原文：
A
The advisability of humans participatingdirectly in space travel continues to cause many debates. There is no doubtthat the presence of people on board a space vehicle makes its design much morecomplex and challenging, and produces a large increase in costs, since safetyrequirements are greatly increased, and the technology providing necessitiesfor human passengers such as oxygen, food water must be guaranteed. Moreover,the systems required are bulky and costly, and their complexity increases for long-durationmissions. Meanwhile, advances in electronics and computer science allowincreasingly complex tasks to be entrusted to robots, and unmanned space probesare becoming lighter, smaller and more convenient.
B
How ever, experience has shown that the ideaof humans in space is popular with the public. Humans can also be useful; thereare many cases when only direct intervention by an astronaut or cosmonaut cancorrect the malfunction of an automatic device. Astronauts and cosmonauts haveproved that they can adapt to conditions of weightlessness and work in spacewithout encountering too many problems, as was seen in the operations to repairand to upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope. One human characteristic which isparticularly precious in space missions, and which so far is lacking in robots,is the ability to perform a great variety of tasks. In addition, robots are notgood at reacting to situations they have not been specifically prepared for.This is especially important in the case of deep space missions. While, in thecase of the Moon, it is possible for someone on Earth to 'tele-operate' arobotic device such as a probe, as the two-way link time is only a couple ofseconds, on Mars the two- way link time is several minutes, so sendinginstructions from Earth is more difficult.
C
Many of the promises of artificialintelligence are still far from being fulfilled. The construction of machinessimulating human logical reasoning moves towards ever more distant dates. Themore the performance of computers improves, the more we realise how difficultit is to build machines which display logical abilities. In the past it wasconfidently predicted that we would soon have fully automated factories inwhich all operations were performed without any human intervention, andforecasts of the complete substitution of workers by robots in many productionareas were made. Today, these perspectives are being revised. It seems that allmachines, even the smartest ones, must cooperate with humans. Rather thanreplacing humans, the present need appears to be for an intelligent machinecapable of helping a human operator without replacing him or her. The word'cobot', from 'collaborative robot', has been invented to designate this type.
D
A similar trend is also apparent in thefield of space exploration. Tasks which were in the past entrusted only tomachines are now performed by human beings, sometimes with the aim of usingsimpler and less costly devices, sometimes to obtain better performance. Inmany cases, to involve a person in the control loop is a welcome simplificationwhich may lower the cost of a mission without compromising safety. Manyoperations originally designed to be performed under completely automaticcontrol can be performed more efficiently by astronauts, perhaps helped bytheir 'cobots'. The human-machine relationship must evolve towards a closercollaboration.
E
One way this could happen is by adoptingthe Mars Outposts approach, proposed by the Planetary Society. This wouldinvolve sending a number of robotic research stations to Mars, equipped withpermanent communications and navigational systems. They would perform research,and establish the infrastructure needed to prepare future landing sites for theexploration of Mars by humans. It has also been suggested that in the mostdifficult environments, as on Venus or Jupiter, robots could be controlled byhuman beings located in spaceships which remain in orbit around the planet. Inthis case the link time for communication between humans and robots would befar less than it would be from Earth.
F
But if space is to be more than a place tobuild automatic laboratories or set up industrial enterprises in the vicinityof our planet, the presence of humans is essential. They must learn how tovoyage through space towards destinations which will be not only scientificbases but also places to live. If space is a frontier, that frontier must seethe presence of people. So the aim for humankind in the future will be not justthe exploration of space, but its colonisation. The result of exploring and livingin space may be a deep change in the views which humankind has of itself. Andthis process is already under way. The images of Earth taken from the Moon inthe Apollo programme have given humankind a new consciousness of its fragility,its smallness, and its unity. These impressions have triggered a realisation ofthe need to protect and preserve it, for it is the place in the solar systemmost suitable for US and above all it is the only place we have, at least fornow.
Questions 1-6
Reading Passage has six paragraphs, A-F.
Choose the correct heading for eachparagraph from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number, i-ix. inboxes 1-6 on your answer sheet
List of Headings
Robots on Earth - a re-evaluation
The barriers to cooperation in spaceexploration
Some limitations of robots in space
Reduced expectations for space exploration
A general reconsideration of human/robotresponsibilities in space
Problems in using humans for spaceexploration
The danger to humans of intelligentmachines
Space settlement and the development ofgreater self-awareness
Possible examples of cooperation in space
1．Paragraph A
2．Paragraph B
3．Paragraph c
4．Paragraph D
5．Paragraph E
6．Paragraph F
Questions 7-8
Choose TWO letters, A-E.
Write the correct letters in boxes 7-8 onyour answer sheet.
According to the writer, which TWO predictionsabout artificial intelligence have not yet been fulfilled?
A Robots will workindependently of humans.
B Robotswill begin to oppose human interests,
C Robots will be used tohelp humans perform tasks more efficiently.
D Robotswill think in the same way as humans.
E Robotswill become too costly to use on space missions.
Questions 9-13
Complete the summary below. Choose ONEWORD ONLY from the passage for each answer. Write your answers inboxes 9-13 on your answer sheet.
Humans in space - the Mars Outpostsapproach and its implications
One way of exploring space would be throughcollaboration between humans and robots. For example, when exploring the planetMars, robots could be used to set up 9 and do initial researchbefore humans arrive. In other cases, humans could stay in orbiting 10 and give orders to robots working on the surface of the planet.
This would increase the speed of 11 withthe robots. In such ways, robots might be used to work in space in commercialenterprises or 12 . However, the final aim of humankind may bethe 13 of space and this could in turn change people'sattitudes towards Earth.
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions14 – 26, which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.
We have Star performers!
A
The difference between companies is people.With capital and technology in plentiful supply, the critical resource forcompanies in the knowledge era will be human talent. Companies full ofachievers will, by definition, outperform organisations of plodders. Ergo,compete ferociously for the best people. Poach and pamper stars; ruthlesslyweed out second-raters. This, in essence, has been the recruitment strategy ofthe ambitious company of the past decade. The ‘talent mindset’ was givendefinitive form in two reports by the consultancy McKinsey famously entitledThe War for Talent. Although the intensity of the warfare subsequently subsidedalong with the air in the internet bubble, it has been warming up again as theeconomy tightens: labour shortages, for example, are the reason the governmenthas laid out the welcome mat for immigrants from the new Europe.
B
Yet while the diagnosis – people areimportant – is evident to the point of platitude, the apparently logicalprescription – hire the best – like so much in management is not only notobvious: it is in fact profoundly wrong. The first suspicions dawned with thecrash to earth of the dotcom meteors, which showed that dumb is dumb whateverthe IQ of those who perpetrate it. The point was illuminated in brilliantrelief by Enron, whose leaders, as a New Yorker article called ‘The TalentMyth’ entertainingly related, were so convinced of their own cleverness thatthey never twigged that collective intelligence is not the sum of a lot ofindividual intelligence. In fact, in a profound sense, the two are opposites.Enron believed in stars, noted author Malcolm Gladwell, because they didn’tbelieve in systems. But companies don’t just create: ‘they execute and competeand coordinate the efforts of many people, and the organisations that are mostsuccessful at that task are the ones where the system is the star’. The truthis that you can’t win the talent wars by hiring stars – only lose it. New lighton why this should be so is thrown by an analysis of star behaviour in thismonths’ Harvard Business Review. In a study of the careers of 1,000 star-stockanalysts in the 1990s, the researchers found that when a company recruited astar performer, three things happened.
C
First, stardom doesn’t easily transfer fromone organisation to another. In many cases, performance dropped sharply whenhigh performers switched employers and in some instances never recovered. Moreof success than commonly supposed is due to the working environment – systems,processes, leadership, accumulated embedded learning that are absent in andcan’t be transported to the new firm. Moreover, precisely because of their paststellar performance, stars were unwilling to learn new tricks and antagonisedthose (on whom they now unwittingly depended) who could teach them. So theymoved, upping their salary as they did – 36 per cent moved on within threeyears, fast even for Wall Street. Second, group performance suffered as aresult of tensions and resentment by rivals within the team. One respondentlikened hiring a star to an organ transplant. The new organ can damage othersby hogging the blood supply, other organs can start aching or threaten to stopworking or the body can reject the transplants altogether, he said. ‘You shouldthink about it very carefully before you do a transplant to a healthy body.’Third, investors punished the offender by selling its stock. This is ironicsince the motive for importing stars was often a suffering share price in thefirst place. Shareholders evidently believe that the company is overpaying, thehiree is cashing in on a glorious past rather than preparing for a glowingpresent, and a spending spree is in the offing.
D
The result of mass star hirings as well asindividual ones seems to confirm such doubts. Look at County NatWest andBarclays de Zoete Wedd, both of which hired teams of stars with loud fanfare todo great things in investment banking in the 1990s. Both failed dismally.Everyone accepts the cliche that people make the organisation – but much moredoes the organisation make the people. When researchers studied the performanceof fund managers in the 1990s, they discovered that just 30 per cent of thevariation in fund performance was due to the individual, compared to 70 percent to the company-specific setting.
E
That will be no surprise to those familiarwith systems thinking. W Edwards Deming used to say that there was no point inbeating up on people when 90 per cent of performance variation was down to thesystem within which they worked. Consistent improvement, he said, is a matternot of raising the level of individual intelligence, but of the learning of theorganisation as a whole. The star system is glamorous – for the few. But itrarely benefits the company that thinks it is working it. And the knock-on consequencesindirectly affect everyone else too. As one internet response to Gladwell’s NewYorker article put it: after Enron, ‘the rest of corporate America is stuckwith overpaid, arrogant, underachieving, and relatively useless talent.’
F
Football is another illustration of thestar vs systems strategic choice. As with investment banks and stockbrokers, itseems obvious that success should ultimately be down to money. Great playersare scarce and expensive. So the club that can afford more of them than anyoneelse will win. But the performance of Arsenal and Manchester United on one handand Chelsea and Real Madrid on the other proves that it’s not as easy as that.While Chelsea and Real have the funds to be compulsive star collectors – as withJuan Sebastian Veron – they are less successful than Arsenal and United which,like Liverpool before them, have put much more emphasis on developing a settingwithin which stars-in-the-making can flourish. Significantly, Thierry Henry,Patrick Veira and Robert Pires are much bigger stars than when Arsenal boughtthem, their value (in all senses) enhanced by the Arsenal system. At Chelsea,by contrast, the only context is the stars themselves – managers with differentoutlooks come and go every couple of seasons. There is no settled system forthe stars to blend into. The Chelsea context has not only not added value, butit has also subtracted it. The side is less than the sum of its exorbitantlyexpensive parts. Even Real Madrid’s galacticos, the most extravagantly giftedon the planet, are being outperformed by less talented but better-integratedSpanish sides. In football, too, stars are trumped by systems.
G
So if not by hiring stars, how do youcompete in the war for talent? You grow your own. This worked for investmentanalysts, where some companies were not only better at creating stars but alsoat retaining them. Because they had a much more sophisticated view of theinterdependent relationship between star and system, they kept them longerwithout resorting to the exorbitant salaries that were so destructive torivals.
SECTION 2: QUESTIONS 14-26
Questions 14-17
The Reading Passage has sevenparagraphs A-G
Which paragraph contains the followinginformation?
Write the correct letter A-G, inboxes 14-17 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more thanonce.
14 ABCDEFG One example fromnon-commerce/business settings that better system win bigger stars
15 ABCDEFG One failed company thatbelieves stars rather than the system
16 ABCDEFG One suggestion that theauthor made to acquire employees than to win the competition nowadays
17 ABCDEFG One metaphor to humanmedical anatomy that illustrates the problems of hiring stars.
Questions 18-21
Do the following statements agree with theinformation given in Reading Passage?
In boxes 18-21 on your answersheet, write
18 YESNONOT GIVEN McKinsey who wroteThe War for Talent had not expected the huge influence made by this book.
19 YESNONOT GIVEN Economic conditionbecomes one of the factors which decide whether or not a country would preferto hire foreign employees.
20 YESNONOT GIVEN The collapse ofEnron is caused totally by an unfortunate incident instead of company’smanagement mistake.
21 YESNONOT GIVEN Football clubs thatfocus making stars in the setting are better than simply collecting stars
Questions 22-26
Complete the following summary of theparagraphs of Reading Passage
Using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS fromthe Reading Passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 22-26 onyour answer sheet.
An investigation carried out on 1000 22 .Participants of a survey by Harvard Business Review found a company hirea 23 has negative effects. For instance, they behave considerably worse in a new team than in the 24 that they used to be. They movefaster than wall street and increase their 25 . Secondly, they faced rejections or refuse from those 26 within the team. Lastly, the one who made mistakes had been punished by selling his/her stock share.
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