题目内容
Time and how we experience it have always puzzled us. Physicists have created fascinating theories, but their time is measured by a pendulum (钟摆) and is not psychological time, which leaps with little regard to the clock or calendar. As someone who understood the distinction observed, “When you sit with a nice girl for two hours it seems like a minute, but when you sit on a hot stove, a minute seems like two hours.”
Psychologists have long noticed that larger units of time, such as months and years, fly on swifter wings as we age. They also note that the more time is structured with schedules and appointments, the more rapidly it seems to pass. For example, a day at the office flies compared with a day at the beach. Since most of us spend fewer days at the beach and more at the office as we age, an increase in structured time could well be to blame for why time seems to speed up as we grow older.
Expectation and familiarity also make time seem to flow more rapidly. Almost all of us have had the experience of driving somewhere we’ve never been before. Surrounded by unfamiliar scenery, with no real idea of when we’ll arrive, we experience the trip as lasting a long time. But the return trip, although exactly as long, seems to take far less time. The novelty of the outward journey has become routine. Thus taking a different route on occasions can often help slow the clock.
When days become as identical as beads (小珠子) on a string, they mix together, and even months become a single day. To counter this, try to find ways to interrupt the structure of your day—to stop time, so to speak.
Learning something new is one of the ways to slow the passage of time. One of the reasons the days of our youth seems so full and long is that these are the days of learning and discovery. For many of us, learning ends when we leave school, but this doesn’t have to be.
56. The underlined sentence in Paragraph 1 is used to show ________.
A. psychological time is quite puzzling
B. time should not be measured by a pendulum
C. physical time is different from psychological time
D. physical theory has nothing to do with the true sense of time
57. Why do units of time fly faster as we grow older?
A. Our sense of time changes.
B. We spend less time at the beach.
C. More time is structured and scheduled.
D. We have too many appointments.
58. In Paragraph 3 “novelty” probably means ________.
A. excitement B. unfamiliarity C. imagination D. amusement
59. Which statement is TRUE according to the article?
A. Expectation makes time seem to run slowly.
B. Sitting with a pretty girl always makes time flow fast.
C. Learning a new language is a good way to slow time.
D. A day at the office is longer than a day at the beach.
60. The purpose of the passage is to ________.
A. give various explanations about time
B. describe how we experience time psychologically
C. show the different ideas of physicists and psychologists on time
D. explain why time flies and how to slow it down psychologically
CCBCD
I love science and science fiction. Like many science fiction fans, I am fascinated by the possibility of time travel. However, one must combine romance with reasoning and look into the chances of time travel critically.
First of all, we must remember the whole universe is in motion. If we want to go back to yesterday, our "time machine" has to move back in time and space. If someone claimed he was at home when he suddenly travelled 200 years back in time, he either had an illusion or made the story up. Two hundred years ago, Earth was in a different place in space, so how can you travel back 200 years without moving in space? Don't get me wrong. I am not knocking the genius of science fiction writers. H.G. Wells's "The Time Machine" is a great work of fiction, but that’s all. I have read many other time travelling science fiction stories since reading H.G. Wells, but none address this problem of displacement.
My own argument for the impossibility of time travel is that physical states of the past no longer exist and those of the future are not here yet. To be able to move back and forth in time requires everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen everywhere in the whole universe at every single moment in time-past, present, and future-to be stored as a "reality" somewhere-like the save game file of a computer game that contains every single byte of information of the game at the point it was saved, but you would need an almost extremely large file and almost extremely many of them-so it can be re-entered and communicated with, and not just light signals for viewing. To me, I don’t buy it.
【小题1】Which of the following can be the best title?
A.How to make time travel possible? |
B.Why am I fascinated by time travel? |
C.Why do I think time travel is not possible? |
D.How to explain the possibility of time travel? |
A.success | B.dream | C.switch | D.support |
A.We can go back to the past by time travel. |
B.People can travel to the future by moving in space. |
C.“The Time Machine” is nothing more than a science fiction. |
D.Everything that happened, is happening and will happen can be stored somewhere. |
A.people could combine romance with reasoning |
B.people could stop the movement of the whole universe |
C.people could use time machine under the instruction of H.G. Wells |
D.people could “save” everything in the past, present and future in a certain space |
William Butler Yeats, a most famous Irish writer, was born in Dublin on June 13, 1865. His childhood lacked the harmony that was typical of a happy family. Later, Yeats shocked his family by saying that he remembered "little of childhood but its pain". In fact, he inherited (继承) excellent taste in art from his family — both his father and his brother were painters. But he finally settled on literature, particularly drama and poetry.
Yeats had strong faith in the coming of new artistic movements. He set himself the fresh task in founding an Irish national theatre in the late 1890s. His early theatrical experiments, however, were not received favorably at the beginning. He didn't lose heart, and finally enjoyed success in his poetical drama.
Compared with his dramatic works, Yeats's poems attract much admiring notice. The subject matter includes love, nature, history, time and aging. Though Yeats generally relied on very traditional forms, he brought modern sensibility to them. As his literary life progressed, his poetry grew finer and richer, which led him to worldwide recognition.
He had not enjoyed a major public life since winning the Nobel Prize in 1923. Yet, he continued writing almost to the end of his life. Had Yeats stopped writing at age 40, he would probably now be valued as a minor poet, for there is no other example in literary history of a poet who produces his greatest works between the ages of 50 and 75. After Yeats's Death in 1939, W. H. Auden wrote, among others, the following lines:
Earth, receive an honoured guest:
William Yeats is laid to rest.
Let the Irish vessel (船) lie
Emptied of its poetry.
【小题1】Which of the following can describe Yeats's family?
A.It filled Yeats's childhood with laughter. |
B.It was shocked by Yeats's choice. |
C.It was a typically wealthy family. |
D.It had an artistic atmosphere. |
A.Yeats founded the first Irish theater. |
B.Yeats stuck to modern forms in his poetry. |
C.Yeats began to produce his best works from the 1910s. |
D.Yeats was not favored by the public until the 1923 Noble Prize. |
A.Envy | B.Sympathy | C.Emptiness | D.Admiration |
A.Yeats's literary achievements | B.Yeats's historical influence |
C.Yeats's artistic ambition | D.Yeats's national honor |