A篇
（题源2017江苏C）
A new commodity brings about a highly profitable, fast-growing industry, urging antitrust(反垄断)regulators to step in to check those who control its flow. A century ago, the resource in question was oil. Now similar concerns are being raised by the giants(巨头)that deal in data, the oil of the digital age. The most valuable firms are Google, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft. All look unstoppable.
Such situations have led to calls for the tech giants to be broken up. But size alone is not a crime. The giants’ success has benefited consumers. Few want to live without search engines or a quick delivery, Far from charging consumers high prices, many of these services are free(users pay, in effect, by handing over yet more data). And the appearance of new-born giants suggests that newcomers can make waves, too.
But there is cause for concern. The internet has made data abundant, all-present and far more valuable, changing the nature of data and competition. Google initially used the data collected from users to target advertising better. But recently it has discovered that data can be turned into new services: translation and visual recognition, to be sold to other companies. Internet companies’ control of data gives them enormous power. So they have a “God’s eye view” of activities in their own markets and beyond.
This nature of data makes the antitrust measures of the past less useful. Breaking up firms like Google into five small ones would not stop remaking themselves: in time, one of them would become great again. A rethink is required—and as a new approach starts to become apparent, two ideas stand out.
The first is that antitrust authorities need to move form the industrial age into the 21st century. When considering a merger(兼并), for example, they have traditionally used size to determine when to step in. They now need to take into account the extent of firms’ data assets(资产)when assessing the impact of deals. The purchase price could also be a signal that an established company is buying a new-born threat. When this takes place, especially when a new-born company has no revenue to speak of, the regulators should raise red flags.
The second principle is to loosen the control that providers of on-line services have over data and give more to
those who supply them. Companies could be forced to consumers what information they hold and how much
money they make from it. Governments could order the sharing of certain kinds of data, with users’ consent.
Restarting antitrust for the information age will not be easy. But if governments don’t wants a data economy
by a few giants, they must act soon.
1.Why is there a call to break up giants?
A. They have controlled the data market. B. They collect enormous private data.
C. They no longer provide free services. D. They dismissed some new-born giants.
2.What does the technological innovation in Paragraph 3 indicate?
A. Data giants’ technology is very expensive. B. Google’s idea is popular among data firms
C. Data can strengthen giants’ controlling position. D. Data can be turned into new services or products
3.By paying attention to firms’ data assets, antitrust regulators could _______.
A. kill a new threat B. avoid the size trap
C. favour bigger firms D. charge higher prices
4.What is the purpose of loosening the giants’ control of data?
A. Big companies could relieve data security pressure. B. Governments could relieve their financial pressure.
C. Consumers could better protect their privacy. D. Small companies could get more opportunities.
B 篇
(2018江苏C)
If you want to disturb the car industry, you’d better have a few billion dollars: Mom-and-pop carmakers are unlikely to beat the biggest car companies. But in agriculture, small farmers can get the best of the major players. By connecting directly with customers, and by responding quickly to changes in the markets as well as in the ecosystems(生态系统), small farmers can keep one step ahead of the big guys. As the co-founder of the National Young Farmers Coalition (NYFC, 美国青年农会) and a family farmer myself, I have a front-row seat to the innovations among small farmers that are transforming the industry.
For example, take the Quick Cut Greens Harvester, a tool developed just a couple of years ago by a young farmer, Jonathan Dysinger, in Tennessee, with a small loan from a local Slow Money group. It enables small-scale farmers to harvest 175 pounds of green vegetables per hour—a huge improvement over harvesting just a few dozen pounds by hand—suddenly making it possible for the little guys to compete with large farms of California. Before the tool came out, small farmers couldn’t touch the price per pound offered by California farms. But now, with the combination of a better price point and a generally fresher product, they can stay in business.
The sustainable success of small farmers, though, won’t happen without fundamental changes to the industry. One crucial factor is secure access to land. Competition from investors, developers, and established large farmers makes owning one’s own land unattainable for many new farmers.
From 2004 to 2013, agricultural land values doubled, and they continue to rise in many regions.
Another challenge for more than a million of the most qualified farm workers and managers is a non-existent path to citizenship—the greatest barrier to building a farm of their own. With farmers over the age of 65 outnumbering(多于)farmers younger than 35 by six to one, and with two-thirds of the nation’s farmland in need of a new farmer, we must clear the path for talented people willing to grow the nation’s food.
There are solutions that could light a path toward a more sustainable and fair farm economy, but farmers can’t clumsily put them together before us. We at the NYFC need broad support as we urge Congress to increase farmland conservation, as we push for immigration reform, and as we seek policies that will ensure the success of a diverse and ambitious next generation of farms from all backgrounds. With a new farm bill to be debated in Congress, consumers must take a stand with young farmers.
5. The author mentions car industry at the beginning of the passage to introduce _______.
A. the progress made in car industry B. a special feature of agriculture
C. a trend of development in agriculture D. the importance of investing in car industry
6. What does the author want to illustrate with the example in paragraph 2 ?
A. Loans to small local farmers are necessary.
B. Technology is vital for agricultural development.
C. Competition between small and big farms is fierce
D. Small farmers may gain some advantages over big ones.
7. What is the difficulty for those new famers?
A. To gain more financial aid. B. To hire good farm managers.
C. To have farms of their own. D. To win old farmers’ support.
8. What should farmers do for a more sustainable and fair farm economy?
A. Seek support beyond NYFC. B. Expand farmland conservation.
C. Become members of NYFC. D. Invest more to improve technology.
C篇
（题源：2017江苏B）
Before birth, babies can tell the difference between loud sounds and voices. They can even distinguish their mother’s voice from that of a female stranger. But when it comes to embryonic learning(胎教), birds could rule the roost. As recently reported in The Auk: Ornithological Advances, some mother birds may teach their young to sing even before they hatch(孵化). New-born chicks can then imitate their mom’s call within a few days of entering the world.
This educational method was first observed in 2012 by Sonia Kieindorfer, a biologist at Flinders University in South Australia, and her colleagues. Female Australian superb fairy wrens were found to repeat one sound over and over again while hatching their errs, when the errs were hatched, the baby birds made the similar chirp to their mothers—around that served as their regular “feed me!” call.
To find out if the special quality was more widespread in birds, the researchers sought the red-backed fairy wren, another species of Australian songbird. First they collected sound data from 67 nests in four sites in Queensland before and after hatching. Then they identified begging calls by analyzing the order and number of notes. A computer analysis blindly compared calls produced by mothers and chicks, ranking them by similarity.
It turns out that baby red-backed fairy wrens also emerge chirping like their moms. And the more frequently mothers had called to their errs, the more similar were the babies’ begging calls. In addition, the team set up a separate experiment that suggested that the baby birds that most closely imitated their mom’s voice were rewarded with the most food.
This observation hints that effective embryonic learning could signal neurological(神经系统的)strengths of children to parents. An evolutionary inference can then be drawn. “As a parent, do you invest in quality children, or do you invest in children that are in need?” Kleindorfer asks.” Our results suggest that they might be going for quality.”
9.The underlined phrase in Paragraph 1 means “_______”.
A. be the worst B. be the best C. be the as bad D. be just as good
10.What are Kleindorfer’s findings based on?
A. Similarities between the calls of moms and chicks. B. The observation of fairy wrens across Australia.
C. The data collected from Queensland’s locals. D. Controlled experiments on wrens and other birds.
11.Embryonic learning helps mother birds to identify the baby birds which _______.
A. can receive quality signals B. are in need of training
C. fit the environment better D. make the loudest call
D篇
What do people in the outside world do when they want to learn something? They go to somebody who knows about it, and ask him. They do not go to somebody who is supposed to know about everything ---except, when they are very young, to their parents: and they speedily become dissatisfied with that variety of knowledge. They go to somebody who might reasonably expected to know about the particular thing they are interested in, When a man buys a motor-car, he does not say to himself: “Where can I find somebody who can teach me how to run a motor car?" He does not look in the telephone directory under T. He just gets an experienced driver to teach him. He just pays attention and asks questions and tries to do the thing himself, until he learns.
But this case, of course, assumes an interest of the pupil in the subject, a willingness and even a desire to learn about it, a feeling that the matter is of some importance to himself. And come to think of it, these motives are generally present in the learning that goes on in the outside world. It is only in school that the pupil is expected to be unwilling to learn.
When you were a child, and passed the door of the village blacksmith(铁匠) shop, and looked in, day after day, you admired his skill, and stood in awe of his strength; and if he had offered to let you blow the bellows for him and shown you how to make a red-hot penny, that would have been a proud moment. It would also have been an educational one. But suppose there had been a new shop set up in the town, and when you looked in at the open door you saw a man at work painting a picture; and suppose a bell rang just then, and the man stopped painting right in the middle of a brush-stroke, and started to read aloud “How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix"; and suppose when he was halfway through, the bell rang again, and he said, "We will go on with that tomorrow," and started to chisel the surface of a piece of marble; and then, after a little, somewhat exhaustedly, started in to play "The Rock of Ages" on a flute, interrupting the tune to order you to stand up straight and not whisper to the little boy beside you. There's no doubt what you would think of him; you would know perfectly well that he was crazy; people don't do things in that way anywhere in the world, except in school.
And even if he had assured you that what were taught were later in your life going to be matters of the deepest importance and interest, and that you should start in now with the determination of becoming proficient in them, it would not have helped much. Not very much. It's nonsense that children do not want to learn. Everybody wants to learn. And everybody wants to teach. And the process is going on all the time. All that is necessary is to put a person whoknows something---really knows it---within the curiosity-range of someone who doesn't know it: the process begins at once, It is almost irresistible
If there were no teachers---no hastily and superficially trained Vestals who were supposed to know everything---but just ordinary human beings who knew passionately and thoroughly one thing and who had the patience to show little boys and girls how to do that thing---we might get along with our learning pretty well, Of course, we'd have to pay them more, because they could get other jobs out in the larger world; and besides, you couldn't expect to get somebody who knows how to do something, for the price you are accustomed to pay those who only know how to
teach everything,
12. What does the author mainly want to say with this article?
A. An education without teachers is unimaginable,
B. A teacher who knows everything is more welcome,
C. School teachers are far from satisfactory and necessary,
D. We have paid too much for teachers for school education.
13. What does the underlined "somebody" in the first paragraph refer to?
A. A teacher. B. A parent. C. A man in the outside world. D. A man like the blacksmith,
14. What happened in the "new shop" mentioned in paragraph 3?
A. Useless subjects like painting and poetry, sculpture and music were taught.
B. The man at work became crazy with so many subjects to deal with.
C. One man teaching everything influenced the efficiency of learning.
D. Children listened carefully and often discussed about what is taught with others.
15. According to the author, which of the following can we infer?
A. Teachers are not as useful as parents in helping a child to learn,
B. Schools are the places killing students' interest and willingness to learn,
C. Learning life related skills like blacksmithing is more important than arts.
D. Teachers are ordinary human beings who know thoroughly everything.
16. Which of the following figures of speech(修辞手法) are used in the article?
a. exemplification(举例) b. exaggeration(夸张)
c. personification(拟人) d. irony(讽刺) e. analogy (类比)
A. abc B. ade C. bcd D. cde
17. In the last paragraph, the author mainly _______.
A. introduces a new idea B. raises a new question
C. gives some new evidence D. stresses his viewpoint
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