humankind.D) It was an achievement of multi-disciplinary collaboration.3. What did Hawking say was a welcome change in AI research?A) The shift of research focus from the past to the future.B) The shift of research from theory to implementation.C) The greater emphasis on the negative impact of AI.D) The increasing awareness of mankind’s past stupidity.4. What concerns did Hawking raise about AI?A) It may exceed human intelligence sooner or later.B) It may ultimately over-amplify the human mind.C) Super-intelligence may cause its own destruction.D) Super-intelligence may eventually ruin mankind.5. What do we learn about some entrepreneurs from the technology industry?A) They are much influenced by the academic community.B) They are most likely to benefit from AI development.C) They share the same concerns about AI as academics.D) They believe they can keep AI under human control.。
