Does solving a math problem give you a headache? Do you feel nervous when you sit a math exam? For most students, math can be tough but scientists have proved that math problems can actually trigger physical pain.

Scientists came to his conclusion with an in-depth experiment, which was published in the Public Library of Science One journal. They began by finding out how much participants fear math. Those involved were asked a series of questions such as how they feel when they receive a math textbook or when they walk into a math lesson.

Based on their answers, participants were divided into groups. One group was made up of people  who  were particularly afraid  of  math  and participants  in  the other  group were  more comfortable with the subject.

Both groups were then given either math tasks or word tasks. When a math task was going to come next, a yellow circle would appear but when a word task was soon to come, a blue square would be shown.

Using a brain-scan machine, scientists noticed that whenever people from Group One saw a yellow circle, their brain would respond in a way similar to when their body is feeling pain. It was like the pain they would fee, for example, if they burnt their hand on a hot stove. But they reacted less strongly when they knew that they would be faced with a word task.

However, scientists saw no strong brain response from people in the second group.

Math can be difficult, and for those with high levels of mathematics-anxiety (HMA), math is associated with tension, apprehension and fear. “When you are really thinking about the math problems, your mind is racing and you are worrying about all the things that could go wrong,” explained Ian Lyons from University of Chicago, US, leader of the study. “The higher a person’s anxiety of a maths task, the more he activated brain regions associated with threat detection, and the experience of pain.”

More interestingly, the brain activity disappeared when participants actually started dealing with the math tasks. “This means that it’s not that math itself hurts; rather,  the anticipation of math is painful,” Lyons said.

Based on the study, scientists suggested that things could be done to help students worry less and move past their fear of math, which might mean they perform better in tests.

63. In the first stage, scientists ask participants some questions to  _.

A. see whether math hurts     B. find out how much they fear math

C. observe how their brain response     D. test their endurance of pain

64. The underlined word “the anicipation of math” is closest in meaning to     .

A. the attempt of learning math             B. the motivation to work out math problem

C. the effort to understand math             D. the act of thinking about math

65. Which is the best title for the passage?  

A. How to overcome math fear.              B. Physical pain affects math performance.

C. Math pain in your brain.                  D. Unknown truth about pain.

66. What can be concluded from the experiment?

A. The anticipation of math has no relation to students’ confidence in math.

B. Moderate mathematic anxiety promotes students’ academic performance.

C. Effective solutions have been worked out to lower students’ anxiety of math.

D. Physical pain caused by HMA disappears in the process of doing math problem.

Have you ever noticed someone "talking" to them-selves? What did you think? The word "crazy" probably came to your mind. Wait a minute, though. Maybe they’re doing something meaningful.
Speaking practice can be effective in many different forms when people learn English or another foreign language. Imitating the speech of others is proven to be highly effective in developing a native speaker’s level of fluency in a language. Actually you’ve already proven that to your-self.
How? That’s how you learned your first language! Whether it was English, Spanish, French or some other language, you "imitated" your mother, father, other family members, friends, teachers and whoever else was around making "talking" noises at you as you formed your first communicative language skills.
So don’t think those who are talking to themselves are "crazy". At least don’t do so until you’ve tried it for your-self, in English or in your new foreign language.
As you go through your day, in English or your new foreign language, tell yourself what you’re doing at the moment and what you’re going to do during the day.
"Which of these shirts, ties, etc. should I wear today? Not this one, I wore it just last week. Maybe this one, but I don’t like this color with the pants. Let’s try another one," you might say as you are getting dressed.
If you live alone, you can talk aloud whenever you want without disturbing others. If you don’t live alone, however, then first explain to your family or roommates what you’ll be doing, to avoid a quiet phone call to the local psychiatrist (精神病学家).
【小题1】The author wrote the passage mainly to _______.

Have you ever noticed someone "talking" to them-selves? What did you think? The word "crazy" probably came to your mind. Wait a minute, though. Maybe they’re doing something meaningful.

Speaking practice can be effective in many different forms when people learn English or another foreign language. Imitating the speech of others is proven to be highly effective in developing a native speaker’s level of fluency in a language. Actually you’ve already proven that to your-self.

How? That’s how you learned your first language! Whether it was English, Spanish, French or some other language, you "imitated" your mother, father, other family members, friends, teachers and whoever else was around making "talking" noises at you as you formed your first communicative language skills.

So don’t think those who are talking to themselves are "crazy". At least don’t do so until you’ve tried it for your-self, in English or in your new foreign language.

As you go through your day, in English or your new foreign language, tell yourself what you’re doing at the moment and what you’re going to do during the day.

"Which of these shirts, ties, etc. should I wear today? Not this one, I wore it just last week. Maybe this one, but I don’t like this color with the pants. Let’s try another one," you might say as you are getting dressed.

If you live alone, you can talk aloud whenever you want without disturbing others. If you don’t live alone, however, then first explain to your family or roommates what you’ll be doing, to avoid a quiet phone call to the local psychiatrist (精神病学家).

1.The author wrote the passage mainly to _______.

A．tell us how to talk to ourselves

B．introduce a method of learning a foreign language

C．tell us why some people talk to themselves

D．explain to us how we learned our native language

2.What does the underlined word "it" in the fifth paragraph refer to?

A．The word "crazy".                       B．A foreign language.

C．The skill of communicating.                D．The method of talking to oneself.

3.From the passage we can know that ______.

A．people who talk to themselves are crazy

B．if you live alone, you should talk to yourself

C．you should tell yourself what you’re doing

D．we learned our native language by imitating

II. 完形填空：(共20题；满分20分；每小题1分)
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，选出可以填入空白处的最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。
If I had known earlier that there was a reason why I was a low achiever, I may not have worked so hard in my late twenties and early thirties. I was writing. I was working for no other reason than to hear people 51  me.
Most people who 52  university read at least twice as fast as I do. I've never known my left 53  my right. I avoid dialing a telephone if I can, because I sometimes have to try three times to get the number 54 . I hear that recording "The 55  you have reached is not in service." more than any man on the earth.
In spite of my  56  I view dyslexia(朗读困难) as a gift, not something bad. Many dyslexics are good at right-brain, advanced thought, and that's what my kind of creating writing is. I' m starting with nothing and coming up with something that didn't 57  before. That' s my advantage.
I 58  my career to Ralph Salisbury, my writing 59  at the university of Oregon, who looked past my misspellings and gave me  60  and hope. I never looked  61 .
I am also very good at observing. This means nothing in school, but when I 62  books or scripts, I'm seeing everything in my 63 .
I write  64 . I go like the wind and can 65  up to 15 pages a day. Writing is not the 66 . I have no problem in downloading; it's inputting where things get jumbled(混乱).
The real 67  I have for the dyslexics is not that they have to 68  with jumbled input, but that they will give up before they finish school. Parents have to create victories 69  they can, whether it' s music, sports or arts. You want your dyslexic child to be able to say, "Yeah, reading is 70 . But I have other things I can do."
51. A. leave                  B. love                         C. help                  D. praise
52. A. begin with          B. head for                   C. get along           D. go through
53. A. from                  B. between                   C. to                    D. of
54. A. wrong                B. down                       C. right                 D. clear
55. A. amount               B. number                    C. code                 D. zone
56. A. shortcomings          B. weaknesses               C. faults                D. difficulties
57. A. happen               B. meet                        C. remain                     D. exist
58. A. owe                    B. refer                        C. devote               D. obey
59. A. instructor            B. examiner                  C. professor           D. headmaster
60. A. disappointment    B. encouragement          C. satisfaction        D. spirit
61. A. into                    B. through                    C. around                     D. back
62. A. read                   B. publish                     C. write                 D. borrow
63. A. books                 B. mind                        C. imagination              D. world
64. A. slowly                B. usually                     C. quickly             D. suddenly
65. A. get                           B. go                           C. make                D. hurry
66. A. point                  B. problem                   C. reason               D. hard-work
67. A. puzzle                B. thing                        C. situation            D. fear
68. A. argue                  B. struggle                    C. compare            D. provide
69. A. whenever            B. however                   C. whichever         D. whatever
70. A. necessary            B. pleasant                    C. hard                  D. Easy