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
As many office workers adapt to remote work, cities may undergo fundamental change if offices remain under-utilized. Who will benefit if working from home becomes the norm? Employers argue they make considerable savings on real estate when workers shift from office to home work. However, these savings result from passing costs on to workers. Unless employers are fully compensated, this could become a variant of parasitic capitalism, whereby corporate profits increasingly rely on extracting value from the public—and now personal—realm, rather than on generating new value.
Though employers are backed by a chorus of remote work advocates, others note the loneliness, reduced productivity and inefficiencies of extended remote work. If working from home becomes permanent, employees will have to dedicate part of their private space to work. This requires purchasing desks, chairs and office equipment. It also means having private space dedicated to work: the space must be heated, cleaned, maintained and paid for. That depends on many things, but for purposes of illustration, I have run some estimates for Montreal. The exercise is simple but important, since it brings these costs out of the realm of speculation into the realm of meaningful discussion.
Rough calculations show that the savings made by employers when their staff works from home are of similar value to the compensation workers should receive for setting up offices at home. What does this mean for offices in cities? One of two things may happen: Employers pass these costs onto employees. This would be a form of expropriation, with employees absorbing production costs that have traditionally been paid by the employer. This represents a considerable transfer of value from employees to employers.
When employees are properly compensated, employers' real estate savings will be modest. If savings are modest, then the many advantages of working in offices—such as lively atmosphere, rapidity of communication, team-building and acclimatization of new employees—will encourage employers to shelve the idea of remote work and, like Yahoo in 2013, encourage employees to work most of the time from corporate office space.
46. What does the author say about working from home?
47. Why do some people oppose working from home?
48. Why did the author run the estimates for Montreal?
49. What can we conclude from the author's calculations?
50. What is the author's opinion on working from home?
Passage Two
The human thirst for knowledge is the driving force behind our successful development as a species. But curiosity can also be dangerous, leading to setbacks or even downfalls. Given curiosity's complexity, scientists have found it hard to define. While pinning down a definition has proven tricky, the general consensus is it's some means of information gathering. Psychologists also agree curiosity is intrinsically motivated.
Curiosity covers such a large set of behaviors that there probably isn't any single 'curiosity gene' that makes humans wonder about and explore their environment. That said, curiosity does have a genetic component. Genes and the environment interact in many complex ways to shape individuals and guide their behavior, including their curiosity. Regardless of their genetic makeup, infants have to learn an incredible amount of information in a short time, and curiosity is one of the tools humans have found to accomplish that gigantic task.
Hundreds of studies show that infants prefer novelty. It's what motivates non-human animals, human infants and probably human adults to explore and seek out new things before growing less interested in them after continued exposure. But curiosity often comes with a cost. In some situations, the stakes are low and failure is a healthy part of growth. For instance, many babies are perfectly proficient crawlers, but they decide to try walking because there's more to see and do when they stand upright.
But this milestone comes at a small cost. A study of 12- to 19-month-olds learning how to walk documented that these children fell down a lot. Seventeen times per hour, to be exact. But walking is faster than crawling, so this motivates expert crawlers to transition to walking. Sometimes, however, testing out a new idea can lead to disaster. For instance, the Inuit people of the Arctic regions have created incredible modes to deal with the challenges of living in northern climates, but what we forget about are the tens of thousands of people that tried and failed to make it in those challenging landscapes.
51. What does the author say about curiosity?
52. What is the general understanding of curiosity?
53. What do we learn about how genes shape people's behavior?
54. What do numerous studies show about infants?
55. What does the example of the Inuit people of the Arctic regions illustrate?
Answers & Explanations
Passage One: Remote Work Costs
46. C。解析：第一段指出雇主节省开支是由于将成本转嫁给了工人（passing costs on to workers），因此受益的是雇主，代价是员工。
47. D。解析：第二段提到其他人注意到了孤独感、生产力下降（reduced productivity）和效率低下，对应选项 D。
48. A。解析：第三段说明这些估算是为了让讨论从“推测”（speculation）进入“有意义的讨论”（meaningful discussion），即提供确凿数据。
49. C。解析：作者计算显示雇主省下的钱与员工设立家庭办公室的成本相当，暗示雇主获得的利益应作为补偿给员工。
50. A。解析：文章结尾列举了办公室工作的诸多优势，并提到如果省下的钱不多，雇主应搁置远程办公想法，反映出作者倾向于回归办公室。
全文翻译
随着许多办公室员工适应远程工作，如果办公室仍然未充分利用，城市可能会经历根本性的变化。如果居家办公成为常态，谁会受益？雇主们辩称，当员工从办公室转向居家工作时，他们在房地产上节省了大量开支。然而，这些节省是通过将成本转嫁给员工而产生的。除非雇主充分补偿，这可能会变成寄生资本主义的变种，即企业利润越来越依赖从公共领域——现在还有个人领域——提取价值，而不是创造新的价值。尽管雇主得到了远程工作倡导者的声援，但也有人指出了长期远程工作的孤独感、生产力下降和效率低下。如果居家办公成为永久性的，员工将不得不将部分私人空间用于工作。这需要购买书桌、椅子和办公设备。这也意味着需要有专门用于工作的私人空间：这个空间必须供暖、清洁、维护并支付费用。这取决于许多因素，但为了说明目的，我对蒙特利尔进行了一些估算。这个计算很简单但很重要，因为它将这些成本从猜测的领域带入了有意义的讨论领域。粗略计算表明，雇主在员工居家办公时节省的费用，与员工因在家中设立办公室而应获得的补偿价值相当。这对城市的办公室意味着什么？会发生以下两种情况之一：雇主将这些成本转嫁给员工。这将是一种征用形式，员工承担了传统上由雇主支付的生产成本。这代表了从员工到雇主的巨大价值转移。当员工得到适当补偿时，雇主的房地产节省将是适度的。如果节省是适度的，那么在办公室工作的诸多优势——如活跃的氛围、快速沟通、团队建设和新员工的适应——将鼓励雇主搁置远程工作的想法，并像2013年的雅虎一样，鼓励员工大部分时间在公司办公空间工作。
Passage Two: Nature of Curiosity
51. B。解析：文章首句提到人类对知识的渴望是人类作为一个物种成功发展的驱动力（driving force），对应 pushing human society forward。
52. A。解析：第一段末尾提到普遍共识是好奇心是“信息采集的手段”（means of information gathering），即寻求信息。
53. D。解析：第二段指出基因和环境以多种复杂方式相互作用（interact）来塑造个人和引导行为，对应 work in conjunction with the environment。
54. B。解析：第三段首句指出婴儿更喜欢新奇事物（prefer novelty），对应 go after all that is novel。
55. A。解析：最后一段通过因纽特人的例子说明，尽管他们成功应对了挑战，但背后有成千上万失败的人，用以证明好奇心去探索是带有巨大代价的（cost）。
核心短语与亮点句型
【核心搭配与高频短语】
- at the expense of：以...为代价
- under-utilized：未充分利用的
- parasitic capitalism：寄生式资本主义
- intrinsically motivated：内在驱动的
- genetic makeup：基因构成
- prefer novelty：偏爱新奇
- fall down a lot：经常跌倒
- northern climates：北方气候
【亮点句型解析】
- Unless 引导的虚拟/条件推论：
"Unless employers are fully compensated, this could become a variant of parasitic capitalism..."
（除非员工得到充分补偿——此处逻辑指员工应得的报酬——否则这可能变成资本主义的一种变体。）`Unless` 用于强调如果不满足某个条件，就会产生负面后果。 - Interact with... to shape... (因果逻辑)：
"Genes and the environment interact... to shape individuals and guide their behavior."
（基因与环境相互作用，共同塑造个体并引导其行为。）这是描述复杂科学现象时的标准句式。
全文翻译
人类对知识的渴求是我们作为一个物种成功发展的驱动力。但好奇心也可能是危险的，会导致挫折甚至衰落。鉴于好奇心的复杂性，科学家发现很难定义它。虽然给出一个确切的定义已被证明是棘手的，但普遍的共识是它是某种信息收集的手段。心理学家也一致认为好奇心是内在驱动的。
好奇心涵盖了如此广泛的行为类别，以至于很可能不存在任何单一的"好奇心基因"让人类对周围环境产生好奇并去探索。话虽如此，好奇心确实有遗传成分。基因和环境以许多复杂的方式相互作用，塑造个体并引导他们的行为，包括他们的好奇心。无论基因构成如何，婴儿都必须在短时间内学习大量的信息，而好奇心是人类用来完成这一巨大任务的工具之一。
数百项研究表明婴儿偏爱新奇事物。正是这种偏好驱动非人类动物、人类婴儿，可能还有人类成年人去探索和寻找新事物，然后在持续接触后对其兴趣减弱。但好奇心往往伴随着代价。在某些情况下，风险很低，失败是成长中健康的一部分。例如，许多婴儿是相当熟练的爬行者，但他们决定尝试走路，因为站起来时能看到和做到更多。
但这个里程碑伴随着小小的代价。一项对12到19个月大学步婴儿的研究记录显示，这些孩子摔倒了很多次。准确地说，每小时17次。但走路比爬行快，所以这驱使熟练的爬行者过渡到走路。然而，有时尝试新想法可能导致灾难。例如，北极地区的因纽特人创造了令人难以置信的方式来应对北方气候生活的挑战，但我们忘记的是成千上万的人在那些充满挑战的环境中尝试并失败了。