题目内容

A four-year-old girl sees three biscuits divided between a stuffed crocodile and a teddy bear.The crocodile gets two; the bear one.“Is that fair?” asks the experimenter.The girl judges that it is not.“How about now?” asks the experimenter, breaking the bear’s single biscuit in half.The girl cheers up: “Oh yes, now it’s fair.They both have two.” Strangely, children feel very strongly about fairness, even when they hardly understand it.

Adults care about fairness too --- but how much? One way to find out is by using the ultimatum (最后通牒) game, created by economist Werner Guth.Jack is given a pile of money and proposes how it should be divided with Jill.Jill can accept Jack’s “ultimatum”, otherwise the deal is off, and neither gets anything.

Suppose Jack and Jill don’t care about fairness, just about accumulating cash.Then Jack can offer Jill as little as he likes and Jill will still accept.After all, a little money is more than no money.But imagine, instead, that Jack and Jill both care only about fairness and that the fairest outcome is equality.Then Jack would offer Jill half the money; and Jill wouldn’t accept otherwise.

What happens when we ask people to play this game for real? It turns out that people value fairness a lot.Anyone offered less than 20-30% of the money is likely to reject it.Receiving an unfair offers makes us feel sick.Happily, most offers are pretty equitable; indeed, by far the most common is a 50-50 split.

But children, and adults, also care about a very different sort of (un)fairness, namely cheating.Think how many games of snakes and ladders have ended in arguments when one child “accidentally” miscounts her moves and another child objects.But this sense of fairness isn’t about equality of outcome: games inevitably have winners and losers.Here, fairness is about playing by the rules.

Both fairness-as-equality and fairness-as-no-cheating matter.Which is more important: equality or no-cheating? I think the answer is neither.The national lottery(彩票), like other lotteries, certainly doesn’t make the world more equal: a few people get rich and most people get nothing.Nevertheless, we hope, it is fair --- but what does this mean? The fairness-as-no-cheating viewpoint has a ready answer: a lottery is fair if it is conducted according to the “rules”.But which rules? None of us has the slightest idea, I suspect.Suppose that buried in the small print at lottery HQ is a rule that forbids people with a particular surname (let’s say, Moriarty).So a Ms Moriarty could buy a ticket each week for years without any chance of success.

How would she react if she found out? Surely with anger: how dare the organisers let her play, week after week, without mentioning that she couldn’t possibly win! She’d reasonably feel unfairly treated because ___________________.

To protest(抗议) against unfairness, then, is to make an accusation of bad faith.From this viewpoint, an equal split between the crocodile and the bear seems fair because (normally, at least), it is the only split they would both agree to.But were the girl to learn that the crocodile doesn’t like biscuits or that the bear isn’t hungry, I suspect she’d think it perfectly fair for one toy to take the whole.Inequality of biscuits (or anything else) isn’t necessarily unfair, if both parties are happy.And the unfairness of cheating comes from the same source: we’d never accept that someone else can unilaterally(单方面地) violate agreements that we have all signed up to.

So perhaps the four-year-old’s intuitions(直觉) about fairness is the beginnings of an understanding of negotiation.With a sense of fairness, people will have to make us acceptable offers (or we’ll reject their ultimatums) and stick by the (reasonable) rules, or we’ll be on the warpath.So a sense of fairness is crucial to effective negotiation; and negotiation, over toys, treats etc, is part of life.

1.It can be inferred that in the ultimatum game, _____.

A. Jack keeps back all the money

B. Jill can negotiate fair division with Jack

C. Jack has the final say in the division of money

D. Jill has no choice but to accept any amount of money

2.From Paragraph 2 to 4, we can conclude _____.

A. people will sacrifice money to avoid unfairness

B. fairness means as much to adults as to children

C. something is better than nothing after all

D. a 30-70 split is acceptable to the majority

3.Which of the following does fairness-as-no-cheating apply to?

A. divisions of housework

B. favoritism between children

C. banned drugs in sport

D. schooling opportunities

4.Which of the following best fits in the blank in Paragraph 7?

A. the lottery didn’t follow the rules

B. she was cheated out of the money

C. the lottery wasn’t equal at all

D. she would never have agreed to those rules

5.The chief factor in preventing unfairness is to _____.

A. observe agreements

B. establish rules

C. strengthen morality

D. understand negotiation

6.The main purpose of the passage is to ______

A. declare the importance of fairness

B. suggest how to achieve fairness

C. present different attitudes to fairness

D. explain why we love fairness

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根据短文内容,从短文后的选项中选出能填入空白处的最佳选项。选项中有两项为多余选项。

People tend to become more personal and hide less of themselves when using email. Some Britain researchers have found in a recent study that there are good reasons for this.

The team of researchers asked 83 pairs of students, all strangers to each other, to solve a problem. They had to discuss this question: ___1.___ The pairs of students had to talk over the problem either face to face or by computers. Dr. Johnson said, “They told their partners four times as much about themselves when they talked over the Internet as when they talked face to face. When the computers were fitted with cameras so that students could see each other, this limited the personal side of the conversation.”

___2.__ It was mainly about things such as where they went to school, or where they used to live. But some students discussed their love stories, and personal childhood experiences. Dr. Johnson believes that emailing encourages people to focus on themselves. _3._ “If you cannot see other person, it becomes easier to talk about yourself. This is because you are not thinking what the other person is thinking of you. So emailing has become the modern way of talking,” said Dr. Johnson. ___4.___ “In the 19th century people started to use the „telegraph' to communicate. Now the same kind of thing has happened and people ended up speaking more freely.” Dr. Johnson thinks that emailers need to know about these effects of emailing, especially when they start work in a company, “___5._”

A. Love stories are a popular choice.

B. However, this style of talking is not entirely new.

C. Generally, the information was not extremely personal.

D. The more personal information you give, the more friends you can make.

E. And when they do this, they become more open, especially if there are no cameras.

F. If only five people in the world could be saved from a world disaster, who should they be?

G. If you didn’t know about it, you could find yourself saying more about yourself than you wanted to.

根据短文内容,从短文后的选项中选出能填入空白处的最佳选项。选项中的两项为多途选项。

When was the last time you had great fun with your family?1. So stand up and plan to have fun with your family.

Going to the zoo is definitely a number-one pick for family activities.Other than visiting animals,most zoos nowadays have rides that you can enjoy with your family.Meals are served in the zoo2.To add some fun,ask to be the photographer for the day and you might be surprised by how creative you can be.

3.Even though you might not be really keen on outdoor activities,you can still enjoy your time by playing together after having your lunch.

Visiting the nation's capital would be your choice if you want to go on a trip with your family.Learn more about the history by visiting historical sites. 4.

A treasure hunt is a popular activity,so going hunting with your family is a nice choice.You can train yourself by asking to be the person in charge who can hold the treasure map and make decisions.

Create a video clip with your family.Make your family the characters in the clip.You may talk about your family life in the clip,about your interests or even create a drama.

5. Plant flowers and mow(修剪)the lawn.After a day of hard work,you can all sit back and enjoy a barbecue at your beautifully cleaned backyard.

A.History creates topics for you and your family.

B.Family is always the most valuable thing in life.

C.At bedtime read to your young kids and read with your elder kids.

D.Bring your own snacks if you want to save some money.

E.Here are two examples.

F.Having a picnic at the park is also a good activity for your family.

G.Doing some yard work together can also be a fun quality time for your family

Dr.Michael Prager, a leading Botox expert, said that a growing number of women are developing something called “computer face”.He also mentioned that professionals who worked long hours in front of a screen were ending up with saggy jowls(颚骨), “turkey neck” and deep-set wrinkles on their forehead and around their eyes.

The Botox expert said that, of all his clients, office workers were most likely to show premature(过早的)signs of ageing.“If you are one of the unfortunate people who frown(皱眉)while you are concentrating on the screen then, over time, you will inevitably end up with frown lines,” Dr.Prager said.“What is perhaps more surprising is the number of women with saggy jowls because they are sitting in one position for so long.If you spend most of the time looking down then the neck muscles shorten and go saggy, eventually giving you a second neck.“

Dr.Prager, who has a practice near Harley Street in London, said he encourages his clients to put a mirror next to their computer so they can see if they are frowning at the screen.“When people are stressed or thinking hard about something, then they will often put on a ‘grumpy(脾气暴躁的)face’ without even knowing what they are doing.When my clients put a mirror next to their desk, they are often shocked by the angry, frowning face which stares back at them.”

He said, “The women I am seeing at the moment have only been using computers at work for the last decade or so.But women in their 20s have grown up with them and use them for every single task.I think the problem is going to become much, much worse.In another ten years, they could be looking quite awful.”

Dr.Prager said there were several simple steps which could avoid “computer face” such as regular screen breaks and stretching the neck muscles.And, of course, there was always Botox.He said that, after a couple of sessions of Botox, the habit of “grumpy face” could be broken.

1.In what way do women develop a “computer face”?

A.Frowning every now and then.

B.Concentrating on computers frequently.

C.Working for too long in front of a screen.

D.Sitting in the same place for a long time.

2.According to the passage, which of the following are signs of ageing?

A.Saggy jowls and short necks.

B.Turkey neck and frown lines.

C.Deep-set wrinkles and angry faces.

D.Second neck and stressed muscles.

3.From the last 2 paragraphs, we can learn that ______.

A.“computer face” is avoidable

B.we should give up using computers

C.we should break the habit of “grumpy face”

D.the younger generation is worse at computers

It is a familiar scene these days: employees taking newly laid-off co-workers out for a drink for comfort. But which side deserves sympathy more, the jobless or the still employed? On March 6, researchers at a conference at the University of Cambridge heard data suggesting it's the latter.

Brendan Burchell, a Cambridge sociologist, presented his analysis based on various surveys conducted across Europe. The data suggest that employed people who feel insecure in their jobs show similar levels of anxiety and depression as those who are unemployed. Although a newly jobless person's mental health may“bottom out" after about six months, and then even begin to improve, the mental state of people who are continuously worried about losing their job “just continues to get worse and worse", Burchell says.

Evolutionary psychologists support this theory by arguing that human beings feel more stress during times of insecurity because they sense an immediate but invisible threat. Patients have been known to experience higher levels of anxiety,for example, while waiting for examination results than knowing what they are suffering from-even if the result is cancer. It's better to get the bad news and start doing something about it rather than wait with anxiety. When the uncertainty continues, people stay in a nonstop “fight or flight" response, which leads to damaging stress.

But not every employee in insecure industries has such a discouraging view,Burchell says. In general, women get on better. While reporting higher levels of anxiety than men when directly questioned, women scored lower in stress on the GHQ 12, even when they had a job they felt insecure about losing. As Burchell explains, “For women, most studies show that any job-it doesn't matter

whether it is secure or insecure-gives psychological improvement over unemployment. " Burchell supposes that the difference in men is that they tend to feel pressure not only to be employed, but also to be the primary breadwinner, and that more of a man's self-worth depends on his job.

1.Why do researchers think the still employed deserve sympathy more?

A. They have to do more work since then.

B. They have no chance to find better jobs.

C. They have to work with inexperienced workers.

D. They constantly worry about losing their jobs.

2.What is most likely to cause a “fight or flight" response?

A. Not having a paid job.

B. Fierce competition for jobs.

C. Not knowing what will happen.

D. Pressure to work longer hours.

3.What will the writer talk about following the last paragraph?

A. Advice on preparing a job interview.

B. Advice to those in insecure industries.

C. Some knowledge of psychology.

D. Difference in men and women.

4. What could be the best title for the text?

A. Is it less stressful to get laid off than stay on?

B. Should greater sympathy be given to the jobless?

C. Do employees bear more stress than ever before?

D. Do men or women show higher levels of anxiety?

Buy Nothing Day

Most people buy a lot of gifts just before Christmas. But some people think we buy too much. They have started a special day called Buy Nothing Day. They don’t want anyone to go shopping that day.

Buy Nothing Day is November 29. It’s 25 days before Christmas. It’s after Thanksgiving and often the first day of Christmas shopping. At this time, we see ads in newspapers and on TV telling us to “buy, buy, buy!”

The idea for Buy Nothing Day started in Vancouver, British Columbia. Now people all over the world celebrate Buy Nothing Day. In California, parents and children get together to read stories, sing songs, and paint pictures. The children talk about why they don’t need a lot of toys. This year, in Manchester, England, people dressed up to tell people that we buy too much.

In Albuquerque, New Mexico, high school students wanted to tell other students about Buy Nothing Day. They organized a spaghetti dinner to give people information about Buy Nothing Day. They asked restaurants in the neighborhood to donate the food. They made posters and talked to other students about it. The dinner was a big success, and many students agreed not to buy anything on November 29. The students at high school liked the idea of this new tradition. Next year, they want to have another dinner to tell more people about Buy Nothing Day!

1.Why do people all over the world celebrate Buy Nothing Day?

A. People need more time to do other things.

B. People buy too many gifts for Christmas.

C. People can hardly afford to buy a lot of gifts.

D. People waste too much time going shopping.

2. How do people celebrate Buy Nothing Day?

A. In California, parents and children get together to play games.

B. In Mexico, high school students dressed up.

C. In England, people celebrated by performing plays.

D. They bought nothing and made the others decide not to.

3.What did the students do in New Mexico for the day?

A. They talked to others about Buy Nothing Day.

B. They dressed up to tell people that we buy too much.

C. They organized a spaghetti dinner to donate the food.

D. They got together to read stories, sing songs, and paint pictures.

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