Postgrad level reading in China-70 CHAPTERS

Text 1
题材：社会⽣活
题源：The Economis
字数：443
In 2007 a French food company wanted to buy a family-owned rm in India. The patriarch(家
was 72, and the French rm wanted to send someone of similar experience to talk to
him. But because of its youthful corporate culture—most people are pushed out of the door in their
mid-40s—it had no one to send. In the end, through Experconnect, an employment agency in Paris
which places retired people, it found a 58-year-old former head of a European consumer-goods
rm, and sent him out to Mumbai
France has a poor record when it comes to keeping older people in the workforce. The
retirement age is 60, not 65 as in most developed countries. In 2005 only 37.8% of people aged
between 55 and 64 had jobs, versus 56.8% in Britain and 44.9% in Germany. The main reason is that
in the 1980s, when there was high unemployment, the government promoted early retirement.
That entrenched the idea that older workers were less productive, says Caroline Young,
Experconnect’s founder
Now companies are worried about losing their most skilled workers, especially as the babyboom generation nears retirement. Areva, a nuclear-power group, recently launched a scheme to
address the needs of older employees, and plans to use about 100 retired people a year through
Experconnect. Because nuclear power was unpopular for decades, Areva stopped training
engineers, so that much of its expertise lies with its oldest staff. Now it is taking much more
interest in them. “We have to bring about a revolution in opinion,” says Jean Cassingena, its
human-resources strategist
Unlike other recruitment agencies, Experconnect keeps its workers on its own books, so they
can carry on drawing their pensions. They tend to work part-time on one-off projects. Engineers
and people with high levels of technical skill are most in demand in France, says Ms. Young, as
younger people increasingly choose to go into elds such as marketing. Thales, a defence and
aerospace rm, is using a former radar expert, for instance, and Louis Berger France, an
engineering rm, often uses retired engineers to manage big infrastructure projects
Softer industries also make use of Experconnect. Danone, a food rm, hires people for oneoff management roles. “Older people have seen it all and they are level-headed,” says Thomas
Kunz, its head of beverages. The beauty industry is short of toxicologists to determine whether
new lotions are safe, and one rm has just taken on a 75-year-old. Two famous French luxurygoods companies plan to use retired workers in their handbag divisions. One wants to safeguard
its knowledge of ne leathers and sewing; the other wants to apply expertise from the aerospace
industry to make new kinds of materials for handbags
Despite an impressive handful of high-pro le clients, Experconnect has found it dif cult to
convince French companies that older workers can be valuable. It has 2,700 retired people on its
books, and has so far placed just 50 of them on “missions”. Old prejudices, as they say, die hard
族企业掌门⼈)
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1. According to the rst paragraph, we can know that ______
A. the India rm was founded 72 years ago
B. most French workers retire in their mid-fortie
C. the French rm nally found someone suitable to talk to the patriarc
D. no French workers wanted to go to Indi
2. “the government promoted early retirement” is cited in Paragraph 2 as an example to
__________
A. show why older workers were less productiv
B. illustrate the poor condition of keeping old people in the workforce in France
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C. compare the condition of old people between France and other developed
countries
D. assess the policy of France government at that tim
3. What’s the meaning of the last sentence of the passage
A. It is hard for French rms to believe the value of older workers.
B. It is hard for older workers to believe their value
C. It is dif cult to convince younger workers to work hard
D. It is dif cult to convince older workers to learn new technologies
4. From this passage, we can conclude that ______
A. the life of most French older workers is hard
B. older workers are more valuable than the younger in some area
C. the French younger workers do not work hard enoug
D. most French older workers do not want to work any more after retiremen
5. We can learn from this passage that the author ______
A. believes older workers are less productive
B. holds that French government is wrong about the early retirement policy
C. believes older workers are valuabl
D. holds that older workers should not compete with younger one
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Text 2
题材：科普知识
题源：The Economis
字数：445
Dieting, according to an old joke, may not actually make you live longer, but it sure feels that
way. Nevertheless, evidence has been accumulating since the 1930s that calorie restriction—
reducing an animal’s energy intake below its energy expenditure—extends lifespan and delays the
start of age-related diseases in rats, dogs, sh and monkeys. Such results have inspired thousands
of people to put up with constant hunger in the hope of living longer, healthier lives. They have
also led to a search for drugs that mimic the effects of calorie restriction without the pain of going
on an actual diet
Amid the trend, it is easy to forget that no one has until now shown that calorie restriction
works in humans. That omission, however, changed this month, with the publication of the initial
results of the rst systematic investigation into the matter. This study took 48 men and women and
assigned them randomly to either a control group or a calorie-restriction regime. Those in the
second group were required to cut their calorie intake for six months to 75% of that needed to
maintain their weight
The study is a landmark in the history of the eld, because its subjects were either of normal
weight or only slightly overweight. Previous projects have used individuals who were clinically
fat, thus confusing the unquestionable bene ts to health of reducing fatness with the possible
advantages of calorie restriction to the otherwise healthy
At a molecular level, it suggests these advantages are real. Those on restricted diets showed
drops in body temperature and blood-insulin levels—both phenomena that have been seen in
long-lived, calorie-restricted animals. They also suffered less damage to their DNA
Eric Ravussin, of Louisiana State University, says that such results provide support for the
theory that calorie restriction produces a metabolic adaptation over and above that which would
be expected from weight loss alone. Nevertheless, such metabolic adaptation could be the reason
why calorie restriction is associated with longer lifespan in other animals—and that is certainly the
hope of those who, for the past 15 years, have been searching for ways of triggering that metabolic
adaptation by means other than semi-starvation
The search for a drug that will delay old age is itself as old as the hills—as is the wishful
thinking of the suckers who nance such efforts. Those who hope to nd it by mimicking the effect
of calorie restriction are not, however, complete snake-oil salesmen, for there is known to be a
family of enzymes, which act both as sensors of nutrient availability and as regulators of metabolic
rate. These might provide the necessary biochemical link between starving and living longer
1. We can learn from the rst two paragraphs that______
A. people are crazy about dieting in order to lose weight and get
B. previous studies show that dieting can prolong animals’ lifespa
C. In the study, two groups of people were asked to go on a die
D. few results have been worked out on the effects of calorie restrictio
2. The word “landmark” (Line 1, Para.3) probably means______.
A. an event of much pro
B. an event of great excitemen
C. an event of great signi canc
D. an event of unique feature
3. The results of previous researches on the effects of calorie restriction are unconvincing
because ______
A. the subjects of the researches were either of overweight or slightly underweigh
B. calorie-restricted animals showed different physical signs in the researche
C. the decrease in body temperature may result from changes of outside temperatur
D. people cannot tell the bene ts of losing weight from those of calorie restrictio
4. It can be inferred from Paragraph 5 that people______
A. have been engaged in the study of the replacement of calorie restrictio
B. have been looking for drugs that can prolong lifespan for age
C. can expect a drop in their metabolic rate when going on a die
D. may bene t from metabolic adaptation in that it may protect their DN
5. People might take enzymes as a substitute for calorie restriction because______.
A. they rmly establish a chemical link between starving and living longer
B. they can provide people with enough nutritio
C. they work in a similar way that calorie restriction doe
D. they are favored by people who nance the drug researc
Text 3
题源：The Economist
题材：社会⽣活
字数：486
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In 1979 the United Auto Workers (UAW) had more than 1.5m members, and nine of the
country’s ten bestselling cars were American brands. The Toyota Corolla came eighth: the rst time
a foreign-branded car had cracked the top ten. Today the UAW’s membership is around 400 000,
and not all of those are car workers: over the years the union has sought recruits on farms, in
casinos and at universities. And of the top ten bestselling cars in America last year, seven were
foreign-badged
Americans are not only buying foreign-badged cars, they are also making them: seven of
America’s 15 most productive assembly plants last year were foreign-owned. Although the UAW
has had some success at organizing foreign-owned partsmakers, it has so far failed to organize
workers at the carmakers themselves. Its attempts in recent years to get into Nissan’s plants in
Tennessee and Mississippi have failed. Now it has set its sights on German carmakers: Mercedes
and, especially, Volkswagen
At VW’s plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the UAW, with support from IG Metall, which
represents workers in VW’s German plants, has been pushing for the creation of a works council.
In German law, such factory-level bodies are distinct from labor unions: they cannot call for strikes,
and their membership is limited to employees at the plant. Their relationships with management
tend to be less adversarial than American unions’. But the UAW seems to see them as a foot in the
door toward eventual union recognition
The status of works councils under American labor law—in particular, whether a company
can have a works council without a union—is unclear. Managers are legally prohibited from
“assisting” labor unions, and the National labor Relations Board has tended to interpret that ban
strictly. If VW workers do choose a works council, one way of satisfying the law might be to bring
in an outside union to represent employees, thereby giving the UAW a way in
It is no coincidence that most of the foreign-owned plants have been built in “right to work”
states in the South. Such states ban “closed shops” in which employees are forced to join a union at
their workplace. This makes it harder for unions to gain in uence, even if they have recruited
some of the workforce at a plant. But the UAW’s boss, Bob King, has acknowledged that it must
keep on trying to organize the foreign-owned assembly plants, otherwise it may not have a longterm future
When the foreign carmakers arrived, the UAW was strong enough to force them to pay the
wages it had negotiated with the American car giants in Detroit. But as the number of jobs in the
foreign-owned plants grew, and Detroit’s workforce shriveled, the union lost that price-setting
power. Since the cost of living in the South is relatively cheap, the foreign carmakers could pay less
than the American ones but still nd plenty of willing recruits
1. It can be inferred from the rst paragraph that ______
A. automobile industry in America is facing great recessio
B. UAW sets up more generous requirements for its members
C. it is quite dif cult for UAW to recruit automobile workers recentl
D. assembly plants workers have little interest in joining union
2. What can we know about works council under German law
A. It cannot exist without the support of labor unions
B. It can only organize strikes within the plants
C. The recruitment area of such bodies is limited
D. It has no power to ght against the management
3. Why does the UAW push for the creation of a works council actively
A. Because this is a common practice in Germany
B. Because managers cannot interfere with its work
C. Because a works council cannot exist without a union
D. Because this gives the UAW a chance to represent workers
4. What kind of state is likely to be favored by foreign-owned plants
A. One that has foreign-owned partsmakers
B. One that has friendly management-worker relationship
C. One that is favored by their own countries’ unions
D. One that has no favorable regulations for union powers
5. The word “shriveled” in the last paragraph most probably means______.
A. shrank
B.moved
C. expanded
D. transforme
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Text 4
题材：⽂化教育
题源：Newswee
字数：463
All over the world, your chances of success in school and life depend more on your family
circumstances than on any other factor. By age three, kids with professional parents are already a
full year ahead of their poorer peers. They know twice as many words and score 40 points higher
on IQ tests. By age 10, the gap is three years. By then, some poor children have not mastered basic
reading and math skills, and many never will: this is the age at which failure starts to become
irreversible
A few school systems seem to have gured out how to erase these gaps. Finland ensures that
every child completes basic education and meets a rigorous standard. One Finnish district of cial,
asked about the number of children who don’t complete school in her city, replied, “I can tell you
their names if you want.” In the United States, KIPP charter schools enroll students from the
poorest families and ensure that almost every one of them graduates high school—80 percent make
it to college. Singapore narrowed its achievement gap among ethnic minorities from 17 percent to 5
percent over 20 years
These success stories offer lessons for the rest of us. First, get children into school early. Highquality pre-schooling does more for a child’s chances in school and life than any other educational
intervention. One study, which began in the 1960s, tracked two groups of students from
disadvantaged backgrounds. Some were given the opportunity to attend a high-quality preschool;
others were not. Thirty- ve years later, the kids who went to preschool were earning more, had
better jobs, and were less likely to have been in prison or divorced
Second, recognize that the average kid spends about half his waking hours up until the age
of 18 outside of school—don’t ignore that time. KIPP students spend 60 percent more time in
school than the average American student. They arrive earlier, leave later, attend more regularly,
and even go to school every other Saturday. Similarly, in 1996, Chile extended its school day to add
the equivalent of more than two more years of schooling
Third, pour lots of effort into training teachers. Studies in the United States have shown that
kids with the most effective teachers learn three times as much as those with the least effective.
Systems such as Singapore’s are choosy about recruiting; they invest in training and continuing
education; they evaluate teachers regularly; and they award bonuses only to the top performers
Finally, recognize the value of individualized attention. In Finland, kids who start to struggle
receive one-on-one support from their teachers. Roughly one in three Finnish students also gets
extra help from a tutor each year. If we can learn the lesson of what works, we can build on it
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1. What can we learn about the kids with professional parents?
A. They are deemed to be successful in future
B. They go to school earlier than others
C. They tend to do a better job in schooling
D. They prefer to study in family circumstances
2. It can be inferred from the Finnish district of cial’s reply that ______.
A. she is frustrated about the school system in her cit
B. she is very thoughtful for the questio
C. the basic education system in her city is very successful
D. many students don’t complete schoo
3. According to the passage, a high-quality preschool______
A. is too expensive for students from disadvantaged background
B. is bene cial for a child’s chances of success in school and lif
C. is quite hard to obtain for most of the students in the 1960
D. means a guarantee of keeping away from crime and divorc
4. What can be inferred about the teachers
A. They have to spend more time in school than students
B. They have to go to school every other Saturday
C. They have to learn three times as much as students
D. They have to keep effective through constant training.
5. Which of the following is the best title for this passage
A. The School System in Finlan
B. The Achievement Gap and Resolutio
C. The KIPP Charter Schools in the United State
D. The Bene ts of High-Quality Pre-schooling
Unit
Text 1
题材：⽂化教育
题源：TIM
字数：504
Workers at Augusta State University in Georgia are spending the summer putting up new
signs, redesigning the school’s website, and carting furniture and les among of ces. What was
known as Augusta State when those students arrived as freshmen has been combined with the
neighboring Georgia Health Sciences University to form Georgia Regents University. It’s a kind of
corporate-style consolidation that is becoming increasingly common not only for public
institutions, but also for nonpro t, private ones that can pool their resources for marketing,
fundraising, and purchasing in a time of falling budgets. “Size matters, even in academia,” said
Ricardo Azziz, President of the new, 10,000-student uni ed school, which he said cut
administrative costs by 3% in just its rst few weeks. “A lot of times we talk about students
preferring small colleges, and that may be true, but it is much more costly to maintain all of the
moving parts at a small college than at a larger university.
There have been a few mergers(合并) of colleges and universities in the past, but the pace of
such consolidations is picking up. It’s not necessarily that there’s a surplus of colleges and
universities, though it is true that demand is down while supply is up; the number of students
slipped 1.8% last fall and another 2.3% this spring, according to the National Student
Clearinghouse. But the cost of running all these separate institutions at a time of spiraling tuition
and reduced state funding, and the appeal of adding services without duplicating expenses is
pushing many schools to merge. In addition to Augusta State and Georgia Health Sciences
University, Georgia has consolidated six other institutions into three, reducing the total number in
its public system to 31, and reorganized 15 of the state’s technical colleges, saving an estimated
$6.7 million a year on overhead
But while combining colleges and universities to reduce duplication may be logical, it isn’t
easy. Legislators(⽴法委员) who like having higher-education institutions in their districts often
resist consolidations. So do students and alumni, who have loyalty to their schools, and faculty
and staff who fear losing their jobs. Where consolidations have been successful, they’ve been
handled carefully. One way of doing this, say consolidation advocates, is to point out that it can
not only cut costs, but improve quality while attracting more research funding. With its new
connection to a medical school, for example, Georgia Regents has launched joint MD/MBA and
BS/MD programs. And one of the arguments for bringing together the College Park and Baltimore
campuses in Maryland was that they ranked 41st and 52nd, respectively, in research spending;
combined, they would have jumped to ninth, which proponents of the merger said would have
strengthened their position to attract even more money for research. Perks aside, the biggest
reason for consolidations remains lower costs. “There’s been a general sense that academia is not a
business, which I certainly agree with. But it does have to follow business principles more closely
than people would like to admit,” said Azziz
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1. In the summer, people at Augusta State University are busy ______.
A. moving the university to a new campu
B. negotiating about the combinatio
C. cutting the budgets for the gloomy econom
D. getting the new university ready for student
2. According to Ricardo Azziz, the President of Georgia Regents University, the
combination ______
A. can lead to a much more smaller budget
B. may make the university less attractiv
C. will surely raise the academic level of the universit
3. Which of the following groups disapprove of the university combination?
A. The board members of the involved universities
B. High school students seeking for better education.
C. The professors teaching at the universities
D. The universities merged into other ones
4. The word “Perks” (Para.3) most probably means______.
A. factors
B. bene ts
C. impacts
D. desire
5. What is the author’s attitude toward the combination of universities
A . Approval
B. Passionate
C. Impartial
D. Skeptical
Text 2
题材：社会⽣活
题源：TIM
字数：47
As the economy continues to ounder(to struggle helplessly), many families are forgoing
summer vacations in favor of staying at home. But there’s a more interesting option that is just as
cheap: vacationing in someone else’s home. Growing numbers of people here and abroad are
seeking a thrifty change of scenery by skipping all the hotels and looking instead to
swap(exchange) houses with strangers. Agree to use each other’s cars, and you can save big bucks
on rentals too
Home exchanges are not new. At least one group, Intervac, has been facilitating such
arrangements since 1953. But traf c online is particularly brisk these days, with several sites,
including HomeExchange.com—which was founded in 1992 and, with some 28,000 listings, bills
itself as the world’s largest home-exchange club—reporting that membership has increased 30% or
more this year
For an annual fee that is usually less than $100, members can access thousands of listings for
apartments, condos, villas, suburban homes and farms around the world. Initial contact is made
through the sites via e-mail, with subsequent communication usually by phone
It’s hard to beat free access to a washer and dryer and fully-equipped kitchen, but swaps
entail(包括) more planning than simply whipping out a credit card for a vacation package.
Exchange seekers often contact dozens of people before they nd someone willing and
appropriate. For starters, location really matters. Kathleen Dwyer, a retired assistant principal who
has been exchanging for six years, says she elded lots of offers to swap when she posted her
apartment in Manhattan. Now that she exchanges only her vacation home—an old sea captain's
house in a shing village in Nova Scotia—swapping inquiries have slowed to a trickle
She has swapped with people as far away as Hawaii and New Zealand, and once she
exchanged her one-bedroom co-op (with an alley view) for a large, upscale home on a lagoon (with
a view of the ocean) in California. “I burst out laughing. I could not get over it,” she said of the
ne-artwork- lled home that the Marin County couple swapped with her so they could visit their
daughter and her new baby. “They got this little, small apartment, and I got this million-dollar
home. I laughed at the trade, but they were happy to be near their daughter in Manhattan, so it
worked out ne.
Although home swappers often become fans of the practice, the concept may sound dicey to
the uninitiated. What about theft? Damage? Reasonable causes for concern, but equally unlikely.
“Nobody is going to y across the ocean or drive 600 miles to come steal your at-screen TV,” says
Tony DiCaprio, President of 1stHomeExchange.com, a four-year-old site that has seen membership
increase 30% this year. “Remember,” he notes,“at the same time they’re staying in your home, you
are staying in their home.
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1. The sentence “traf c online is particularly brisk”(Line 2, Para.2) most probably means
______
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D. will bring some nancial relie
2.
3.
4.
5.
A. home exchanges make the traf c busie
B. the online activities are very activ
C. touring online is very popula
D. home exchanges online are not believabl
It can be inferred from the third paragraph that ______
A. fee for membership can be paid by yea
B. the rst contact is often made by phone
C. detailed communication is usually made via e-mai
D. $100 can make you access the online information for several year
According to the passage, home exchange starters ______.
A. do no planning before their exchanges
B. pay more attention to what the home offer
C. take location as an important factor
D. pay less attention to traf c conditio
How did Kathleen Dwyer think of her exchange in California
A. It made the others laugh at her
B. It made her apart from her daughter
C. She was quite satis ed with it
D. It was a great chance for her to look after her baby
We can learn from Tony DiCaprio’s words that ______.
A. theft and damage are common for home exchanger
B. theft and damage are unlikely to happe
C. damage rates are same for both the home exchanger
D. worries have made the membership decrease
Text 3
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题材：社会⽣活
题源：The Economis
字数：474
The dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in
the Middle East 6,000 years ago, extracting(提取) it in earnest began only in 1859 after an oil strike
in Pennsylvania. The rst barrels of crude fetched $18. It was used to make kerosene, the main fuel
for arti cial lighting. Other liquids produced in the re ning(提炼) process were burned or dumped.
But the unwanted petrol and diesel did not go to waste for long, thanks to the development of the
internal-combustion engine a few years later
Since then demand for oil has risen steadily alongside ever-increasing travel by car, plane
and ship. Three- fths of it ends up in fuel tanks. With billions of Asian people growing richer and
itching to get behind the wheel of a car, the big oil companies, the International Energy Agency
(IEA) and America’s Energy Information Administration all predict that demand will keep on
rising
We believe that they are wrong, and that oil is close to a peak. This is not the “peak oil”
widely discussed several years ago, when several theorists reckoned that supply would atten and
then fall. We believe that demand, not supply, could decline. In the rich world oil demand has
already peaked: it has fallen since 2005
The rst revolution was led by a Texan who has just died. George Mitchell championed
“fracking” as a way to release huge supplies of “unconventional” gas from shale(页岩) beds. This,
along with vast new discoveries of conventional gas, has recently helped increase the world’s
reserves from 50 to 200 years. In America, where, thanks to Mr. Mitchell, shale gas already
billows(⼤量涌出) from the ground, lique ed or compressed gas is nding its way into the tanks of
lorries, buses and local-delivery vehicles
The other great change is in automotive technology. Rapid advances in engine and vehicle
design also threaten oil’s dominance. Foremost is the ef ciency of the internal-combustion engine
itself. Petrol and diesel engines are becoming ever more frugal. The materials used to make cars are
getting lighter and stronger. The growing popularity of electric and hybrid cars, as well as vehicles
powered by natural gas or hydrogen fuel cells, will also have an effect on demand for oil
Not surprisingly, the oil supermajors and the IEA disagree. They point out that most of the
emerging world has a long way to go before it owns as many cars, or drives as many miles per
head, as America. But it would be foolish to extrapolate(推断) from the rich world’s past to booming
Asia’s future. The sort of environmental policies that are reducing the thirst for fuel in Europe and
America by imposing ever-tougher fuel-ef ciency standards on vehicles are also being adopted in
the emerging economies
1. What made people realize that oil could be a source of fuel?
A. The development of technology in exploring oil
B. The development of arti cial lighting using kerosene.
C. The development of re ning process of crude oil
D. The development of the internal-combustion engine
2. According to the author, “peak oil” (Line 1, Para.3) probably means ______.
A. the highest point of oil demand
B. the top supply of oil
C. the largest consumption of oil
D. the longest period oil reserve could las
3. According to the passage, George Mitchell ______
A. opposed the consumption of conventional ga
B. predicted the world’s oil reserve could last for 200 year
C. found an alternative energy resource used ever-increasingl
D. noticed that “unconventional” gas is environmentally-friendl
4. What is the effect of the change in automotive technology on oil?
A. Oil will be unevenly distributed in the world
B. Oil will immediately lose its popularity
C. More high-quality oil will be needed
D. The demand for oil will gradually drop
5. What is the mistake the oil supermajors and the IEA have made about oil demand?
A. They shouldn’t have taken modern environmental factor into consideration
B. They realized more and more fuel-ef ciency standards have been introduced
C. They ignored the developing countries’ intention of protecting the environment
D. They gured out a new way to regain the popularity from developing countries
Text 4
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题材：科普知识
题源：Scienc
字数：46
In a famous episode of the TV show Seinfeld, a “close talker” makes others uncomfortable by
standing mere centimeters from their faces while speaking. What makes this invasion of our
personal space so uncomfortable? A new study ngers the amygdala, a region of the brain that acts
like a warning bell when someone gets too close for comfort
Psychologists have studied personal space since the 1960s. They‘ve found that Americans
and northern Europeans prefer a larger personal space than southern Europeans, whereas people
with autism (a tendency to view life in terms of one‘s own needs and desires) tend to unknowingly
invade others‘ personal space. Studies in monkeys have hinted that the amygdala, an almondshaped region in the middle of the brain that helps us recognize threats, plays a role in personal
space. But the theory proved hard to test in humans
Then, about 15 years ago, neuroscientists at the California Institute of Technology in
Pasadena met a 42-year-old woman with a rare genetic disorder that destroyed both sides of her
amygdala. In early experiments, the scientists discovered that the woman, referred to as SM,
couldn‘t spot fear in other people‘s faces; she also rated people as more trustworthy than an
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1. According to the passage, studies in monkeys ______
A. sensed discomfort in a way dissimilar to human beings
B. hinted that the amygdala plays a role in personal space
C. showed that Americans tend to invade others‘ personal space unknowingly
D. showed that Americans prefer a larger personal space than northern European
2. The 42-year-old woman mentioned in the third paragraph ______.
A. is more trustworthy than other people
B. doesn‘t like stay near others
C. is not sharp on personal space
D. is abnormal in min
3. We can learn from the new study made by Kennedy and his colleagues that SM ______.
A. has affections toward other healthy subject
B. feels appropriate to touch and poke somebod
C. feels uncomfortable with the 20 healthy people
D. can tolerate standing extremely close with the other
4. It can be inferred from the fth paragraph that ______
A. SM has intense brain activities when being scanned
B. Kennedy advises people to take away their amygdala
C. people without amygdala tend to have more discomfort
D. personal space in uences healthy subjects‘ brain activitie
5. The word “novel” (Line 1, Para.6) most probably means ______
A. believable
B. false
C. original
D. commo
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average person did. And she was extremely outgoing, “almost to the point where it isn‘t normal,”
says team member Daniel Kennedy. Even if she‘s only just met someone, he says, SM will invade
their personal space—touching their arms as she talks or poking their stomachs
In the new study, Kennedy and his colleagues more rigorously tested SM‘s sense of personal
space. They compared her with 20 healthy subjects in a series of experiments. In one test, an
experimenter slowly walked toward a subject until the subject felt uncomfortable and told the
experimenter to stop. SM let experimenters get about twice as close as other subjects did, 0.34
meters versus 0.64 meters, the team reports online this week in Nature Neuroscience. She even felt
ne standing nose to nose with an experimenter
Further experiments revealed why. Kennedy and his colleagues placed eight healthy
subjects, one at a time, inside a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner, which measures
brain activity. Then an experimenter stood either about 4.5 meters away from the machine or right
next to the machine‘s opening. The subjects’ amygdalas lit up with signi cantly more activity
when the stranger stood close by. “Our ndings support the idea that the amygdala functions as
the brakes in social interactions,” Kennedy says. “If you take away the amygdala, it seems like you
are less sensitive to behaviors that can cause discomfort.
The study is “a novel piece of research” that is the rst to identify a neural source of personal
space in people, says Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
“It‘s also part of a growing series of studies that underscore the importance of the amygdala in
human social interactions,” he says
Unit
Text
题材：社会⽣活
题源：TIM
字数：409
Why are young people less likely to purchase cars, or even have driver’s licenses nowadays?
One theory has it that the generation that came of age with the Internet and smartphones thinks
cars are pretty lame. Automakers prefer to see the situation differently—that young people today
love cars just as much as any other group, but just can‘t afford them right now
The auto industry has been in recovery mode over the past few years. Automakers sold 14.5
million new cars and trucks in 2012, a 13% increase over the prior year, and the highest total since
2007. Even so, the comeback has been called a “subpar recovery” and a prime reason why sales
haven‘t truly taken off is that younger consumers today aren‘t buying cars like younger consumers
traditionally have in the car-crazed U.S
Gen Y has been called “Gen N”, as in Generation Neutral—which is the way some describe
how millennials feel about car ownership. Studies have shown that fewer young adults have
driver‘s licenses, that this group hates the traditional car-buying process more than other
demographics, and that they prefer urban living and socializing online and therefore have less
need for cars
Overall, the impression one gets is that millennials just don‘t have the passion for driving
and owning a set of wheels that previous generations have had—at least not to the extent that
they‘ll devote a signi cant portion of their income to owning a car
So younger consumers just don‘t particularly care for car ownership, right? Wrong, say
automakers. “I don‘t see any evidence that the young people are losing interest in cars,” Mustafa
Mohatarem, GM‘s longtime chief economist, said to Automotive News. “It‘s really the economics
doing what we‘re seeing, and not a change in preferences.
Instead of accepting the premise that millennials see car ownership as “not cool”,
automakers are insisting that low rates of driver‘s licenses and vehicle purchasing by young
people come mainly as a result of car ownership being out of reach nancially for this group right
now. As the economy improves, and as millennials get a little older and have more need for cars
due to work and family responsibilities, auto experts assume that this generation will have to
embrace car ownership to a much larger degree. They see the car ownership alternatives—public
transportation, as well as services like ride sharing and car sharing—as having only a negligible
impact on the auto sales business in the future
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1. In automakers’ eyes, young people today ______
A. indulge themselves in virtual lif
B. are more environmental-friendly than ever
C. still have passion toward cars
D. are quite dependent economicall
2. Which of the following can best describe the present auto industry
A. Its recovery has nothing to do with young consumers
B. It is slowly recovering from the past gloomy years
C. It is expecting a true take-off in the near future
D. It is out of the expectation of automakers
3. What is the possible factor that in uences Gen Y’s desire for cars?
A. Public image of cars
B. Higher cost of fuel
C. Desire of breaking rules
D. New ways of communication
4. It can be inferred from Paragraph 5 that ______
Text
题材：社会⽣活
题源：TIM
字数：498
Leading up to the debt-ceiling deadline, everyone was talking about how the stock market
would fall into ruins if Washington didn’t reach a deal. In fact, the opposite has happened. Just
when it became clear last week that Washington was moving closer to a deal is exactly when Wall
Street started to stumble. And now that we have a deal, the falls have been getting worse. The Dow
Jones industrial average(道琼斯⼯业平均指数) plunged more than 500 points Thursday. Overall, the
market has fallen 9 out of the last 10 trading days, one of the worst stretches of down days in
recent years
In the Aug. 15th issue of TIME, columnist Rana Foroohar argues that the debt deal will
increase the level of inequality in the U.S.. A cut in spending, be it from consumers or the
government, during a recession is sure to cost the economy jobs. Still, the direct drag from the debt
deal on the economy is unlikely to be that big, mostly because the $2.1 trillion in cuts over the next
decade won’t really kick in for a few years. Thomas Lam, chief economist at Singapore-based
nancial rm OSK/DMG, calculates that the drag on the economy will lower economic growth by
only 0.3 percentage points in each of the next two years, which is something but not disastrous. So
why is Wall Street reacting so badly in the wake of the deal
Because the big impact of the deal may not be the direct drag of a decrease in spending. At
times in the debt-deal negotiations, it looked like we might get either an increase in taxes for the
wealthiest Americans, an increase in unemployment bene ts or both. In the end, we didn‘t get any
of those things. Nor did we get a reduction in entitlement programs that bene t everyone. Instead,
what was cut was largely discretionary(⾃主决定的) funds, a large portion of which go to programs
that help the poor
That‘s why Foroohar says the deal will probably exacerbate(加剧) income inequality in the
U.S.. And income inequality is one of the main factors that caused the nancial crisis. But that‘s not
the only way that inequality is haunting this economy. Inequality is probably slowing the recovery
as well. So far most of the gains of the recovery have gone to wealthy Americans. Luxury spending
is up. So that helps
The debt deal seems to make clear that Washington, at least for now, has no plans to deal
with the income gap. Our best hope to boost the economy is for some deal to lower taxes, either fo
corporations or for middle-class Americans. But because there was no deal on raising taxes on the
wealthy, it is likely that Obama and the rest of the Democrats will hold the line on the Bush tax
cuts and let them expire completely. So taxes for everyone are going up. And that could be another
drag on the economy. So why was the stock market down on Thursday? Why wouldn‘t it be
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1. If Washington hadn’t reached a deal, people expected the stock market should have ______.
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A. automakers still consider young people as potential customers
B. young people are losing interest in car
C. the young generation is greatly different from the old on
D. automakers have a wrong impression of young consumer
5. From this passage, we can conclude that ______
A. people will grow more and more independent of cars with the rise of heavy use of the
interne
B. the price of cars will strongly affect auto industry since the economy still struggles to
increas
C. automakers believe young people will realize their needs of cars as the economy
improve
D. cars will compete ercely with other means of transportation as their in uence on the
young is substantial.
A. risen 500 points on Thursda
C. no change in a short ter
B. collapsed immediatel
D. risen in a few days
What can be inferred from the second paragraph
A. The debt deal has slight effect on the economic growth in recent years.
B. The debt deal is fatal on the recovery of the economy recession
C. The debt deal factually has no effect on the growth of economy
D. The debt deal may stimulate the recovery of economic recession
The author seems disappointed to the debt-deal negotiations since they ______.
A. made the rich suffer from funds cutting
B. caused an increase in unemployment rat
C. led to a decrease in the funds for the poo
D. bene ted only those who needed help mos
In Foroohar’s opinion, the debt deal ______.
A. bene ts the rich and the fashion industr
B. narrows the inequality among various classes
C. redistributes the wealth among peopl
D. prevents the development of democrac
According to the passage, deal to lower taxes for middle-class ______.
A. has already been considered by the previous President
B. turns out to be a success by the Obama government
C. is criticized severely by the upper-class Americans
D. will bene t the recovery of economy overal
2.
3.
4.
5.
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题材：社会⽣活
题源：Newswee
字数：508
Cyber attacks seem to be getting more sophisticated by the hour. A few weeks ago malware
known as Zero Day was found to have exploited a vulnerability in Microsoft’s Windows operating
system that could allow online criminals to take control of a computer from anywhere in the world
without being detected. The operation involved what is known as “drive by” attacks, in which
visitors to legitimate Web sites are redirected to a page that secretly downloads the malicious(恶意
的) software
Serious threats like Zero Day make software makers tremble not just because they’re dif cult
to x but because the rms fear that legal action and tough government regulation on security
issues could be right around the corner. Many in the computer-security industry believe
companies will face increasing inspection in the years to come, forcing them to take legal
responsibility for aws in their programs that let hackers in. Microsoft would take most of the heat
simply because its software is everywhere: Windows runs on nearly 95 percent of the world‘s
computers, which is why it bears the brunt of online assaults. “Microsoft fears a class-action
lawsuit based on the fact that they make and distribute products that are not absolutely perfect,”
says Eric Domage, a software-security analyst at the market intelligence rm IDC
Software rms haven’t had to sweat security problems very much because licensing
agreements protect them from liability(责任) when systems are hacked, information is stolen, and
customers suffer nancial losses using their products. They argue that the performance of software
is dependent on too many variables—the computer it runs on, other programs that are installed on
the computer, and how vigilant the end-user is about keeping security updates current. “Software
makers traditionally assert that software is not a ‘product‘ and not subject to product-liability
laws,” says Dana Taschner, a lawyer who handled a suit against Microsoft over security problems
in 2003 (both parties dropped the case). European Union commissioners have now proposed
extending consumer-protection laws to include software, which would mark a radical shift in how
software is developed and sold in Europe. Taschner expects to see more signi cant litigation(诉讼)
against software makers very soon. “A day of reckoning(算总账) is coming on software security.” he
said
Recent antitrust rulings against Microsoft in the European Union over its bundling of
Windows with Internet Explorer may make it easier for plaintiffs (a person who brings suit in a
court) in the future to argue that they had little choice but to use Microsoft‘s products, legal experts
say. In order to fend off the legislators and trial lawyers, Microsoft has been going to great lengths
to show that it‘s serious about security. A case in point is the release in June of Microsoft Security
Essentials, a free download that offers a more robust protection against malicious attacks than
Microsoft‘s regular free security updates. It replaces the company‘s much-ridiculed OneCare
subscription service, which cost ＄50 and never attracted many takers. The company is also
scrambling(努⼒完成) to develop an update that guards against Zero Day, even though it was alerted
to the vulnerability sometime in 2008, according to a Microsoft spokesperson
1. It can be inferred from the rst paragraph that Zero Day ______.
A. is part of Microsoft‘s Windows operating system
B. can help a computer to avoid online criminal
C. is offered by legitimate Web sites
D. can control a computer without being detecte
2. Software makers are afraid of Zero Day because ______
A. they make huge pro ts from the cyber attacks and secretly hope they will continu
B. their programs have aws and they don’t want to spend years on improving the
C. they fear legal actions and tough government regulations on security issue
D. they want more government regulation on security issues to stop cyber attack
3. The phrase “a class-action lawsuit” (Line 7, Para.2) most probably means ______.
A. an individual sue when someone is a member of the upper clas
B. a classi ed sue that separates itself from other ordinary cases
C. a speci c sue depends on the quality of product
D. a large group of people collectively bring a claim to cour
4. An argue about the software rms for the security problems is that ______.
A. software’s performance depends on many factors
B. information is directly stolen by hackers
C. there is no law to control the software industry
D. software’s quality decreases by the threat of swea
5. In order to avoid legal problems, Microsoft______.
A. has offered more paid security updates
B. strived to deal with Zero Day
C. paid all its attention to Zero Day
D. began to charge for their release
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题材：社会⽣活
题源：TIM
字数：434
AIDs can kill by disgrace even when lifesaving medical treatment is available. Until recently,
an HIV-infected woman in Sauri, Kenya, was discouraged by her husband, also HIV-infected, from
seeking medical care because of his fear of disgrace. All too often, death quickly ensues in such
cases. But not in this one. Husband and wife were saved by Mary Wasonga, a fellow villager
recently trained to be a community health worker by the Millennium Village Project, which is
helping more than 400 000 people in dozens of African communities ght extreme poverty, hunger
and disease. Wasonga visited the couple and encouraged them to get home-based HIV testing and
counseling, and then helped them enroll in a treatment program. Indeed, she and the 82 other
community health workers in Sauri have helped thousands of villagers do the same
These workers also attend to women in labor who need urgent transport to a delivery room,
individuals too weakened by cholera to get to a clinic, children with malaria and many others.
They do this with one year of on-the-job training that builds on at least some secondary education.
That basic training is enough to save lives in vast numbers
Across Africa, Asia and Latin America, programs are under way that are reminiscent of
China‘s successful use of village-based health workers—the so-called barefoot doctors—a few
decades ago, but today‘s workers have even better health-care tools. The mother of all community
health efforts is India‘s National Rural Health Mission. Initiated by Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh and spearheaded by the young, dynamic Minister of Health, Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss, the
program has, in just over three years, mobilized more than half a million new community health
workers, each known as an ASHA—short for “accredited social health activist”, and the Hindi
word for hope
Technology companies and foundations are also joining the effort to support community
health workers. Mobile-phone giant Ericsson is empowering these workers with phones and
support systems for training, reporting vital statistics and calling ambulances. In India, Satyam
Computer Services and other organizations have partnered with the state government of Andhra
Pradesh to provide emergency-response coverage for 80 million people. The Gates Foundation is
similarly stepping up its programs of mobile-phone-based health care
In the coming years, community health workers can support a breakthrough in the decisive
control of many devastating diseases. The rich world can help through expanded nancial support
for community health workers and training programs by its universities. And the U.S. can learn
something from these programs: we too need to enlist more community workers to help our own
poor and vulnerable
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1. Why did the husband discourage his wife from getting medical care?
E. Because he wanted to die with his wife together
F. Because he was afraid of being laughed at by others
G. Because he knew no medical treatment was effective
H. Because no one would be willing to offer help to him
2. From the rst two paragraphs, we can learn that______
A. the medical treatment is not enough for saving HIV-infected people
B. higher education is necessary for becoming a community health worke
C. community health workers only help HIV-infected people
D. AIDS is incurable without community health worker
3. According to the third paragraph, India’s National Rural Health Mission ______.
A. was initiated by India‘s Minister of Health
B. was spearheaded by India‘s Prime Minister
C. was based on barefoot doctors
D. was the origin of all community health effort
4. What can we learn from the passage
A. Mary Wasonga saved the HIV-infected couple because they are her fellow villagers
B. Chinese doctors are all barefoot
C. Not only governments but also companies offer great help to support community
health workers
D. The U.S. need to enlist Indian community workers to help their people
5. It can be inferred from this passage that ______
A. it is a crime to be HIV-infected because the patients are disgracefu
B. the education of community health workers has been poor for decade
C. community health workers nowadays have better health-care tools
D. the risk of disease outbreaks can be minimized thanks to community health workers
Unit
Text
题材：社会⽣活
题源：Newswee
字数：51
Floors wrapped in steam, a complicated networks of pipes radiating red, uncomfortable
temperatures, aged graf ti, china bowls, the wrong shape and size doors. This isn’t a dirty version
of Wonderland—it’s an abandoned building in New York City, and a favorite playground for
young-adult “urban explorers”, who climb through the building’s broken walls and decaying halls
as a way to connect with the city
Urban exploration is not new—Dadaists(达达主义艺术家) including André Breton, Paul Eluard,
Francis Picabia, and Tristan Tzara led secret tours of the abandoned church of Saint-Julien-lePauvre in Paris as early as 1921, and lone New Yorkers have been exploring empty subway tunnels
for decades. But in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, several more organized groups were founded
The idea of young adults experiencing the city a little differently isn’t isolated to just urban
exploration. Anti-Boredom now runs alternate-reality games(ARGs) in multiple cities throughout
the world, including Flashback, an exploratory alternate-history game funded by the American
History and Civics Initiative. Improv Everywhere made street tricks famous in 2001; now the
Urban Pranksters network lists 1,401 derivatives of Improv Everywhere in cities around the world,
and hundreds more not associated with the New York pranksters(恶作剧的⼈)
But why are young adults rushing to explore the city anyway—especially in such playful
(and potentially illegal) ways? One suggestion is that they’re reacting to the culture of fear that
pushed so many boomers—and their young children—into the suburbs in the 1970’s and 1980’s.
“It gives people a reason to enjoy the outdoors and challenges them to get rid of their fears about
the ‘city’,” says Schmittling. “There’s also a huge part of it that includes awareness that the city is a
public place, that it’s not foreign, and that we are allowed to be in it and use it however we want.”
Oli Mould, an academic from England, agrees. “People explore urban areas in order to go beyond
what city authority prescribes,” he says
Moreover, quite a few of these city lovers claim they’re doing what they do to prove a larger
point; that even in cities defamed as defenders of hyper-capitalism, it’s possible to have fun,
experience culture, and thrive without earning a huge income. “The capitalist city builds
consumerist environments that are intended for people to act in certain ways and in certain
places,” says Mould. By exploring, he says, “people are expanding the functionality of cities and
reclaiming public space.” Certainly, a common quality of every urban-exploring group, street
game, or ARG is that it doesn’t cost money to join or to watch. And it would be against the
principles of an alternate-reality or street game to charge a fee. “It’s important that it remains free
to take part in, because this is an event that we want to be open to everyone,” says Thomas Lotze,
one of the co-founders of Survive DC. “If we restricted it just to people who were willing and able
to pay, it would change the mission and commoditize it.
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1. What can we know about urban exploration?
A. It’s only t to the lonely people
B. People have to do it secretly
C. It mainly focused on deserted places at rst.
D. The New Yorkers learned it from the French
2. What does the word “derivatives” (Line 5, Para.3) probably mean?
A. Ancestors
B. Challenges
C. Districts
D. Spinoffs.
3. According to the passage, Oli Mould holds the idea that ______
A. urban exploration is illegal
B. most people have fears about the city
C. people should take the city as a public place
D. people must follow the city’s of cial meanin
4. What’s important for keeping urban exploration’s mission?
A. The consumerist environments
B. The free availability for everyone
C. The restrictions on its participants
D. The city’s political and nancial support
5. What’s the author’s attitude toward urban exploration?
A. Neutral
B. Anxious
C. Indifferent
D. Rejective.
Text 2
题材：科普知识
题源：Newswee
字数：50
Think about yesterday’s lunch and a variety of details may leap to mind, each of them
employing a different section of your brain. The olfactory(嗅觉的) system calls up what the meal
smelled like, while the visual organs fetch images of the restaurant you ate in and certain part of
your brain recalls the sound of your waitress’ voice. Scientists have long suspected that every
recollection—from the mundane to the momentous—ignites a distinct pattern of neurons. But for
decades, they have struggled to understand how the brain assembles such dissimilar elements into
a single consistent memory, one that can be fetched undamaged, spontaneously or on demand,
hours, days or even years after the fact. “It’s not like a tape recorder where you store it all on one
cassette,” says Lynn Nadel, a neuroscientist at the University of Arizona in Tucson. “There’s more
than one PLAY button to hit.
It’s no insigni cant matter. One of the most devastating effects of dementia(痴呆) and
Alzheimer’s disease is the loss of what’s known as episodic memory—the capacity to remember
experiences in detail. Despite years of research and some initial progress, the ability to restore this
function to aging or diseased brains continues to puzzle doctors. But research published earlier
this month in the journal Science has provided some important clues into how the brain builds
memories
UCLA neuroscientist Itzhak Fried and his Israeli colleagues measured neural activity in the
brains of 13 study participants as they watched short video clips. Afterward, while their brains
were still being monitored, subjects were asked to describe whichever of the video clips came to
mind. The same neurons that had red as they watched a given clip red again when they recalled
that clip. Actually, researchers could predict which clip a subject was about to remember, as
corresponding neurons ared up seconds ahead of actual remembering
The ndings offer the rst proof of a long-held assumption—reactivation of the neurons
initially involved in an experience forms the basis of human memory. “Being able to see human
memory recall in action, in real time, is unprecedented,” says MIT neuroscientist Matthew Wilson.
“We’ve suspected for quite a while storage and retrieval(提取) would be concentrated in the same
cells, but never had the proof until now.
As exciting as that nding may be, however, some memory experts say the true signi cance
of Fried’s study lies not in when the neurons red, but in where they were located—the
hippocampus. One of the earliest and most common signs of Alzheimer’s disease is that patients
start getting lost in places familiar to them. The hippocampus, a thin slice of tissue tucked deep in
the brain, is known to play a role in the ability to remember and navigate through a given place, a
process known as spatial learning. The involvement of these same cells in the storage and retrieval
of memories suggests location may be the key to human recollections, the de ning element calling
for all the other elements together to reconstruct an event
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1. What does Lynn Nadel mean in his comments
A. When we want to record something through tape recorder, we store it on one cassette.
2.
3.
4.
5.
B. When we want to regain what we recorded in tape recorder, we need to press PLAY
button.
C. The storage and retrieval of information in brain are more complex than those in tape
recorder
D. There is no likeness between storage and retrieval of information in brain and in tape
recorder
Exploring the storage and retrieval of information in brain is a meaningful matter because
it______
A. helps people to remember what happened in the past more accuratel
B. helps doctors to restore memory function to aging or diseased brains
C. proves reconstruction of information are concentrated in the same cells
D. provides people the opportunity to see human memory recall in action in real time
According to Matthew Wilson, Fried’s study is important because ______.
A. it’s a professional study carried out by UCLA neuroscientists
B. it results from the cooperation of Itzhak Fried and foreign experts
C. it follows the long-held assumption of many experts in this eld
D. it proves the long-held assumption of many experts in this el
For some experts, why is the hippocampus important
A. Because it is the place where neurons red
B. Because it is the tissue tucked deep in the brain
C. Because it has been proved to be existent in Fried’s study.
D. Because it plays a leading role in reconstructing information
According to the passage, which of the following statements is TRUE
A. Whether people can recall the details of yesterday’s lunch is an unimportant matter
B. After years of research, doctors made initial progress in restoring episodic memory
C. What’s published in Science this month is carried out by Fried and his colleagues.
D. Some experts think the discovery of when the neurons work in Fried’s study is useless
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题材：社会⽣活
题源：Newswee
字数：475
April was an unusual, if not the cruelest, month for The New York Times executive editor Jill
Abramson, who in September will mark two years on the job. On Monday afternoon, April 15,
Abramson—who, at 59, is the rst woman to serve as top editor in the Times’ 160-year history—
had barely begun celebrating the four Pulitzer Prizes that her staff had just won when the Boston
Marathon bombings occurred. Pulling an all-nighter(通宵报道) at one point in the third- oor
newsroom of the Times’ Renzo Piano-designed Manhattan skyscraper, she was in charge of a
breathless week of “ ooding the zone”, while her reporters and editors managed to avoid the sort
of embarrassing errors committed by the Associated Press, CNN, and even the Times Co.-owned
Boston Globe
Then, the night of April 23, Politico—the Washington trade paper that aims to “drive the
conversation”—published a story suggesting that Abramson’s young editorship was already a
failure. Quoting anonymous former and current Times employees, Politico claimed she was widely
considered “stubborn”, “condescending”, “dif cult to work with”, “unreasonable”, “impossible”,
“disengaged”, and “uncaring”—“on the verge of losing the support of the newsroom”
Abramson was home alone in Tribeca the night the story broke. Her husband of 32 years,
Henry Griggs, was out, as were their two adult children, when she read it online
Running The New York Times has never been for the faint of heart. Abramson’s 23 months at
the wheel have been highlighted by the death in Syria of Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign
correspondent Anthony Shadid, a bitter contract dispute with the Newspaper Guild(协会), and,
seven months ago, forced buyouts(买断) of around 30 midlevel editors, including some of the Times’
most beloved veterans
Yet, unique in an industry troubled by cutbacks and shutdowns, Abramson’s newsroom is
staffed at the same level as it was a decade ago, and boasts 14 national and six regional bureaus,
plus 25 foreign bureaus—more than at any moment in the paper’s history. This is in complete
contrast to such newspapers as The Washington Post, which over the past decade closed all its
domestic bureaus and reduced drastically the head count in its newsroom, once more than 900, by
nearly a fourth. Meanwhile, the Times’ risky transition from free to paid online access appears to be
working: the Web edition boasts more than 700,000 paying subscribers
Abramson, for her part, might have to leave her current job in six years, but she doesn’t see
herself ever stopping work. “In terms of my professional life, I always felt a little happy that my
husband and I never had much money. I never had to go through the should-I-stay-at-home
conversation. I also wanted to work because I really liked it.” She adds: “They’re gonna have to
take me out feet rst, or chop off my head.
1. What makes April an unusual month for Jill Abramson
A. She was one of the winners of the Pulitzer Prize
B. Several really big events took place in April
C. Her reporters and editors were not really cooperative
D. Other presses saw The New York Times as their major competitor
2. The expression “the faint of heart” (Line 1, Para.4) is closest in meaning to______.
A. female reporters
B. aggressive personalitie
C. weak character
D. successful journalists
3. What measure did Jill Abramson take after she became the executive editor?
A. She changed The New York Times’ foreign bureaus
B. She encouraged reporters to compete for the Pulitzer Prize
C. She changed The New York Times’ online subscription policy
D. She set stricter requirement on errors in the reports
4. What is Jill Abramson’s attitude toward her current job?
A. She was reluctant to take the job at rst
B. She will remain at the post as long as possible
C. She enjoys the generous payment of the job
D. She looks forward to leaving the job
5. The author’s attitude toward Jill’s work is ______.
A. doubtful
B. sympathetic
C. appreciativ
D. critical
Text 4
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题材：商业经济
题源：Newswee
字数：463
The question of what to do about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—the two governmentcreated enterprises that have backed massive loans to the housing market—involves much more
than nance or real estate. It marks the end of an era. The endless promotion of homeownership as
the representation of the American dream has outlived its usefulness
In some ways, owning a home contributes to neighborhood stability and encourages
property improvement. Unfortunately, we let a sensible goal become a foolish fetish(狂热). Not
everyone can become a homeowner. Some are too young and footloose; some are too old and
dependent; some are too poor or irresponsible. Even with these gaps, homeownership is virtually
universal among the middle-aged middle class
Government funded homeownership in two ways: through tax and spending policies and
through credit markets. Tax breaks for homeowners exceeded $120 billion in 2009. These bene ts
go heavily to higher-income borrowers, who are encouraged to buy bigger and more expensive
homes that generate larger tax savings. This is both unfair and unnecessary. By contrast,
government funds for lower-income renters are limited, totaling about 25 percent of the support
for homeowners
The cheap credit subsidy(补贴) operates mainly through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. These
government-sponsored enterprises(GSEs) were economically mixed breed: pro t-making
companies that were given goals of expanding homeownership among poorer buyers. The GSEs
could borrow at interest rates barely above the U.S. Treasury’s because investors regarded Fannie
and Freddie bonds as backed by the government
It seemed a perfect marriage: The GSEs would earn pro ts and pass along the bene ts of
cheaper credit by nancing or guaranteeing mortgage(按揭贷款) loans. Congress could promote
homeownership outside budget constraints. But the marriage between private pro t and public
purpose failed. In September 2008, the Bush administration took over Fannie and Freddie, which
faced huge losses from bad mortgages
In an ideal world, we would throw away failed policies. We would change or end the
mortgage-interest tax cut. We would tighten the GSEs’ loans and guarantees. The trouble is that the
ideal solution may be temporarily undesirable. The housing market, as everyone knows, has
collapsed
Ironically, the GSEs have become more important than ever. Private lenders, which once
regarded a mortgage secured by a home as a highly safe investment, now see it as highly risky.
Few new mortgages are made without government guarantees
This means that sudden withdrawals of support might deepen housing’s depression. Some
economists have made sensible proposals to scale back Fannie and Freddie. But done too quickly,
they could back re
The single-minded promotion of homeownership failed and undermined the American
dream. It contributed to the housing “bubble” and favors housing investment over new industries
and technologies. But to end it, we need to make haste slowly
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1. According to the rst paragraph, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ______.
A. are the government-sponsored real estate enterprise
B. have already lent huge loans to the housing market
C. represent the authority and the American dream
D. mark the end of an era despite its nancial succes
2. The author’s attitude toward promotion of homeownership is______.
A. positive
B. objective
C. negativ
D. sensitive
3. We can know from the two ways of government funding homeownership that ______.
A. tax breaks prefer higher-income borrowers to lower-income renters
B. the GSEs can make pro ts by selling properties to poorer buyers
C. private pro t and public purpose is a perfect marriage
D. the GSEs will pass along all their pro ts to home buyer
4. The word “back re” (Line 3, Para.8) most probably means______.
A. come to their senses after the ange
B. produce helpful and expected results
C. make small but noticeable progres
D. get an outcome against the purpos
5. It can be inferred from the last paragraph that ______.
A. the American dream has never been achieved by owing house
B. the housing “bubble” should be bursted instantly to minimize losse
C. immediate suppression of the real estate might cause further damag
D. emerging industries will de nitely reverse the nancial crisis in the U.S
Unit
Text 1
题材：科普知识
题源：Newswee
字数：507
Understandably, Margo Parisi wanted to take every possible step to reduce the risk that her
newborn son, Luca, would die of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome(SIDS). So the mom followed the
“Back to Sleep” guidelines from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
(NICHD), putting Luca to sleep on his back, avoiding blankets and pillows, and keeping the
temperature cool. She also turned on the ceiling fan; she had read a newspaper article that said
researchers were investigating whether that might help. After all, she and her husband already had
the fan. “It’s cheap and easy; not going to harm the baby,” she says. “It’s one more thing you can
do as a parent that can prevent something horrible from happening.” So far all the precautions
have paid off: at 14 weeks, Luca is happy and healthy
Parisi is one of a growing number of parents taking measures to reduce the risk of SIDS—
de ned as “the sudden death of an infant under 1 year of age, which remains unexplained after a
thorough case investigation, including performance of a complete autopsy(验⼫), examination of the
death scene, and review of the clinical history”. In fact, the campaign to educate people about the
syndrome has been so successful that infant deaths due to SIDS have been cut in half since the
NICHD introduced its “Back to Sleep” campaign in 1994. Nonetheless, each year SIDS kills about
2,300 U.S. babies, about one infant out of every 2,000 live births, according to the American SIDS
Institute. Three new studies published today look at how that number might be further reduced
In the October issue of the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine, researchers looked at
whether the use of a fan in the room where a baby sleeps can help reduce the incidence of SIDS. In
in-person interviews, they questioned mothers of 185 California babies who died of SIDS and the
mothers of 312 randomly selected “control” infants matched by county, race, ethnicity and age to
the rst group. Researchers found that infants who slept in rooms ventilated(通风) by fans had a 72
percent lower risk of SIDS compared to infants who slept in bedrooms without fans. Using a fan
appeared to be most effective with infants in high-risk environments, such as those sleeping in
overheated rooms or on their stomachs. Researchers assumed that fans may improve ventilation
and decrease the chance that babies will rebreathe exhaled carbon dioxide
The two other new studies focused on how parents and caregivers are carrying out existing
guidelines for reducing SIDS deaths. While the campaign to have babies sleep on their backs has
been very successful, the message isn’t getting to everyone. A study in a special supplement to the
journal Pediatrics revealed that at 3 months of age(the peak for SIDS is 2 to 4 months of age), 25
percent of parents are still not following recommendations. A third of parents were sharing a bed
with their babies at that age, again contrary to the guidelines
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1. Which of the following may increase the risk of SIDS, according to Parisi’s steps?
A. Make babies sleep on the back
B. Cover babies with more blankets
C. Keep the air in bedrooms ventilated
D. Keep the temperature in bedrooms cool
2. The research in Paragraph 3 is mentioned to prove that ______
A. using a fan seemed to be effective for infants in high-risk environment
B. “control” infants are matched by county, race, ethnicity and age to the rst grou
C. fans improve ventilation and decrease the chance of rebreathing exhaled carbon dioxid
D. infants will no longer die of SIDS as long as use a fan in high-risk environment
3. The underlined word “exhaled”(Line 9, Para. 3) is closet in meaning to __________.
A. blew out
B. reduced t
C. taken in
D. concentrated on
4. It can be inferred from Paragraph 4 that ______
A. the campaign to have babies sleep on their stomachs has been very successful
B. the campaign to have babies sleep on their backs is eventually getting to everyon
C. many baby-carers are not carrying out existing guidelines for reducing SIDS death
D. most of the parents are not following recommendations of back-to-slee
5. The death toll of SIDS in the near future will ______.
A. increase a little
B. remain steady as befor
C. decrease to some extent
D. increase a lot
Text 2
题材：商业经济
题源：USNews&World Repor
字数：511
The Persian Gulf(波斯湾) may be wealthy with money from oil, but it is desperate for food.
Many of the richest countries in the region, including Saudi Arabia(沙特阿拉伯), are handicapped by
a dry climate and a shortage of farmland; thus they must import more than 60 percent of their
annual food supply. Existing water stores are expected to be exhausted in 30 years, and yet, food
demand is growing. Population growth in the region is more than double the world average, the
prices of some foods are up more than 30 percent this year, and civil unrest is escalating
It is, in short, an ever-worsening situation, and conventional responses appear inadequate.
Continuing to rely on food from other countries, many government leaders believe, is not only
risky but shortsighted in an era of tight trade restrictions and projections of even higher prices.
And so of cials have begun laying the groundwork for a new approach: buying or renting
farmland in other countries—sometimes thousands of miles away
In recent weeks, of cials and businessmen from Saudi Arabia have met with representatives
of Thailand and South Africa to talk about buying farmland. The United Arab Emirates has looked
at arable land in Sudan, Egypt, and Yemen and is pursuing a $3 billion deal with several private
companies in Pakistan to build large corporate farms for growing rice, wheat, sugar cane, and
fruits. Abu Dhabi has reportedly signed a deal with Sudan to develop 70,000 acres there
Looking to Asia, the Persian Gulf states have been the most aggressive in these pursuits, but
they are not alone. In April, South Korea expressed interest in renting farmland in eastern Russia
or Southeast Asia. Chinese rms, many with close government ties, have recently pursued deals in
the Philippines and Africa and are said to be eyeing land in Australia
Even individual farmers from the United States and Australia have started looking in larger
numbers to overseas farmland, particularly in South America. “We have certainly seen an increase
here,” says Andy Duff, a Rabobank International analyst based in Brazil. “There are the investors
who see land as the root of all commerces and believe land may be an interesting investment, and
we have also seen farmers who are looking to expand their operations from other parts of the
world.
Globally, farmland is disappearing at an alarming rate. According to estimates,
approximately 50 million acres disappear each year due to urbanization, population growth, and
economic and industrial development. In Iraq, where the rivers have nurtured riverbanks since the
start of civilization, farmland is expected to shrink 30 percent because of upriver damming in
Turkey. Vietnam lost 1.2 million acres of farmland from 2001 to 2007; 123 golf courses have gone up
since
A few developing countries have tried to slow or halt the turnover. China has imposed tight
restrictions on land conversions and, prosecuted thousands of alleged offenders. But, says Chietigj
Bajpaee, an analyst for Global Insight, a forecasting company, “trying to stop the conversion of
land is the exception rather than the rule.
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1. The passage suggests that the Persian Gulf ______.
A. has suffered from severe shortage of water
B. is overpopulated due to its richness in resource
2.
3.
4.
5.
C. is facing challenges of food and farmlan
D. is undergoing dramatic political transformatio
Which of the following statement is TRUE according to the second paragraph?
A. Buying or renting farmland in other countries is shortsighted
B. Governments should take even more conventional responses.
C. The food price may become higher due to tight trade restrictions
D. Globalization leads to serious drawbacks in farming techniques
The word “arable”(Line 3, Paragraph 3) is closest in meaning to __________ .
A. infertil
B. cultivatabl
C. refundabl
D. poisonous
Why are the investors involved in purchasing farmland
A. Because they have expressed interests in renting farmland in eastern Russia
B. Because they see farmland as the root of all commerces and an interesting investmen
C. Because they are looking to expand their operations from other parts of the world
D. Because they realize that approximately 50 million acres disappear each year
It can be inferred from Chietigj Bajpaee that ______.
A. both developing and developed countries are working hard to buy and rent farmland
B. developed countries rather than developing ones can make the rules worldwide
C. all countries should cooperate so that most of the farmland can be preserved
D. measures taken in developing countries may not be applicable to developed one
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题材：社会⽣活
题源：ScienceMe
字数：51
Figuring out if millions of American workers are at risk from on-the-job exposure to
hazardous chemicals has long been a tough scienti c problem. Last week, it became a touchy
political issue too. Two senior of cials demanded that the Administration kill a proposal to change
how the Department of Labor conducts the risk assessments that establish worker safety
regulations. These two of cials, who lead Congress’ labor committees, charged that a leaked draft
of the proposal shows that the Administration is rushing to slip through a rule that may have
profound negative impacts on worker safety before leaving of ce in January
Labor Department of cials reject the charge, saying that the changes they’re proposing—
including one that could reduce a worker’s exposure to dangerous substances—are designed to
make risk assessments more “consistent, reliable, and transparent”. And they say that if the new
guidelines move forward, there will be plenty of time to discuss scienti c issues thoroughly
Critics are skeptical. “There certainly could be an interesting and worthwhile debate about
the technical assumptions that go into risk assessment, but you don’t do that by pushing new
guidelines out at the last minute,” says David Michaels, an epidemiologist and worker safety
advocate at George Washington University in Washington, D.C
The Administration had not publicly released the proposal as Science went to press. But the
draft leaked to The Washington Post calls for several changes in how two agencies, the Occupational
Safety and Health Administration(OSHA) and the Mine Safety and Health Administration,
approach risk assessments. It would require the agencies to do more to notify the public—a move
critics claim is designed to involve new rules in red tape(官僚作风)
Another more controversial section calls for altering how regulators calculate a key risk
measure called “working life”. Currently, in most cases the agencies assume that a person works
for 45 years (from age 20 to 65) and use that span to calculate potential total exposure to dangerous
substances. From that, they estimate how many workers might get sick or die
But that approach likely overstates risks, the draft says, because few workers stay in the
same job for 45 years. To back that view, it includes statistics showing that less than 5% of
American workers stay with the same employer for even 35 years. Thus, the actual exposure of the
overwhelming majority of workers will likely be substantially less than current estimate, according
to the proposal. Instead, it calls for basing assessments on studies of how long workers actually
work each day, and how long they stay in the same industry
That may not be a bad idea—but it’s not good enough to dump the 45-year assumption, says
Adam Finkel, a former OSHA regulator who now teaches at the University of Medicine and
Dentistry of New Jersey in Piscataway. For one thing, regulators often don’t have the time or
money to collect such detailed information—if it actually exists, he says. And just because workers
change jobs doesn’t necessarily mean that their exposure risks go down
1. From the rst paragraph, we know that ______
A. the two of cials have resigned from the of ce in January
B. the leaked draft may have negative impacts on worker safet
C. the proposal was submitted but rejected by the Departmen
D. the Administration will kill the proposal thanks to the charg
2. Labor Department of cials reject the charge because ______
A. The new guidelines could be an interesting and worthwhile debate
B. The new guidelines were leaked to the media by the of cials.
C. The changes are designed to improve the risk assessments
D. The draft were proposed weeks before for thorough discussion
3. The word “controversial” (Line 1,Para.5) probably means______.
A. quali ed
B. humbl
C. debatable
D. durable
4. Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage
A. Adam Finkel advocates the proposal’s idea of changing.
B. The Washington Post demanded the changes in risk evaluation
C. It is easy to collect detailed statistics about working conditions
D. The released draft suggests that previous approach overstates risks
5. It can be inferred from the last two paragraphs that ______
A. the leaked draft is theoretically feasible but statistically groundless
B. employees are generally royal to the companies they work for
C. Adam Finkel used to be a professor but now work as a regulator
D. the standard for risk assessment should be changed no
Text 4
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题材：⽂化教育
题源：USNews&World Repor
字数：47
The competition for spots in medical schools may get a little less erce over the next few
years, but the competition for postgraduate residencies(the period of specialized training in a
hospital that a doctor receives after leaving university) may be heating up. The number of
federally funded residencies has remained capped since 1997, despite the expected signi cant
increase in the number of rst-year medical students by 2017
These training positions are largely funded by the federal health care program known as
Medicare. There are hardly more residency spots being created to meet the demand of new
graduates. Medical organizations are pushing political leaders to create more spots to offset these
challenges, but their efforts may be ineffective in the short term
In March the Association of American Medical Colleges backed two bills introduced in the
House and one in the Senate that outline a plan for adding 3,000 residency positions each year
from 2015 through 2019. Even though the bills provide a compromise, they may not enact
immediate change. “Members of Congress might agree that we need new residency spots,”says
Ray Quintero, director of the department of government relations for the association. But “the cost
of residency spots is quite expensive. So there’s been an inability to nd the funding.
The University of Nevada School of Medicine is preparing students to get into residencies
when fewer spots are available. In the last few years the school has started gathering more data
about the pro les of students who match in competitive residencies and using data from the
National Resident Matching Program to advise students about the specialties in which they should
attempt a match. That data, combined with an analysis of a student’s strengths and likes, can give
them a better chance at solidifying a residency match
At the School of Medicine at Oregon Health and Science University, professors are trying a
variety of ways to make students more competitive residency candidates. Students now receive
training in topics such as informatics, which examines how information is delivered. They are
encouraged to think about how tools such as Facebook, Twitter and e-mail factor into
corresponding with patients and others in the health care community. “Residency programs have
changed and what they’re looking to do has changed,” says George Mejicano, the school’s senior
associate dean for education. “It’s both an advising and a curriculum process,” he says
Prospective students trying to plan their medical careers should spend time with physicians
in multiple health care settings to see if being a doctor is really what they want to do, says Margo
Vener, a family physician who also teaches medicine at the University of California—San
Francisco. She has been advising UCSF students on their career and residency choices since 1999.
“This is an incredibly long and hard training process,” says Vener. And because it’s followed by
possibly a 30-to 40-year career, “training is the tip of the iceberg.
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1. The word “capped” (Line 4, Para.1) most probably means______.
A. increased
B. swung
C. unchanged
D. lowered
2. What is the main obstacle of setting up more residency positions
A. The limitation of the budget
B. The negative attitude of the government
C. The reluctant reaction of the patients
D. The pushing of the medical associations
3. In which way are students of the University of Nevada School of Medicine better prepared
A. The school has access to the National Resident Matching Program
B. The school collects data from every student to offer useful suggestions
C. The school funds the hospital to create more spots for graduates
D. The school combines data with students’ preferences to secure a match
4. How does the erce competition of residency positions affect the School of Medicine at Oregon
Health and Science University?
A. Professors offer the content of their teaching on multiple platforms
B. Professors make alternations to catch up with the latest trend
C. The technical support of the campus has been improved
D. Professors enhance correspondence with other health care communities
5. What can be inferred from Margo Vener’s words？
A. Physicians’ experience helps to ensure a residency position
B. Working with various physicians guarantees a promising futur
C. It takes at least 30 to 40 years to be quali ed as a doctor
D. Becoming a doctor doesn’t sound as splendid as most people think
Unit
Text 1
题材：⽂化教育
题源：U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT
字数：446
Conventional wisdom suggests that students perform better when they are enrolled in
smaller classes. But new research and advocacy groups suggest that targeted resizing of classes—
including increasing class sizes in certain subjects—can save districts money while minimally
impacting student achievement
Education Resource Strategies (ERS) estimates that up to $6 billion could be saved nationally
by increasing class sizes by just one student. A report released in May by the Brookings Institution
states that the same move would reduce the number of teachers by approximately 7 percent
Class-size legislation has remained an important political issue in many states. At least 24
states have enacted class-size laws that limit enrollment. Karen Miles, executive director of ERS,
says these laws can hurt students in the long term. “Important programs like teacher development
classes and extracurricular activities have been cut in order to employ enough teachers to keep
class sizes low,”she says
Others, including Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, have come around to her way of
thinking. In a letter to governors weighing state budget cuts, he wrote that states should use
federal money in a way that would have the greatest positive impact on students. Among his
suggestions were “targeted adjustments in class size, and compensation models that reward the
best, most effective work.
Research shows that drastic class size reduction can improve student performance. The most
widely cited research, the Student Teacher Achievement Ratio study conducted in the late 1980s,
showed that when class sizes were reduced from 22 students to 15 students, student achievement
increased by about three months of additional schooling. Subsequent studies have shown that
slight increases or decreases in class size enrollment have negligible effects on student
achievement
The May Brookings report says, “It appears that very large class-size reductions, on the order
of magnitude of 7-10 fewer students per class, can have signi cant long-term effects on student
achievement. These effects seem to be largest when introduced in the earliest grades, and for
students from less advantaged family backgrounds.
Miles stresses that schools and districts need a strategy when it comes to changing class
enrollment. If class sizes are increased, the money saved should be spent training effective
teachers. She says schools should experiment with hiring part-time experts to teach reading in
small groups. If there are three third-grade classes in a school, for instance, those classes could be
combined for part of the day in classes such as art
Enrollment reductions should be focused on underprivileged students and young students,
she adds. Better teacher evaluation systems need to be developed and implemented so that
ineffective teachers can be held accountable for student performance, and effective teachers can be
rewarded
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1. Smaller class is believed to be good because it can______.
A. reduce the number of teachers
B. enrich students’ curricula in the long term
C. help to improve students’ performance
D. provide students with more colorful after-class activitie
2. Which of the following statements is TRUE about increasing class sizes
A. It is one way to develop national economy
B. It will increase the number of teachers
C. It can bring some bene ts to students
D. It is one way to save money nationally
3. Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?
A. Student achievement is increased by three months of additional schooling
B. Students will not be severely affected with little changes in class size
C. The older the students are, the more urgent the limit enrollment is
D. Students from the rich family should be put into bigger classes
4. Which of the following would Karen Miles most probably agree on?
A. We should apply the money saved to training teachers
B. The class sizes should be increased for the sake of better performance.
C. Art is a course suitable for large classes of all grades
D. Money should be spent to improve students’ performance
5. Which of the following would be the best title for the passage?
A. Class-Size Legislation—a Shortcut for Better Performance
B. Targeted Resizing of Class—a Strategy for Class Enrollment
C. Class-Size Limitation—the Only Way for Schools
D. Class-Size Increase—a Substitute for Limit Enrollmen
Text 2
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题材：科普知识
题源：Psychological Science
字数：435
We are all familiar with the phrase “monkey see, monkey do”—but have we actually
thought about what it means? Over the last two decades, neuroscience research has been
investigating whether this popular saying has a real basis in human behavior
Over twenty years ago, a team of scientists, led by Giacomo Rizzolatti at the University of
Parma, discovered special brain cells, called mirror neurons, in monkeys. These cells appeared to
be activated both when the monkey did something itself and when the monkey simply watched
another monkey do the same thing
The function of such mirror neurons in humans has since become a hot topic. In the latest
issue of Perspectives on Psychological Science, a team of distinguished researchers debate whether the
mirror neuron system is involved in such diverse processes as understanding speech,
understanding the meaning of other people’s actions, and understanding other people’s minds.
The mirror neuron system probably plays some role in how we understand other people’s speech,
but it’s likely that this role is much smaller than has been previously claimed. In fact, the role is
small enough that it’s unlikely that mirror neurons would be causal factors in our ability to
understand speech. Mirror neuron-related processes may only contribute to understanding what
another person is trying to say if the room is very noisy or there are other complications to normal
speech perception conditions
Mirror neurons are believed to play a critical role in how and why we understand other
people’s actions. There are many physical actions, like Tiger Woods’ golf swing, that we ourselves
can’t do, but we understand those actions anyway. However, contrary to what some mirror neuron
proponents have suggested, doing isn’t required for understanding. In fact, neuroimaging data
reviewed in this article demonstrate that the actions we ourselves have the most experience doing
—the actions we are best at doing and understand best—actually show less mirror neuron activity.
Such ndings suggest a need to reappraise the role of mirror neurons in guiding how we
understand actions
One of the most powerful roles suggested for the mirror neuron system in humans is that of
understanding not just other people’s physical actions or speech, but their minds and their
intentions. It has been suggested that some persons, such as persons with autism, have dif culty
understanding other people’s minds and, therefore, might lack mirror neurons. However,
numerous research studies reviewed in this article consistently show that persons with autism are
highly capable of understanding the intentions of other people’s actions, suggesting that our
intuitions about persons with autism and mirror neurons needs to be revised
1. The author quotes the phrase “monkey see, monkey do” in Paragraph 1 to ______.
A. compare the mirror neurons between monkeys and humans
B. explain how mirror neurons function on monkeys in the wildernes
C. explain how mirror neurons work on humans with autis
D. explore whether the mirror neurons function the same way on monkeys and human
2. Which of the following is TRUE about mirror neurons?
A. It is scienti cally proved that they play a critical role in how we understand actions.
B. Tiger Woods shows more neuron activities because he is good at gol ng
C. People show less neuron activities when exposed to familiar actions
D. They are one of the causal factors in our ability to understand speech
3. The mirror neuron system functions the most in understanding others’______.
A. speech
B. response
C. intentions
D. intuitions
4. What can we infer from people with autism according to the passage?
A. There are less mirror neurons in their brains due to mental issues.
B. Previous assumption about autism and mirror neurons is misleading.
C. Their actions turn out to be in accordance with the research ndings.
D. They are capable of understanding the intentions of other people’s actions
5. What is the main idea of the passage?
A. The role of mirror neurons play in human behavior.
B. How mirror neurons function in patients with autism.
C. The mirror neuron system in monkey and human brain.
D. The number of mirror neurons and people with autism
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题材：科普知识
题源：U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT
字数：495
Is America headed for a “lost decade” of tiny growth like Japan suffered during its banking
and real estate meltdown in the 1990s? That’s the big debate right now on Wall Street. Yet, in
Washington, the common wisdom holds that America is already waist deep into a lost decade, one
marked by stagnating(停滞的) wages, growing income inequality, and deteriorating economic
fundamentals. That has been the liberal narrative of the Bush years, and now some conservatives
have begun to buy into the critique. “Even before the Wall Street crisis, the American economy had
underperformed from the point of view of the average worker,” former Bush speechwriter and
critic David Frum wrote recently
At best, this narrative is historical ction. Take the bit about wage stagnation. Indeed, the real
average hourly wage for workers, as calculated by the Labor Department, is just 1.2 percent more
than it was at the end of 2000. Yet many economists, including those at the Federal Reserve, think
the government is overestimating in ation(通货膨胀率) by nearly a full percentage point. If true, then
workers have actually seen wages rise by about 10 percent since 2000. And you don’t even have to
tweak the in ation data if you combine wages, salaries, and bene ts, as does economic analyst Ed
Yardeni. Doing that, he nds that workers are 11 percent to the better since January 2001
Consumption equality. Of course, averages may mask growing income inequality, where
middle incomes are at, lower incomes falling, and higher incomes surging. And assuredly there
are loads of data showing that people with high-skill, high-education careers (like engineers and
attorneys) and careers that bene t from globalization(NBA players, CEOs) have been raking it in(赚
⼤钱)
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But how rich you are depends on both how much you make and how much the goods you
buy cost, note economists John Romalis and Christian Broda of the University of Chicago. And
they recently found that of cial income inequality statistics fail to take into account that lowerincome Americans tend to consume more inexpensive, Asian-produced goods. The China price
1. David Frum is cited in the rst paragraph to ______
A. show that the economy is worsening year after year
B. illustrate the pessimistic view is being accepted by the average worker
C. compare the current economic situation with the pas
D. assess the impact of the underperformed economy on workers’ lif
2. We may infer from the second paragraph that ______
A. the phenomenon of wage stagnation often appears in historical ctions.
B. the Labor Department calculated the average hourly wage to show wage stagnation
C. the wage would rise by 11% since 2000 if the government didn’t overestimate in atio
D. economic analyst Ed Yardeni probably agrees with the author on wage stagnatio
3. The word “tweak” (Line 5, Para.2) most probably means ______.
A. squeeze
B. hide
C. adjust
D. march
4. The author may agree that ______.
A. Asian-produced goods are popular among Americans
B. bargain hunters have a higher in ation rate than the reality-show celebrities
C. different in ation rates rule out the rise in wage inequality
D. the next President won’t inherit a terrible short-term economic situation
5. What is the best title of the passage
A. Wage Inequality in the U.S
B. Differences in In ation Rates
C. America’s Fake Lost Decade
D. An Introduction to American Econom
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题材：科普知识
题源：Psychological Scienc
字数：47
It’s a common belief that women take fewer risks than men, and that adolescents always
plunge in headlong without considering the consequences. But the reality of who takes risks is
actually a bit more complicated, according to a new paper which will be published in the August
issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological
Science. Adolescents can be as cool-headed as anyone, and in some realms, women take more risks
than men
A lot of what psychologists know about risk-taking comes from lab studies where people are
asked to choose between a guaranteed amount of money or a gamble for a larger amount. But that
kind of decision isn’t the same as deciding whether you’re going to speed on the way home from
work, or go bungee jumping. Research in the last 10 years or so has found that the way people
choose to take risks in one realm doesn’t necessarily hold in other realms
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doesn’t rise as fast as the Prada price. In short, Wal-Mart bargain hunters have a lower in ation
rate than the reality-show celebrities pillaging the stores on Rodeo Drive. “Those differing in ation
rates negate almost all the rise in wage inequality,” says Romalis
Now, none of this upbeat number means the next President won’t inherit an awful shortterm economic situation. But the long-term fundamentals continue to be solid. The World
Economic Forum recently ranked the US economy as the world’s most competitive, thanks to our
innovation, exible labor markets, and higher education. Our biggest weaknesses included tax
rates—numero uno—and an inef cient government bureaucracy. Those high-return assets, along
with what economist Tim Kane calls our “entrepreneurial culture”, give America what the
Japanese call sokojikara, or “deep strength”. And that reserve power—along with some timely
nancial action by the bailout rm of Paulson & Bernanke—is why America won’t have a lost
decade
“The typical view is that women take less risks than men, that it starts early in childhood, in
all cultures, and so on,” says Bernd Figner of Columbia University and the University of
Amsterdam, who cowrote the paper with Elke Weber of Columbia University. The truth is more
complicated. Men are willing to take more risks in nances. But women take more social risks—a
category that includes things like starting a new career in your mid-thirties or speaking your mind
about an unpopular issue in a meeting at work
It seems that this difference is because men and women perceive risks differently. “That
difference in perception may be partly because of how familiar they are with different situations,”
Figner says,“If you have more experience with a risky situation, you may perceive it as less risky.”
Differences in how boys and girls encounter the world as they’re growing up may make them
more comfortable with different kinds of risks
Adolescents are known for risky behavior. But in lab tests, when they’re called on to think
coolly about a situation, psychological scientists have found that adolescents are just as cautious as
adults and children. The difference between the lab and the real world, Figner says, is partly the
extent to which they involve emotion. In an experiment where adolescents’ emotions got triggered
strongly, they looked very different from children and adults and took bigger risks, just as
observed in real world settings
“Ultimately we would like to provide knowledge with our research that people can use to
make decisions that are bene cial for them in the long term,” Figner says. The goal isn’t to avoid
risk, but by understanding when and how people decide to take risks, he hopes to help people
make risky decisions that they won’t regret, either immediately after they have made them, or
years later
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1. The word “realms“(Line 5, Paragraph 1) is closest in meaning to ______.
A. pol
B. realit
C. aspec
D. cell
2. According to the passage, women tend to take more risks when they are asked to ______.
A. gamble on money
B. face unknown dangers
C. go bungee jumping
D. start a new caree
3. How will the adolescents act in the real world if triggered strongly by the surroundings
A. They will still be cool-headed and careful enough
B. They will get bold enough to take bigger risks
C. They will perceive the potential risks and avoid them
D. They will behave the same as adults and children
4. Which of the following statements might Figner agree with?
A. The more risky experiences one has, the less dangerous he will feel
B. People can learn skills to avoid taking risks from the paper
C. The common belief that women take fewer risks than men is scienti cally proved
D. There is no apparent difference between the results from the lab and the real world
5. Which of the following statement is NOT TRUE according to the passage?
A. It is hoped that people make risky decisions that they won’t regret
B. Men are women perceive risk differently due to their childhood
C. What appears true in the experiment is also valid in real settings
D. Adolescents can be different and take bigger risks when triggered.