1、2020海淀二模CThe ancient tale of the Country Mouse and the Town Mouse was only the first to emphasize rural folks supposed simplicity when compared with more sophisticated urbanities. However, neuro-scientists announce that, in fact, it is city living that can dull the wits.The new study led by Dr. Spie
2、rs at Nantes University describes how they used a dataset from 4 million people of a computer game, which tests navigating skills by asking players to memorise a map showing the location of checkpoints and then measuring how well players can find them, guided only by their mental map. Dr. Spiers and
3、 his colleagues examined the 4 million people from 38 countries, and found that the strongest indicator of a high score was a players ageolder people performed relatively poorly, which agrees with what researchers know about age-related cognitive decline. But the benefit of rural living was strong e
4、nough to offset some of that. Data showed that a 70-year-old who grew up in the countryside had the navigational abilities of an average 60-year-old across the dataset.There is a huge gap between the navigation skills of rural and city people, and the researchers think they know why. Dr. Spiers says
5、 that the brains navigational abilities probably weaken in the less challenging city environment because they are not being used as much. Although cities may appear more elaborate, they also feature more clues to help residents find their way, such as numbered streets. In the countryside, however, o
6、ne field tends to look much the same as another, so there are fewer external landmarks to help guide the way.Neuroscientists already know that living and working in more complex environments can influence the function and structure of the brain. Brain scans of London taxi drivers, who have gained an
7、 encyclopedic memory of the city s streets, show that they tend to have an enlarged hippocampusa region of the brain acting as a neural GPS, sensing position and path on an internal map of the environment.The harmful effect of city living on navigation is probably most serious in people under 1618,
8、Dr. Spiers says, because their still-developing brains respond and change the most according to external stimuli. And while people who live in cities with young children should not be alarmed, the study does raise some interesting ideas for urban planners: keep their city designs not so simple perha
9、ps. And for everyone else, it might be an idea to turn off maps on the phone.38. The study led by Dr. Spiers shows that .A. the seniors score higher at computer gamesB. rural life benefits peoples sense of directionC. participants are better at finding ways in citiesD. the young remember checkpoints
10、 better in maps39. The underlined word “offset”，in Para. 2 most probably means .A. achieveB. confirmC. reduceD. replace40. What is the purpose of the passage?A. To introduce a new way of driver training.B. To expose the drawbacks of living in the urban area.C. To show the contrast between lives in t
11、he country and city.D. To present environments impact on ones ability to locate places.41. What is the best tide for the passage?A. Lost in the CityB. Brain Weakened in CitiesC. Navigating to the CountrysideD. The Negative Effects of City LivingDCommunities across the world are starting to ban facia
12、l recognition technologies. The efforts are well intentioned, but banning facial recognition is the wrong way to fight against modem surveillance （监 视）.Generally, modem mass surveillance has three broad components: identification, correlation and discrimination.Facial recognition is a technology tha
13、t can be used to identify people without their consent. Once we are identified, the data about who we are and what we are doing can be correlated with other data. This might be movement data, which can be used to follow” us as we move throughout our day. It can be purchasing data, Internet browsing
14、data, or data about who we talk to via email or text. It might be data about our income, ethnicity, lifestyle, profession and interests. There is an entire industry of data brokers who make a living by selling our data without our consent.Its not just that they know who we are; its that they correla
15、te what they know about us to create profiles about who we are and what our interests are. The whole purpose of this process is for companies to treat individuals differently. We are shown different ads on the Internet and receive different offers for credit cards. In the future, we might be treated
16、 differently when we walk into a store, just as we currently are when we visit websites.It doesnt matter which technology is used to identify people. Whats important is that we can be consistently identified over time. We might be completely anonymous （匿名的）in a system that uses unique cookies to tra
17、ck us as we browse the Internet, but the same process of correlation and discrimination still occurs.Regulating this system means addressing all three steps of the process. A ban on facial recognition wont make any difference. The problem is that we are being identified without our knowledge or cons
18、ent, and society needs rules about when that is permissible.Similarly, we need rules about how our data can be combined with other data, and then bought and sold without our knowledge or consent. The data broker industry is almost entirely unregulated now. Reasonable laws would prevent the worst of
19、their abuses.Finally, we need better rules about when and how it is permissible for companies to discriminate. Discrimination based on protected characteristics like race and gender is already illegal, but those rules are ineffectual against the current technologies of surveillance and control. When
20、 people can be identified and their data correlated at a speed and scale previously unseen, we need new rules.Today, facial recognition technologies are receiving the force of the tech backlash （抵制），but focusing on them misses the point. We need to have a serious conversation about all the technolog
21、ies of identification, correlation and discrimination, and decide how much we want to be spied on and what sorts of influence we want them to have over our lives.42. According to Para. 2, with facial recognition, .A. Ones lifestyle changes greatlyB. ones email content is disclosedC. ones profiles ar
22、e updated in timeD. ones personal information is released43. We can learn from the passage that .A. discrimination based on new tech surveillance is illegalB. different browsing data bring in different advertisementsC. using mobiles anonymously keeps us from being correlatedD. data brokers control t
23、he current technologies of surveillance44. The underlined part “the point” in the last paragraph probably refers to .A. peoples concern over their safetyB. the nature of the surveillance societyC. proper regulation of mass surveillanceD. the importance of identification technology45. The author wrot
24、e this passage to .A. call for banning facial recognition technologiesB. advocate the urgent need for changes in related lawsC. inform readers of the disadvantages of facial recognitionD. evaluate three broad components in modern mass surveillance38. B 39. C 40. D 41. A 42. D 43. B 44. C 45. B2020西城
25、二模CA crucial period for learning the rules and structure of a language lasts up to around age 17 or 18, say psychologist Joshua Hartshorne of MIT and his colleagues.Previous research had suggested that grammar-learning ability developed in early childhood before hitting a dead end around age 5. Howe
26、ver, Hartshornes team reports online in Cognition that people who started learning English as a second language in an English-speaking country by age 10 to 12 ultimately mastered the new tongue as well as folks who had learned English and another language at the same time from birth. Both groups, ho
27、wever, fell somewhat short of the grammatical fluency displayed by English-only speakers. After ages 10 to 12, new-to-English learners reached lower levels of fluency than those who started learning English at younger ages because time ran out when their grammar-absorbing ability fell starting aroun
28、d age 17.Aiming for a sample of tens of thousands of volunteers, Hartshorne began by contacting friends on Facebook to take an online English grammar quiz, which used a persons responses to guess his or her native language and dialect (方言) of English. Then volunteers filled out a questionnaire askin
29、g where they had lived, languages they had spoken from birth, the age at which they began learning English and the number of years they had lived in an English-speaking country.In the end, the researchers analyzed responses of 669,498 native and nonnative English speakers. Statistical calculations f
30、ocused on estimating at what ages people with varying amounts of experience peaking English reached peak grammar ability.Researchers who study language learning regard the new study as fascinating, but exploratory. According to psycholinguist David Barner of the University of California, San Diego,
31、Hartshornes team cant yet say that language skill develops along a single timeline. Different elements of grammar, such as using correct word order or subjects and verbs that agree with one another, might be learned at different rates, Barner says. Its also unclear whether the responses of volunteer
32、s to an online, 132-item grammar test reflect how well of poorly they actually speak English, he says. Whats more, language learning involves more than a crucial period for acquiring grammar, cautions linguist David Birdsong of the University of Texas at Austin. For instance, growing up speaking two
33、 languages at once puts still poorly understood burdens on the ability to grasp grammar, he says.In the new study, people who were bilinguals from birth fell short of peak English grammar scores achieved by English-only speakers. Thats consistent with evidence that bilinguals cannot easily turn off
34、one language while speaking another, Birdsong says. Interactions between tongues spoken by one person may slightly depress how much can be learned about both languages, even if bilingual communication still reaches high levels, he suggests.38. Hartshorne and his colleagues found that .A. one reaches
35、 a higher level of fluency at age 10B. one learns a second language fastest at about age 12C. one gets a good grasp of English grammar before age 5 D. ones ability to master grammar declines at around age1739. Hartshorne collected data through A. social mediaB. experiments in the labC. literature re
36、viewD. face-to-face interviews40. David Barner believes thatA. language skill develops along a single timelineB. online volunteers do not cover a wide enough rangeC. different grammar items may be acquired at different paces D. the quiz in the new study does not include enough questions41. What can
37、we know about bilinguals from the last two paragraphs? A. They can achieve a perfect grammar score.B. Grammar learning is the biggest burden for them.C. They are able to make a swift shift between languages.D. Speaking two languages affects their language acquisition.DThe last decade saw the rise of
38、 the field of “plant neurobiology (神经生物学)”. That debatable field is based on the idea that plantswhich do not possess brains handle information in ways similar to complicated animal nervous systems. This thinking implies that plants could feel happiness or sorrow or pain, make intentional decisions
39、and even possess consciousness. But the chances of that are “effectively zero, Lincoln Taiz and colleagues write in an opinion piece in Trends in Plant Science. Theres nothing in the plant remotely comparable to the complexity of the animal brain, says Taiz, from the University of California, Santa
40、Cruz.Some plants are capable of complicated behavior. Wounded leaves can send warning signals to other parts of the plant, and harmful chemicals can warn animals that eat them. Some plants may even have a version of short-term memory: Tiny sensing hairs can count the number of touches that come from
41、 a clumsy insect. But plants perform these with equipment thats very different from the nervous systems of animals, no brain required, Taiz argues.He and colleagues point out methodological (方法的) faults in some of the studies that claim plants have brain-like command centers, animal-like nerve cells
42、 and changing patterns of electricity that are similar to activity found in animal brains. But beyond the debate over how these studies are conducted, Taizs team argues that plant consciousness doesnt even make sense from an evolutionary (进化的) point of view.Complicated animal brains advanced in part
43、 to help a living being catch a meal and avoid becoming one, Taiz says. But plants are rooted to the ground and rely on sunlight for energy, an inactive lifestyle that doesnt require quick thinking or outsmarting a predator (捕食者)or the energetically expensive nervous systems that enable those behavi
44、ors.“What use would consciousness be to a plant?” Taiz asks. The energy required to power awareness would be too costly, and the benefit from such awareness too small. If a plant worried and suffered when faced with a threat, it would be wasting so much energy that it wouldnt have any left to do any
45、thing about that threat, Taiz says.Imagine a forest fire. Its unbearable to even consider the idea that plants would be conscious beings aware of the fact that theyre being burned to ashes, watching the young trees die in front of them, Taiz says. The frightening scene illustrates what it would actu
46、ally cost a plant to have consciousness.Furthermore, plants have plenty to do without having to be conscious, too. With sunlight, carbon dioxide and water, plants create the compounds (化合物) that sustain much of the rest of life on Earth, Taiz points out. Isnt that enough?42. According to Paragraph 1
47、, a plant neurobiologist would most probably agree that .A. plants are capable of independent thinkingB. plants are as biologically complex as animalsC. plants developed nervous systems for survivalD. plants feel emotions in the same way as animals43. What does the underlined one” in Paragraph 4 ref
48、er to? A. A predator.B. A meal.C. An inactive plant.D. A living being.44. Which statement does Linchol Taiz believe?A. Plants possess brain-like command centers.B. The lifestyle of plants requires nervous systems.C. It is unnecessary for plants to have consciousness.D. Nervous systems enable plants to fight their predators.45. Lincoln Taiz introduces a forest fire to .A. suggest new ways to study the behaviors of plantsB. discuss the possibility of plants escaping a disasterC. illustrate how plants make decisions in face of dangersD. prove consciousness would do plants more harm than good38.
