What does the author intend t…——2023 高考英语第 25 题答案解析

【答案】28. D 29. C 30. A
【解析】
【导语】本文是说明文。近年来，来自不同领域的研究人员一致认为，短期主义现在是工业化社会的一个
重大问题。事实证明，人们对现在有偏见，以牺牲健康为代价，专注于当下有吸引力的事物，而牺牲了未
来自己或社区的健康、幸福和财务稳定。
【28 题详解】
推理判断题。第一段首句“In recent years, researchers from diverse fields have agreed that short-termism is now
a significant problem in industrialised societies.(近年来，来自不同领域的研究人员一致认为，短期主义现在
是工业化社会的一个重大问题。)”提出一个问题——短期主义，接着下文“ The historian Francis Cole
argues that the West has entered a period where “only the present exists, a present characterised at once by the
cruelty of the instant and by the boredom of an unending now”.(历史学家弗朗西斯•科尔（Francis Cole）认为，
西方已经进入了一个“只有现在存在的时代，现在的特点是瞬间的残酷和无休止的现在的无聊”。)”引用
历史学家 Francis Cole 的话来强调只注重现在的这种短期主义的危害，由此可推知，文章引用 Francis Col
的话是为了强调一个问题，故选 D。
【29 题详解】
推理判断题。根据最后一段中“As a psychologist once joked, if aliens (外星人) wanted to weaken humanity,
they wouldn’t send ships; they would invent climate change. Indeed, when it comes to environmental
transformations, we can develop a form of collective “poor memory”, and each new generation can believe the state
of affairs they encounter is nothing out of the ordinary.(一位心理学家曾经开玩笑说，如果外星人想削弱人类，
他们不会派出飞船；他们会发明气候变化。的确，在环境变化的问题上，我们可以形成一种集体的“记忆
不良”，每一代人都会认为他们所遇到的情况并没有什么不同寻常的)”可知，一位心理学家曾经开玩笑
说，如果外星人想要削弱人类，他们会发明气候变化，通过这种方式来削弱人类，因为人们对于气候变化
形成一种集体的“记忆不良”，认为他们所遇到的情况没什么异常的，由此可推知人们不擅长察觉出缓慢
的变化，故选 C。
【30 题详解】
推理判断题。通读全文，尤其是第一段“In recent years, researchers from diverse fields have agreed that short-

termism is now a significant problem in industrialised societies.(近年来，来自不同领域的研究人员一致认为，
短期主义现在是工业化社会的一个重大问题。)”提出一个问题—— 短期主义，和第二段“It has been
proved that people have a bias(偏向) towards the present, focusing on loud attractions in the moment at the expense
of the health, well-being and financial stability of their future selves or community. In business, this bias surfaces
as short-sighted decisions. And on slow-burning problems like climate change, it translates into the unwillingness
to make small sacrifices(牺牲) today that could make a major difference tomorrow.(事实证明人们对现在有偏
见，以牺牲健康为代价，只专注于当下引人注目的事物，而牺牲了未来自己或社区的健康、幸福和稳定。
在商业中，这种偏见表现为短视决策。在气候变化等缓慢燃烧的问题上，这意味着不愿意今天做出小的牺
牲，而这些牺牲可能会在明天产生重大影响。)”可知，文章主要讲述了短视决策的危害，呼吁我们要做出
有远见的思考。由此可推知，作者的写作目的是告诉我们有远见的思考对人类的重要性，故选 A。
What is life? Like most great questions this one is easy to ask but difficult to answer. The reason is simple:
we know of just one type of life and it’s challenging to do science with a sample size of one. The field of artificial
life-called ALife for short — is the systematic attempt to spell out life’s fundamental principles. Many of these
practitioners, so-called ALifers, think that somehow making life is the surest way to really understand what life is.
So far no one has convincingly made artificial life. This track record makes ALife a ripe target for criticism,
such as declarations of the field’s doubtful scientific value. Alan Smith, a complexity scientist, is tired of such
complaints. Asking about “the point” of ALife might be, well, missing the point entirely, he says. “The existence of
a living system is not about the use of anything.” Alan says. “Some people ask me, ‘So what’s the worth of
artificial life?’ Do you ever think, ‘What is the worth of your grandmother?’”
As much as many ALifers hate emphasizing their research’s applications, the attempts to create artificial life
could have practical payoffs. Artificial intelligence may be considered ALife’s cousin in that researchers in both
fields are enamored by a concept called open-ended evolution (演化). This is the capacity for a system to create
essentially endless complexity, to be a sort of “novelty generator”. The only system known to exhibit this is Earth’s
biosphere. If the field of ALife manages to reproduce life’s endless “creativity” in some virtual model, those same
principles could give rise to truly inventive machines.
Compared with the developments of Al, advances in ALife are harder to recognize. One reason is that ALife is
a field in which the central concept — life itself — is undefined. The lack of agreement among ALifers doesn’t
help either. The result is a diverse line of projects that each advance along their unique paths. For better or worse,
ALife mirrors the very subject it studies. Its muddled (混乱的) progression is a striking parallel (平行线) to the
evolutionary struggles that have shaped Earth biosphere.
,

Undefined and uncontrolled, ALife drives its followers to repurpose old ideas and generated novelty. It may
be, of course, that these characteristics aren’t in any way surprising or singular. They may apply universally to all
acts of evolution. Ultimately ALife may be nothing special. But even this dismissal suggests something：perhaps,
just like life itself throughout the universe, the rise of ALife will prove unavoidable.