考研英语二模拟试卷1

For months Twitter.the micro-blogging service,has received the kind of free attention of which most companies can only dream.Politicians,corporate bosses,activists and citizens l the plat-form to calch every tweet of America's new president,who has become the service's 2."The whole world is watching Twitter,"3 Jack Dorsey,the company's chief executive,4 he presented its results on February 9th.He has litde else to brag about.But Donald Trump has not provided the kind of boost the 5 firm really needs.It reported 6 revenue growth and a loss of$167m.User growth has been sluggish,too:it added just 2m users in that period.Facebook added 72m.The day of the results,shares in Twitter dropped by 12qo.7 news oudeLs around the world already report 8 Mr Trump's most sensationaJ tweets,many do not feel compelled to join the platform t0 9 them.OLhers are 10 by mobs of trolls and large amounts of misinformation.And not 11 Mr Trvmp could change the cold,hard truth about Twitter:that it can never be Facebook.True,it has become one of the most important 12 for public and political 13 among its 319m monthly users.It played an important role in the Arab spring and 14 such as Black Lives MaUer.BuL the platform's freewheeling nature makes it hard to spin gold from.15,really trying to do so-by packing Twitter feeds 16 advertising,say-would drive away users.Twitter's latest results are likely to encourage those who think it should never have become a 17 listed company,and want it to consider alternate models of ownership,such as a co-operative.They 18 Twitter as a kind of public utility-a"people's platform"-the management of which should concem public 19 rather more than commercial ones.If the company were coop-eratively owned by users,it would be 20 from short-term pressure to please its investors and meet earrungs targets.4选？

For months Twitter.the micro-blogging service,has received the kind of free attention of which most companies can only dream.Politicians,corporate bosses,activists and citizens l the plat-form to calch every tweet of America's new president,who has become the service's 2."The whole world is watching Twitter,"3 Jack Dorsey,the company's chief executive,4 he presented its results on February 9th.He has litde else to brag about.But Donald Trump has not provided the kind of boost the 5 firm really needs.It reported 6 revenue growth and a loss of$167m.User growth has been sluggish,too:it added just 2m users in that period.Facebook added 72m.The day of the results,shares in Twitter dropped by 12qo.7 news oudeLs around the world already report 8 Mr Trump's most sensationaJ tweets,many do not feel compelled to join the platform t0 9 them.OLhers are 10 by mobs of trolls and large amounts of misinformation.And not 11 Mr Trvmp could change the cold,hard truth about Twitter:that it can never be Facebook.True,it has become one of the most important 12 for public and political 13 among its 319m monthly users.It played an important role in the Arab spring and 14 such as Black Lives MaUer.BuL the platform's freewheeling nature makes it hard to spin gold from.15,really trying to do so-by packing Twitter feeds 16 advertising,say-would drive away users.Twitter's latest results are likely to encourage those who think it should never have become a 17 listed company,and want it to consider alternate models of ownership,such as a co-operative.They 18 Twitter as a kind of public utility-a"people's platform"-the management of which should concem public 19 rather more than commercial ones.If the company were coop-eratively owned by users,it would be 20 from short-term pressure to please its investors and meet earrungs targets.3选？

For months Twitter.the micro-blogging service,has received the kind of free attention of which most companies can only dream.Politicians,corporate bosses,activists and citizens l the plat-form to calch every tweet of America's new president,who has become the service's 2."The whole world is watching Twitter,"3 Jack Dorsey,the company's chief executive,4 he presented its results on February 9th.He has litde else to brag about.But Donald Trump has not provided the kind of boost the 5 firm really needs.It reported 6 revenue growth and a loss of$167m.User growth has been sluggish,too:it added just 2m users in that period.Facebook added 72m.The day of the results,shares in Twitter dropped by 12qo.7 news oudeLs around the world already report 8 Mr Trump's most sensationaJ tweets,many do not feel compelled to join the platform t0 9 them.OLhers are 10 by mobs of trolls and large amounts of misinformation.And not 11 Mr Trvmp could change the cold,hard truth about Twitter:that it can never be Facebook.True,it has become one of the most important 12 for public and political 13 among its 319m monthly users.It played an important role in the Arab spring and 14 such as Black Lives MaUer.BuL the platform's freewheeling nature makes it hard to spin gold from.15,really trying to do so-by packing Twitter feeds 16 advertising,say-would drive away users.Twitter's latest results are likely to encourage those who think it should never have become a 17 listed company,and want it to consider alternate models of ownership,such as a co-operative.They 18 Twitter as a kind of public utility-a"people's platform"-the management of which should concem public 19 rather more than commercial ones.If the company were coop-eratively owned by users,it would be 20 from short-term pressure to please its investors and meet earrungs targets.5选？

For months Twitter.the micro-blogging service,has received the kind of free attention of which most companies can only dream.Politicians,corporate bosses,activists and citizens l the plat-form to calch every tweet of America's new president,who has become the service's 2."The whole world is watching Twitter,"3 Jack Dorsey,the company's chief executive,4 he presented its results on February 9th.He has litde else to brag about.But Donald Trump has not provided the kind of boost the 5 firm really needs.It reported 6 revenue growth and a loss of$167m.User growth has been sluggish,too:it added just 2m users in that period.Facebook added 72m.The day of the results,shares in Twitter dropped by 12qo.7 news oudeLs around the world already report 8 Mr Trump's most sensationaJ tweets,many do not feel compelled to join the platform t0 9 them.OLhers are 10 by mobs of trolls and large amounts of misinformation.And not 11 Mr Trvmp could change the cold,hard truth about Twitter:that it can never be Facebook.True,it has become one of the most important 12 for public and political 13 among its 319m monthly users.It played an important role in the Arab spring and 14 such as Black Lives MaUer.BuL the platform's freewheeling nature makes it hard to spin gold from.15,really trying to do so-by packing Twitter feeds 16 advertising,say-would drive away users.Twitter's latest results are likely to encourage those who think it should never have become a 17 listed company,and want it to consider alternate models of ownership,such as a co-operative.They 18 Twitter as a kind of public utility-a"people's platform"-the management of which should concem public 19 rather more than commercial ones.If the company were coop-eratively owned by users,it would be 20 from short-term pressure to please its investors and meet earrungs targets.2选？

For months Twitter.the micro-blogging service,has received the kind of free attention of which most companies can only dream.Politicians,corporate bosses,activists and citizens l the plat-form to calch every tweet of America's new president,who has become the service's 2."The whole world is watching Twitter,"3 Jack Dorsey,the company's chief executive,4 he presented its results on February 9th.He has litde else to brag about.But Donald Trump has not provided the kind of boost the 5 firm really needs.It reported 6 revenue growth and a loss of$167m.User growth has been sluggish,too:it added just 2m users in that period.Facebook added 72m.The day of the results,shares in Twitter dropped by 12qo.7 news oudeLs around the world already report 8 Mr Trump's most sensationaJ tweets,many do not feel compelled to join the platform t0 9 them.OLhers are 10 by mobs of trolls and large amounts of misinformation.And not 11 Mr Trvmp could change the cold,hard truth about Twitter:that it can never be Facebook.True,it has become one of the most important 12 for public and political 13 among its 319m monthly users.It played an important role in the Arab spring and 14 such as Black Lives MaUer.BuL the platform's freewheeling nature makes it hard to spin gold from.15,really trying to do so-by packing Twitter feeds 16 advertising,say-would drive away users.Twitter's latest results are likely to encourage those who think it should never have become a 17 listed company,and want it to consider alternate models of ownership,such as a co-operative.They 18 Twitter as a kind of public utility-a"people's platform"-the management of which should concem public 19 rather more than commercial ones.If the company were coop-eratively owned by users,it would be 20 from short-term pressure to please its investors and meet earrungs targets.8选？

For months Twitter.the micro-blogging service,has received the kind of free attention of which most companies can only dream.Politicians,corporate bosses,activists and citizens l the plat-form to calch every tweet of America's new president,who has become the service's 2."The whole world is watching Twitter,"3 Jack Dorsey,the company's chief executive,4 he presented its results on February 9th.He has litde else to brag about.But Donald Trump has not provided the kind of boost the 5 firm really needs.It reported 6 revenue growth and a loss of$167m.User growth has been sluggish,too:it added just 2m users in that period.Facebook added 72m.The day of the results,shares in Twitter dropped by 12qo.7 news oudeLs around the world already report 8 Mr Trump's most sensationaJ tweets,many do not feel compelled to join the platform t0 9 them.OLhers are 10 by mobs of trolls and large amounts of misinformation.And not 11 Mr Trvmp could change the cold,hard truth about Twitter:that it can never be Facebook.True,it has become one of the most important 12 for public and political 13 among its 319m monthly users.It played an important role in the Arab spring and 14 such as Black Lives MaUer.BuL the platform's freewheeling nature makes it hard to spin gold from.15,really trying to do so-by packing Twitter feeds 16 advertising,say-would drive away users.Twitter's latest results are likely to encourage those who think it should never have become a 17 listed company,and want it to consider alternate models of ownership,such as a co-operative.They 18 Twitter as a kind of public utility-a"people's platform"-the management of which should concem public 19 rather more than commercial ones.If the company were coop-eratively owned by users,it would be 20 from short-term pressure to please its investors and meet earrungs targets.9选？

For months Twitter.the micro-blogging service,has received the kind of free attention of which most companies can only dream.Politicians,corporate bosses,activists and citizens l the plat-form to calch every tweet of America's new president,who has become the service's 2."The whole world is watching Twitter,"3 Jack Dorsey,the company's chief executive,4 he presented its results on February 9th.He has litde else to brag about.But Donald Trump has not provided the kind of boost the 5 firm really needs.It reported 6 revenue growth and a loss of$167m.User growth has been sluggish,too:it added just 2m users in that period.Facebook added 72m.The day of the results,shares in Twitter dropped by 12qo.7 news oudeLs around the world already report 8 Mr Trump's most sensationaJ tweets,many do not feel compelled to join the platform t0 9 them.OLhers are 10 by mobs of trolls and large amounts of misinformation.And not 11 Mr Trvmp could change the cold,hard truth about Twitter:that it can never be Facebook.True,it has become one of the most important 12 for public and political 13 among its 319m monthly users.It played an important role in the Arab spring and 14 such as Black Lives MaUer.BuL the platform's freewheeling nature makes it hard to spin gold from.15,really trying to do so-by packing Twitter feeds 16 advertising,say-would drive away users.Twitter's latest results are likely to encourage those who think it should never have become a 17 listed company,and want it to consider alternate models of ownership,such as a co-operative.They 18 Twitter as a kind of public utility-a"people's platform"-the management of which should concem public 19 rather more than commercial ones.If the company were coop-eratively owned by users,it would be 20 from short-term pressure to please its investors and meet earrungs targets.12选？

For months Twitter.the micro-blogging service,has received the kind of free attention of which most companies can only dream.Politicians,corporate bosses,activists and citizens l the plat-form to calch every tweet of America's new president,who has become the service's 2."The whole world is watching Twitter,"3 Jack Dorsey,the company's chief executive,4 he presented its results on February 9th.He has litde else to brag about.But Donald Trump has not provided the kind of boost the 5 firm really needs.It reported 6 revenue growth and a loss of$167m.User growth has been sluggish,too:it added just 2m users in that period.Facebook added 72m.The day of the results,shares in Twitter dropped by 12qo.7 news oudeLs around the world already report 8 Mr Trump's most sensationaJ tweets,many do not feel compelled to join the platform t0 9 them.OLhers are 10 by mobs of trolls and large amounts of misinformation.And not 11 Mr Trvmp could change the cold,hard truth about Twitter:that it can never be Facebook.True,it has become one of the most important 12 for public and political 13 among its 319m monthly users.It played an important role in the Arab spring and 14 such as Black Lives MaUer.BuL the platform's freewheeling nature makes it hard to spin gold from.15,really trying to do so-by packing Twitter feeds 16 advertising,say-would drive away users.Twitter's latest results are likely to encourage those who think it should never have become a 17 listed company,and want it to consider alternate models of ownership,such as a co-operative.They 18 Twitter as a kind of public utility-a"people's platform"-the management of which should concem public 19 rather more than commercial ones.If the company were coop-eratively owned by users,it would be 20 from short-term pressure to please its investors and meet earrungs targets.13选？

For months Twitter.the micro-blogging service,has received the kind of free attention of which most companies can only dream.Politicians,corporate bosses,activists and citizens l the plat-form to calch every tweet of America's new president,who has become the service's 2."The whole world is watching Twitter,"3 Jack Dorsey,the company's chief executive,4 he presented its results on February 9th.He has litde else to brag about.But Donald Trump has not provided the kind of boost the 5 firm really needs.It reported 6 revenue growth and a loss of$167m.User growth has been sluggish,too:it added just 2m users in that period.Facebook added 72m.The day of the results,shares in Twitter dropped by 12qo.7 news oudeLs around the world already report 8 Mr Trump's most sensationaJ tweets,many do not feel compelled to join the platform t0 9 them.OLhers are 10 by mobs of trolls and large amounts of misinformation.And not 11 Mr Trvmp could change the cold,hard truth about Twitter:that it can never be Facebook.True,it has become one of the most important 12 for public and political 13 among its 319m monthly users.It played an important role in the Arab spring and 14 such as Black Lives MaUer.BuL the platform's freewheeling nature makes it hard to spin gold from.15,really trying to do so-by packing Twitter feeds 16 advertising,say-would drive away users.Twitter's latest results are likely to encourage those who think it should never have become a 17 listed company,and want it to consider alternate models of ownership,such as a co-operative.They 18 Twitter as a kind of public utility-a"people's platform"-the management of which should concem public 19 rather more than commercial ones.If the company were coop-eratively owned by users,it would be 20 from short-term pressure to please its investors and meet earrungs targets.11选？

For months Twitter.the micro-blogging service,has received the kind of free attention of which most companies can only dream.Politicians,corporate bosses,activists and citizens l the plat-form to calch every tweet of America's new president,who has become the service's 2."The whole world is watching Twitter,"3 Jack Dorsey,the company's chief executive,4 he presented its results on February 9th.He has litde else to brag about.But Donald Trump has not provided the kind of boost the 5 firm really needs.It reported 6 revenue growth and a loss of$167m.User growth has been sluggish,too:it added just 2m users in that period.Facebook added 72m.The day of the results,shares in Twitter dropped by 12qo.7 news oudeLs around the world already report 8 Mr Trump's most sensationaJ tweets,many do not feel compelled to join the platform t0 9 them.OLhers are 10 by mobs of trolls and large amounts of misinformation.And not 11 Mr Trvmp could change the cold,hard truth about Twitter:that it can never be Facebook.True,it has become one of the most important 12 for public and political 13 among its 319m monthly users.It played an important role in the Arab spring and 14 such as Black Lives MaUer.BuL the platform's freewheeling nature makes it hard to spin gold from.15,really trying to do so-by packing Twitter feeds 16 advertising,say-would drive away users.Twitter's latest results are likely to encourage those who think it should never have become a 17 listed company,and want it to consider alternate models of ownership,such as a co-operative.They 18 Twitter as a kind of public utility-a"people's platform"-the management of which should concem public 19 rather more than commercial ones.If the company were coop-eratively owned by users,it would be 20 from short-term pressure to please its investors and meet earrungs targets.10选？

For months Twitter.the micro-blogging service,has received the kind of free attention of which most companies can only dream.Politicians,corporate bosses,activists and citizens l the plat-form to calch every tweet of America's new president,who has become the service's 2."The whole world is watching Twitter,"3 Jack Dorsey,the company's chief executive,4 he presented its results on February 9th.He has litde else to brag about.But Donald Trump has not provided the kind of boost the 5 firm really needs.It reported 6 revenue growth and a loss of$167m.User growth has been sluggish,too:it added just 2m users in that period.Facebook added 72m.The day of the results,shares in Twitter dropped by 12qo.7 news oudeLs around the world already report 8 Mr Trump's most sensationaJ tweets,many do not feel compelled to join the platform t0 9 them.OLhers are 10 by mobs of trolls and large amounts of misinformation.And not 11 Mr Trvmp could change the cold,hard truth about Twitter:that it can never be Facebook.True,it has become one of the most important 12 for public and political 13 among its 319m monthly users.It played an important role in the Arab spring and 14 such as Black Lives MaUer.BuL the platform's freewheeling nature makes it hard to spin gold from.15,really trying to do so-by packing Twitter feeds 16 advertising,say-would drive away users.Twitter's latest results are likely to encourage those who think it should never have become a 17 listed company,and want it to consider alternate models of ownership,such as a co-operative.They 18 Twitter as a kind of public utility-a"people's platform"-the management of which should concem public 19 rather more than commercial ones.If the company were coop-eratively owned by users,it would be 20 from short-term pressure to please its investors and meet earrungs targets.7选？

For months Twitter.the micro-blogging service,has received the kind of free attention of which most companies can only dream.Politicians,corporate bosses,activists and citizens l the plat-form to calch every tweet of America's new president,who has become the service's 2."The whole world is watching Twitter,"3 Jack Dorsey,the company's chief executive,4 he presented its results on February 9th.He has litde else to brag about.But Donald Trump has not provided the kind of boost the 5 firm really needs.It reported 6 revenue growth and a loss of$167m.User growth has been sluggish,too:it added just 2m users in that period.Facebook added 72m.The day of the results,shares in Twitter dropped by 12qo.7 news oudeLs around the world already report 8 Mr Trump's most sensationaJ tweets,many do not feel compelled to join the platform t0 9 them.OLhers are 10 by mobs of trolls and large amounts of misinformation.And not 11 Mr Trvmp could change the cold,hard truth about Twitter:that it can never be Facebook.True,it has become one of the most important 12 for public and political 13 among its 319m monthly users.It played an important role in the Arab spring and 14 such as Black Lives MaUer.BuL the platform's freewheeling nature makes it hard to spin gold from.15,really trying to do so-by packing Twitter feeds 16 advertising,say-would drive away users.Twitter's latest results are likely to encourage those who think it should never have become a 17 listed company,and want it to consider alternate models of ownership,such as a co-operative.They 18 Twitter as a kind of public utility-a"people's platform"-the management of which should concem public 19 rather more than commercial ones.If the company were coop-eratively owned by users,it would be 20 from short-term pressure to please its investors and meet earrungs targets.14选？

For months Twitter.the micro-blogging service,has received the kind of free attention of which most companies can only dream.Politicians,corporate bosses,activists and citizens l the plat-form to calch every tweet of America's new president,who has become the service's 2."The whole world is watching Twitter,"3 Jack Dorsey,the company's chief executive,4 he presented its results on February 9th.He has litde else to brag about.But Donald Trump has not provided the kind of boost the 5 firm really needs.It reported 6 revenue growth and a loss of$167m.User growth has been sluggish,too:it added just 2m users in that period.Facebook added 72m.The day of the results,shares in Twitter dropped by 12qo.7 news oudeLs around the world already report 8 Mr Trump's most sensationaJ tweets,many do not feel compelled to join the platform t0 9 them.OLhers are 10 by mobs of trolls and large amounts of misinformation.And not 11 Mr Trvmp could change the cold,hard truth about Twitter:that it can never be Facebook.True,it has become one of the most important 12 for public and political 13 among its 319m monthly users.It played an important role in the Arab spring and 14 such as Black Lives MaUer.BuL the platform's freewheeling nature makes it hard to spin gold from.15,really trying to do so-by packing Twitter feeds 16 advertising,say-would drive away users.Twitter's latest results are likely to encourage those who think it should never have become a 17 listed company,and want it to consider alternate models of ownership,such as a co-operative.They 18 Twitter as a kind of public utility-a"people's platform"-the management of which should concem public 19 rather more than commercial ones.If the company were coop-eratively owned by users,it would be 20 from short-term pressure to please its investors and meet earrungs targets.15选？

Text 2 In a former leather factory just off Euston Road in London,a hopeful firm is starting up.BenevolentAI's main room is large and open-plan.In it,scientists and coders sit busily on benches,plyinS their various trades.I\e firm's star,though,has a private,temperature.controlled office.Thal star is a powerful computer that runs the software which sits at the heart of BenevolentAl's business.This software is an artificial-intelligence system.AI,as it is known for short,comes in several forms.But BenevolentAI's version of it is a form of machine learning that can draw inferences about wh8t it has leamed.In particular,it can process natural language and formulate new ideas from what it reads.Its job is to sift through vast chemical libraries,medical databases and conventionally presented scientific papers,looking for potential drug molecules.Nor is BenevolentAI a one-off.More and more people and firms believe that AI is well placed to help unpick biology and advance human health.Indeed,as Chris Bishop of Microsoft Research,in Cambridge,England,observes,one way of thinking aboui living organisms is to recognize that they are,in essence.complex systems which process informalion using a combination of hardware and software.That thought has consequences.Whether it is the new Chan Zuckerberg Initiative（CZI）,from the founder of Facebook and his wife,or the biological subsidiaries being set up by firms such as Alphabet（Google's parent company）,IBM and Microsofi,the new Big Idea in Silicon Valley is that in the worlds of biology and disease there are problems its software engineers can solve.The discovery of new drugs is an early test of the belief that AI has much to offer biology and medicine.Pharmaceutical companies are finding il increasingly difficult lo make headway in their search for novel products.The conventional approach is to screen larf;e numbers of molecules for signs of relative biological effect,and then weed out the useless partin a series of more and more expensive tests and trials,in the hope of coming up with a golden nugget at the end.This way of doing things is,however,declining in productivity and rising in cost.

The phrase"plying their various trades"（Line 3,Para.1）most probably means_____

For months Twitter.the micro-blogging service,has received the kind of free attention of which most companies can only dream.Politicians,corporate bosses,activists and citizens l the plat-form to calch every tweet of America's new president,who has become the service's 2."The whole world is watching Twitter,"3 Jack Dorsey,the company's chief executive,4 he presented its results on February 9th.He has litde else to brag about.But Donald Trump has not provided the kind of boost the 5 firm really needs.It reported 6 revenue growth and a loss of$167m.User growth has been sluggish,too:it added just 2m users in that period.Facebook added 72m.The day of the results,shares in Twitter dropped by 12qo.7 news oudeLs around the world already report 8 Mr Trump's most sensationaJ tweets,many do not feel compelled to join the platform t0 9 them.OLhers are 10 by mobs of trolls and large amounts of misinformation.And not 11 Mr Trvmp could change the cold,hard truth about Twitter:that it can never be Facebook.True,it has become one of the most important 12 for public and political 13 among its 319m monthly users.It played an important role in the Arab spring and 14 such as Black Lives MaUer.BuL the platform's freewheeling nature makes it hard to spin gold from.15,really trying to do so-by packing Twitter feeds 16 advertising,say-would drive away users.Twitter's latest results are likely to encourage those who think it should never have become a 17 listed company,and want it to consider alternate models of ownership,such as a co-operative.They 18 Twitter as a kind of public utility-a"people's platform"-the management of which should concem public 19 rather more than commercial ones.If the company were coop-eratively owned by users,it would be 20 from short-term pressure to please its investors and meet earrungs targets.18选？

Text 1 What has been described as the largest ever ransomware attack-a cyber criminal scheme that locks up computer files until vicLims pay a ransom-holds the paradoxical disLinction of being both an outrageous success（in terms of its blast radius）as well as an abject failure（in terms of its h8ul）.The malicious software spread so far and wide,jammed up so many IT networks and generated so much panic and chaos that the wronE;doers effectively undid themselves.On May 12,the world awoke to the beginnings of hundreds of thousands of old Microsoft Win-dows based computers'seizing up as Lhey subjected to a malicious software,appropriately called WannaCry.Within hours,the digital epidemic circled the globe like the Spanish flu,infecting ma-chines running outdated operating systems in some 150 countries,spreading across numerous homes and corporate networks.The attack,which relied on powerful tools believed to have been developed by the NSA and leaked online in April by a group of hackers known as the Shadow Brokers,wormed its way through businesses,hospitals and govemments,all of which found themselves suddenly locked out of their own systems.Researchers detected the wave quickly,and it wasn't long before they picked up on the criminals'self-defeating mistakes.The attackers failed to assign each victim a separate Bitcoin wallet,researchers noted,a criiical error that meant they would not be able to easily Lrack ransom pay-ments.They neglected to automate the money collection in a way that would scale.And then there was the matter of the kill switch.No one is quite certain why the attackers coded a self-destruct burton into their software,yet that's precisely what they did,Marcus Hutchins,a 22-year-old security researcher based in England who goes by MalwareTech,stumbled on the power plug largely by accident.After taking lunch on that Friday aftemoon,he inspected the malware and noticed a specific web address encoded within.Curious,he registered the domain for less than$11.This simple aci stopped the malware,killing the virus'ability to spread and buying Lime for organizations to upgrade their software and deploy protections.

According to Paragraph 2,which of the following is true about WannaCry?

For months Twitter.the micro-blogging service,has received the kind of free attention of which most companies can only dream.Politicians,corporate bosses,activists and citizens l the plat-form to calch every tweet of America's new president,who has become the service's 2."The whole world is watching Twitter,"3 Jack Dorsey,the company's chief executive,4 he presented its results on February 9th.He has litde else to brag about.But Donald Trump has not provided the kind of boost the 5 firm really needs.It reported 6 revenue growth and a loss of$167m.User growth has been sluggish,too:it added just 2m users in that period.Facebook added 72m.The day of the results,shares in Twitter dropped by 12qo.7 news oudeLs around the world already report 8 Mr Trump's most sensationaJ tweets,many do not feel compelled to join the platform t0 9 them.OLhers are 10 by mobs of trolls and large amounts of misinformation.And not 11 Mr Trvmp could change the cold,hard truth about Twitter:that it can never be Facebook.True,it has become one of the most important 12 for public and political 13 among its 319m monthly users.It played an important role in the Arab spring and 14 such as Black Lives MaUer.BuL the platform's freewheeling nature makes it hard to spin gold from.15,really trying to do so-by packing Twitter feeds 16 advertising,say-would drive away users.Twitter's latest results are likely to encourage those who think it should never have become a 17 listed company,and want it to consider alternate models of ownership,such as a co-operative.They 18 Twitter as a kind of public utility-a"people's platform"-the management of which should concem public 19 rather more than commercial ones.If the company were coop-eratively owned by users,it would be 20 from short-term pressure to please its investors and meet earrungs targets.17选？

For months Twitter.the micro-blogging service,has received the kind of free attention of which most companies can only dream.Politicians,corporate bosses,activists and citizens l the plat-form to calch every tweet of America's new president,who has become the service's 2."The whole world is watching Twitter,"3 Jack Dorsey,the company's chief executive,4 he presented its results on February 9th.He has litde else to brag about.But Donald Trump has not provided the kind of boost the 5 firm really needs.It reported 6 revenue growth and a loss of$167m.User growth has been sluggish,too:it added just 2m users in that period.Facebook added 72m.The day of the results,shares in Twitter dropped by 12qo.7 news oudeLs around the world already report 8 Mr Trump's most sensationaJ tweets,many do not feel compelled to join the platform t0 9 them.OLhers are 10 by mobs of trolls and large amounts of misinformation.And not 11 Mr Trvmp could change the cold,hard truth about Twitter:that it can never be Facebook.True,it has become one of the most important 12 for public and political 13 among its 319m monthly users.It played an important role in the Arab spring and 14 such as Black Lives MaUer.BuL the platform's freewheeling nature makes it hard to spin gold from.15,really trying to do so-by packing Twitter feeds 16 advertising,say-would drive away users.Twitter's latest results are likely to encourage those who think it should never have become a 17 listed company,and want it to consider alternate models of ownership,such as a co-operative.They 18 Twitter as a kind of public utility-a"people's platform"-the management of which should concem public 19 rather more than commercial ones.If the company were coop-eratively owned by users,it would be 20 from short-term pressure to please its investors and meet earrungs targets.16选？

Text 1 What has been described as the largest ever ransomware attack-a cyber criminal scheme that locks up computer files until vicLims pay a ransom-holds the paradoxical disLinction of being both an outrageous success（in terms of its blast radius）as well as an abject failure（in terms of its h8ul）.The malicious software spread so far and wide,jammed up so many IT networks and generated so much panic and chaos that the wronE;doers effectively undid themselves.On May 12,the world awoke to the beginnings of hundreds of thousands of old Microsoft Win-dows based computers'seizing up as Lhey subjected to a malicious software,appropriately called WannaCry.Within hours,the digital epidemic circled the globe like the Spanish flu,infecting ma-chines running outdated operating systems in some 150 countries,spreading across numerous homes and corporate networks.The attack,which relied on powerful tools believed to have been developed by the NSA and leaked online in April by a group of hackers known as the Shadow Brokers,wormed its way through businesses,hospitals and govemments,all of which found themselves suddenly locked out of their own systems.Researchers detected the wave quickly,and it wasn't long before they picked up on the criminals'self-defeating mistakes.The attackers failed to assign each victim a separate Bitcoin wallet,researchers noted,a criiical error that meant they would not be able to easily Lrack ransom pay-ments.They neglected to automate the money collection in a way that would scale.And then there was the matter of the kill switch.No one is quite certain why the attackers coded a self-destruct burton into their software,yet that's precisely what they did,Marcus Hutchins,a 22-year-old security researcher based in England who goes by MalwareTech,stumbled on the power plug largely by accident.After taking lunch on that Friday aftemoon,he inspected the malware and noticed a specific web address encoded within.Curious,he registered the domain for less than$11.This simple aci stopped the malware,killing the virus'ability to spread and buying Lime for organizations to upgrade their software and deploy protections.

The most suitable title for the text is_____

Text 1 What has been described as the largest ever ransomware attack-a cyber criminal scheme that locks up computer files until vicLims pay a ransom-holds the paradoxical disLinction of being both an outrageous success（in terms of its blast radius）as well as an abject failure（in terms of its h8ul）.The malicious software spread so far and wide,jammed up so many IT networks and generated so much panic and chaos that the wronE;doers effectively undid themselves.On May 12,the world awoke to the beginnings of hundreds of thousands of old Microsoft Win-dows based computers'seizing up as Lhey subjected to a malicious software,appropriately called WannaCry.Within hours,the digital epidemic circled the globe like the Spanish flu,infecting ma-chines running outdated operating systems in some 150 countries,spreading across numerous homes and corporate networks.The attack,which relied on powerful tools believed to have been developed by the NSA and leaked online in April by a group of hackers known as the Shadow Brokers,wormed its way through businesses,hospitals and govemments,all of which found themselves suddenly locked out of their own systems.Researchers detected the wave quickly,and it wasn't long before they picked up on the criminals'self-defeating mistakes.The attackers failed to assign each victim a separate Bitcoin wallet,researchers noted,a criiical error that meant they would not be able to easily Lrack ransom pay-ments.They neglected to automate the money collection in a way that would scale.And then there was the matter of the kill switch.No one is quite certain why the attackers coded a self-destruct burton into their software,yet that's precisely what they did,Marcus Hutchins,a 22-year-old security researcher based in England who goes by MalwareTech,stumbled on the power plug largely by accident.After taking lunch on that Friday aftemoon,he inspected the malware and noticed a specific web address encoded within.Curious,he registered the domain for less than$11.This simple aci stopped the malware,killing the virus'ability to spread and buying Lime for organizations to upgrade their software and deploy protections.

Researchers held that the attack was____

Text 1 What has been described as the largest ever ransomware attack-a cyber criminal scheme that locks up computer files until vicLims pay a ransom-holds the paradoxical disLinction of being both an outrageous success（in terms of its blast radius）as well as an abject failure（in terms of its h8ul）.The malicious software spread so far and wide,jammed up so many IT networks and generated so much panic and chaos that the wronE;doers effectively undid themselves.On May 12,the world awoke to the beginnings of hundreds of thousands of old Microsoft Win-dows based computers'seizing up as Lhey subjected to a malicious software,appropriately called WannaCry.Within hours,the digital epidemic circled the globe like the Spanish flu,infecting ma-chines running outdated operating systems in some 150 countries,spreading across numerous homes and corporate networks.The attack,which relied on powerful tools believed to have been developed by the NSA and leaked online in April by a group of hackers known as the Shadow Brokers,wormed its way through businesses,hospitals and govemments,all of which found themselves suddenly locked out of their own systems.Researchers detected the wave quickly,and it wasn't long before they picked up on the criminals'self-defeating mistakes.The attackers failed to assign each victim a separate Bitcoin wallet,researchers noted,a criiical error that meant they would not be able to easily Lrack ransom pay-ments.They neglected to automate the money collection in a way that would scale.And then there was the matter of the kill switch.No one is quite certain why the attackers coded a self-destruct burton into their software,yet that's precisely what they did,Marcus Hutchins,a 22-year-old security researcher based in England who goes by MalwareTech,stumbled on the power plug largely by accident.After taking lunch on that Friday aftemoon,he inspected the malware and noticed a specific web address encoded within.Curious,he registered the domain for less than$11.This simple aci stopped the malware,killing the virus'ability to spread and buying Lime for organizations to upgrade their software and deploy protections.

Marcus Hutchins prevented the malware from spreading by____

For months Twitter.the micro-blogging service,has received the kind of free attention of which most companies can only dream.Politicians,corporate bosses,activists and citizens l the plat-form to calch every tweet of America's new president,who has become the service's 2."The whole world is watching Twitter,"3 Jack Dorsey,the company's chief executive,4 he presented its results on February 9th.He has litde else to brag about.But Donald Trump has not provided the kind of boost the 5 firm really needs.It reported 6 revenue growth and a loss of$167m.User growth has been sluggish,too:it added just 2m users in that period.Facebook added 72m.The day of the results,shares in Twitter dropped by 12qo.7 news oudeLs around the world already report 8 Mr Trump's most sensationaJ tweets,many do not feel compelled to join the platform t0 9 them.OLhers are 10 by mobs of trolls and large amounts of misinformation.And not 11 Mr Trvmp could change the cold,hard truth about Twitter:that it can never be Facebook.True,it has become one of the most important 12 for public and political 13 among its 319m monthly users.It played an important role in the Arab spring and 14 such as Black Lives MaUer.BuL the platform's freewheeling nature makes it hard to spin gold from.15,really trying to do so-by packing Twitter feeds 16 advertising,say-would drive away users.Twitter's latest results are likely to encourage those who think it should never have become a 17 listed company,and want it to consider alternate models of ownership,such as a co-operative.They 18 Twitter as a kind of public utility-a"people's platform"-the management of which should concem public 19 rather more than commercial ones.If the company were coop-eratively owned by users,it would be 20 from short-term pressure to please its investors and meet earrungs targets.20选？

For months Twitter.the micro-blogging service,has received the kind of free attention of which most companies can only dream.Politicians,corporate bosses,activists and citizens l the plat-form to calch every tweet of America's new president,who has become the service's 2."The whole world is watching Twitter,"3 Jack Dorsey,the company's chief executive,4 he presented its results on February 9th.He has litde else to brag about.But Donald Trump has not provided the kind of boost the 5 firm really needs.It reported 6 revenue growth and a loss of$167m.User growth has been sluggish,too:it added just 2m users in that period.Facebook added 72m.The day of the results,shares in Twitter dropped by 12qo.7 news oudeLs around the world already report 8 Mr Trump's most sensationaJ tweets,many do not feel compelled to join the platform t0 9 them.OLhers are 10 by mobs of trolls and large amounts of misinformation.And not 11 Mr Trvmp could change the cold,hard truth about Twitter:that it can never be Facebook.True,it has become one of the most important 12 for public and political 13 among its 319m monthly users.It played an important role in the Arab spring and 14 such as Black Lives MaUer.BuL the platform's freewheeling nature makes it hard to spin gold from.15,really trying to do so-by packing Twitter feeds 16 advertising,say-would drive away users.Twitter's latest results are likely to encourage those who think it should never have become a 17 listed company,and want it to consider alternate models of ownership,such as a co-operative.They 18 Twitter as a kind of public utility-a"people's platform"-the management of which should concem public 19 rather more than commercial ones.If the company were coop-eratively owned by users,it would be 20 from short-term pressure to please its investors and meet earrungs targets.19选？

Text 1 What has been described as the largest ever ransomware attack-a cyber criminal scheme that locks up computer files until vicLims pay a ransom-holds the paradoxical disLinction of being both an outrageous success（in terms of its blast radius）as well as an abject failure（in terms of its h8ul）.The malicious software spread so far and wide,jammed up so many IT networks and generated so much panic and chaos that the wronE;doers effectively undid themselves.On May 12,the world awoke to the beginnings of hundreds of thousands of old Microsoft Win-dows based computers'seizing up as Lhey subjected to a malicious software,appropriately called WannaCry.Within hours,the digital epidemic circled the globe like the Spanish flu,infecting ma-chines running outdated operating systems in some 150 countries,spreading across numerous homes and corporate networks.The attack,which relied on powerful tools believed to have been developed by the NSA and leaked online in April by a group of hackers known as the Shadow Brokers,wormed its way through businesses,hospitals and govemments,all of which found themselves suddenly locked out of their own systems.Researchers detected the wave quickly,and it wasn't long before they picked up on the criminals'self-defeating mistakes.The attackers failed to assign each victim a separate Bitcoin wallet,researchers noted,a criiical error that meant they would not be able to easily Lrack ransom pay-ments.They neglected to automate the money collection in a way that would scale.And then there was the matter of the kill switch.No one is quite certain why the attackers coded a self-destruct burton into their software,yet that's precisely what they did,Marcus Hutchins,a 22-year-old security researcher based in England who goes by MalwareTech,stumbled on the power plug largely by accident.After taking lunch on that Friday aftemoon,he inspected the malware and noticed a specific web address encoded within.Curious,he registered the domain for less than$11.This simple aci stopped the malware,killing the virus'ability to spread and buying Lime for organizations to upgrade their software and deploy protections.

The ransomware attack has been considered a victory because it____

Text 2 In a former leather factory just off Euston Road in London,a hopeful firm is starting up.BenevolentAI's main room is large and open-plan.In it,scientists and coders sit busily on benches,plyinS their various trades.I\e firm's star,though,has a private,temperature.controlled office.Thal star is a powerful computer that runs the software which sits at the heart of BenevolentAl's business.This software is an artificial-intelligence system.AI,as it is known for short,comes in several forms.But BenevolentAI's version of it is a form of machine learning that can draw inferences about wh8t it has leamed.In particular,it can process natural language and formulate new ideas from what it reads.Its job is to sift through vast chemical libraries,medical databases and conventionally presented scientific papers,looking for potential drug molecules.Nor is BenevolentAI a one-off.More and more people and firms believe that AI is well placed to help unpick biology and advance human health.Indeed,as Chris Bishop of Microsoft Research,in Cambridge,England,observes,one way of thinking aboui living organisms is to recognize that they are,in essence.complex systems which process informalion using a combination of hardware and software.That thought has consequences.Whether it is the new Chan Zuckerberg Initiative（CZI）,from the founder of Facebook and his wife,or the biological subsidiaries being set up by firms such as Alphabet（Google's parent company）,IBM and Microsofi,the new Big Idea in Silicon Valley is that in the worlds of biology and disease there are problems its software engineers can solve.The discovery of new drugs is an early test of the belief that AI has much to offer biology and medicine.Pharmaceutical companies are finding il increasingly difficult lo make headway in their search for novel products.The conventional approach is to screen larf;e numbers of molecules for signs of relative biological effect,and then weed out the useless partin a series of more and more expensive tests and trials,in the hope of coming up with a golden nugget at the end.This way of doing things is,however,declining in productivity and rising in cost.

According to Paragraph 2,BenevolentAI's version of Al can_____

Text 2 In a former leather factory just off Euston Road in London,a hopeful firm is starting up.BenevolentAI's main room is large and open-plan.In it,scientists and coders sit busily on benches,plyinS their various trades.I\e firm's star,though,has a private,temperature.controlled office.Thal star is a powerful computer that runs the software which sits at the heart of BenevolentAl's business.This software is an artificial-intelligence system.AI,as it is known for short,comes in several forms.But BenevolentAI's version of it is a form of machine learning that can draw inferences about wh8t it has leamed.In particular,it can process natural language and formulate new ideas from what it reads.Its job is to sift through vast chemical libraries,medical databases and conventionally presented scientific papers,looking for potential drug molecules.Nor is BenevolentAI a one-off.More and more people and firms believe that AI is well placed to help unpick biology and advance human health.Indeed,as Chris Bishop of Microsoft Research,in Cambridge,England,observes,one way of thinking aboui living organisms is to recognize that they are,in essence.complex systems which process informalion using a combination of hardware and software.That thought has consequences.Whether it is the new Chan Zuckerberg Initiative（CZI）,from the founder of Facebook and his wife,or the biological subsidiaries being set up by firms such as Alphabet（Google's parent company）,IBM and Microsofi,the new Big Idea in Silicon Valley is that in the worlds of biology and disease there are problems its software engineers can solve.The discovery of new drugs is an early test of the belief that AI has much to offer biology and medicine.Pharmaceutical companies are finding il increasingly difficult lo make headway in their search for novel products.The conventional approach is to screen larf;e numbers of molecules for signs of relative biological effect,and then weed out the useless partin a series of more and more expensive tests and trials,in the hope of coming up with a golden nugget at the end.This way of doing things is,however,declining in productivity and rising in cost.

A growing number of companies believe that AI can be used to____

Text 2 In a former leather factory just off Euston Road in London,a hopeful firm is starting up.BenevolentAI's main room is large and open-plan.In it,scientists and coders sit busily on benches,plyinS their various trades.I\e firm's star,though,has a private,temperature.controlled office.Thal star is a powerful computer that runs the software which sits at the heart of BenevolentAl's business.This software is an artificial-intelligence system.AI,as it is known for short,comes in several forms.But BenevolentAI's version of it is a form of machine learning that can draw inferences about wh8t it has leamed.In particular,it can process natural language and formulate new ideas from what it reads.Its job is to sift through vast chemical libraries,medical databases and conventionally presented scientific papers,looking for potential drug molecules.Nor is BenevolentAI a one-off.More and more people and firms believe that AI is well placed to help unpick biology and advance human health.Indeed,as Chris Bishop of Microsoft Research,in Cambridge,England,observes,one way of thinking aboui living organisms is to recognize that they are,in essence.complex systems which process informalion using a combination of hardware and software.That thought has consequences.Whether it is the new Chan Zuckerberg Initiative（CZI）,from the founder of Facebook and his wife,or the biological subsidiaries being set up by firms such as Alphabet（Google's parent company）,IBM and Microsofi,the new Big Idea in Silicon Valley is that in the worlds of biology and disease there are problems its software engineers can solve.The discovery of new drugs is an early test of the belief that AI has much to offer biology and medicine.Pharmaceutical companies are finding il increasingly difficult lo make headway in their search for novel products.The conventional approach is to screen larf;e numbers of molecules for signs of relative biological effect,and then weed out the useless partin a series of more and more expensive tests and trials,in the hope of coming up with a golden nugget at the end.This way of doing things is,however,declining in productivity and rising in cost.

The traditional way to find new drugs can be characterized by being____.

Text 2 In a former leather factory just off Euston Road in London,a hopeful firm is starting up.BenevolentAI's main room is large and open-plan.In it,scientists and coders sit busily on benches,plyinS their various trades.I\e firm's star,though,has a private,temperature.controlled office.Thal star is a powerful computer that runs the software which sits at the heart of BenevolentAl's business.This software is an artificial-intelligence system.AI,as it is known for short,comes in several forms.But BenevolentAI's version of it is a form of machine learning that can draw inferences about wh8t it has leamed.In particular,it can process natural language and formulate new ideas from what it reads.Its job is to sift through vast chemical libraries,medical databases and conventionally presented scientific papers,looking for potential drug molecules.Nor is BenevolentAI a one-off.More and more people and firms believe that AI is well placed to help unpick biology and advance human health.Indeed,as Chris Bishop of Microsoft Research,in Cambridge,England,observes,one way of thinking aboui living organisms is to recognize that they are,in essence.complex systems which process informalion using a combination of hardware and software.That thought has consequences.Whether it is the new Chan Zuckerberg Initiative（CZI）,from the founder of Facebook and his wife,or the biological subsidiaries being set up by firms such as Alphabet（Google's parent company）,IBM and Microsofi,the new Big Idea in Silicon Valley is that in the worlds of biology and disease there are problems its software engineers can solve.The discovery of new drugs is an early test of the belief that AI has much to offer biology and medicine.Pharmaceutical companies are finding il increasingly difficult lo make headway in their search for novel products.The conventional approach is to screen larf;e numbers of molecules for signs of relative biological effect,and then weed out the useless partin a series of more and more expensive tests and trials,in the hope of coming up with a golden nugget at the end.This way of doing things is,however,declining in productivity and rising in cost.

According to the lasc paragraph,which of the following is true?

Text 3 When education fails to keep pace with technology,the result is inequality.Without the skills to stay useful as innovations arrive,workers suffer-and if enough of them fall belund,society starts to fall apart.That fundamental insight seized reformers in the IndusLrial Revolution,promoting state-funded universal schooling.Later,automation in factories and offices called forth a surge in coUege graduates.The combination of education and innovation,spread over decades,led to a remarkable flowering of prosperity.Today robotics and artificial intelligence call for another education revolution.This time,how-ever,working lives are so lengthy and so fast-chanf;ing that simply cramming more schooling in at the start is not enough.People must also be able to acquire new skills throughout their careers.Unfortunately,as our special report in Lhis issue sets out,the lifelong learning that exists today mainly benefits high achievers and is therefore more likely to aggravate inequality than diminish it.If 21st-century economies are not to create a massive underclass,policymakers urgently need to work out how to help all their citizens leam while they earn.So far,their ambition has fallen pitifully short.The classic model of education-a burst aL the start and top-ups through company training-is breaking down.One reason is the need for new,and constantly updated,skdls.Manufacturing in~creasingly calls for brain work raLher than physical work.The share of the American workforce employed in routine office jobs declined from 25.5%t0 21%between 1996 and 2015.The single,stable career has gone the way of the Rolodex.Pushinf;people into ever-hit;her levels of formal education at the start of their lives is not the way to cope.Just 16qo of Americans think that a four-year college degree prepares students very well for a good job.Although a vocational education promises that vital first hire,those with specialtized training tend to withdraw from the labour force earlier than山ose with general educaUon-perhaps because they are less adaptable.At the same time on-the-job training is shrinking.In Amenca and Britain it has fallen by roughly half in the past two decades.Self-employment is spreading,leaving more people to take responsi-bility for their own skills.Taking time out later in life to pursue a formal qualirication is an option,but it costs money and most coUeges are geared towards youngsters.

The traditional educational pattem becomes outdated because_____

Text 4 The Big Mac index is built on the idea of purchasing-power parity,the theory that in the long run currencies will converge until the same amount of money buys the same amount of goods and services in every country.A Big Mac cunently costs$5.06 in America but just 10.75 lira（$2.75）in Turkey,implying that the lira is undenalued.However,ot:her currencies are even cheaper.In Big Mac tenns,the Mexican peso is underval-ued by 55.9%against the greenback.Last week it also hit a record low as Mr Trump restated some of his campaign threats against Mexico.The peso has lost a tenth of iLs value against the dollar since November.Of big countries,only Russia offers a cheaper Big Mac,in dollar terms,even though the rouble has strengthened over the past year.The euro zone is also prey to political uncerLainty.Elections are scheduled this year in the Netherlands,France and Germany,and possible in Italy.The euro recently fell to its lowest level since 2003.Britain's Brexit vote has had an even bigger effect on the pound,which has fallen to$1.21,a 31-year low.According to the Big Mac index,the euro and the pound are undervalued against the dollar by 19.7%and 26.3%,respectively.One of the drawbacks of the Big Mac index is that it takes no account of labour costs.It should surprise no one that a Big Mac costs less in Shanghai than it does in San Francisco,since Chinese workers eam far less than their American counterparts.So in a slightly more sophisticated version of the Big Mac index,we take account of a country's average income.Hisiorically,this adjustment has tended to raise currencies'valuations against the dollar,so emerging-market currencies tend to look more reasonably priced.The Chinese yuan,for example,is 44%undervalued against the doUar according to our baseline Big Mac index,but only 7%according to the adjusted one.The deluxe Big Mac index has typically made rich-world currencies look more expensive.Because western Europeans have higher costs of Iiving and lower incomes than Americans,the euro has traded at around a 25%premium against the dollar in income-adjusted burger terms since Lhe euro's inception.But what once seemed to be a constant truth of burgemomics is true no longer.So strong is the dollar Lhat even the adjusted Big Mac index finds the euro undenalued.The dollar is now Uading at a 14-year high in trade-weighted terms.Emerging-world economies may struggle to pay off dollar denominated debts.American firms may find themselves at a disadvantage agzunst foreign competition.And American tourists will get more burgers for their buck in Europe.According to Paragraph 2,the value of currency may be influenced by_____

Text 4 The Big Mac index is built on the idea of purchasing-power parity,the theory that in the long run currencies will converge until the same amount of money buys the same amount of goods and services in every country.A Big Mac cunently costs$5.06 in America but just 10.75 lira（$2.75）in Turkey,implying that the lira is undenalued.However,ot:her currencies are even cheaper.In Big Mac tenns,the Mexican peso is underval-ued by 55.9%against the greenback.Last week it also hit a record low as Mr Trump restated some of his campaign threats against Mexico.The peso has lost a tenth of iLs value against the dollar since November.Of big countries,only Russia offers a cheaper Big Mac,in dollar terms,even though the rouble has strengthened over the past year.The euro zone is also prey to political uncerLainty.Elections are scheduled this year in the Netherlands,France and Germany,and possible in Italy.The euro recently fell to its lowest level since 2003.Britain's Brexit vote has had an even bigger effect on the pound,which has fallen to$1.21,a 31-year low.According to the Big Mac index,the euro and the pound are undervalued against the dollar by 19.7%and 26.3%,respectively.One of the drawbacks of the Big Mac index is that it takes no account of labour costs.It should surprise no one that a Big Mac costs less in Shanghai than it does in San Francisco,since Chinese workers eam far less than their American counterparts.So in a slightly more sophisticated version of the Big Mac index,we take account of a country's average income.Hisiorically,this adjustment has tended to raise currencies'valuations against the dollar,so emerging-market currencies tend to look more reasonably priced.The Chinese yuan,for example,is 44%undervalued against the doUar according to our baseline Big Mac index,but only 7%according to the adjusted one.The deluxe Big Mac index has typically made rich-world currencies look more expensive.Because western Europeans have higher costs of Iiving and lower incomes than Americans,the euro has traded at around a 25%premium against the dollar in income-adjusted burger terms since Lhe euro's inception.But what once seemed to be a constant truth of burgemomics is true no longer.So strong is the dollar Lhat even the adjusted Big Mac index finds the euro undenalued.The dollar is now Uading at a 14-year high in trade-weighted terms.Emerging-world economies may struggle to pay off dollar denominated debts.American firms may find themselves at a disadvantage agzunst foreign competition.And American tourists will get more burgers for their buck in Europe.Turkish lira is mentioned to show that______.

Text 3 When education fails to keep pace with technology,the result is inequality.Without the skills to stay useful as innovations arrive,workers suffer-and if enough of them fall belund,society starts to fall apart.That fundamental insight seized reformers in the IndusLrial Revolution,promoting state-funded universal schooling.Later,automation in factories and offices called forth a surge in coUege graduates.The combination of education and innovation,spread over decades,led to a remarkable flowering of prosperity.Today robotics and artificial intelligence call for another education revolution.This time,how-ever,working lives are so lengthy and so fast-chanf;ing that simply cramming more schooling in at the start is not enough.People must also be able to acquire new skills throughout their careers.Unfortunately,as our special report in Lhis issue sets out,the lifelong learning that exists today mainly benefits high achievers and is therefore more likely to aggravate inequality than diminish it.If 21st-century economies are not to create a massive underclass,policymakers urgently need to work out how to help all their citizens leam while they earn.So far,their ambition has fallen pitifully short.The classic model of education-a burst aL the start and top-ups through company training-is breaking down.One reason is the need for new,and constantly updated,skdls.Manufacturing in~creasingly calls for brain work raLher than physical work.The share of the American workforce employed in routine office jobs declined from 25.5%t0 21%between 1996 and 2015.The single,stable career has gone the way of the Rolodex.Pushinf;people into ever-hit;her levels of formal education at the start of their lives is not the way to cope.Just 16qo of Americans think that a four-year college degree prepares students very well for a good job.Although a vocational education promises that vital first hire,those with specialtized training tend to withdraw from the labour force earlier than山ose with general educaUon-perhaps because they are less adaptable.At the same time on-the-job training is shrinking.In Amenca and Britain it has fallen by roughly half in the past two decades.Self-employment is spreading,leaving more people to take responsi-bility for their own skills.Taking time out later in life to pursue a formal qualirication is an option,but it costs money and most coUeges are geared towards youngsters.

The author believes that in face of education revolution,workers need_____

Text 3 When education fails to keep pace with technology,the result is inequality.Without the skills to stay useful as innovations arrive,workers suffer-and if enough of them fall belund,society starts to fall apart.That fundamental insight seized reformers in the IndusLrial Revolution,promoting state-funded universal schooling.Later,automation in factories and offices called forth a surge in coUege graduates.The combination of education and innovation,spread over decades,led to a remarkable flowering of prosperity.Today robotics and artificial intelligence call for another education revolution.This time,how-ever,working lives are so lengthy and so fast-chanf;ing that simply cramming more schooling in at the start is not enough.People must also be able to acquire new skills throughout their careers.Unfortunately,as our special report in Lhis issue sets out,the lifelong learning that exists today mainly benefits high achievers and is therefore more likely to aggravate inequality than diminish it.If 21st-century economies are not to create a massive underclass,policymakers urgently need to work out how to help all their citizens leam while they earn.So far,their ambition has fallen pitifully short.The classic model of education-a burst aL the start and top-ups through company training-is breaking down.One reason is the need for new,and constantly updated,skdls.Manufacturing in~creasingly calls for brain work raLher than physical work.The share of the American workforce employed in routine office jobs declined from 25.5%t0 21%between 1996 and 2015.The single,stable career has gone the way of the Rolodex.Pushinf;people into ever-hit;her levels of formal education at the start of their lives is not the way to cope.Just 16qo of Americans think that a four-year college degree prepares students very well for a good job.Although a vocational education promises that vital first hire,those with specialtized training tend to withdraw from the labour force earlier than山ose with general educaUon-perhaps because they are less adaptable.At the same time on-the-job training is shrinking.In Amenca and Britain it has fallen by roughly half in the past two decades.Self-employment is spreading,leaving more people to take responsi-bility for their own skills.Taking time out later in life to pursue a formal qualirication is an option,but it costs money and most coUeges are geared towards youngsters.

According to Paragraph 3,today's lifelong learning can______

Text 3 When education fails to keep pace with technology,the result is inequality.Without the skills to stay useful as innovations arrive,workers suffer-and if enough of them fall belund,society starts to fall apart.That fundamental insight seized reformers in the IndusLrial Revolution,promoting state-funded universal schooling.Later,automation in factories and offices called forth a surge in coUege graduates.The combination of education and innovation,spread over decades,led to a remarkable flowering of prosperity.Today robotics and artificial intelligence call for another education revolution.This time,how-ever,working lives are so lengthy and so fast-chanf;ing that simply cramming more schooling in at the start is not enough.People must also be able to acquire new skills throughout their careers.Unfortunately,as our special report in Lhis issue sets out,the lifelong learning that exists today mainly benefits high achievers and is therefore more likely to aggravate inequality than diminish it.If 21st-century economies are not to create a massive underclass,policymakers urgently need to work out how to help all their citizens leam while they earn.So far,their ambition has fallen pitifully short.The classic model of education-a burst aL the start and top-ups through company training-is breaking down.One reason is the need for new,and constantly updated,skdls.Manufacturing in~creasingly calls for brain work raLher than physical work.The share of the American workforce employed in routine office jobs declined from 25.5%t0 21%between 1996 and 2015.The single,stable career has gone the way of the Rolodex.Pushinf;people into ever-hit;her levels of formal education at the start of their lives is not the way to cope.Just 16qo of Americans think that a four-year college degree prepares students very well for a good job.Although a vocational education promises that vital first hire,those with specialtized training tend to withdraw from the labour force earlier than山ose with general educaUon-perhaps because they are less adaptable.At the same time on-the-job training is shrinking.In Amenca and Britain it has fallen by roughly half in the past two decades.Self-employment is spreading,leaving more people to take responsi-bility for their own skills.Taking time out later in life to pursue a formal qualirication is an option,but it costs money and most coUeges are geared towards youngsters.

We can infer from Paragraph I that_____

Text 3 When education fails to keep pace with technology,the result is inequality.Without the skills to stay useful as innovations arrive,workers suffer-and if enough of them fall belund,society starts to fall apart.That fundamental insight seized reformers in the IndusLrial Revolution,promoting state-funded universal schooling.Later,automation in factories and offices called forth a surge in coUege graduates.The combination of education and innovation,spread over decades,led to a remarkable flowering of prosperity.Today robotics and artificial intelligence call for another education revolution.This time,how-ever,working lives are so lengthy and so fast-chanf;ing that simply cramming more schooling in at the start is not enough.People must also be able to acquire new skills throughout their careers.Unfortunately,as our special report in Lhis issue sets out,the lifelong learning that exists today mainly benefits high achievers and is therefore more likely to aggravate inequality than diminish it.If 21st-century economies are not to create a massive underclass,policymakers urgently need to work out how to help all their citizens leam while they earn.So far,their ambition has fallen pitifully short.The classic model of education-a burst aL the start and top-ups through company training-is breaking down.One reason is the need for new,and constantly updated,skdls.Manufacturing in~creasingly calls for brain work raLher than physical work.The share of the American workforce employed in routine office jobs declined from 25.5%t0 21%between 1996 and 2015.The single,stable career has gone the way of the Rolodex.Pushinf;people into ever-hit;her levels of formal education at the start of their lives is not the way to cope.Just 16qo of Americans think that a four-year college degree prepares students very well for a good job.Although a vocational education promises that vital first hire,those with specialtized training tend to withdraw from the labour force earlier than山ose with general educaUon-perhaps because they are less adaptable.At the same time on-the-job training is shrinking.In Amenca and Britain it has fallen by roughly half in the past two decades.Self-employment is spreading,leaving more people to take responsi-bility for their own skills.Taking time out later in life to pursue a formal qualirication is an option,but it costs money and most coUeges are geared towards youngsters.

The author's attitude towards on-the-job training is____

Text 4 The Big Mac index is built on the idea of purchasing-power parity,the theory that in the long run currencies will converge until the same amount of money buys the same amount of goods and services in every country.A Big Mac cunently costs$5.06 in America but just 10.75 lira（$2.75）in Turkey,implying that the lira is undenalued.However,ot:her currencies are even cheaper.In Big Mac tenns,the Mexican peso is underval-ued by 55.9%against the greenback.Last week it also hit a record low as Mr Trump restated some of his campaign threats against Mexico.The peso has lost a tenth of iLs value against the dollar since November.Of big countries,only Russia offers a cheaper Big Mac,in dollar terms,even though the rouble has strengthened over the past year.The euro zone is also prey to political uncerLainty.Elections are scheduled this year in the Netherlands,France and Germany,and possible in Italy.The euro recently fell to its lowest level since 2003.Britain's Brexit vote has had an even bigger effect on the pound,which has fallen to$1.21,a 31-year low.According to the Big Mac index,the euro and the pound are undervalued against the dollar by 19.7%and 26.3%,respectively.One of the drawbacks of the Big Mac index is that it takes no account of labour costs.It should surprise no one that a Big Mac costs less in Shanghai than it does in San Francisco,since Chinese workers eam far less than their American counterparts.So in a slightly more sophisticated version of the Big Mac index,we take account of a country's average income.Hisiorically,this adjustment has tended to raise currencies'valuations against the dollar,so emerging-market currencies tend to look more reasonably priced.The Chinese yuan,for example,is 44%undervalued against the doUar according to our baseline Big Mac index,but only 7%according to the adjusted one.The deluxe Big Mac index has typically made rich-world currencies look more expensive.Because western Europeans have higher costs of Iiving and lower incomes than Americans,the euro has traded at around a 25%premium against the dollar in income-adjusted burger terms since Lhe euro's inception.But what once seemed to be a constant truth of burgemomics is true no longer.So strong is the dollar Lhat even the adjusted Big Mac index finds the euro undenalued.The dollar is now Uading at a 14-year high in trade-weighted terms.Emerging-world economies may struggle to pay off dollar denominated debts.American firms may find themselves at a disadvantage agzunst foreign competition.And American tourists will get more burgers for their buck in Europe.Which of the following is the best iitle for the text?

Text 4 The Big Mac index is built on the idea of purchasing-power parity,the theory that in the long run currencies will converge until the same amount of money buys the same amount of goods and services in every country.A Big Mac cunently costs$5.06 in America but just 10.75 lira（$2.75）in Turkey,implying that the lira is undenalued.However,ot:her currencies are even cheaper.In Big Mac tenns,the Mexican peso is underval-ued by 55.9%against the greenback.Last week it also hit a record low as Mr Trump restated some of his campaign threats against Mexico.The peso has lost a tenth of iLs value against the dollar since November.Of big countries,only Russia offers a cheaper Big Mac,in dollar terms,even though the rouble has strengthened over the past year.The euro zone is also prey to political uncerLainty.Elections are scheduled this year in the Netherlands,France and Germany,and possible in Italy.The euro recently fell to its lowest level since 2003.Britain's Brexit vote has had an even bigger effect on the pound,which has fallen to$1.21,a 31-year low.According to the Big Mac index,the euro and the pound are undervalued against the dollar by 19.7%and 26.3%,respectively.One of the drawbacks of the Big Mac index is that it takes no account of labour costs.It should surprise no one that a Big Mac costs less in Shanghai than it does in San Francisco,since Chinese workers eam far less than their American counterparts.So in a slightly more sophisticated version of the Big Mac index,we take account of a country's average income.Hisiorically,this adjustment has tended to raise currencies'valuations against the dollar,so emerging-market currencies tend to look more reasonably priced.The Chinese yuan,for example,is 44%undervalued against the doUar according to our baseline Big Mac index,but only 7%according to the adjusted one.The deluxe Big Mac index has typically made rich-world currencies look more expensive.Because western Europeans have higher costs of Iiving and lower incomes than Americans,the euro has traded at around a 25%premium against the dollar in income-adjusted burger terms since Lhe euro's inception.But what once seemed to be a constant truth of burgemomics is true no longer.So strong is the dollar Lhat even the adjusted Big Mac index finds the euro undenalued.The dollar is now Uading at a 14-year high in trade-weighted terms.Emerging-world economies may struggle to pay off dollar denominated debts.American firms may find themselves at a disadvantage agzunst foreign competition.And American tourists will get more burgers for their buck in Europe.American tourists in Europe may find that_______.

Text 4 The Big Mac index is built on the idea of purchasing-power parity,the theory that in the long run currencies will converge until the same amount of money buys the same amount of goods and services in every country.A Big Mac cunently costs$5.06 in America but just 10.75 lira（$2.75）in Turkey,implying that the lira is undenalued.However,ot:her currencies are even cheaper.In Big Mac tenns,the Mexican peso is underval-ued by 55.9%against the greenback.Last week it also hit a record low as Mr Trump restated some of his campaign threats against Mexico.The peso has lost a tenth of iLs value against the dollar since November.Of big countries,only Russia offers a cheaper Big Mac,in dollar terms,even though the rouble has strengthened over the past year.The euro zone is also prey to political uncerLainty.Elections are scheduled this year in the Netherlands,France and Germany,and possible in Italy.The euro recently fell to its lowest level since 2003.Britain's Brexit vote has had an even bigger effect on the pound,which has fallen to$1.21,a 31-year low.According to the Big Mac index,the euro and the pound are undervalued against the dollar by 19.7%and 26.3%,respectively.One of the drawbacks of the Big Mac index is that it takes no account of labour costs.It should surprise no one that a Big Mac costs less in Shanghai than it does in San Francisco,since Chinese workers eam far less than their American counterparts.So in a slightly more sophisticated version of the Big Mac index,we take account of a country's average income.Hisiorically,this adjustment has tended to raise currencies'valuations against the dollar,so emerging-market currencies tend to look more reasonably priced.The Chinese yuan,for example,is 44%undervalued against the doUar according to our baseline Big Mac index,but only 7%according to the adjusted one.The deluxe Big Mac index has typically made rich-world currencies look more expensive.Because western Europeans have higher costs of Iiving and lower incomes than Americans,the euro has traded at around a 25%premium against the dollar in income-adjusted burger terms since Lhe euro's inception.But what once seemed to be a constant truth of burgemomics is true no longer.So strong is the dollar Lhat even the adjusted Big Mac index finds the euro undenalued.The dollar is now Uading at a 14-year high in trade-weighted terms.Emerging-world economies may struggle to pay off dollar denominated debts.American firms may find themselves at a disadvantage agzunst foreign competition.And American tourists will get more burgers for their buck in Europe.We can leam from Paragraph 3 that______

Kentish Town Road is 8 humdrum high street in north London.It contains pawnbrokers,pound shops,hairdressers and some long-in-the-tooth hardware slores.Unlike Camden Town to the south,full of bars and tattoo parlours,or Hampstead to the west,with its bisLros and boutique clothing shops,little seems to have changed on the street for the past three decades."It's never quite got going,"admiLs Gary McLaren,a local bookseller.Yet the lack of change is odd-and hints at some of the strangeness of London.Kentish Town has excellent Lransport links to ceniral London,and plenty of residenLs prepared to pay good money for thai.Off the high street streich rows of pretty Victorian terraced houses,which sell for as much as 2m a piece.Between 2007 and 2014 property prices in the posLcode area surrounding the main Tube and railway station more than doubled.An influx of French parents,drawn by a school that opened in 2011,is pushing prices even higher.Yet Kentish Town's shops and cafes are almost invariably untrendy and in some cases mouldering.A hair salon,a butcher and a sportswear shop have each been owned by the same men for more than a quarter of a century.Why?One explanation is Lhat,in common with other parts of London,Kentish Town has lots of social housing as well as costly Viclorian terraces.Camden Council,the local authority,is building even more in the borough.This helps cheaper shops survive,suggests Tony Travers of the London School of Economics:council tenants are less likely to drive and so rely more on local outlets.And the sheer volume of car and lorry traffic on the busy high street,which is a main road into the city,might deter shoppers from visiting and swanky businesses from setting up in the area.Demography plays a part,too.Fully 72%of the population of Kentish Town is white,including a good number of Irish residents-higher than the proportion in London as 8 whole,at 60%.Unlike the high streets around Peckham and Brixton in south London,which cater for African shoppers who may travel far to reach them,few specialist shops draw people to Kentish Town."We're not a destinaLion high street,"sighs one local trader.NIMBYs have not always helped.Lots of civic groups are active in the area,campaigning against late licences and the like,says Dan Camer of the Camden New Journal,a newspaper.A local business association is also good at complaining.Partly because of this,a big supermarket has not yet opened on the high street-though Lidl,a discounter,will seL up shop this year."We quite like that il is rough around the edges,"says Michael Williams,a writer and local.Paradoxically,soarinS;house prices in the area might be another brake on change.Wealthy family buyers mean that some houses once split into flats have been tumed back into homes,says Mr Carrier.The result is fewer shoppers on the high street.Wealthy residents are more likely to get their groceries online or drive to bigger stores.And most will go out to the West End rather than a local restaurant.Such"counter-currents"will prevent Kentish Town from gentrifying fully,suggests Gillian Tindall,a local historian.And they affect many other streets in London,too.Lupus Street in Pimlico serves a large council block on one side and white stucco houses on the other.Caledonian Road in Islington,close to rapidly-changing King's Cross,is still fuU of kebab shops.London is a global city,but it is also a collection of villages,cranky and resistant to change.

Gary McLaren admits that

Kentish Town Road is 8 humdrum high street in north London.It contains pawnbrokers,pound shops,hairdressers and some long-in-the-tooth hardware slores.Unlike Camden Town to the south,full of bars and tattoo parlours,or Hampstead to the west,with its bisLros and boutique clothing shops,little seems to have changed on the street for the past three decades."It's never quite got going,"admiLs Gary McLaren,a local bookseller.Yet the lack of change is odd-and hints at some of the strangeness of London.Kentish Town has excellent Lransport links to ceniral London,and plenty of residenLs prepared to pay good money for thai.Off the high street streich rows of pretty Victorian terraced houses,which sell for as much as 2m a piece.Between 2007 and 2014 property prices in the posLcode area surrounding the main Tube and railway station more than doubled.An influx of French parents,drawn by a school that opened in 2011,is pushing prices even higher.Yet Kentish Town's shops and cafes are almost invariably untrendy and in some cases mouldering.A hair salon,a butcher and a sportswear shop have each been owned by the same men for more than a quarter of a century.Why?One explanation is Lhat,in common with other parts of London,Kentish Town has lots of social housing as well as costly Viclorian terraces.Camden Council,the local authority,is building even more in the borough.This helps cheaper shops survive,suggests Tony Travers of the London School of Economics:council tenants are less likely to drive and so rely more on local outlets.And the sheer volume of car and lorry traffic on the busy high street,which is a main road into the city,might deter shoppers from visiting and swanky businesses from setting up in the area.Demography plays a part,too.Fully 72%of the population of Kentish Town is white,including a good number of Irish residents-higher than the proportion in London as 8 whole,at 60%.Unlike the high streets around Peckham and Brixton in south London,which cater for African shoppers who may travel far to reach them,few specialist shops draw people to Kentish Town."We're not a destinaLion high street,"sighs one local trader.NIMBYs have not always helped.Lots of civic groups are active in the area,campaigning against late licences and the like,says Dan Camer of the Camden New Journal,a newspaper.A local business association is also good at complaining.Partly because of this,a big supermarket has not yet opened on the high street-though Lidl,a discounter,will seL up shop this year."We quite like that il is rough around the edges,"says Michael Williams,a writer and local.Paradoxically,soarinS;house prices in the area might be another brake on change.Wealthy family buyers mean that some houses once split into flats have been tumed back into homes,says Mr Carrier.The result is fewer shoppers on the high street.Wealthy residents are more likely to get their groceries online or drive to bigger stores.And most will go out to the West End rather than a local restaurant.Such"counter-currents"will prevent Kentish Town from gentrifying fully,suggests Gillian Tindall,a local historian.And they affect many other streets in London,too.Lupus Street in Pimlico serves a large council block on one side and white stucco houses on the other.Caledonian Road in Islington,close to rapidly-changing King's Cross,is still fuU of kebab shops.London is a global city,but it is also a collection of villages,cranky and resistant to change.

Tony Travers suggests that

Kentish Town Road is 8 humdrum high street in north London.It contains pawnbrokers,pound shops,hairdressers and some long-in-the-tooth hardware slores.Unlike Camden Town to the south,full of bars and tattoo parlours,or Hampstead to the west,with its bisLros and boutique clothing shops,little seems to have changed on the street for the past three decades."It's never quite got going,"admiLs Gary McLaren,a local bookseller.Yet the lack of change is odd-and hints at some of the strangeness of London.Kentish Town has excellent Lransport links to ceniral London,and plenty of residenLs prepared to pay good money for thai.Off the high street streich rows of pretty Victorian terraced houses,which sell for as much as 2m a piece.Between 2007 and 2014 property prices in the posLcode area surrounding the main Tube and railway station more than doubled.An influx of French parents,drawn by a school that opened in 2011,is pushing prices even higher.Yet Kentish Town's shops and cafes are almost invariably untrendy and in some cases mouldering.A hair salon,a butcher and a sportswear shop have each been owned by the same men for more than a quarter of a century.Why?One explanation is Lhat,in common with other parts of London,Kentish Town has lots of social housing as well as costly Viclorian terraces.Camden Council,the local authority,is building even more in the borough.This helps cheaper shops survive,suggests Tony Travers of the London School of Economics:council tenants are less likely to drive and so rely more on local outlets.And the sheer volume of car and lorry traffic on the busy high street,which is a main road into the city,might deter shoppers from visiting and swanky businesses from setting up in the area.Demography plays a part,too.Fully 72%of the population of Kentish Town is white,including a good number of Irish residents-higher than the proportion in London as 8 whole,at 60%.Unlike the high streets around Peckham and Brixton in south London,which cater for African shoppers who may travel far to reach them,few specialist shops draw people to Kentish Town."We're not a destinaLion high street,"sighs one local trader.NIMBYs have not always helped.Lots of civic groups are active in the area,campaigning against late licences and the like,says Dan Camer of the Camden New Journal,a newspaper.A local business association is also good at complaining.Partly because of this,a big supermarket has not yet opened on the high street-though Lidl,a discounter,will seL up shop this year."We quite like that il is rough around the edges,"says Michael Williams,a writer and local.Paradoxically,soarinS;house prices in the area might be another brake on change.Wealthy family buyers mean that some houses once split into flats have been tumed back into homes,says Mr Carrier.The result is fewer shoppers on the high street.Wealthy residents are more likely to get their groceries online or drive to bigger stores.And most will go out to the West End rather than a local restaurant.Such"counter-currents"will prevent Kentish Town from gentrifying fully,suggests Gillian Tindall,a local historian.And they affect many other streets in London,too.Lupus Street in Pimlico serves a large council block on one side and white stucco houses on the other.Caledonian Road in Islington,close to rapidly-changing King's Cross,is still fuU of kebab shops.London is a global city,but it is also a collection of villages,cranky and resistant to change

Gillian Tindall believes that

Kentish Town Road is 8 humdrum high street in north London.It contains pawnbrokers,pound shops,hairdressers and some long-in-the-tooth hardware slores.Unlike Camden Town to the south,full of bars and tattoo parlours,or Hampstead to the west,with its bisLros and boutique clothing shops,little seems to have changed on the street for the past three decades."It's never quite got going,"admiLs Gary McLaren,a local bookseller.Yet the lack of change is odd-and hints at some of the strangeness of London.Kentish Town has excellent Lransport links to ceniral London,and plenty of residenLs prepared to pay good money for thai.Off the high street streich rows of pretty Victorian terraced houses,which sell for as much as 2m a piece.Between 2007 and 2014 property prices in the posLcode area surrounding the main Tube and railway station more than doubled.An influx of French parents,drawn by a school that opened in 2011,is pushing prices even higher.Yet Kentish Town's shops and cafes are almost invariably untrendy and in some cases mouldering.A hair salon,a butcher and a sportswear shop have each been owned by the same men for more than a quarter of a century.Why?One explanation is Lhat,in common with other parts of London,Kentish Town has lots of social housing as well as costly Viclorian terraces.Camden Council,the local authority,is building even more in the borough.This helps cheaper shops survive,suggests Tony Travers of the London School of Economics:council tenants are less likely to drive and so rely more on local outlets.And the sheer volume of car and lorry traffic on the busy high street,which is a main road into the city,might deter shoppers from visiting and swanky businesses from setting up in the area.Demography plays a part,too.Fully 72%of the population of Kentish Town is white,including a good number of Irish residents-higher than the proportion in London as 8 whole,at 60%.Unlike the high streets around Peckham and Brixton in south London,which cater for African shoppers who may travel far to reach them,few specialist shops draw people to Kentish Town."We're not a destinaLion high street,"sighs one local trader.NIMBYs have not always helped.Lots of civic groups are active in the area,campaigning against late licences and the like,says Dan Camer of the Camden New Journal,a newspaper.A local business association is also good at complaining.Partly because of this,a big supermarket has not yet opened on the high street-though Lidl,a discounter,will seL up shop this year."We quite like that il is rough around the edges,"says Michael Williams,a writer and local.Paradoxically,soarinS;house prices in the area might be another brake on change.Wealthy family buyers mean that some houses once split into flats have been tumed back into homes,says Mr Carrier.The result is fewer shoppers on the high street.Wealthy residents are more likely to get their groceries online or drive to bigger stores.And most will go out to the West End rather than a local restaurant.Such"counter-currents"will prevent Kentish Town from gentrifying fully,suggests Gillian Tindall,a local historian.And they affect many other streets in London,too.Lupus Street in Pimlico serves a large council block on one side and white stucco houses on the other.Caledonian Road in Islington,close to rapidly-changing King's Cross,is still fuU of kebab shops.London is a global city,but it is also a collection of villages,cranky and resistant to change.

Dan Carrier holds that

Kentish Town Road is 8 humdrum high street in north London.It contains pawnbrokers,pound shops,hairdressers and some long-in-the-tooth hardware slores.Unlike Camden Town to the south,full of bars and tattoo parlours,or Hampstead to the west,with its bisLros and boutique clothing shops,little seems to have changed on the street for the past three decades."It's never quite got going,"admiLs Gary McLaren,a local bookseller.Yet the lack of change is odd-and hints at some of the strangeness of London.Kentish Town has excellent Lransport links to ceniral London,and plenty of residenLs prepared to pay good money for thai.Off the high street streich rows of pretty Victorian terraced houses,which sell for as much as 2m a piece.Between 2007 and 2014 property prices in the posLcode area surrounding the main Tube and railway station more than doubled.An influx of French parents,drawn by a school that opened in 2011,is pushing prices even higher.Yet Kentish Town's shops and cafes are almost invariably untrendy and in some cases mouldering.A hair salon,a butcher and a sportswear shop have each been owned by the same men for more than a quarter of a century.Why?One explanation is Lhat,in common with other parts of London,Kentish Town has lots of social housing as well as costly Viclorian terraces.Camden Council,the local authority,is building even more in the borough.This helps cheaper shops survive,suggests Tony Travers of the London School of Economics:council tenants are less likely to drive and so rely more on local outlets.And the sheer volume of car and lorry traffic on the busy high street,which is a main road into the city,might deter shoppers from visiting and swanky businesses from setting up in the area.Demography plays a part,too.Fully 72%of the population of Kentish Town is white,including a good number of Irish residents-higher than the proportion in London as 8 whole,at 60%.Unlike the high streets around Peckham and Brixton in south London,which cater for African shoppers who may travel far to reach them,few specialist shops draw people to Kentish Town."We're not a destinaLion high street,"sighs one local trader.NIMBYs have not always helped.Lots of civic groups are active in the area,campaigning against late licences and the like,says Dan Camer of the Camden New Journal,a newspaper.A local business association is also good at complaining.Partly because of this,a big supermarket has not yet opened on the high street-though Lidl,a discounter,will seL up shop this year."We quite like that il is rough around the edges,"says Michael Williams,a writer and local.Paradoxically,soarinS;house prices in the area might be another brake on change.Wealthy family buyers mean that some houses once split into flats have been tumed back into homes,says Mr Carrier.The result is fewer shoppers on the high street.Wealthy residents are more likely to get their groceries online or drive to bigger stores.And most will go out to the West End rather than a local restaurant.Such"counter-currents"will prevent Kentish Town from gentrifying fully,suggests Gillian Tindall,a local historian.And they affect many other streets in London,too.Lupus Street in Pimlico serves a large council block on one side and white stucco houses on the other.Caledonian Road in Islington,close to rapidly-changing King's Cross,is still fuU of kebab shops.London is a global city,but it is also a collection of villages,cranky and resistant to change.

A local lrader implies that