重庆开州区开州中学高三毕业班培优阅读精读8篇第二套

开州区开州中学高三毕业班培优阅读精读8篇第二套Passage 1Para1:“FACEBOOK: THE INSIDE STORY”, Steven Levy’s recent book about the American social-media giant, paints a vivid picture of the firm’s size, not in terms of revenues or share price but in the sheer amount of users’ activity. 1.73bn people use Facebook every day, writing comments and uploading videos. An operation on that scale is so big, writes Mr Levy, “that it can only be policed by algorithms or ar mies”.Para2: In fact, Facebook uses both. Human moderators work alongside algorithms trained to spot posts that violate either an individual country’s laws or the site’s own policies. But algorithms have many advantages over their human counterparts. They do not sleep, or take holidays, or complain about their performance reviews. They are quick, scanning thousands of messages a second, and untiring. And, of course, they do not need to be paid.Q1：It can be learned from the first two paragraphs thatA.Human moderators are partly inferior to algorithmsB.armies play a pivotal role in Facebook’ managementers’ activity is a vital element for FacebookD.Human moderators face a prejudice in FacebookPara3: Firms in other industries would love that kind of efficiency. Yet the magic is proving elusive. A survey carried out by Boston Consulting Group and MIT polled almost 2,500 bosses and found that seven out of ten said their AI projects had generated little impact so far. Two-fifths of those with “significant investments” in AI had yet to report any benefits at all. Euan Cameron at PwC says that rushed trials may have been abandoned or rethought, and that the “irrational exuberance” that has dominated boardrooms for the past few years is fading.Q2：The word “elusive”(line 1, para3) is closest in meaning toA.InsignificantB.ImpracticalC.IrrationalD.desperatePara4: There are several reasons for the reality. One is prosaic: businesses, particularly big ones, often find change difficult. One parallel from history is with the electrification offactories. Electricity offers big advantages over steam power in terms of both efficiency and convenience. Most of the fundamental technologies had been invented by the end of the 19th century. But electric power nonetheless took more than 30 years to become widely adopted in the rich world.Q3：The analogy of the history of electrification development is mentioned toA.Illustrate a likely factor for current technological dilemmaB.Pose a possible element for business developmentC.Stress a fundamental path for technological progressD.Highlight a prejudice found in the rich world往年真题复现：英语 2018 text3 Q 35Para4：The product they’re selling is data, and we, the users, convert our lives to data for the benefit of the digital giants. Just as some ants farm the bugs called aphids for the honeydew they produce when they feed, so Google farms us for the data that our digital lives yield. Ants keep predatory insects awayfrom where their aphids feed; Gmail keeps the spammers out of our inboxes. It doesn’t feel like a human or democratic relationship, even if both sides benefit.Q35. The ants analogy is used to illustrate[A].a typical competition pattern among digital giants[B].[B].a win-win business model between digital giants[C].the benefits provided for digital giants’ customers[D].the relationship between digital giants and their usersPara5: Reasons specific to AI exist, too. Firms may have been misled by the success of the internet giants, which were perfectly placed to adopt the new technology. They were already staffed by programmers, and were already sitting on huge piles of user-generated data. The uses to which they put AI, at least at first—improving search results, displaying adverts, recommending new products and the like—were straightforward and easy to measure.Q4: The author suggests that the success of the internet firmsA.Stimulates the adoption of the new technologyB.Can be easily measured by user-generated dataC.can hardly be replicated by other industriesD.Misled other firms’ strategy in data-usagePara6: In early March, as the disease spread, tech firms sent their content moderators home. That meant an increased reliance on the algorithms. The firms were frank about the impact. More videos would end up being removed, said YouTube, “including some that may not violate policies”. Facebook admitted that less human supervision would likely mean “longer response times and more mistakes”. AI can do a lot. But it works best when humans are there to hold its hand.Q5: The author’s attitude toward the increased reliance on AI isA.SatiricalB.CautiousC.toleratingD.appreciativePassage 2Para1: GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT (GDP), the most common gauge of national prosperity, has taken a lot of bash in recent years. Critics say that counting a country’s spending on goods, services and investment misses the full value that citizens get from products such as Google and Facebook.They also note that GDP ignores other aspects of development, including personal health, leisure time and happiness.Q1：GDP has been criticized recently forA.Its indulgence in counting national prosperityB.Its ignorance of the high-tech companiesC.Its neglect of citizen’s non-financial gainsD.Its vagueness in defining citizens’ valuePara2: These criticisms probably exaggerate GDP’s failure to capture the wealth of nations. Gallup, a pollster, has asked people in 145 countries about various aspects of well-being. Many of these correlate strongly with GDP per person. To take an obvious example, nearly all residents in the top 10% of countries by spending say they have enough money for food, compared with just two- fifths of those in the bottom 10%.Para3: Strikingly, other indicators also track GDP per person closely. Residents in the top 10% of countries score their life situation as seven out of ten, compared with just four for those in the bottom 10%. They are also more likely to feel supported by their families, safe in their neighbourhoods and be trusting of their politicians—though they complain nearly as much as people in poor countries do about a lack of rest and affordable housing.Q2: The survey conducted by Gallup is mentioned toA.Justify the availability of GDPB.Highlight the significance of well-beingC.Stress the failure of GDPD.Spotlight different countries’ wealth gapPara4: Scholars disagree over the extent to which national wealth itself causes contentment. Some countries’ citizens have remained gloomy even as GDP per person has risen, a paradox noted by Richard Easterlin, an American economist. But one way of testing if money buys happiness is to analyse what happens when it goes away.Para5: Studies of the previous global recession in 2009 suggest that economic hardship does indeed lead to emotional pain. Academics found dips in life satisfaction and other measures of well-being in the United States and several European countries, though the effects were mainly limited to people who lost their jobs. Adam Mayer of Colorado State University found that among Europeans of similar wealth and education, those who had recently become unemployed and struggled to buy staple foods had the worst outlook on life.Q3: Scholars believe that the economic recession wouldA.Cause some contentment exclusively for the unemployedB.Contribute to an world-wide unemployment crisisC.Even the playing field between Europe and USD.provoke a pessimism specifically among the unemployedPara6: Covid-19 will allow economists to probe this pattern further. The IMF’s latest forecast points to a fall in global GDP, weighted by purchasing-power parity, of 4.9% this year. If past recessions are any guide, the severe shock will have long-lasting effects. Economies will eventually grow larger than they were before the pandemic, but will be less rich than they would have been otherwise. The virus’s human toll is therefore vast in terms of deaths and dollars. But given the correlation between GDP per person and Gallup’s measures of well-being, it may have an enduring impact on the world’s quality of life too.Q4: It can be learned from the last paragraph that Covid-19A.May be a guide to future economic recessionB.May pose a persistent influence on the publicC.May help reshape the world long-term economyD.May re-balance the purchasing-power parityQ5: Which of the following is the best title for the passage?A.GDP, a distorted indicator of happinessB.Money, a real generator of happinessC.Covid-19, a doomed destroyer of GDPD.Gallup, a true fighter for well-beingPassage 3Para1: WHEN G20 FINANCE ministers met on July 18th and 19th, avoiding a new trade war was high on the agenda. Cash-strapped governments around the world are planning to levy taxes on online services. But America regards these as a grab for its companies’ profits, and is considering retaliation against ten digital-tax proposals. On July 10th it said it would respond to France’s tax by hitting French handbags, lipstick and soap with tariffs of 25%. Unless a truce is struck, the tariffs will go into effect in January.Q1: Online service tax planned by cash-strapped countries willA.Strike a truce between American and FranceB.Trigger a revenge from AmericaC.Cause a retaliation against digital-firmsD.Incur a world-wide trade warPara2: For several years now, the OECD, a club of rich countries, has convened governments in the hope of plugging the tax leaks. The idea was that the G20 meeting would lay the groundwork so that the OECD’s summit, planned for October, yields results.Para3: The talks cover two proposals, or “pillars”, in OECD-speak. The first is meant to direct more of the global-tax take towards places where the customers of digital firms live. Corporate-tax liability will depend not on whether companies are physically present in a country, but on whether they have a “sustained and significant involvement” there. Pillar two establishes a global minimum tax. The OECD reckons that the two proposals could together raise corporate-tax revenue by up to 4%.Q2：According to the OECD-speak, digital firms’ tax may be correlated withA.Its involvement in changing local customers’ livesB.Its degree of resistance toward the global-taxC.Its efforts in building local physical presenceD.Its degree of participation in local economyPara4: Pillar two has the greater chance of being agreed—and would raise more revenue. The idea of a global minimum is to suppress companies’ incenti ves to shift profits to low-tax places. There is still some bargaining to be done. But some sort of agreement should bepossible, if only because governments can go it alone. The Americans, for example, enacted aversion in 2017, with a tax on global intangible low-taxed income (GILTI). Havens can offer all the perks they want, but American companies still face a rate of at least 10.5% on GILTI associated with their foreign affiliates.Q3：GILTI is cited in the 4th paragraph toA.Exemplify the feasibility of pillar twoB.Illustrate the flaws of pillar twoC.Highlight the validity of online-service taxD.Stress the necessity of minimum taxPara5: That might explain why Steven Mnuchin, America’ s treasury secretary, was reasonably positive about the second pillar in June. In December he proposed that the new system should be optional for American firms. The suggestion, which would in effect neuter any new rules, was badly received by other countries. But as it stands, the OECD’s plan is unbalanced: it asks Ameri ca to hand over the right to tax its companies to other countries, without getting much in return.Q4: What is the author’s attitude towards the Steven Mnuchin’s proposition?A.Slightly sympatheticB.Severely criticalC.Reserved consentD.deeply concernedPara6: Without an agreement on pillar one that divvies up tax rights, a proliferation of digital-tax schemes seems likely. These taxes are a much cruder fix than a pillar- one solution. Companies could face a stack of competing tax bills. The levies also mostly apply to revenues rather than profits, and often try to exempt domestic champions. To top it all off, they are a recipe for trade conflict.Q5: Which of the following is the best title for the text?A.row over digital-firms’ tax heats upB.America is confronted with digital-firms’ taxC.America says no to G20’s proposalD.G20 is on the edge of breakdownPassage 4Para1: Two decades ago Microsoft was a byword for a technological walled garden. One of its bosses called free open-source programs a “cancer”. That was then. On April 21st the world’s most valuable tech firm joined a fledgling movement to liberate the world’s data. The company plans to launch 20 data-sharing groups by 2022 and give away some of its digital information, including data it has gathered on covid-19.Para2: Microsoft is not alone in its new-found fondness for sharing in the age of the coronavirus. “The world has faced pandemics before, but this time we have a new superpower: the ability to gather and sh are data for good,” Mark Zuckerberg, the boss of Facebook, a social-media giant, wrote in the Washington Post on April 20th. Despite the EU’s strict privacy rules, some Eurocrats now argue that data-sharing could speed up efforts to fight the virus.Q1: A ccording to the 2nd paragraph, Mark Zuckerberg’s remarks mayA.Represent a shared awarenessB.offset EU’s strict privacy ruleC.Create a new digital superpowerD.Slow the spreading of coronavirusPara3: The case for sharing data predates the pandemic. The OECD, a club mostly of rich countries, reckons that if data were more widely exchanged, many states could enjoy gains worth 1-2.5% of GDP. The estimate is based on heroic assumptions (such as putting a number on opportunities for startups). But economist s agree that readier access to data is broadly beneficial, because data are “non-rivalrous”: unlike oil, say, they can be used and re-used without being depleted, to power various artificial-intelligence algorithms at once, for example.Q2: By saying “data are ‘non-rivalrous’”, the economists impliesA.The significance of readier data accessB.The invalidity of heroic assumptionsC.The depletion of artificial-intelligence algorithmsD.The sustainability of data exploitationPara4: Many governments have recognised the potential. Cities from Berlin to San Franciscohave “open data” initiatives. However, companies have been more cautious, says Stefaan Verhulst, who heads the Governance Lab at New York University, which studies such schemes. Firms fear losing intellectual property, imperilling users’ privacy and hitting technical obstacles. Standard data formats can be shared easily, but much that a Facebook’s software collects would be meaningless to a Microsoft, even after reformatting.Q3: Tech companies’ cautiousness in “open data” mayA.Result from lack of data universalityB.Be eased by governments’ initiativesC.Stimulate the reformatting of dataD.Better protect users’ data privacyPara5: Microsoft’s campaign is the most consequential by far. Besides encouraging non-commercial sharing, the firm is developing software, licences and (with the Governance Lab and others) rules frameworks to let firms trade data or provide access without losing control. Optimists believe that the giant’s move could be to data what IBM’s embrace in the late 1990s of the Linux operating system was to open-source software. Linux went on to become a rival to Microsoft’s own Windows and today underpins Google’s Android mobile software and much of cloud-computing.Q4: The analogy made between Microsoft and IBM is used toA.Alarm a sever consequence of data sharingB.illustrate a promising prospect of data sharingC.Stress Microsoft’s strong control of its dataD.Highlight a threat against Microsoft’s current businessPara6: Indeed, like IBM before it, Microsoft has reasons other than altruism to champion open data. It makes most of its money not by extracting value from hoarded data through targeted advertising, like Alphabet or Facebook, but by selling services and software to help others process digital information. The more data that are shared, the better for Microsoft. Mr Smith argues that this makes his firm the perfect campaigner for open data. “If you want to know who to trust”, he says, “you should look at the company’s business model.”Q5：Which of the following is the best title for the passage?A.Data economy: Microsoft benefits the mostB.Data economy: uniting the governmentsC.Data economy: tearing down the wallD.ata economy: fighting the pandemicPassage 5Para1: DONALD TURNER, America’s top trustbuster in the mid-1960s, saw anti-monopoly law as benefiting from an “inhospitable” tradition: on many matters its default response was to say no. Government lawyers routinely blocked mergers merely on the grounds that the resulting company would be too big. The companies’ counterargument that being bigger would make them better was rarely entertained by the courts.Q1: The mid-1960s American legal system’s attitude towards monopoly is one ofA.NeutralityB.appreciationC.DisapprovalD.cautiousnessPara2: In the 1970s the “Chicago school” of antitrust law successfully harnessed economics to argue for a much more hospitable approach. The Chicago school, built on the work of Aaron Director, an economist from the mid-20th century, reached its peak in the writing of the legal scholars Robert Bork and Richard Posner. It argued that many activities which were assumed to be anti-competitive were entirely reasonable strategies for improving corporate efficiency. They also claimed that in some cases even things which couldn’t be justified that way could safely be left to the market to sort out without recourse to law.Q2: It is suggested in the 2nd paragraph that the “Chicago school”A.Focused on the corporate efficiencyB.Was good at harnessing economicsC.Identified with most monopolistic actionsD.Emphasized the function of marketPara3: Perhaps because, in the 1970s, American business had started to look more in need of help than hindrance, such arguments found favour with the American courts. And though the Chicago school’s influence was more limited elsewhere, many jurisdictions, including the European Union, adopted one of Bork’s central ideas: that the sole purpose of competition law should be to prote ct consumers.Q3: According to the 3rd paragraph, Bork’s central ideas mayA.keep companies from certain legal punishmentB.Protect consumers from business competitionC.Expand the influence of Chicago schoolD.Unite the American courts with EUPara4: But has this approach led regulators to miss the wood for the trees? In 2016 The Economist pointed to America’s high corporate profits and the rising market shares enjoyed by big firms as evidence that competition across the economy had weakened. A version of the trend can also be found in Europe. Research by the OECD, a club of mostly rich countries, finds that between 2000 and 2014 the share of sales accounted for by the top eight firms in a given industry rose by four percentage points in Europe and eight percentage points in North America.Q4: The author mentions a research of OECD toA.Suggest the inability of regulators against monopolyB.Underline the potential hazard posed by monopolyC.Emphasize the harmfulness of a competitive environmentD.criticize the greedy of western big corporationsPara5: Many antitrust experts are unconcerned: industrial concentration, they argue, does not tell you how competitive the market for a particular good is. But some economists have blamed falling levels of competition for far-reaching economic ills, such as stagnant labour markets and growing inequality. In a paper published in 2019 the late Emmanuel Farhi of Harvard and François Gourio of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago argued that the rising market power of big companies was linked to low interest rates and weak investment, factors shaping the whole economy.Q5: It can be learned from the last paragraph thatA.Industrial concentration is an indicator of economyB.Economic ills may bring about growing inequalityC.Lower investment may trigger industrial concentrationD.Industrial concentration may depress economic growthPassage 6To see the damage from covid-19 to aviation, look up. Where once a criss-cross of vapour trails told of holidaymakers heading for the sun or executives keeping businesses on track, the wide yonder is now a brilliant blue. This year nearly 5bn passengers might have been expected to take to the skies, but the actual number is likely to be only half as big. A fragile recovery is susceptible to new waves of infection. Britain’s imposition this week of a quarantine on passengers returning from Spain is the latest setback. Traffic may not return to 2019 levels until 2024.Q1: By saying“the wide yonder is now a brilliant blue”,the author impliesA.A serious corruption in aviation industryB.A severe shock to air trafficC.a dilemma faced by holidaymakersD.a coming quarantine on passengersWhen it does rebound, the twin priorities should be to put the industry on a sounder financial footing, and to make flying less polluting. For both objectives the way forward is the same: to loosen incumbents’ grip on the skies.Start with carbon emissions. The dramatic declines this year are a distraction because as people resume flying, emissions will start to rise again. Neither should the industry’s sorry financial state today relieve it of recent pressure to decarbonise in the future. For many years aviation mostly had a free pass when it came to regulations of the type that forced carmakers to clean themselves up. Before the pandemic that had been changing. Some airlines had begun to worry about their reputations as “flight shame” raised awareness of how travelling by air accelerated global warming. Aircraft-makers were starting to plan the next generation of cleaner planes.Q2: Aircraft-makers’ preference for cleaner planes is caused byA.Moral pressureB.Regulation restrictionC.Climate changeD.Financial crisisThe question is how an industry whose finances are in tatters can make the vast investmentsand the huge technological leap required for net-zero-emissions flying. Bail-outs are the wrong answer. Only 30 airlines were profitable before the crisis and rescues will keep failing carriers alive.If the industry is in the deep-freeze, it will slow the development of clean aeroplanes. Airbus has a goal of developing such an aircraft by 2035, whether using renewable fuels, electricity or hydrogen power, but the aerospace giants need to be sure that they will have a thriving market if they are to invest in them.Q3：Which of the following is a necessary requirement for investment in clean planes?A.a huge technological advancementB.Justified bail-outs for failing carriersC.The engagement of airline giantsD.the likelihood of a promising marketJust as easyJet and Ryanair, now both huge airlines, took advantage of a glut of cheap aeroplanes after 9/11 and the deregulation of European airspace to expand rapidly, so a dynamic airline industry searching for new ways to grow would require new aircraft, encouraging Airbus and Boeing to make air travel greener. As well as setting back the industry, spoiling the old guard will do more damage to the planet.Q4: The author suggests that the application of new aircraft willA.Eliminate the use of cheap aeroplaneB.Stimulate the recovery of old guardC.Revive the airline industryD.Harm the planet’s environmentQ5：Which of the following is the best title for the passage?A.Rebounding with greener planesB.Fighting the biased bail-outsC.Escaping the covid-19 crisispeting with cheap planesPassage 7Para1: Nabbing a top academic job in America requires obtaining a phd, preferably from a good university. That, in turn, requires stellar undergraduate marks, the right maths courses and a glowing letter of recommendation. Increasingly, pre-doctoral programmes, or pre-docs, are serving as a new rung on the professional ladder.Para2: Economists have long sought work experience before embarking on a phd, whether in consultancy, the public sector or finance. But over the past decade or so the nature of the experience has changed. A study by Kevin Bryan of the University of Toronto examined the cvs of sought-after economists, and found that none of those applying for academic jobs in 2013-14 had been research assistants before they began their phds, but around a fifth of those graduating in 2017-18 had.Q1: The comparison made in the 2nd paragraph is used toA.Illustrate people’s prefere nce for academic jobsB.Demonstrate the necessity of pre-docs programC.Spotlight the cvs of sought-after economistsD.Stress the significance of working experiencePara3: Done well, pre-docs enrich both economists and economics. They help produce good research and open up the profession. Peter Henry of New York University started his programme in 2014 to increase the representation of minorities. Camille Gardner, one of his pre-docs, says the experience has persuaded her to pursue a phd, and taught her skills important for graduate study, such as how to write a good paper. She thinks of Mr Henry as her mentor, “not just my boss”.Q2: Camille Gardner believes the experience of pre-docsA.Produces some intangible benefitsB.Provokes aloofness towards phdC.rebuilds relationship with bossesD.Erases the racial discriminationPara4: There are some concerns, though, that pre-docs leave junior researchers open to exploitation. Academic economists are neither rewarded for good management nor punished for being bullies. Michael Greenstone of the University of Chicago argues that “if you misbehave, it is going to be hard to get people to work for you”. But academic economists, asthe profession’s gatekeepers, still hold plenty of power.Q3: According to the 4th paragraph, the author is concerned withA.junior researchers’ exploitation of economistsB.junior researchers’ fighting against bulliesC.junior researchers’ suffering of mismanagementD.junior researchers’ distaste of powerPara5: It is less clear, though, that pre-docs are helping diversify the profession. The evidence on the question is mixed. Those at the top seven institutions who responded to the survey were roughly balanced in terms of gender, but just 2% were black. Compared with recent phd graduates, they were less likely to have attended a top-ten university. But they were more likely to come from a top-ten liberal-arts college— not quite the diversity the profession may have been striving for.Q4 What is the author’s attitude towards the rol e of pre-docs in profession’s diversification?A.contemptuousB.skepticalC.appreciativeD.indifferentPara6: Programme managers like Yale’s Rebecca Toseland are working to alert a diverse set of students to their schemes; some say they review all applications from minorities. Others are considering whether to make sure undergraduates know which maths courses to take. But a few, like Mr Henry, are more sceptical, worrying that pre-docs could come to represent another stage in the credentials arms race. Indeed, nearly a quarter of pre-docs at top institutions who were surveyed had been fulltime research assistants before starting in their position. In other words, as pre-docs have gained prominence, so too have prepre-docs.Q5: It can be learned from the last paragraph that Pre-docsA.may depress the pursuit of prepre-docsB.could promote the academic equalityC.could not eliminate credential arms raceD.may not serve its intended purpose。