How Much Can We Afford to Forget?

In 2018, Science magazine asked some young scientists what schools should teach students. Most said students should spend less time memorizing facts and have more space for creative activities. As the Internet grows more powerful, students can access (获得) knowledge easily. Why should they be required to carry so much of it around in their heads?

Civilizations（文明）develop through forgetting life skills that were once necessary. In the Agricultural（农业的）Age, a farmer could afford to forget hunting skills. When societies industrialized, the knowledge of farming could be safe to forget. Nowadays, smart machines give us access to most human knowledge. It seems that we no longer need to remember most things. Does it matter?

Researchers have recognized several problems that may happen. For one, human beings have biases（偏见），and smart machines are likely to increase our biases. Many people believe smart machines are necessarily correct and objective, but machines are trained through a repeated testing and scoring process. In the process, human beings still decide on the correct answers.

Another problem relates to the ease of accessing information. When there were no computers, efforts were required to get knowledge from other people, or go to the library. We know what knowledge lies in other brains or books, and what lies in our heads. But today, the Internet gives us the information we need quickly. This can lead to the mistaken belief-the knowledge we found was part of what we knew all along.

In a new civilization rich in machine intelligence, we have easy access to smart memory networks where information is stored. But dependency on a network suggests possibilities of being harmed easily. The collapse of any of the networks of relations our well-being（健康）depends upon, such as food and energy, would produce terrible results. Without food we get hungry; without energy we feel cold.And it is through widespread loss of memory that civilizations are at risk of falling into a dark age.

We forget old ways to free up time and space for new skills. As long as the older forms of knowledge are stored somewhere in our networks, and can be found when we need them, perhaps they’re not really forgotten. Still, as time goes on, we gradually but unquestionably become strangers to future people.

30．·Why are smart machines likely to increase our biases?

A．Because they go off course in testing and scoring.

B．Because we control the training process on them.

C．Because we offer them too much information.

D．Because they overuse the provided answers.

31．The ease of accessing information from the Internet    ·

A．frees us from making efforts to learn new skills

B．. prevents civilizations from being lost at a high speed

C．misleads us into thinking we already knew the knowledge

D．separates the facts we have from those in the smart machines

32．The word "collapse" in Paragraph 5 probably means‘‘—，，·

A．a sudden failure                                         B．the basic rule

C．a disappointing start                                   D．the gradual development

33．What is the writer's main purpose in writing this passage?

A．To question about the standards of information storage.

B．To discuss our problems of communication with machines.

C．To stress the importance of improving our memorizing ability.

D．To remind us of the risk of depending on machines to remember.

阅读短文，根据短文内容回答问题。

Huge Waves Destroying Arctic Ice Faster than Expected

Ice covers much of the Arctic Ocean（北冰洋）. Some pieces of ice are huge, like moving islands. As temperatures have increased, however, some of the ice has begun to disappear. Scientists have discovered huge waves（海浪）in the arctic waters.

The waves were discovered by accident in May, 2010. Scientist Aleksey Marchenko and his students set out on a trip. They wanted to study the icy waters.

On May 2, the ship traveled east and stopped next to a large chunk of ice around 50 miles from the small island of Hopen. Marchenko prepared to lead his students out onto the Ice.

"We were ready to go but when I went out, I discovered many cracks（裂缝）around," he remembers.

He decided to move the ship deeper into the ice to keep safe. The farther in they went, he thought, the harder the ice would become. As they pushed forward, however, the ship experienced small waves, and then bigger ones. Soon, the waves broke up the ice around the ship into thousands of smaller pieces．

Within an hour, Marchenko and his team saw a wave that was about 13 feet high. The ship's navigation（航行）system finally recorded the largest waves. They were more than 20 feet in height. The waves were so strong that they forced huge pieces of ice to jump up and down, breaking the ice into smaller pieces within just one hour. Scientists had never imagined that the process could happen so fast. The waves in these areas used to be small.

The speed and force of the huge waves there makes it impossible to know in advance when they are coming. That could be dangerous for navigators and local communities who are unprepared for huge waves or depend on sea ice to protect them. Wildlife like polar bears and walruses that depend on sea ice to live is also in danger.

Some scientists think people will soon see even bigger waves in these icy waters. As waves break up ice, the seas will become more open, and the waves will get even stronger. There are stormy times ahead.

34．When did Marchenko and his students discover huge waves in the arctic waters?

35．Why did Marchenko and his students set out on the trip?

36．What did Marchenko decide to do to keep safe?

37．How high were the largest waves recorded by the navigation system?

38．What is Paragraph 7 mainly about?

A．worse      B．exercise      C．like      D．achieve      E. distances

Believe it or not, driving can lower your IQ. In a recent study of about 500,000 people between ages 37 and 73, researchers found a noticeable drop-off in brainpower, 25． intelligence and memory. Among the people are those who drove for more than two hours each day. The study also found that the more time people spent watching TV or driving, the 26． their test scores. It is because such activity fails to 27． either the body or the brain. If you must drive long 28． to work, consider adding a mentally active activity on the road, such as listening to language lessons.

    How did people tell the time before clocks were invented?

At first, the ancient people looked up at the sun and could tell it was the middle of the day when the sun was directly overhead in the sky. They also knew when it was morning or evening.

Later, the Egyptians used sticks. These sticks measured (测量) time during the day. The sun shone on the tall stick and the stick made a shadow (阴影). As the sun moved across the sky, the position (位置) of the shadow changed. This would let people tell what time it was.

Over time, the Chinese first used sundials instead of shadow sticks. The sundial has a type of shadow stick on it. As the sun shines on it, a shadow appears on the numbers. Each number stands for an hour of the day. But sundials don't work at night or on a cloudy day! There are no shadows unless the sun is out.

Water clocks used water to measure time at night. Water dripped (滴落) slowly from one bowl into another. The level of the water in the bowls showed the time.

People also used sand-glasses. You may have seen one. Some games still use sand-glasses. The sand falls from the top of the sand-glasses to the bottom. It measures short amounts of the time. The more sand falls, the more time has passed. When the sand has finished falling, you have to turn the sand-glasses over.

11．At first, the ancient people told the time by looking at ________.

A．the stick                 B．the shadow             C．the sun                   D．the moon

12．Which picture can be a "sundial"?

A．    B．  

C．  D．

13．Sundials can be used to tell the time when it is ________.

A．sunny                    B．rainy                      C．cloudy                   D．snowy

14．Which is right according to the passage?

A．Sticks measured time in Egypt day and night.

B．Sundials were first used in ancient Egypt.

C．Sand-glasses usually measure a long time.   

D．The water clock told the time by the water level in the bowls.

15．What's the main idea of the passage?

A．Something about sundials.                         

B．How to tell the time by looking at the sun.

C．How to tell the time in the past.                  

D．Some inventions in China.

quiet, they, strong, interest, two, like, unless, choice, but, if, how

The secrets of self-control

A new book, the bestseller, Willpower, says that having strong willpower (意志力) is necessary to a successful life.

The book starts by describing a famous experiment: The Marshmallow (软糖) Test. In 1972, a psychology (心理学) professor Mischel tested the willpower of 600 kids. In the experiment, each child was left alone in a room for fifteen minutes with a marshmallow on a table in front of 26．. They were given two 27．: they could either eat the marshmallow or, if they waited fifteen minutes, they’d be given a 28．marshmallow (and then they could eat both).

So, what did the kids do? 70% ate the first marshmallow within the fifteen minutes,29．the other 30% showed willpower — they didn’t eat the first one and waited for the second marshmallow 30．.

Twenty years later, Mischel discovered something 31．. He got in touch with the children and found that those with strong willpower were getting better marks at university, were better behaved and were more popular. So,32． important it is to have strong willpower!

But don’t worry 33． you aren’t good at controlling yourself. The authors say that willpower is like a muscle (肌肉). The more you exercise it, the 34． it gets. However, just 35． any muscle, your “willpower muscle” can get tired. So, if you have to do lots of things that need willpower, take a break. That way, you’ll build up your willpower again.

Lastly, the authors mention that people who learn foreign languages usually have a lot of willpower. So, congratulations!