“Most experiences of absent-mindedness ,forgetting where you left something or wondering why you just entered a room , are caused by a simple lack of attention, ” says Schacter. “You’re supposed to remember something, but you haven’t encoded（编码） it deeply.”

　Encoding, Schacter explains, is a special way of paying attention to an event that has a major impression on recalling it later. Failure to encode properly can create troublesome situations. If you　put your mobile phone in a pocket, for example, and don’t pay attention to what you did because you’re involved in a conversation, you’ll probably forget that the phone is in the jacket now hanging in your cupboard.  “Your memory itself isn’t failing you, ” says Schacter, “Rather, you didn’t give your memory system the information it needed.”  http://wx.jtyjy.com/

　Lack of interest can also lead to absent -mindedness. “A man who can recite sports statistics from 30 years ago, ” says Zelinski, “ may not remember to drop a letter in the mailbox.”Women have slightly better memories than men, possibly because they pay more attention to their environment, and memory depends on just that.

　　“Visual cues（ 视觉提示 ）can help prevent absent--mindedness, ”says Schacter, “But be sure the cue is clear and available. ”If you want to remember to take a medicine with lunch, put the pill bottle on the kitchen table—don’t leave it in the medicine box and write yourself a note that you keep in a pocket.

　　Another common experience of absent - mindedness: walking into a room and wondering why you’re there. Most likely, you were thinking about something else. “Everyone does this from time to time, ”says Zelinski. “The best thing to do is to return to where you were before entering the room, and you’ll likely remember.”

1.The writer of the passage thinks that encoding properly is very important because ________.

　　A. it enables us to recall something from our memory

　　B. it slows down the process of losing our memory

　　C. it helps us understand our memory system better

　　D. it helps us to get back to where we were

2.One possible reason why women have a little better memories than men is that________.

　　A. they rely more on the environment

　　B. they have a wider range of interests

　　C. they have an unusual power of focusing their attention

　　D. they are more interested in what’s happening around them

3.Why can a note in the pocket hardly serve as a reminder? ________.

　　A. It will easily get lost

　　B. It is out of your sight

　　C. It’s not clear enough for you to read

　　D. It might get mixed up with other things

4.From the last paragraph we can learn that________.

　　A. repetition might help improve our memory

　　B. memory depends to a certain extent on the environment

　　C. we’d better return to where we were if we forget things

　　D. we should think about something else while doing one thing

5.The passage is mainly about ________.

　　A. the memory system of persons

　　B. a way of encoding and recalling

　　C. the causes of absent-mindedness

　　D. the impression of the environment on memory

Now let us look at how we read. When we read a printed text, our eyes move across a page in short, jerky movement. We recognize words usually when our eyes are still when they fixate. Each time they fixate, we see a group of words. This is known as the recognition span or the visual span. The length of time in which the eyes stop ---the duration of the fixation ----varies considerably from person to person. It also varies within any one person according to his purpose in reading and his familiarity with the text. Furthermore, it can be affected by such factors as lighting and tiredness.

Unfortunately, in the past, many reading improvement courses have concentrated too much on how our eyes move across the printed page. As a result of this misleading emphasis on the purely visual aspects of reading, numerous exercises have been devised to train the eyes to see more words at one fixation. For instance, in some exercises, words are flashed on to a screen for, say, a tenth or a twentieth of a second. One of the exercises has required students to fix their eyes on some central point, taking in the words on either side. Such word patterns are often constructed in the shape of rather steep pyramids so the reader takes in more and more words at each successive fixation. All these exercises are very clever, but it’s one thing to improve a person’s ability to see words and quite another thing to improve his ability to read a text efficiently. Reading requires the ability to understand the relationship between words. Consequently, for these reasons, many experts have now begun to question the usefulness of eye training, especially since any approach which trains a person to read isolated words and phrases would seem unlikely to help him in reading a continuous text.

1.The time of the recognition span can be affected by the following facts except ________ .

A. the length of a group of words.

B. lighting and tiredness.

C. one’s familiarity with the text.

D. one’s purpose in reading.

2.The author may believe that reading ______.

A. demands an deeply-participating mind.

B. demands more mind than eyes.

C. requires a reader to take in more words at each fixation.

D. requires a reader to see words more quickly.

3.What does the author mean by saying “but it’s one thing to improve a person’s ability to see words and quite another thing to improve his ability to read a text efficiently.” in the second paragraph?

A. The reading exercises mentioned can’t help to improve an efficient reading.

B. The reading exercises mentioned has done a great job to improve one’s ability to see words.

C. The ability to see words is not needed when an efficient reading is conducted.

D. The reading exercises mentioned can’t help to improve both the ability to see or comprehend words.

4.Which of the following is NOT true?

A. The emphasis on the purely visual aspects is misleading.

B. The eye training will help readers in reading a continuous text.

C. The visual span is a word or a group of words we see each time.

D. Many experts began to question the efficiency of eye training.

5.The tune of the author in writing this article is ________.

　　A. pessimistic  B. optimistic   C. critical  D. neutral

阅读下面短文，掌握其大意，然后从36—55各题所给的四个选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出最佳选项。

Anna lived on the side of a valley. One summer, there was a very big 36 , and a lot of houses down below Anna’s were washed away. Anna’s house was 37 enough to escape the flood, so when the water had 38 and the other houses were  39  there with no roof and no walls and all covered with mud(泥), her house was just all right.

　  Her house was quite small, her husband was dead, and she had four children, 40 Anna took in one of the families that had lost 41 in the flood and she 42 her home with them until it was 43 for them to rebuild their house.

　　Anna’s friends were 44 when they saw Anna do this. They could not understand why Anna wanted to give 45 so much more work and trouble when she already had quite a few children to 46 .

   “Well,” Anna  47  her friends, “at the end of the First World War, a woman in the town where I then lived found herself very  48 , because her husband had been killed in the  49  and she had a lot of children, 50  I have now. The day before Christmas, this woman said to her children, ‘We won’t be able to have much for Christmas this year, so I’m going to 51 only one present to all of us. Now I’ll go and get it.’ She came back with a  52  who was even poorer than they, and who had no parents. ‘Here’s our 53 ,’ she said to her children.

　　The children were 54 and happy to get such a present. They 55 the little girl, and she grew up as their sister. Such was that Christmas present.”

A. earthquake          B. accident           C. flood                  D. fire

A. below                 B. high                  C. big                D. small

A. reduced                  B. come            C. appeared             D. disappeared

A. rising                 B. flowing           C. falling              D. standing

A. so                    B. but                     C. for               D. since

A. nothing              B. everything        C. anything          D. something

A. gave                B. found               C. shared             D. built

A. possible            B. necessary            C. important           D. obvious

A. worried             B. disappointed      C. puzzled           D. satisfied

A. them                B. herself                  C. him               D. us

A. support            B. supply           C. grow              D. educate

A. explained to               B. asked for         C. talked with        D. turned up

A. sad                 B. poor              C. rich              D. happy

A. war                 B. storm                   C. rain                D. flood

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

A. get                  B. send           C. buy                D. make

A. boy                 B. girl          C. student              D. teacher

A. child                B. daughter         C. sister               D. present

A. angry               B. excited           C. lovely              D. sorry

A. disliked           B. gained         C. welcomed          D. led

　　It is difficult for parents of nearly every family to teach their children to be responsible （有责任的）for housework, but with one of the following suggestions, you really can get your children to help at home.

　　If you give your children the impression that they can never do anything quite right, then they will regard themselves as unfit or unable persons. Unless children believe they can succeed, they will never become totally independent.

　　My daughter Carla’s fifth - grade teacher made every child in her class feel special. When students received less than a prefect test score, she would point out what they had mastered and declared firmly they could learn what they had missed.

　　You can use the same technique when you evaluate （评价）your child’s work at home. Don’t always scold and give lots of praise instead. Talk about what he has done right, not about what he hasn’t done. If your child completes a difficult task, promise him a Sunday trip or a ball game with Dad.

　　Learning is a process（过程）of trying and failing and trying and succeeding. If you teach your children not to fear a mistake of failure, they will learn faster and achieve success at last.

　　The whole passage deals with ________.

　　A. social education　　　　　　　　B. school education

　　C. family education　　　　　　　　D. pre - school education

　　The author thinks that________.

　　A. there is no way to get children to help at home

　　B. the more encouragement and praise you give, the more responsible and helpful children will become

　　C. it is very difficult to make children responsible for housework

　　D. children can be forced to help with housework

　The article gives us a good suggestion about how to evaluate（评价）your child’s work at home. That is to ________.

　　A. praise his success　　　　　　　 B. promise him a trip

　　C. give him a punishment　　　　　 D. promise him a ball game

　　The author advises readers to________.

　　A. learn from himself, for he has a good way of teaching

　　B. take pride in Carla’s fifth - grade teacher

　　C. do as what Carla’s teacher did in educating children

　　D. follow Carla’s example because she never fails in the test

　For more than twenty years scientists have been searching for signs of life on other planets. Most of these searches have been done over the radio. The hope is that someone in outer space may be trying to get in touch with us. Scientists also have sent radio and television messages on spaceships traveling through space, on the chance that someone may be receptive to such messages.

　　Scientists are using powerful radio telescopes to listen to signals from about 1, 000 stars, all within 100 light years of earth. In addition, they will scan（扫视）the entire sky to “listen” for radio messages from more distant stars. Using a computer, they will be able to monitor more than eight channels at one time. Scientists are looking for any signal they stands out from the background noise.

　　Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy（银河星系）, scientists find that five percent are like our sun. Perhaps half of them have a planet like earth. Such a planet would be a reasonable distance from the star for temperatures to be right for the evolution（进化）of life. Based on the inhabitable（that can be lived in）planets in our galaxy, most scientists agree that chances are likely that one or more of these planets support some life.

　　However, many scientists wonder whether intelligent（有智力的）life exists on other planets. Some believe that twenty years of searching without any intelligible messages shows that no one is out there. They say that the evolution of intelligence comparable to ours is unlikely.

　　Other scientists believe that our search hasn’t been long enough to rule out the possibility that intelligent life exists in our galaxy. Although our sun family is only about five billion years old, our galaxy is about 20 billion years old. In that time, some scientists think it is likely that civilization（文明）much more advanced than ours have developed. Perhaps these civilizations send us no signals; perhaps we have not recognized the signals they have sent us. If we hope to find intelligent life, these scientists believe that we have to keep looking.

According to the passage, how many planets in our galaxy might be inhabitable?

　　A. 5 billion．　　　　　　　　　　 B. 10 billion.

　　C. 15 billion.　　　　　　　　　　　D. 200 billion

The first paragraph in this passage is mainly about ________ .

　　A. how scientists are looking for signs of life on other planets

　　B. why scientists are looking for signs of life on other planets

　　C. where scientists are looking for signs of life on other planets

　　D. when scientists are looking for signs of life on other planets

The underlined word “monitor” in the passage means“ ________ ”.

　　A. find　　　　　　　　　　　　　B. follow

　　C. check　　　　　　　　　　　　 D. form

Which of these statements is true based on the information in the passage?

　　A. The earth is one of the oldest planets in our galaxy.

　　B. Most scientists believe that there is intelligent life on other planets.

　　C. Scientists are trying different ways to find signs of life on other planets.

D. Scientists don’t believe that there might be life on other planets.