Part A

Directions:

Read the following four texts. Answer the questions after each text by choosing [A],[B], [C] or [D]. Mark your answers on the ANSWER SHEET. (40 points)

Text 1

In her new book Cogs and Monsters: What Economics Is, and What It Should Be,Diane Coyle, an economist at Cambridge University, argues that the digital economy requires new ways of thinking about progress. "Whatever we mean by the economy growing, by things getting better, the gains will have to be more evenly shared than in the recent past," she writes. "An economy of tech millionaires or billionaires and gig workers, with middle-income jobs undercut by automation, will not bepolitically sustainable.”

Improving living standards and increasing prosperity for more people will require greater use of digital technologies to boost productivity in various sectors, including health care andI construction, says Coyle. But people can't be expected to embrace the changes if they're not seeing the benefits-if they're just seeing good jobs being destroyed.

In a recent interview, Coyle said she fears that tech's inequality problem could be a road-block to deploying AI. "We're talking about disruption," she says. "These are transformative technologies that change the ways we spend our time every day, that change business models that succeed."To make such "tremendous changes," she adds, you need social buy-in.

Instead, says Coyle, resentment is simmering among many as the benefits are per-ceived to go to elites in a handful of prosperous cities.

According to the Brookings Institution, a short list of eight American cities that in-cluded San Francisco, San Jose, Boston, and Seattle had roughly 38% of all tech jobs by 2019. New AI technologies are particularly concentrated: Brookings's Mark Muro and Sifan Liu estimate that just 15 cities account for two-thirds of the AI assets and capabilities in the United States.

The dominance of a few cities in the invention and commercialization of AI means that geographical disparities in wealth will continue to soar. Not only will this foster political and social unrest, but it could, as Coyle suggests, hold back the sorts of AI technologies needed for regional economies to grow.

Part of the solution could lie in somehow loosening the stranglehold that Big Tech has on defining the AI agenda. That will likely take increased federal funding for research independent of the tech giants.

A more immediate response is to broaden our digital imaginations to conceive of AI technologies that don't simply replace jobsbut expand opportunities in the sectors that different parts of the country care most about, like health care, education, and manufac-turing.

1.Coyle argues in her new book that economic growth should          ·

[A]give rise to innovations

[B] diversify career choices

[C] benefit people equally

[D]be promoted forcefully

2. According to Paragraph 2, digital technologies should be used to           .

[A]bring about instant prosperity

[B]reduce people's workload

[C]raise overall work efficiency

[D] enhance cross-sector cooperation

3. What does Coyle fear about transformative technologies?

[A]They may affect work-life balance.

[B]They may be impractical to deploy.

[C] They may incur huge expenditure.

[D]They may be unwelcome to the public.

4.Several American cities are mentioned to show          .

[A]the uneven distribution of AI technologies in the US

[B] the disappointing prospect of tech jobs in the US

[C] the fast progress of US regional economies

[D]theincreasing significance of US AI assets

5.With regard to Coyle's concern, the author suggests          .

[A]raising funds to start new AI projects

[B] encouraging collaboration in AI research

[C] guarding against the side effects of AI

[D]redefining the role of Al technologies