Section C: Reading Comprehension
Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A), B), C) and D). You should decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.
Passage One
Questions 46 to 50 are based on the following passage.
Mindfulness has been shown to have a number of meaningful health benefits — it can help reduce anxiety and promote healing in those suffering from chronic illness.
The practice is based on an insight first described in ancient Buddhist texts that human beings have the capacity to observe experience without being caught up in it. This means simply that it is possible to observe ourselves having a craving, or a happy thought, or even a scary emotion, without reacting in the moment in a way that amplifies the feeling or sends the mind spiraling off into thinking about old memories or anticipating events.
This practice of mindfulness can help calm the mind and the body as we learn not to react to experience with likes and dislikes or judgments of good and bad. It does not make us cold or indifferent but more fully present.
One of the challenges of practicing mindfulness in our contemporary world is that there has been a profound transformation in human attention. The artist Jenny Odell argues that in our “attention economy” human attention has been transformed into a commodity that big corporations buy and sell. This economy rests on a technological revolution of mobile phones and social media that makes it possible for corporations to target our attention with their content at every moment.
The devices most people use are a perpetual diversion from the present moment. The result is that it can feel as though our ability to focus, and be fully present, has been stolen. But mindfulness can help us resist the attention economy and relish the things that make life special, like being together with those we love.
Most mindfulness research focuses on the individual benefits of the practice, but some scholars assert that we can not only practice mindfulness for ourselves but also practice it for others. It can help us build stronger, healthier relationships. The sad truth is that living in the attention economy, most of us have become bad listeners. However, just as it is possible to watch ourselves having an experience without reacting, it’s possible to watch another person have an experience without getting tied up in reactivity and judgment.
The gift of mindfulness is a practice of listening with compassion to others describe their experiences. To give this gift means putting away your phone, turning off social media, and setting aside other common distractions. It means practicing being fully present in another person’s presence and listening to them with complete attention without judgment, while resisting the urge to make the interaction about you.
If we judge the value of gifts based on their price, this gift may seem worthless, but in a distracted world, it is a precious one.
Passage Two
Questions 51 to 55 are based on the following passage.
The other day I had to log into a service I hadn’t used before. Since I was a new user, the website decided that it needed to check I wasn’t a robot and so set me a Captcha test to determine whether the user is a person or a machine.
I was presented with an image of a roadside scene over which was laid a grid. My “challenge” was to click on each cell in the grid that contained a traffic sign. I did so, a bit irritated. Then I was presented with another image and another grid — also with a request to identify road signs. Like a lamb, I complied, after which the website accepted my input.
And then I realised what I had been doing was adding to a dataset for training the machine-learning software that guides self-driving cars. So, to gain access to an automated service that will benefit financially from my input, I first have to do some unpaid labour to help improve the performance of autonomous vehicles.
Neat, eh? But note also the delicious additional irony that the Captcha is described as an “automated Turing test”. The Turing test was conceived, you may recall, as a way of enabling humans to determine whether a machine could respond in such a way that one couldn’t tell whether it was a human or a robot. So we have wandered into a world in which machines make us do tricks to prove that we are humans!
The strangest aspect of this unparalleled shift is how under-discussed it has been. The metaphor of the boiling frog comes to mind. Have we become so subtly conditioned by digital technology that we don't see what’s been happening to us? Have we been conditioned to accept a world governed by “smart” tech, trading convenience to the point where we become a bit like machines ourselves?
In a recent startling and thoughtful book, two scholars — Brett Frischmann, a law professor, and Evan Selinger, a philosopher — argue that the answer to that question is “yes”.
And they're right. There's nothing technophobic about that. We shape our tools and then our tools shape us. Technology is supposed to provide tools that serve human ends. But, as the machine-learning Captcha demonstrates, a significant proportion of digital tech now sees (and uses) humans as means to ends that are not ours. In the process, they reduce us to the status of cheery rats running on treadmills designed by people who do not have our interests at heart.
So back to the frog metaphor. Are we smart enough to jump out before it’s too late? You don’t even have to Google it to know the answer.
Answers & Explanations (答案与解析)
Passage One
46. B。解析：定位至第二段和第三段。文章指出正念让人在当下观察情绪而“不作出放大感受的反应”(without reacting in the moment...)，并且“不带着喜恶或好坏的评判”(without judgments of good and bad)。B项“将我们的注意力集中在当下而不作评判”是对这两段核心内容的精准概括。
47. B。解析：定位至第四段。Jenny Odell 认为在“注意力经济”中，“human attention has been transformed into a commodity that big corporations buy and sell”（人类的注意力已经变成了一种大公司买卖的商品）。B项“人们的注意力变成了可以买卖的东西”完美对应。
48. A。解析：定位至第五段。文章提到“The devices most people use are a perpetual diversion from the present moment.”（大多数人使用的设备使他们永远偏离当下）。A项“它们让用户不断从此时此地分心”与此意完全一致。
49. C。解析：定位至第六段。学者认为正念不仅是为了自己，也可以为了他人，“It can help us build stronger, healthier relationships.”（它可以帮助我们建立更强大、更健康的关系）。C项“它有助于我们建立更好的人际关系”是对原句的同义替换。
50. C。解析：定位至第七段。作者建议“practicing being fully present in another person’s presence and listening to them with complete attention without judgment”（在别人面前充分专注地倾听，不作评判）。C项“做专注的倾听者，同时克制不作评判”完全符合。
Passage Two
51. D。解析：定位至第二段。作者提到虽然有点生气（a bit irritated），但还是做了。后来面对第二次测试时，“Like a lamb, I complied”（像只羔羊一样，我顺从了）。D项“顺从地” (submissively) 与原文 “Like a lamb, I complied” 完美呼应。
52. C。解析：定位至第四段。作者指出图灵测试原本是“人类用来判断机器是否像人”（enabling humans to determine whether a machine...），但现在的 Captcha 却成了“机器让我们耍把戏来证明我们是人类”（machines make us do tricks to prove that we are humans）。C项准确表达了这种角色互换的讽刺性。
53. B。解析：定位至第五段。温水煮青蛙的隐喻后紧跟着问题：“Have we become so subtly conditioned by digital technology that we don't see what’s been happening to us?”（我们是否已经被数字技术潜移默化地制约了，以至于看不到正在发生在我们身上的事情？）。这表明作者用这个隐喻是为了说明人类没有意识到智能科技带来的潜在危险。B项符合。
54. A。解析：定位至倒数第二段。作者认为这两位学者是对的，原因在后文给出：“a significant proportion of digital tech now sees (and uses) humans as means to ends that are not ours”（很大一部分数字科技现在将人类视为（并利用）实现非我们自己目的的手段）。A项“很大一部分数字科技现在正在利用人类来满足其自身目的”是原句的直接改写。
55. D。解析：定位至最后一段。“我们足够聪明在为时已晚前跳出来吗？”结合前文的“温水煮青蛙”比喻，以及紧接着的“你甚至不需要Google就能知道答案（即答案是No）”，暗示了作者悲观的态度：我们可能无法及时醒悟过来逃离数字技术带来的危险。D项符合题意。
核心搭配与高分句型
【核心搭配与高频短语】
suffer from：遭受...，患有...（suffering from chronic illness）
be caught up in：卷入，陷入，被...缠住（without being caught up in it）
rest on：依赖于，基于（This economy rests on a technological revolution）
put away：收起来，放好（putting away your phone）
set aside：留出，把...放在一边（setting aside other common distractions）
tied up in：束缚于，沉浸于（getting tied up in reactivity and judgment）
gain access to：获得对...的访问权（gain access to an automated service）
come to mind：浮现在脑海中（The metaphor of the boiling frog comes to mind）
serve human ends：服务于人类的目的（serve human ends）
at heart：在内心，本质上（do not have our interests at heart）
【亮点句型解析】
Not... but... 并列结构：
"It does not make us cold or indifferent but more fully present."
（它不会让我们变得冷酷或漠不关心，而是让我们更充分地活在当下。）此句型用于强烈对比，重点强调 `but` 后面的内容，使表达的情感和逻辑都非常鲜明。
"It does not make us cold or indifferent but more fully present."
（它不会让我们变得冷酷或漠不关心，而是让我们更充分地活在当下。）此句型用于强烈对比，重点强调 `but` 后面的内容，使表达的情感和逻辑都非常鲜明。
So... that... 结果状语从句与反问修辞：
"Have we become so subtly conditioned by digital technology that we don't see what’s been happening to us?"
（我们是否已经被数字技术潜移默化地制约了，以至于看不到正在发生在我们身上的事情？） `so... that...` 表达“如此...以至于...”，结合现在完成时的被动语态和反问句，极大地增强了文章的批判力度和引人深思的效果。
"Have we become so subtly conditioned by digital technology that we don't see what’s been happening to us?"
（我们是否已经被数字技术潜移默化地制约了，以至于看不到正在发生在我们身上的事情？） `so... that...` 表达“如此...以至于...”，结合现在完成时的被动语态和反问句，极大地增强了文章的批判力度和引人深思的效果。
复杂的嵌套从句：
"The Turing test was conceived, you may recall, as a way of enabling humans to determine whether a machine could respond in such a way that one couldn’t tell whether it was a human or a robot."
（你可能还记得，图灵测试被构想出来，是作为一种使人类能够判断机器是否能以这样一种方式回应的方法：即人们无法分辨它是人还是机器人。）这句话包含了一个插入语 (`you may recall`)，一个 `whether` 引导的宾语从句，并在其中又嵌套了 `that` 引导的结果状语从句，最后还有一个 `whether` 引导的宾语从句，结构极其严密，是阅读理解长难句的典型代表。
"The Turing test was conceived, you may recall, as a way of enabling humans to determine whether a machine could respond in such a way that one couldn’t tell whether it was a human or a robot."
（你可能还记得，图灵测试被构想出来，是作为一种使人类能够判断机器是否能以这样一种方式回应的方法：即人们无法分辨它是人还是机器人。）这句话包含了一个插入语 (`you may recall`)，一个 `whether` 引导的宾语从句，并在其中又嵌套了 `that` 引导的结果状语从句，最后还有一个 `whether` 引导的宾语从句，结构极其严密，是阅读理解长难句的典型代表。