Mothers can still offer comfort, even from a distance, a new study has found. The results show that simply hearing their mothers’ voice over the phone works just as well at calming the nerves of stressed children as a real-life pat on the shoulder.

The soothing（抚慰的）effect is most likely due to the release of the hormone（荷尔蒙）, oxytocin（催生素）, in the brain, the researchers say. This “love hormone” is known to quell stress and is likely to be involved in social connections, including those between a mother and a child.

Previous work has revealed that this hormone is released during physical contact with a mother. “But it’s clear from these results that a mother’s voice can have the same effect as a hug, even if she isn’t actually standing there,” said the researcher, Leslie Seltzer, a biological scientist.

Seltzer tested a group of 61 girls, aged 7 to 12, by having them make an unprepared speech and solve a series of maths problems in front of a group of strangers, sending their hearts racing and levels of cortisol—a hormone associated with stress—soaring.

Facing a challenge like that raises stress levels of a lot of people. Once stressed, a third of the girls were comforted in person by their mothers with hugs. A third of the girls watched an emotionally neutral 75-minute video. The rest were handed a telephone with their mothers on the line.

For the girls who interacted in person or over the phone with their mothers, the levels of the “love hormone” rose significantly, and the stress-marking hormone was washed away. This effect didn’t show up for participants who watched the video.

Seltzer is now testing the amount of oxytocin released with other communication methods—like text messaging—and hopes to see the research spread out from human subjects. “It’s not just us, of course. Lots of very social species have voices,” she said. “on the one hand, we are curious to see if this effect is unique to humans. On the other, we’re hoping researchers who study vocal communication will consider looking at oxytocin release in other animals and apply it to broader questions of social behavior and evolutionary biology.

1.Mothers’ voice over the phone can reduce children’s nerves according to the study, because           .

2.The underlined word “quell” in the second paragraph probably means “         ”.

3. From the study, we know that                .

4.From the last paragraph, we can conclude that          .

The British aren’t having as many children as they used to. One reason is that people are having children much older than before, meaning they have fewer years in which they can have them. After years at university, they need a few years of work experience before they can get the job they want. They might then get married, but it’s incredibly expensive to buy a house in the UK.

The above explains why young British people now don’t move out of their parents’ home until they are around 30 years old on average. It is not until they are 30 that they can afford their own home. Increasingly, it is not until that age that they can afford to get married and start a new life in a new home. It’s only after this age that many young people start thinking about having a child.

So a British person manages to get a job, get a home and get married. Why isn’t he or she then having at least two children on average? The main reason is that it is quite expensive to bring up a child in the UK. Why is it expensive? Well, these days, both parents need to work just to pay for their home and living expenses. Because both parents are at work, that means they then need to pay someone to look after their child during the day. Paying for this childcare is nearly always expensive.

The recent financial crisis is making things even harder for families, since unemployment is rising and even fewer people can afford to have children. With so much pressure on families, is it any surprise that the divorce rate is so high?

So what is Britain doing to try and save the British family? The government is trying to make it cheaper to have children. For example, there have been increases in money families can claim from the state each month. Also, there are increasing government subsidies for nursery schools, so that parents do not need to pay so much for child care.

The government is also trying to reduce the number of hours British parents have to work to earn enough money to pay their bills. If parents didn’t have to work so many hours, they’d have more time to spend with their children and wouldn’t need to spend so much on childcare. On average, a Briton works 49 hours a week, which is the most in Europe. The state is now considering introducing laws to encourage companies to improve their employees’ work-life balance. Let’s hope they’re not too late to save the British family. Otherwise, the British will always be too tired, and won’t have enough time and money, to have children.

1.Young British people live in their parents’ home until around 30 because         .

A．They are allowed to get married at 30

B．they can’t find jobs to support themselves

C．they can’t afford a house of their own until then

D．they enjoy family life with their parents

2.The British are now having fewer children than before for all the following reasons EXCEPT that         .

A．they have fewer years to have children

B．they live much shorter lives than before

C．it is more expensive to bring up a child

D．people are losing their jobs because of the recent financial crisis

3.To make it cheaper to have children, the British government is         .

A．bringing down prices

B．raising the salaries of parents

C．reducing family income tax

D．increasing subsidies for families and nursery schools

4.It can be inferred from the text that         .

A．with long work hours, it is hard for British parents to balance life and work

B．more and more families in Britain are breaking up because they are having fewer children

C．among Europeans, British people work hardest and earn the least

D．childcare takes up too much energy and time for the British

5.The underlined word “subsidies” in Paragraph 5 means _________.

A．food paid by the government

B．school buildings for poor students

C．free transportation

D．money from the government to benefit the public

 The recent information has been put forward _______more college graduates will be offered jobs.

    A. as            B. which          C. while         D. that

用Book6 Modules5-6和Book 7 Modules1-2所学单词的适当形式填空

1.My parents are _____________ (厌恶 ) at the violence in the film.

2._____________（陪伴）by Hammond’s two grandchildren, they are sent on a tour through Jurassic Park in computer-controlled cars.

3.Many questions have a__________ from the recent changes in law.

4.“For the Fallen” can be seen on war m_______________ in many parts of the world.

5.All ______________(全体职员) of the company are eligible (有资格)for being promoted.

6.They have ______________ (犯罪)many horrible crimes against the Chinese people.

7.As a child, Chamberlain had _____________(各种各样的) health problems.

8.I have to say, the h ______________ of the year was the senior prom.

9.Afterwards , we went and had an _____________(巨大的)breakfast in a nearby hotel.

10.During the Easter vacation, I went on a short school ________(滑雪) trip to the Rocky Mountains.

阅读表达。阅读下面的短文，并根据文章后的要求答题。（请注意问题后的词数要求）

A poet is in his words

The writings of William Shakespeare are today little read by young people in Britian. His young readership is limited to those who choose to study literature at university.

 Still, in British schools, ____________ to study the poet, and when something is made compulsory, usually the result is boredom, resentment or both. Shakespeare, Chareles Dickens, Jane Austen－for many of the young, reading them can seem like being forced to eat medicine, especially when people are at an age when they are beginning to discover themselves and wanting to claim their independence.

 This was my experience of the classics at school. But when I reached my late teenage years, I had a change of heart. Like every other young person since the dawn of time, the world confused me. I wanted answers, so I turned to books to find them.

 I went on to take a PhD in literature and have taught the subject in universities in Britain and China. I have never regretted it. There is something in literature that people want, even if they don’t read books.

 You see this in the popularity of TV and movie adaptations of great works, the recent film version of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice being a case in point. These popular adaptations may help increase people’s interest in the classic.

 Reading a simplified Romeo and Juliet may perhaps lead to a reading of Shakespeare’s actual play. If that is the case then I welcome the trend. But do not make the mistake of thinking that it is the same thing. Shakespeare is a poet and his greatness is in his language. Reading someone else’s rewriting of his work is like peeling (剥皮) a banana, throwing away the fruit, and eating the skin. Take on the original. It really is worth the effort.                                                                             

1.Find a sentence from the text which can explain the title.

___________________________________________________________________

2.Fill in the blank in Paragraph 2 with proper words to complete the sentence. (within 5 words)

___________________________________________________________________

3.Why are the adaptations of great works popular?

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

4.Do you think it necessary to read the original? Why? (within 30 words)

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

5.Translate the underlined sentence in the last paragraph into Chinese.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________