题目内容

Honesty is the best policy, as the English saying goes. Unfortunately, honesty often leaves us when no one is watching, British psychologists reported last week.

Researchers at UK’s Newcastle University set up an experiment in their psychology department’s coffee room.

They set a kettle, with tea, coffee and milk on the counter and hung up a sign listing the price for drinks. People helping themselves to a cup of tea were supposed to put a few cents in the box nearby.

The scientists hung a poster above the money box, and changed each week between pictures of gazing eyes and pictures of flowers. The researchers found that staff paid 2.76 times more for their drinks when the image of the eyes was hung.

“We were shocked by the size of the effect,” said Gilbert Roberts, one of the researchers.

Eyes are known to be a powerful perceptual (知觉的) signal for humans, scientists say.

“Even though the eyes were not real, they still seemed to make people behave more honestly,” said Melissa Bateson, a behavioral biologist and leader of the study.

Researchers believe the effect throws light on our evolutionary past. It may arise from behavioral characteristics that developed when early humans formed social groups to strengthen their chances of survival. For social groups to work, individuals had to co-operate, rather than act selfishly. “There’s an argument that if nobody is watching us, it is in our interests to behave selfishly. But when we’re being watched we should behave better. So people see us as co-operative and behave the same way towards us,” Bateson said.

The new finding indicates that people have a striking response to eyes. That might be because eyes and faces send a strong biological signal we have evolved to respond to, Bateson said.

The finding could be put to practical use. For example, images of eyes could ensure ticket sales on public transport and improve surveillance(监视) systems to deter anti-social behavior.

1.In the experiment, a poster was hung above the money box to ________.

A. give a harmonious atmosphere

B. remind people the drinks were not free

C. prove the actual effect of different pictures

D. see how honest people are in different situations

2.From the result of the experiment, we can conclude that ________.

A. people might pay more for the drinks at the image of gazing eyes

B. people may be dishonest when no one is watching them

C. no one would pay for the drink unless they are told to

D. just a image of flowers is not enough to remind people to pay for a drink

3.What is the best title for the passage?

A. You're being watched!

B. Pay for your drink, please!

C. Mind your behavior in public!

D. Look out for electronic surveillance equipment!

4.Which of the following English proverbs can be best used at the beginning of the passage?

A. Once a thief, always a thief

B. Lies have short legs

C. Honest is the best policy

D. An honest look covers many faults

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Lying in the sun on a rock , the cougar(美洲豹)saw Jeb and his son Tom before they saw it . Jeb put his bag down quickly and pulled his jacket open with both hands , making himself look big to the cougar . It worked . The cougar hesitated , ready to attack Jeb , but ready to forget the whole thing , too .

Jeb let go of his jacket , grasped Tom and held him across his body , making a cross . Now the cougar’s enemy looked even bigger , and it rose up , ready to move away , but unfortunately Tom got scared and struggled free of Jeb .

“ Tom , no ! ” shouted his father .

But Tom broke and ran and that’s the last thing you do with a cougar . The second Tom broke free , Jeb threw himself on the cougar , just as it jumped from the rock . They hit each other in mid-air and both fell . The cougar was on Jeb in a flash , leaving Tom alone , which was what Jeb wanted .

Cougars are not as big as most people think and a determined man stands a chance , even with just his fists . As the cougar’s claws(爪子)got into his left shoulder , Jeb swung his fist at its eyes and hit hard . The animal howled(吼叫)and put its head back . Jeb followed up with his other fist . Then out of the corner of his eye , Jeb saw Tom . The boy was running back to help his father .

“ knife , Tom , ” shouted Jeb .

The boy ran to his father’s bag , while Jeb started shouting as well as hitting , to keep the cougar’s attention away from Tom . Tom got the knife and ran over to Jeb . The cougar was moving its head in and out , trying to find a way through the wall Jeb was making out of his arms . Tom swung with the knife , into the cougar’s back . It howled horribly and ran off into the mountains .

The whole fight had taken about thirty seconds .

1.Why did Jeb pull his jacket open when he saw the cougar ?

A. To get ready to fight . B. To protect his son .

C. To calm himself down . D. To frighten it away .

2.What can we learn from the passage about cougars ?

A. They always forget things .

B. They dislike loud noises .

C. They like to attack running people .

D. They hesitate before attack .

3. Jeb tried to hold the cougar’s attention by __________ .

A. making a wall with his arms

B. keeping shouting and hitting

C. throwing himself on the cougar

D. swinging his fists at the cougar’s eyes

4.Which of the following words can be used to describe Jeb ?

A. Smart but bad-tempered . B. Loving and determined .

C. Tough and warm-hearted . D. Determined but hesitant .

阅读下面短文,掌握其大意,从每题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中,选出最佳选项。

My husband, Tom, has always been good with animals, but I was still amazed when he befriended a female grouse (松鸡).It's impossible for a grouse to have any contact (接触) with people.In fact, they're hard to spot, they usually fly off when they hear humans approaching.

This grouse came into our lives in .Tom was working out in the field when he her walking around at the edge of the field.She was unafraid and seemed to be curious about what he was doing.

Tom saw the bird several times, and she got more comfortable around him.We quickly grew f the bird and decided to call her Mildred.

One day, as Tom was working, Mildred came within a few feet of him to watch.Tom he didn't see her and kept working to see what she would do next.

Apparently, she didn't like to be ignored.She'd run up and peck (啄) at Tom's hands, then________ off to see what he would do.This went on for about 20 minutes, until Mildred became tired of the ________and left.

As spring went and summer came, Mildred started to ________ more and more often.________Mildred felt comfortable enough to jump up on Tom's leg and stay long enough for me to get a picture of the two of them together.This friendly grouse soon felt________ not just with our family, but with anybody who walked or drove by.

When hunting season opened, we put a ________at the end of our driveway asking ________ not to shoot our pet grouse.My father, who lived down the road, ________ warned people not to shoot her.In fact, hunters would stop and take pictures, because they had never seen anything like her.

1.A.though B.because C.unless D.until

2.A.spring B.summer C.autumn D.winter

3.A.got B.kept C.noticed D.imagined

4.A.naturally B.certainly C.normally D.surprisingly

5.A.shy B.awkward C.friendly D.elegant

6.A.careful B.tired C.fond D.sick

7.A.supposed B.realized C.hoped D.pretended

8.A.put B.back C.set D.take

9.A.game B.work C.place D.man

10.A.give up B.come out C.turn over D.fly by

11.A.Eventually B.Suddenly C.Constantly D.Presently

12.A.comfortable B.guilty C.anxious D.familiar

13.A.lantern B.sign C.gun D.loudspeaker

14.A.drivers B.farmers C.hunters D.tourists

15.A.just B.yet C.thus D.also

People typically wash their hands seven times a day in the United States, but they do it at a far higher temperature than is necessary to kill germs (病菌) , a new study says. The energy waste is equivalent to the fuel use of a small country.

Amanda R. Carrico, a research assistant professor at the Vanderbilt Institute for Energy and Environment in Tennessee, told National Geographic that hand washing is often “a case where people act in ways that they think are in their best interest, but they in fact have inaccurate beliefs or outdated perceptions.”

Carrico said, “It’s certainly true that heat kills bacteria, but if you were going to use hot water to kill them it would have to be way too hot for you to tolerate.”

Carrico said that after a review of the scientific literature, her team found “no evidence that using hot water that a person could stand would have any benefit in killing bacteria.” Even water as cold as 40°F (4.4°C) appeared to reduce bacteria as well as hotter water, if hands were scrubbed, rinsed(冲洗)and dried properly.

Using hot water to wash hands is therefore unnecessary, as well as wasteful, Carrico said, particularly when it comes to the environment. According to her research, people use warm or hot water 64 percent of the time when they wash their hands. Using that number, Carrico’s team calculated a significant impact on the planet.

“Although the choice of water temperature during a single hand wash may appear unimportant, when multiplied by the nearly 800 billion hand washes performed by Americans each year, this practice results in more than 6 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent emissions annually,” she said.

The researchers published their results in the July 2013 issue of International Journal of Consumer Studies. They recommended washing with water that is at a “comfortable” temperature, which they noted may be warmer in cold months and cooler in hot ones.

1.What’s the meaning of what Carrico told National Geographic in the second paragraph?

A. People are more concerned about their health and begin to wash their hands.

B. It’s important for people to wash their hands to keep healthy.

C. Generally, people’s hand washing behaviors and perceptions are not correct.

D. People like washing their hands very much.

2.The figures in the sixth paragraph are used to show that __________.

A. using hot water to wash hands has a bad influence on our planet.

B. air pollution has become more and more serious.

C. using hot water to wash hands is a waste of energy.

D. people should pay more attention to the environment around us.

3.This passage is organized in the pattern of __________.

A. fact and opinion B. cause and effect

C. definition and classification D. time and events

4.What can we learn from the passage?

A. It’s necessary and useful for people to wash their hands frequently every day.

B. We can wash our hands with water that is at a “comfortable” temperature.

C. Using cold water to wash hands is necessary and much healthier.

D. Hot water can’t kill germs.

Recently I spoke to some of my students about what they wanted to do after they graduated, and what kind of job prospects they thought they had.

Given that I teach students who are trained to be doctors, I was surprised to find that most thought that they would not be able to get the jobs they wanted without “outside help”. “What kind of help is that?” I asked, expecting them to tell me that they would need a relative or family friend to help them out.

“Surgery(外科手术), ”one replied. I was pretty alarmed by that response. It seems that the graduates of today are increasingly willing to go under the knife to get ahead of others when it comes to getting a job. One girl told me that she was considering surgery to increase her height. “They break your legs, put in special extending screws, and slowly expand the gap between the two ends of the bone as it regrows. You can get at least 5 cm taller! ”

At that point, I was shocked. I am short. I can’t deny that, but I don’t think I would put myself through months of agony(痛苦)just to be a few centimeters taller. I don’t even bother to wear shoes with thick soles, as I’m not trying to hide the fact that I am just not tall!

It seems to me that there is a trend toward wanting “perfection”, and that is an ideal that just does not exist in reality.

No one is born perfect, yet magazines, TV shows and movies present images of thin, tall, beautiful people as being the norm. Advertisements for slimming aids, beauty treatments and cosmetic surgery clinics fill the pages of newspapers, further creating an idea that “perfection” is a requirement, and that it must be purchased, no matter what the cost is. In my opinion, skills, rather than appearance, should determine how successful a person is in his chosen career.

1.Many graduates today turn to cosmetic surgery to .

A. marry a better man/woman

B. become a model

C. get an advantage over others in job-hunting

D. attract more admirers

2.According to the passage, the author believes that .

A. everyone should pursue perfection, whatever the cost is

B. it’s right for graduates to ask for others to help them out in hunting for jobs

C. media are to blame for misleading young people in their seeking for surgery

D. it is one’s appearance instead of skills that really matters in one’s career

3.What does the author think of his height?

A. He hates to be called a short man.

B. He tries to increase his height through surgery.

C. He always wears shoes with thick soles to hide the fact.

D. He just accepts it as it is.

If you’ve ever owned a chimney, you know that it can get pretty dirty. There’s a whole lot of soot(烟灰) that gets stuck on the inside. That stuff has to get cleaned, or you could have a serious fire risk. While nowadays we have easier ways of doing this dirty job, in the way back days somebody used to climb up the chimney and clean all that soot. And the thing is, not just anybody could do it.

You had to be really small to fit up in the chimney, so they used to give the task to kids – some as young as four or five years old. They worked for their boss known as a master-sweep. They were often covered in soot, and were very likely to get burned. They often developed what became known as soot wart, a form of cancer.

Are your unfairness bells ringing? William Blake’s certainly were. The physical dangers and widespread unfairness of the chimney-sweeping job really stuck in his throat, so much so that he wrote not one, but two poems called “The Chimney Sweeper”.

The first poem (the one we’re discussing here)was published in 1789 in a book called Songs of Innocence. These little poems took children and the joys of childhood innocence as their subject. As you’ve probably guessed by now, many of the poems in Songs of Innocence, like “The Chimney Sweeper”, are about the ways in which childhood innocence is destroyed by unkind old adults. For Blake, innocence is, in many ways, a total joke. It doesn’t exist, because it’s always taken away by the realistic world – chimney-sweeping, death, poverty, etc.

What does a five-year-old chimney sweeper in 18th-century England have to do with you? More than you might think. It is reported that 150 million kids are in child labor in developing countries. Many of them work long hours and face dangerous health risks. Like Blake’s chimney sweeper, these kids are not even given a chance at innocence because experience keeps getting in the way.

1.Which of the following can best describe the chimney-sweeping job?

A. Easy and interesting. B. Dirty and dangerous.

C. Pleasant and well-paid D. Challenging and creative.

2.Why did Blake write two poems called “The Chimney Sweeper”?

A. He was very interested in the job.

B. He had much experience in the job.

C. He considered the job very important.

D. He felt deeply sorry for the kid workers.

3.How did Blake look at the realistic world?

A. Thankfully B. Regretfully C. Doubtfully D. Negatively

4.In the last paragraph, the writer explains ________.

A. the realistic meaning of “The Chimney Sweeper”

B. the great influence of Blake’s Songs of Innocence

C. why child labor still exists in developing countries

D. why chimney-sweeping becomes unnecessary today

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