1. The author is critical of the Paris climate agreement because. A) it is unfair to those climate-vulnerablenations
B) it aims to keep temperature rise belowonly
C) it is beneficial to only fewer than 4% ofcountries
D) it burdens developed countries with the soleresponsibility
2. Why does the author compare the ―forced riders‖ to second-handsmokers?
A) They have little responsibility for public healthproblems.
B) They are easily affected by unhealthy environmentalconditions.
C) They have to bear consequences they are not responsiblefor.
D) They are unaware of the potential risks they arefacing.
3. What does the author say about the $ 100 billionfunding?
A) It will motivate all nations to reduce carbonemissions.
B) There is no final agreement on where it will comefrom.
C) There is no explanation of how the money will bespent.
D) It will effectively reduce greenhouse emissionsworldwide.
4. What urgent action must be taken to realize the Paris climateagreement?
A) Encouraging developing nations to take theinitiative.
B) Calling on all the nations concerned to make jointefforts.
C) Pushing the current world leaders to reachagreement.
D) Putting in effect the policies in the agreement atonce.
(B)
With the coming of big data age, data science is supposed to be starved for, of which the adaption can point a profound change in corporate competitiveness. Companies, both born in digital era and traditional world are showing off their skills in data science. Therefore, it seems to have been creating a great demand for the experts of this type.
Mr Carlos Guestrin, machine learning professor from university of Washington argues that all software applications will need inbuilt intelligence within five years, making data scientists – people
第6页/ 共12 页
trained to analyze large bodies of information – key workers in this emerging ―cognitive‖ technology economy. There are already critical applications that depend on machine learning, a subfield of data science, led by recommendation programs, fraud detection system, forecasting tools and applications for predicting customer behavior.
Many companies that born digital – particularly internet companies that have a great number of real- time customer interactions to handle – are all-in when it comes to data science. Pinterest, for intense, maintains more than 100 machine learning models that could be applied to different classed of problems, and it constantly fields requests from managers eager to use this resource to deal with their business problem.
The most important factor weighing on many traditional companies will be the high cost of launching a serious machine-learning operation. Netflix is estimated to spend $150m a year on a single application and the total bill is probably four times that once all its uses of the technology are taken into account.
Another problem for many non-technology companies is talent. Of the computer science experts who use Kaggle, only about 1,000 have deep learning skills, compared to 100,000 who can apply other machine learning techniques, says MrGoldbloom. He adds that even some big companies of this type are often reluctant to expand their pay scales to hire the top talent in this field.
A third barrier to adapting to the coming era of ―smart‖ applications, however, is likely to be cultural. Some companies, such as General Electric, have been building their own Silicon Valley presence to attract and develop the digital skills they will need.
Despitetheobstacles,somemaymasterthisdifficulttransition.Butcompaniesthatwerebuilt,fromthe beginning, with data science at their center, are likely to represent seriouscompetition. 1. What cannot be inferred from the passage about the machinelearning?
A. Machine learning operations are costly inNetflix.
B. Machine learning plays an important role in existentapplications.
C. Machine learning experts are not highly paid in some non-technologycompanies.
D. Machine learning models are not sufficient to solve business problems inPinterest.
2. The underlined word in the 3rdparagraph ―fields‖ mostprobablymeans
. A. avoids
B.creates C.solves D.classifies.
3. Which one is the biggest obstacle for many traditional companies to begin a machine-learningoperation? A. Highcost
B. Expertcrisis.
第7页/ 共12 页
C. Technologicalproblems
D. Customerinteractions.
D C A
(C)
Dr. Donald Sadoway at MIT started his own battery company with the hope of changing the world’s energy future. It’s a dramatic endorsement for a technology most people think about only when their smartphone goes dark. But Sadoway isn’t alone in boasting energy storage as a missing link to a cleaner, more efficient, and more equitable energy future.
Scientists and engineers have long believed in the promise of batteries to change the world. Advanced batteries are moving out of specialized markets and creeping into the mainstream, signaling a tipping point for forward-looking technologies such as electric cars and rooftop solar panels.
The ubiquitous （无所不在的）battery has already come a long way, of course. For better or
worse, batteries make possible our mobile-first lifestyles, our screen culture, our increasingly globalized world. Still, as impressive as all this is, it may be trivial compared with what comes next. Having already enabled a communications revolution, the battery is now poised to transform just about everything else.
The wireless age is expanding to include not just our phones, tablets, and laptops, but also our cars, homes, and even whole communities. In emerging economies, rural communities are bypassing the wires and wooden poles that spread power. Instead, some in Africa and Asia are seeing their first lightbulbs illuminated by the power of sunlight stored in batteries.
Today, energy storage is a $33 billion global industry that generates nearly 100 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year. By the end of the decade, it’s expected to be worth over $50 billion and generate 160 gigawatt-hours, enough to attract the attention of major companies that might not otherwise be interested in a decidedly pedestrian technology. Even utility companies, which have long viewed batteries and alternative forms of energy as a threat, are learning to embrace the technologies as enabling rather than disrupting.
Today’s battery breakthroughs come as the world looks to expand modern energy access to the billion or so people without it, while also cutting back on fuels that warm the planet. Those simultaneous challenges appear less overwhelming with increasingly better answers to a centuries-old question: how to make power portable.
第8页/ 共12 页
To be sure, the battery still has a long way to go before the nightly recharge completely replaces the weekly trip to the gas station. A battery-powered world comes with its own risks, too. What happens to the centralized electric grid, which took decades and billions of dollars to build, as more and more people become ―prosumers,‖ who produce and consume their own energy on site?
No one knows which—if any—battery technology will ultimately dominate, but one thing remains clear. The future of energy is in how we store it. 1. What does Dr. Sadoway think of energystorage?
A. It involves the application of sophisticatedtechnology.
B. It is the direction energy development shouldfollow.
C. It will prove to be a profitablebusiness.
D. It is a technology benefitingeveryone.
2. What is most likely to happen when advanced batteries become widelyused?
A. Mobile-first lifestyles will becomepopular.
B. The globalization process will beaccelerated.
C. Communications will take more diverseforms.
D. The world will undergo revolutionarychanges.
3. In some rural communities of emerging economies, people havebegunto
. A. find digital devices simplyindispensable
B. communicate primarily by mobilephone
C. light their homes with stored solarenergy
D. distribute power with wires and woodenpoles
4. What does the author imply about the centralized electricgrid?
A. It might become a thing of thepast. B. Itmightturnouttobea ―prosumer‖。
C. It will be easier to operate andmaintain.
D. It will have to be completelytransformed.
B D C A
Section B (8’)
Direction: In the following article, 4 sentences have been removed. Choose the most suitable ones from the
第9页/ 共12 页
list A-F to fit into each of the numbered gaps. There are TWO which do not fit in any of the gaps.
A. However, Uber deny this was theintention.
B. Uber was criticized of deliberately ordering rides of rivalcompanies.
C. Silicon Valley's culture seems hostile to humane and democraticvalues.
D. Uber wants to know as much as possible about the people Who use its service , and those whodon't.
E. Uber is a transportation network company headquartered in San Francisco, operating in 570 cities worldwide. F. In fact, it makes people wonder what would happen to someone carrying a knife who promised
never to stab a policeman withit.
Time to Tame Silicon Valley
The company Uber brings into very sharp focus the question Of whether corporations can be said to have a moral character. If any human being were to behave with the single-minded and greed of the company, we would consider them anti-social,
1 Therefore,ithasanarrangementwithUnroll.me,acompanywhichofferedafreeservicefor
unsubscribing from junk mail, to buy the contacts Unroll.me customers had had with rival taxi companies. Beyond that, it keeps track of the phones that have been used to book its services even after the original owner has sold them, but attempts this with Apple's phones is forbidden by the company.
Uber has also adjusted its software so that regulatory agencies that the company regarded as hostile (敌 意的)would, when they tried to hire a driver, be given false reports about the location of its cars, Uber management booked and then cancelled rides with a rival company which took their vehicles out of circulation 2 The punishment for this behaviour was so small that it was not worth worrying about. Uberpromisednottousethissoftwareagainstlawenforcement.3
Travis Kalanick of Uber got a
personal criticism from Tim Cook, who runs apple, but the company did not prohibit the use of the app. Too much money was invested in that.
第10页/ 共12 页