题目内容
Despite rising education levels, Americans of every age are reading less and less for pleasure these days, according to an analysis by the National Endowment for the Arts. The decline (下降) could have bad effects as people tune out books, tune in popular culture and become less socially engaged.
“We’ve got a public culture which is almost entirely commercial (商业化) and novelty – driven (追新),” says NEA chairman Dana Gioia. “I think it’s letting the nation down.”
The study gathers years of data on Americans’ reading habits and finds that, at every age group, we’re reading less.
Most of the data have appeared in private, government and university surveys, but today’s report is the first to combine them into a single portrait. It suggests that the demands of school, work and family and the decisive advantage of other forms of entertainment have caused the decline in reading for millions of Americans.
·Only 38% of adults in 2006 said they had spent time reading a book for pleasure.
·65% of college freshmen in 2005 said they read little or nothing for pleasure.
·30% of 13 – year – olds in 2004 said they read for fun “almost every day,” down from 35% in 1984.
According to Gioia, a poet, they decline is probably the single most important social issue in the United States today. The findings should be a wake – up call to educators to change the way they teach literature at every level. It was once believed that if someone went to college, they would become a lifelong reader. What we’re seeing right now is that we’re no longer producing readers. We’re producing B. A. s and M. A. s and Ph. D. s.
Cioia also wants main media to wake up to how they can promote good books in many ways. He notes that when a character in the 1994 film Four Weddings and a Funeral recited a few lines of W. H. Auden’s poem Funeral Blues, the poet briefly became a best seller.
1．The underlined phrase “tune out” in the first paragraph probably means .
A．close B．publish C．prove D．read
2．According to Dana Gioia, the change of Americans’ reading habit .
A．is positive and valuable B．does harm to the nation
C．is caused only by popular culture D．can make poets best sellers
3．Which of the following is NOT the cause for the change in reading habit?
A．Demands of getting a B. A., M. A. or Ph. D.
B．Demands of family, school and work.
C．The change in the way the literature is taught.
D．Advantages of the entertainment.
4．We can infer that the number of teenagers reading for pleasure reduced by in 20 years.
A．30% B．38% C．65% D．5%
ABCD
Did you know that women’s brains are smaller than men’s? The average women’s brain weighs 10% less than men’s. Since research has shown that the bigger the brain, the cleverer the animal, men must be more intelligent than women. Right? Wrong. Men and women always score similarly on intelligence tests, despite the difference in brain size. Why? After years of study, researchers have concluded that it’s what’s inside that matters, not just the size of the brain. The brain consists of “grey matter” and “white matter”. While men have more of the latter, the amount of “thinking” brain is almost exactly the same in both sexes.
It has been suggested that smaller brain appears to work faster, perhaps because the two sides of the brain are better connected in women. This means that little girls tend to learn to speak earlier, and that women can understand sorts of information from different sources（来源）at the same time. When it comes to talking to the boss on the phone, cooking dinner and keeping an eye on the baby all at the same time, it’s women who come out on top every time.
There are other important differences between two sexes. As white matter is the key to spatial (空间的) tasks, men know better where things are in relation to other things. “A great footballer always knows where he is in relation to the other players, and he knows where to go,” says one researcher. That may explain one of life’s great mysteries: Why men refuse to ask for directions … and women often need to!
The differences begin when fetuses (胎儿) are about nine weeks old, which can be seen in the action of children as young as one. A boy would try to climb a barrier before him or push it down while a girl would attract help from others. These brain differences also explain the fact that more men take up jobs that require good spatial skills, while more women speech skills. It may all go back to our ancestors, among whom women needed speech skills to take care of their babies and men needed spatial skills to hunt, according to one research.
If all this disappoints you, it shouldn’t. “The brain changes throughout our lives according to what we do with it,” says a biologist.
1.Which of the following is TRUE according to the first paragraph?
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A．Women’s brain is 10% less than men’s. |
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B．Grey matter controls thinking in the brain. |
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C．Grey matter plays the same role as white matter. |
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D．Both sexes have the same amount of white matter. |
2.What can we infer from the second and third paragraphs?
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A．Women don’t need to tell directions. |
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B．Women prefer doing many things at a time. |
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C．Men have weaker spatial abilities. |
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D．Men do better dealing with one job at a time. |
3.Which of the following do you agree with according to the fourth paragraph?
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A．Young boys may be stronger than young girls. |
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B．Women may have stronger feelings than men. |
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C．More women take up jobs requiring speech skills. |
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D．Our ancestors needed more spatial skills. |
4.What is the writer’s attitude in writing this passage?
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A．Defensive. |
B．Persuasive. |
C．Supportive. |
D．Objective. |
Despite a strong wind, children are still looking forward_________ the outdoor activity at the weekend.
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A．to canceling |
B．not to canceling |
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C．not to cancel |
D．to not canceling |