In our modern world， when something wears out， we throw it away and buy a new one. The 3

Nearly everything in our modern world is influenced by computer technology.()

Technology surrounds us and is a part of our daily lives. We can find technological innovations at home , our workplaces , our schools , and our playgrounds. (1)________technology has improved our lives in some ways , it has also brought many negative(2)________.

Modern technology has made life very (3) ________. We have everything we need and our inventions take care of so many unpleasant details in our day-to-day lives. Foods from all over the world are available at local supermarkets. International travel is now fast and easy. We can talk to friends on cell phones any time. anywhere. and we can catch a TV show from many countries far away.

(4)________. these conveniences have a price. We consume too much energy and too many resources , and we create too much waste. The world is overflowing with pollution and waste. We cannot continue like this forever. We should be more responsible about protecting our world while still enjoying conveniences. (5)________our natural world is destroyed. The conveniences will be useless.

Read carefully the following excerpt and then write your response in NO LESS THAN 200 words, in which you should: ●summarize the main message of the excerpt, and then ●comment on whether our brains will get lazy in a world run by intelligent machines. You can support yourself with information from the excerpt. Marks will be awarded for content relevance, content sufficiency, organization and language quality. Failure to follow the above instructions may result in a loss of marks. With intelligent machines to do the thinking, will our brains get lazy？ Changing technology stimulates the brain and increases intelligence. But that may only be true if the technology challenges us. In a world run by intelligent machines, our lives could get a lot simpler. Would that make us less intelligent？ Artificial intelligence is taking over many human jobs. For instance, planes are being flown much of the time by automatic pilots. And the complex problem of controlling air traffic around large modern airports is also achieved by artificial intelligence that operates well beyond the capacity of mere human air traffic controllers. As machines get smarter, they will do more of our thinking for us and make life easier. In the future, the electronic assistant will develop to the point that it serves similar functions as a real living butler, fulfilling requests such as: “Organize a dinner party for six on Thursday, Jeeves, and invite the usual guests.” At that point, our long struggle with challenging technologies is at an end. Like Be Wooster, we can take it easy knowing that the hard work of planning and organizing is being done by a better brain-the electronic assistant. Starved of mental effort, our brains will regress.

More ambiguous than other scientific inventions familiar to modern artists, but no less influential, are the psychoanalytic studies of Freud and his followers, discoveries that have infiltrated recent art, especially Surrealism. The Surrealists, in their struggle to escape the monotony and frustrations of everyday life, claimed that dreams were the only hope. Turning to the irrational world of their unconscious, they banished all time barriers and moral judgements to combine disconnected dream experiences from the past, present and intervening psychological states. The Surrealists were concerned with overlapping emotions more than with overlapping forms. Their paintings often become segmented capsules of associative experiences. For them, obsessive and often unrelated images replaced the direct emotional message of expressionism. They did not need to smash paint and canvas; they went beyond this to smash the whole continuity of logical thought.

There is little doubt that contemporary art has taken much from contemporary life. In a period when science has made revolutionary strides, artists in their studios have not been unaware of scientists in their laboratories. But this has rarely been a one-way street. Painters and sculptors, though admittedly influenced by modern science, have also molded and changed our world. If break-up has been a vital part of their expression, it has not always been a symbol of destruction. Quite the contrary: it has been used to examine more fully, to penetrate more deeply, to analyze more thoroughly, to enlarge, isolate and make more familiar certain aspects of life that earlier we were apt to neglect. In addition, it sometimes provides rich multiple experiences so organized as not merely to reflect our world, but in fact to interpret it.

According to the 'passage, it is true that ______.

A．artistic creations seem to be the reproductions of modern technology

B．artistic creations have made great strides scientifically

C．artistic creations appear to be incapable of ignoring material advances

D．artistic creations are the reflection of the material world

Coffee is a powerful drink. On a personal level, it helps keep us awake andactive. (80)On a much general level, it has helped shape our history and continues to shape our culture. Coffee plants grow wild in parts of Africa and were probably used by travelling tribes (部落)for thousands of years, but it wasnt until the 1400s that people figuredout they could roast its seeds. "Then it really took off," said historian Mark Pendergrast-author of Uncommon Grounds: the History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World. By the 1500 s, the drink had spread to coffeehouses across the Arab world within another 150 years, it took Europe by storm. "It actually had a major impact on the rise of business," Pendergrast says. Coffeehouses became a spot not just to enjoy a cup but to exchange ideas. The insurance industry was founded hundreds of years ago in one of Londons 2,000 coffeehouses. Literature, newspapers and even the works of great composers like Bach and Beethoven were also inspired in coffeehouses. It is often said that after the Boston Tea Party of 1773, when American colonists (^殖民者) attacked British tea ships and threw large boxes of tea into the harbor, Americans everywhere switched over to drinking coffee. "Theres a lot of truth to the story, I found," Pendergrast says. He mentions a letter John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail, in which the Founding Father declares his love of tea but says he will have to learn to accept coffee instead, because drinking tea had become unpatriotic. For all the upsides coffee has brought the modern world, it also brought its fair share of downsides , too. Europeans carried coffee with them as they colonized various parts of the world, and this frequendy meant they made people into slaves in order to grow it.

According to the passage, which of the following has nothing to do with coffee？

A．Literature.

B．Newspapers.

C．The insurance industry.

D．The oil industry.

This has become more difficult than it used to be owing to the extent and complexity of the special knowledge required of various kinds of technicians. Suppose, for example, that you are engaged in research in scientific medicine. The work is difficult and is likely to absorb the whole of your mind. You have no time to consider the effect which your discoveries or inventions may have outside the field of medicine. You succeed (let us say) as

modern medicine has succeeded, in enormously lowering the infant death-rate, not only in Europe and America, but also in Asia and Africa. This has the entirely unintended result of making the food supply inadequate and lowing the standard of life in the parts of the world that have the greatest populations. To take an even more dramatic example, which is in everybody's mind at the present time, you study the makeup of the atom from a disinterested (无利害关系的) desire for knowledge, and by chance place in the hands of a powerful mad man the means of destroying the human race.

Therefore, with every increase of knowledge and skill, wisdom becomes more necessary, for every such increase augments (增强) our capacity for realizing our purposes, and therefore augments our capacity for evil, if our purposes are unwise.

Disagreement arises when people try to decide ______ .

A．how much more wisdom we have now than before

B．what wisdom is and how to develop it

C．if there is a great increase of wisdom in our age

D．whether wisdom can be developed or not

根据下列材料，请回答题

Scotland：A Land of Wisdom

In the l740s，the famous French philosopher Voltaire said“We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilization．’’That’S not a bad advertisement for any country when it comes to attracting people to search for a first-class education．

According to the American author Arthur Herman，the Scots invented the modern world it self．He argues that Scottish thinkers and intellectuals worked out many of the most important ideas on which modern life depends——everything from the scientific method to market economics．Their ideas did not just spread among intellectuals，but to those people in business，government and the sciences who actually shaped the Western world．

It all started during the period that historians call the Scottish Enlightenment（启蒙运动），which is usually seen as taking place between the years l 740 and l 800．Before that，philosophy was mainly concerned with religion．For the thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment，the proper study of humanity was mankind itself．

Their reasoning was practical．For the philosopher David Hume，humanity was the fight subject for philosophy because we can examine human behavior. and SO find real evidence of how people think and feel．And from that we can make judgments about the societies we live in and make

concrete suggestions about how they can be improved，for universal benefit．

Hume’s enquiry into the nature of knowledge laid the foundations for the scientific method the pursuit of truth through experiment．His friend and fellow resident of Edinburgh，Adam Smith，famously applied the study of mankind to the ways in which mankind does business．Trade，he argued，was a form. of information．In pursuing our own interests through trading in markets，we all come to benefit each Other．

Smith’s idea has dominated modern views of economics．It also has wide applications．He was one of the philosophers to point out that nations can become rich，free and powerful through peace，trade and invention．

Although the Scottish Enlightenment ended a long time ago，the ideas which evolved at that time still underpin（构成……的基础）our theories of human exchange and enquiry．It also exists in Scotland itself in an educational tradition that combines academic excellence with orientation（方向）．

Scotland is the right place to receive a first．class education． 查看材料

A.Right

B.Wrong

C.Not mentioned

The world of business is one area in which technology is isolating us. Experts say, for example, that many people will soon be able to work at home. With access to a large central computer, employees such as office clerks, insurance agents, and accountants could do their jobs at display terminals in their own homes. They would never have to actually see the people they're dealing with. In addition, the way employees are paid will change. Workers' salaries will be automatically paid into their bank accounts, making paper checks unnecessary. No workers will stand in line to receive their pay or cash their checks. Personal banking will change, too. Customers will deal with machines to put in or take our money from their accounts.

Another area that technology is changing is entertainment.

Music, for instance, was once a group experience. People listened to music at concert halls or in small social gatherings. For many people now, however, music is an individual experience. Walking along the street or sitting in their living rooms, they wear headphones to build a wall of music around them. Movie entertainment is changing, too. Movies used to be social events. Now, fewer people are going out to see a movie. Many more are choosing to wait for a film to appear on television or are borrowing videotapes to watch at home. Instead of laughing with others, viewers watch movies in their own living rooms.

(1)After work, Michael likes to ______.

A、listen to music at the concert hall

B、watch a movie in his living room

C、run a program on his computer in his office

D、play baseball with his workmates

(2)The sentence “Michael is imaginary, but his lifestyle. is very possible” means ______.

A、Michael is a person full of imagination and he can make his dreams come true

B、Michael is not a real person but probably the lifestyle. does exist

C、Michael has ambitions but he can't make his dreams come true

D、Michael is a person full of imagination and his lifestyle. is common nowadays

(3)In the modern world, people will

A、stand in line to receive their pay or cash their checks

B、see the people they' re dealing with

C、listen to music at concert halls or in small social gatherings

D、watch movies in their own living rooms

(4)What is the main idea of the passage？

A、We may no longer need to communicate with other human being.

B、Modern technology seems to be separating human beings.

C、We may no longer need to work in the office.

D、Modern technology makes it possible for us to work and entertain ourselves at home.

(5)What will the author most probably discuss after the last paragraph？

A、Games and sports.

B、Personal banking.

C、Music and films.

D、International business.