1、You don't know what you've got till it's gone,Joni Mitchell rold us.So now that the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature will be postponed-it seems worth asking what,exactly,the prize gives us.For decades,the choices of the Swedish Academy have failed to provoke much interest from American publishers and readers.This i.s not just because American readers are resistant to fiction in translation,as publishers often complain.On the contrary,over the last two decades,many foreign writers have made a major impact on American literature.But then,the failure of the Swedish Academy to reflect the actual judgment of literary history is nothing new.If you drew a Venn diagram showing the winners of the Nobel Prize in one circle and the most influential and widely read 20th-century writers in the other,their area of overlap would be surprisingly small.Does this mean that a different group of critics and professors in a bigger,more diverse country woulcl have done a better job at picking the winners?Very possibly.In the mind of the general public,the Nobel basically descends from the sky to bless the winner.But it is nothing more or less than the decision of a particular group of readers,with their own strengths and weaknesses.And the problem with the Nobel Prize in Literature goes deeper.No matter who is in the room where it happens,the Nobel Prize is based on the idea that merit can best be determined by a small group of specialists.This may make sense for the prizes in the sciences,since those fields are less than penetrable to anyone but fellow practitioners.Even in the sciences,however,there is a growing sense that the tradition of awarding the prize to just one or two people distoris the way modern science is actually practiced today:Most important discoveries are the work of teams,not of individual geniuses brooding in isolation.Literature is at least produced by individual authors;but in this case,the Nobel's reliance on seemingly expert judgment runs into a different problem.For literature is not addressed to an audience of experts;it is open to the judgment of every reader.Nor is literature proZressive,with new discoveries replacing old ones:Homer is just as groundbreaking today as he was 2,500 years ago.This makes it impossible to rank literary works according to an objective standard of superiority.Good criticism helps people to find the books that will speak to them,but it doesn't attempt to simply name"the most outstanding work,"in the way the Nobel Prize does.A book earns the status of a classic,not because it is approved by a committee or put on a syllabus,but simply because a lot of people like it for a long time.Literary reputation can only emerge on the free market,not through central planning. Which of the following is true of the Nobel Prize in Literature according to Para.3?

　　A Its judges are narrow-minded.

　　B lts value is overstated by the public.

　　C Its decision is interfered by amateurs.

　　D Its rewards for the winners are falling.

　　正確答案：B  

　　答案解析：第三段③句先指出公眾對(duì)諾貝爾文學(xué)獎(jiǎng)的看法“猶如一道圣光”，④句隨后做出點(diǎn)評(píng)“事實(shí)上，該獎(jiǎng)項(xiàng)不過(guò)是某一特定讀者群的決定，這些讀者各有其優(yōu)缺點(diǎn)”�？梢�(jiàn)，作者意欲指出該獎(jiǎng)項(xiàng)的評(píng)委能力有限，其價(jià)值(含金量)被公眾高估,B.正確。[解題技巧]A.由①②句“要是換做來(lái)自一個(gè)更大、更多元化的國(guó)家的評(píng)委，決定可能更好”主觀臆斷出“當(dāng)前評(píng)委(因背景不夠多元而)目光狹隘”，而但卻忽視文意中的不確定性“未必如此”。C.將④句“特定讀者(指代評(píng)委這類(lèi)有專(zhuān)業(yè)資質(zhì)的讀者)”曲解為“業(yè)余人士”，進(jìn)而得出“獎(jiǎng)項(xiàng)決定受到業(yè)余人士的干擾”。D.由③句單個(gè)詞匯bless、descends捏造，原文并未談及諾獎(jiǎng)對(duì)獲獎(jiǎng)?wù)叩暮锰?回報(bào)是否減少。

　　2、Priests,teachers and parents have for generations advised their wards io think twice before speaking,to count to ten when angry and to get a good night's sleep before making big decisions.Social networks care little for seconcl thoughts.Services such as Facebook and Twitter are built to maximise"virality",making it irresistible to share,like and retweet things.They are getting better at it:fully half of the 40 most-retweeted tweets clate from January last year.Starting this month,however,users of WhatsApp,a messaging service owned by Facebook,will find it harder to spread content.They will no longer be able to forward messages to more than 20 0thers in one go,down from more than 100.The goal is not to prevent people from sharing information-only to get users to think about what they are passing on.It Js an idea other platforms should consider copying.Skeptics point out that WhatsApp can afford to hinder the spread of information on its platform because it does not rely on the sale of adverrisements to make money.Slowing down sharing would be more damaging to social networks such as Facebook and Twitter,which make money by keeping users on their sites and showing them ads.Their shareholders would surely refuse anything that lessens engagement.Sure enough,Facebook's shares fell by 23%in after-hours trading,partly because Mark Zuckerberg,its boss,said that its priority would be to get users to interact more with each other,not to promote viral content.Yet the short-term pain caused by a decline in virality may be in the long-term interests of the social networks.Fake news and concerns about cligital addiction,among other things,have already damaged the reputations of tech platforms.Moves to slow sharing could lielp see off harsh action by regulators and lawmakers.They could also improve its service.Instagram,a photo-sharing social network also owned by Facebook,shows that you can be successful without resorting to virality.It offers no sharing options and does not allow links but boasts more than a billion monthly users.It has remained relatively free of misinformation.Facebook does not break out Instagram's revenues,but it is thought to make money.The need to constrain virality is becoming ever more urgent.About half the world uses the internet today.The next 3.8bn users to go online will be poorer and less familiar with media.The examples of deceptions,misinformation and violence in India suggest that the capacity to manipulate people online is even greater when they first gain access to cligital communications.Small changes can have big effects:social networks have become expert at making their services compulsive by adjusting shades of blue and the size of buttons.They have the knowledge and the tools to maximise the sharing of information.That gives them the power to limit its virality,too. Skeptics hold that slowing down sharing would

　　A fail to curb virality

　　B be bad for users.

　　C do no good to advertisers.

　　D go against shareholders.

　　正確答案：D  

　　答案解析：第三段②③句指出，質(zhì)疑者認(rèn)為放慢分享對(duì)“讓用戶(hù)保持在線(xiàn)以獲得廣告收益的社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)”密處更大，它們的股東會(huì)拒絕這類(lèi)降低用戶(hù)參與度的舉措。由此可知，質(zhì)疑者認(rèn)為放慢分享節(jié)奏損害股東利益’D.正確。[解題技巧]A.由Skeptics“質(zhì)疑者”捏造出“放慢分享節(jié)奏無(wú)法抑制病毒式傳播”之意，但由”WhatsApp限制轉(zhuǎn)發(fā)人數(shù)，讓用戶(hù)分享前好好想想”可知，放慢節(jié)奏本身就是對(duì)病毒式傳播的抑制。B.主觀臆斷“對(duì)用戶(hù)不利”，而質(zhì)疑者的觀點(diǎn)并來(lái)涉及社交網(wǎng)站用戶(hù);且根據(jù)后文(第四段)，放慢分享節(jié)奏有利于限制虛假信息，實(shí)質(zhì)對(duì)用戶(hù)有利。C.利用碎片信息advertisements、ads捏造出advertisers.而文中并未談及放慢分享節(jié)奏對(duì)廣告客戶(hù)的影響。

　　3、Governments are keen on higher eclucation,seeing it as a means to boost social mobility and economic growth.Almost all subsidise tuition-in America,to the tune of$200bn a year.But they tend to overestimate the benefits and ignore the costs of expanding university education.Often,public money just feeds the arms race for qualifications.As more young people seek degrees,the returns both to them and to governments are lower.Employers demand degrees for jobs that never required them in the past and have not become more demanding since.Spending on universities is usually justified by the"graduate premium"-the increase in earnings that graduates enjoy over non-graduates.These individual gains,the thinking goes,add up to an economic boost for society as a whole.But the graduate premium is a flawed unit of reckoning.Part of the usefulness of a degree is that it gives a graduate jobseeker an advantage at the expense of non-graduates.It is also a signal to employers of general qualities that someone already has in order to get into a university.Some professions require qualifications.But a degree is not always the best measure of the skills and knowledge needed for a job.With degrees so common,recruiters are using them as a crude way to screen applicants.Non-graduates are thus increasingly locked out of decent work.In any case,the premium counts only the winners and not the losers.Across the rich world,a third of university entrants never graduate.It is the weakest students who are drawn in as higher education expands ancl who are most likely LO drop out.They pay fees and sacrifice earnings to study,but see little boost iii thcir future incomes.When dropouts are includecl,the expected financial return to starting a degree for the weakest studcnts dwindles to almost nothing.Governments need to offer the young a wider range of options after school.They should start by rethinking their own hiring practices.Most insist on degrees for public-sector jobs that used to be done by non-graduates.Instead they should seek other ways for non-graduates to prove they have the right skills and to get more on-the-job training.School-Ieavers should be given a wider variety o:[ways to gain vocational skills and to demonstrate their employability in the private sector.lf school qualifications were made more rigorous,recruiters would be more likely to trust them as signals of ability.and less insistent on degrees."Micro-credentials"-short,work-focused courses approved by big employers in fast-growing fields,such as IT-show promise.Such measures would be more efficient at developing the skills that boost productivity and should save public money.To promote social mobility,governments should direct funds to early-school education and to helping students who would benefit from university but cannot afford it.Young people,both rich and poor,are ill-served by the academic arms race,in which each must study longer because that is what all the rest are doing.It is time to disarm. In the author's opinion,expanding higher education

　　A is an effective way to drive social mobility.

　　B will not achieve the anticipated effects.

　　C will not place a burden on governments.

　　D is a timely response to changes in the job market.

　　正確答案：B  

　　答案解析：第一段前兩句指出，政府癡迷于高等教育，認(rèn)為靠其可以促進(jìn)社會(huì)流動(dòng)和經(jīng)濟(jì)增長(zhǎng)。隨后作者轉(zhuǎn)而指出政府高估了擴(kuò)張高等教育帶來(lái)的收益，卻忽略了其代價(jià);很多時(shí)候公共資金只不過(guò)是砸向了一場(chǎng)學(xué)歷上的軍備競(jìng)賽�？梢�(jiàn)作者認(rèn)為高等教育擴(kuò)張難達(dá)政府預(yù)期，B.正確。[解題技巧]A.將第一段①句“政府觀點(diǎn)(擴(kuò)張高等教育能促進(jìn)社會(huì)流動(dòng))”當(dāng)做“作者觀點(diǎn)”，實(shí)際上作者否認(rèn)了政府觀點(diǎn)。C.與第一段②③句信息相悖：“各國(guó)政府補(bǔ)貼學(xué)費(fèi)的數(shù)目巨大、忽視了擴(kuò)張高等教育的成本”說(shuō)明“擴(kuò)張高等教育很可能會(huì)對(duì)政府造成巨大負(fù)擔(dān)”。D.將第二段信息“高等教育擴(kuò)張使得雇主對(duì)學(xué)位的要求越來(lái)越高”因果倒置為“擴(kuò)張高等教育是為了響應(yīng)就業(yè)市場(chǎng)的變化”。

　　4、Priests,teachers and parents have for generations advised their wards io think twice before speaking,to count to ten when angry and to get a good night's sleep before making big decisions.Social networks care little for seconcl thoughts.Services such as Facebook and Twitter are built to maximise"virality",making it irresistible to share,like and retweet things.They are getting better at it:fully half of the 40 most-retweeted tweets clate from January last year.Starting this month,however,users of WhatsApp,a messaging service owned by Facebook,will find it harder to spread content.They will no longer be able to forward messages to more than 20 0thers in one go,down from more than 100.The goal is not to prevent people from sharing information-only to get users to think about what they are passing on.It Js an idea other platforms should consider copying.Skeptics point out that WhatsApp can afford to hinder the spread of information on its platform because it does not rely on the sale of adverrisements to make money.Slowing down sharing would be more damaging to social networks such as Facebook and Twitter,which make money by keeping users on their sites and showing them ads.Their shareholders would surely refuse anything that lessens engagement.Sure enough,Facebook's shares fell by 23%in after-hours trading,partly because Mark Zuckerberg,its boss,said that its priority would be to get users to interact more with each other,not to promote viral content.Yet the short-term pain caused by a decline in virality may be in the long-term interests of the social networks.Fake news and concerns about cligital addiction,among other things,have already damaged the reputations of tech platforms.Moves to slow sharing could lielp see off harsh action by regulators and lawmakers.They could also improve its service.Instagram,a photo-sharing social network also owned by Facebook,shows that you can be successful without resorting to virality.It offers no sharing options and does not allow links but boasts more than a billion monthly users.It has remained relatively free of misinformation.Facebook does not break out Instagram's revenues,but it is thought to make money.The need to constrain virality is becoming ever more urgent.About half the world uses the internet today.The next 3.8bn users to go online will be poorer and less familiar with media.The examples of deceptions,misinformation and violence in India suggest that the capacity to manipulate people online is even greater when they first gain access to cligital communications.Small changes can have big effects:social networks have become expert at making their services compulsive by adjusting shades of blue and the size of buttons.They have the knowledge and the tools to maximise the sharing of information.That gives them the power to limit its virality,too. WhatsApp's new move is intended to

　　A prevent users from spreading content.

　　B get users to interact more with each other.

　　C put a limit on users'overuse of social networks.

　　D get users to think twice before sharing content.

　　正確答案：D  

　　答案解析：第二段③句指出.WhatsApp限制轉(zhuǎn)發(fā)人數(shù)是為了讓用戶(hù)想想自己要轉(zhuǎn)發(fā)的內(nèi)容，D.正確。[解題技巧]A.反向_f擾，定位句前半部分明確指出該舉措不是不讓人們分享信息。B.源于第四段①句imeract more with each other.但這是臉書(shū)總裁對(duì)臉書(shū)的總體定位，與其旗下信息服務(wù)WhatsApp的舉措無(wú)關(guān)。C.關(guān)鍵詞overuse of social networks源于普遍擔(dān)憂(yōu)“數(shù)字成癮”并同義復(fù)現(xiàn)第三段②句keeping users on their sites.但這是WhatsApp舉措的可能后果之一，并非舉措本身的目的。

　　5、Governments are keen on higher eclucation,seeing it as a means to boost social mobility and economic growth.Almost all subsidise tuition-in America,to the tune of$200bn a year.But they tend to overestimate the benefits and ignore the costs of expanding university education.Often,public money just feeds the arms race for qualifications.As more young people seek degrees,the returns both to them and to governments are lower.Employers demand degrees for jobs that never required them in the past and have not become more demanding since.Spending on universities is usually justified by the"graduate premium"-the increase in earnings that graduates enjoy over non-graduates.These individual gains,the thinking goes,add up to an economic boost for society as a whole.But the graduate premium is a flawed unit of reckoning.Part of the usefulness of a degree is that it gives a graduate jobseeker an advantage at the expense of non-graduates.It is also a signal to employers of general qualities that someone already has in order to get into a university.Some professions require qualifications.But a degree is not always the best measure of the skills and knowledge needed for a job.With degrees so common,recruiters are using them as a crude way to screen applicants.Non-graduates are thus increasingly locked out of decent work.In any case,the premium counts only the winners and not the losers.Across the rich world,a third of university entrants never graduate.It is the weakest students who are drawn in as higher education expands ancl who are most likely LO drop out.They pay fees and sacrifice earnings to study,but see little boost iii thcir future incomes.When dropouts are includecl,the expected financial return to starting a degree for the weakest studcnts dwindles to almost nothing.Governments need to offer the young a wider range of options after school.They should start by rethinking their own hiring practices.Most insist on degrees for public-sector jobs that used to be done by non-graduates.Instead they should seek other ways for non-graduates to prove they have the right skills and to get more on-the-job training.School-Ieavers should be given a wider variety o:[ways to gain vocational skills and to demonstrate their employability in the private sector.lf school qualifications were made more rigorous,recruiters would be more likely to trust them as signals of ability.and less insistent on degrees."Micro-credentials"-short,work-focused courses approved by big employers in fast-growing fields,such as IT-show promise.Such measures would be more efficient at developing the skills that boost productivity and should save public money.To promote social mobility,governments should direct funds to early-school education and to helping students who would benefit from university but cannot afford it.Young people,both rich and poor,are ill-served by the academic arms race,in which each must study longer because that is what all the rest are doing.It is time to disarm. Which is the most efficient way to improve the society?

　　A Setting up vocational training courses in universities.

　　B Increasing investment in early-school education.

　　C Financing higher education to include both the rich and the poor.

　　D Subsidizing students to study longer to achieve academic success.

　　正確答案：B  

　　答案解析：第七段②句指出，為了促進(jìn)社會(huì)流動(dòng)，政府應(yīng)將資金投入到早期學(xué)校教育，B.正確。[解題技巧]A.利用第六段①句干擾，但該內(nèi)容意在強(qiáng)調(diào)“為中學(xué)畢業(yè)生(未上大學(xué)者)提供職業(yè)培訓(xùn)”，而非強(qiáng)調(diào)“在大學(xué)設(shè)置職業(yè)課程”。C.錯(cuò)誤理解第七段②句helping students.cannot afford it以及③句both rich and poor.…，該內(nèi)容強(qiáng)調(diào)“應(yīng)資助那些能從大學(xué)中受益、但負(fù)擔(dān)不起的人”以及“無(wú)論窮富，年輕人都受困于學(xué)歷競(jìng)賽”，并非“應(yīng)資助所有人上大學(xué)”。且根據(jù)本文觀點(diǎn)“反對(duì)一味擴(kuò)張大學(xué)教育”也可排除這一選項(xiàng)。D.與第七段③④句“年輕人被學(xué)歷上的軍備競(jìng)賽所困擾，每個(gè)人要花費(fèi)更長(zhǎng)時(shí)間求學(xué)，是時(shí)候停止這種競(jìng)爭(zhēng)了”相悖。

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