C

　　A baby mermaid (美人魚) was just born in Finland; Justin Bieber is getting married; iPhone 6 is going to be released this year… We read rumors every day on the Internet. With the help of social media, rumors — no matter whether they are true or false — spread like wildfire, and sometimes we can’t be sure what to believe.

   Now, an international group of researchers might be able to make it easier for us. They are working on a lie detector that could separate online truth from lies, Discovery News reported.

   Named after the Greek goddess Pheme, famed for spreading bad rumors, the system is far from a traditional lie detector, which works by attaching a machine to a potential liar. Instead, Pheme analyzes the rumor directly.

   When a rumor comes out, on a micro blog, for example, Pheme can trace the source of information to see if it was released by reliable sources like experts or news agencies. If it wasn’t, Pheme then examines the history and background of the account to identify whether it was created just to spread rumors. 

   After finding the source of the rumor, the system can keep a close eye on how other users react to the rumor — either confirming or denying it — to help analyze and further determine the reliability of the information.

   Some people might find the Pheme system unnecessary based on the idea that false rumors never survive for long and people always get to the truth over time. While that’s a fair point, there is a certain class of rumors, such as “a tiger is at large” or “an asteroid (小行星) is about to hit the Earth”, that can cause panic among people and thus lead to serious consequences.

   These are cases when we need to be able to check for accuracy quickly. “Our system aims to help with that, by tracking and verifying (查證) information in real time,” a leading researcher Kalina Bontcheva, at the University of Sheffield, UK, told the BBC.

   According to Bontcheva, Pheme is still under development and won’t be ready for another 18 months.

   Until then, there’s an old-fashioned technique that you can use to protect yourself from false information — ask questions, check sources and don’t believe any claim until you’ve seen the evidence.

63. What is the article mainly about?

A. Tips on how to deal with rumors online.

B. Factors that make rumors so easy to spread.

C. A new device that can check whether online rumors are true or not.

D. An introduction to some types of lie detectors.

64. How does the Pheme system determine the reliability of a piece of information?

A. Based on how the majority of people react to it.

B. Based on the reliability of its sources and the history of its authors.

C. By collecting and examining relevant information to further confirm it.

D. By making use of an “Internet bot” to track and verify the information.

65. Which of the following statements might the author agree with?

A. The Pheme system is not very helpful because all rumors eventually die down.

B. The Pheme system will be ready to help social networks become more accurate by the end of 2014.

C. The Pheme system can identify almost all kinds of rumors on social networking sites.

D. The Pheme system aims to respond to rumors quickly so as to reduce the impact of false ones.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　D

What Is Today’s American Dream

　　They may not have called it the American Dream, but for centuries people have gone to America in search of freer, happier, and richer lives. But is today's American Dream a mythical concept or still a reality?

　　Isabel Belarsky’s tiny Brooklyn apartment fills with the sound of her father's voice. Sidor Belarsky sings an Aria in Russian and 90-year-old Isabel, her lips painted an elegant red, sways gently to the song coming from her stereo.

　　Isabel speaks with pride about her father's talent and his success as an opera singer: Albert Einstein was such a fan she says that he invited Sidor to accompany him on his speaking engagements and would ask him to sing to the audience.

　　How the Belarskys came to be in America is an extraordinary tale that Isabel loves to tell. It was the offer of a six-month job by a Mormon college president, who had seen Sidor singing in Leningrad, that enabled the Belarskys to escape from Stalin’s Russia in 1930. “Our dream was being in America,” Isabel says. “They loved it. My mother could never think of Russia, it was her enemy and my father, he made such a wonderful career here.”

　　Like generations of immigrants before them, the Belarskys came to America in search of freedom—to them the American Dream meant liberty. But Isabel says it promised even more. “The dream is to work, to have a home and to get ahead. You can start as a janitor and become the owner of the building.”

　　The American Dream is not written into the constitution but it is so ingrained in the national psyche that it might as well be. Many point to the second sentence in the Declaration of Independence—the “certain unalienable rights” that include “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” as the “official” version of the phrase. But it was actually in 1931 that the term was popularized, when historian James Truslow Adams wrote in The Epic of America that the Dream means “a better, richer, and happier life for all our citizens of every rank”.

　　The concept of the American Dream has not stayed static. For European immigrants, like Isabel, fleeing persecution in the first half of the last century, the Dream was about a life without persecution. 

　　But somewhere in the middle of the last century the dream changed. As America’s post war economy boomed, the new arrivals wanted more than freedom—they wanted a share of the prosperity as well. 

　　In the 1950s, TV commercials featured housewives proudly showing off kitchens filled with gleaming appliances. The quest for liberation became a quest for Coca Cola. As the century wore on, the materialistic slant of the dream overtook the political side. Dallas and Dynasty suggested this was a country where it was possible to become not just rich, but filthily rich.

　　Cheyanne Smith was shocked at the deprivation that greeted her in America. She arrived in New York from the Caribbean seven years ago. Having watched endless American TV shows as a child, she thought she knew what to expect when her family moved to Brooklyn. Instead, the deprivation of one of New York’s poorest neighbourhoods shocked her.

　　“I thought this is not America because this is not what I see on television,” she says. Like Cheyanne, 18-year-old Franscisco Curiel is also ambitious. He came from Mexico City three years ago to go to college here but he's worried that Brooklyn's schools aren't going to give him a good enough education. “The system is broken; we can’t get the superior education that they supposedly want to give us,” he says.

　　Through the centuries America's immigrants have endured terrible hardship and sacrifice so that they and their children can get ahead. Perhaps it’s not surprising to hear the members of the Bushwick youth group lament the multiple, low paid jobs that their parents must do simply to get the rent paid and put food on the table. What is startling is that these bright, ambitious youngsters just don't believe that talent and hard work are enough to ensure they will ever have a shot at that mythical American Dream.

66. Why did the Belarskys come to the US according to the passage?

　　　A. To seek freedom. B. To seek wealth.

　　　C. To seek good education. D. To seek a good job.

67. What is the meaning of “the materialistic slant of the dream overtook the political side” in Paragraph 9?

　　　A. The American Dream means both material success and political freedom.

　　　B. The American Dream means material success rather than political freedom.

　　　C. The American Dream means more material success than political freedom.

　　　D. The American Dream means more political freedom than material success.

68. What is Cheyanne Smith and Franscisco Curiel’s attitude toward American Dream?

　　　A. Hopeful. B. Disappointed. C. Optimistic. D. Neutral.

69. What can we know about the Bushwick youth group according to the last paragraph?

　　　A. They feel grateful that their parents did low paid jobs to raise the family.

　　　B. They doubt that talent and hard work will make them realize their American Dream.

　　　C. They have endured great hardship and sacrifice.

　　　D. They are willing to do the low paid jobs to help pay their education.

70. What can be inferred from the passage?

　　　A. The American Dream is deeply-rooted in the national psyche.

　　　B. The concept of the American Dream has gone through changes throughout the time.

　　　C. American Dream is still firmly believed by the majority of the immigrants.

　　　D. The concept of American Dream will remain unchanged in the next two decades.
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