The artificial-intelligence chatbot ChatGPT has shaken educators since its November release. New York City public schools have banned it from their networks and school devices. There is, perhaps surprisingly, one subject area that doesn’t seem threatened, It turns out ChatGPT is quite bad at maths.
“I’m not hearing maths instructors express concern about ChatGPT,” said Paul von Hippel, a professor at the University of Texas who studies data science and statistics. “I’m not sure it’s useful for maths at all, which feels strange because maths was the first-use case for the artificial-intelligence devices.”
ChatGPT’s struggle with maths is inherent in this type of AI, known as a large language model. It scans a large amount of text from across the web and develops a model that might be extremely effective for writing grammatically correct responses to essay requirement, but not for solving a maths problem.
In an email, I asked Debarghya Das, a search-engine engineer, why ChatGPT gets some simple questions right but others completely wrong. “Maybe the right analogy (类比) is if you ask a room of people, who have no idea what maths is but have read many hieroglyphics (象形文字), ‘What comes after 2+2,’ they might say, ‘Usually, we see a 4,’ That’s what ChatGPT is doing.” But, he adds, “Maths isn’t just a series of hieroglyphics. It’s the process of calculating.”
It isn’t great for pretending you know it through a maths class because you only recognize the mistakes if you know the maths. Another reason that maths instructors are less anxious about this innovation is that they have been here before. The field was upended for the first time decades ago with the general availability of computers and calculators.
“Maths has had the biggest revolution based on machinery of any mainstream subject,” said Conrad Wolfram, the strategic director of Wolfram Research. “In the real world, since computers came along, have maths, science and engineering gotten conceptually simpler? No, completely the opposite. We’re asking harder and harder questions, going up a level.”
Eventually, AI will probably get to the point where its maths answers are not only confident but correct. A pure large language model might not be up for the job, but the technology will improve. In general, however, AI, like computers, will likely ultimately be most useful for those who already know a field well. They know the questions to ask, how to identify the shortcomings and what to do with the answer. A tool, in other words, is for those who know the most maths, not the least.
1．What does the underlined word “inherent” in Paragraph 3 most probably mean?| A．Stable. | B．Practical. | C．Limited. | D．Natural. |
| A．Calculating requires some knowledge of hieroglyphics. |
| B．ChatGPT is good at solving mathematical questions by analogy. |
| C．Reading hieroglyphics prevents ChatGPT solving maths questions. |
| D．ChatGPT’s response is based on language models instead of calculations. |
| A．ChatGPT is useful to identify maths mistakes. |
| B．Technical revolution made maths easier to understand. |
| C．New technology will end up pushing the boundaries of maths. |
| D．ChatGPT has been banned from networks and school devices. |
| A．It will play the largest role for professionals in a field. |
| B．It will become confident to solve all the maths problems. |
| C．It will turn the maths field over again just like computers. |
| D．It will take the jobs from humans as the technology improves. |
| A．have been | B．is | C．has been | D．are |
Farming and new technologies
In recent years, an increasing number of new technologies have been applied in farming.
An Unexpected Call
It was a Wednesday. I had just gotten home from work and was getting dinner ready when suddenly I wanted badly to call my grandmother for I felt something was wrong with her.
Having freed my hands from all things, I dialed her number quickly and waited with a growing sense of fear as she did not answer. That was extremely unusual because she always answered, her cell phone always by her side. I called again. “Pick up! Pick up!”
I knew reasoningly she could be out or was away from the phone but as I dialed again and again, getting no answer each time for over two hours, I began to panic. She had no car, she lived alone, she only took short walks around the neighborhood.
I knew she needed help. I didn't know how I knew; I just did. Focusing on what might have happened to my grandma, I called my sister and my father and told them I thought something was wrong and we needed to drive one state over to my grandmother's house to check on her. I was out the door before either of them could text to me any disagreeing idea.
I picked them up and we headed forward. “She's probably at church,” my father kept saying. “Maybe she's taking a nap,” my sister got a word in, but I just stepped on the gas and a half hour later we pulled into my grandmother's driveway.
The gate was shut, and not a ray of light could be seen inside. Now, sensing I was right, my father began knocking on the locked front door. My sister leaned on the doorbell and although we could hear the clock ticking away there was no other noise inside. I pressed my eye against the window of the dining room.
Attempting to see inside the darkened room, I could just make out a pale hand on the floor.
After she woke up, she told us what had happened to her.
| A．On a football field. | B．At a park. | C．In a hospital. |
Here are the simple instructions given by a Harvard University assistant professor to people participating in a recent science study: “Imagine the following scene. Visualize it in your mind’s eye, as vividly as you can: a person walks into a room and knocks a ball off a table.”
The assistant professor, Tomer Ullman, then asked those in the study about their mental images: “Did you see how big the ball was? How about the person’s hair color?” Most participants visualized the former but not the latter. Ullman and his colleagues term this absence of details “noncommitment” to mental imagery (意象).
Brain imaging studies show that mental imagery engages the same neurons (744770) in similar ways as perception (EXXI). Visualizing things seems to have much in common with actually seeing them. But if mental images are indeed pictures, why do they lack such simple details?
Ullman and his colleagues conducted a series of experiments in which participants visualized the ball and table scene and were then presented with the questions selected by the researchers. The findings show 78% of the participants did not visualize at least two details. People are often unaware of how little detail their mental images contain until asked. They don’t notice how much they don’t notice. It has nothing to do with a person forgetting the contents of a mental image, and it also is found in people with vivid imaginations.
“Nearly everyone can tell you the size of the ball but not the person’s hair color,” Ullman says. “It’s like there’s one hierarchy when we construct images, and spatial properties are high up. Then things like colors are further down.” This fits with Kosslyn’s “skeletal image” theory, in which overall shape is generated first, and other details are added as needed.
“There are imagery-based systems for interviewing people who witnessed a crime to guide them through trying to visualize it as accurately as possible,” Kosslyn says. Imagination is an issue, but understanding noncommitment better could help develop ways of getting more accurate eyewitness evidence, he says. “That’s worth a lot.”
1．What does noncommitment to mental imagery refer to?| A．Imagining a scene in one’s mind vividly. | B．Remembering the size of a ball exactly. |
| C．Picturing things in one’s mind partially. | D．Forgetting a person’s hair colour entirely. |
| A．They fail to realize. | B．They have poor memories. |
| C．They lack a rich imagination. | D．They think in a wrong way. |
| A．Prejudice. | B．Order. | C．Height. | D．Standard. |
| A．The potential value of the research. | B．The further prospect of the research. |
| C．The importance of looking for a witness. | D．The difficulty in finding evidence of a crime. |
It was summer, and my dad wanted to treat me to a vacation like never before. He decided to take me on a trip to the Wild West.
We took a plane to Albuquerque, a big city in the state of New Mexico. We reached Albuquerque in the late afternoon. Uncle Paul, my dad’s friend, picked us up from the airport and drove us up to his farm in Pecos.
His wife Tina cooked us a delicious dinner and we got to know his sons Ryan and Kyle. My dad and I spent the night in the guestroom of the farm house listening to the frogs and water rolling down the river nearby. Very early in the morning, Uncle Paul woke us up to have breakfast. "The day starts at dawn on my farm," he said. After breakfast, I went to help Aunt Tina feed the chickens, while my dad went with Uncle Paul to take the sheep out to graze(吃草). I was impressed to see my dad and Uncle Paul riding horses. They looked really cool.
In the afternoon, I asked Uncle Paul if I could take a horse ride, and he said yes, as long as my dad went with me. I wasn’t going to take a horse ride by myself anyway. So, my dad and I put on our new cowboy hats, got on our horses, and headed slowly towards the mountains. "Don’t be late for supper," Uncle Paul cried, "and keep to the track so that you don’t get lost!" "OK! " my dad cried back. After a while Uncle Paul and his farm house were out of sight. It was so peaceful and quiet and the colors of the brown rocks, the deep green pine trees, and the late afternoon sun mixed to create a magic scene. It looked like a beautiful woven(编织的) blanket spread out upon the ground just for us.
Suddenly a little rabbit jumped out in front of my horse.
注意：
（1）所续写短文的词数应为l50左右；
（2）至少使用5个短文中标有下划线的关键词语：
（3）续写部分分为两段，每段的开头语已为你写好；
（4）续写完成后，请用下划线标出你所使用的关键词语。
Paragraph 1: Suddenly a little rabbit jumped out in front of my horse. ____________
Paragraph 2: We had no idea where we were and it was getting dark. _____________
Preserving more habitats for China’s giant pandas is providing a giant payoff.
The results,
Because of this, Chinese officials began making significant efforts to save the panda from
“
The Secrets of Sleep
Have you ever wondered why you spend so much of your life asleep? Just as electricity charges the battery of a mobile phone, sleep recharges your body and your mind.
What is sleep?
Why do people need to sleep?
Humans could not function without sleep. According to the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, sleep helps people learn by strengthening their memories. It has physical benefits too—like maintaining a healthy weight and boosting your immune system.
What are dreams?
Dreams usually occur during a stage of sleep known as rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. In REM, the eyes move quickly back and forth and brain activity increases. Scientists are not sure why people dream.
How much sleep do I need?
Most adults need around eight hours of sleep a day, but Mandy Gurney, who runs the Millpond Children’s Sleep Clinic, says that children need more.
| A．When I wake up, I am reborn. |
| B．I really think I need more sleep than now. |
| C．Sleep is a natural and temporary state of rest. |
| D．Some say it is a process that helps store memories. |
| E．Too little sleep can make you tired and bad-tempered. |
| F．You become healthier and thus diseases will not bother you. |
| G．Sleep is more vital for children because their minds and bodies are still developing. |
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