The possibility that pleasant smells might reduce pain has recently been suggested by new research. In a scientific study, doctors asked 20 men and 20 women to keep their hands in very hot water for as long as possible while breathing in different smells.
As people believe that strong smells can affect the senses, volunteers were asked not to eat or drink for eight hours before the experiment began. During the experiment, volunteers were asked to take in pleasant smells such as vanilla (香草), and unpleasant smells such as durians (榴莲). The volunteers kept their hands in the water until it became too hot for them. When they could not bear the pain any more, they took their hands out of the water.
Scientists are interested in whether the senses or smell is related to pain and whether men and women have the same senses. Now, the study has proved that for women, pleasant smells reduce pain. For men, there is no change.
Dr Finkelstein has been studying smells since 1999. He says that scientists already have data from 40 volunteers. He adds that this year, scientists will test another 60 volunteers and will be in a better position to explain the results.
One explanation is that women’s sense of smell developed long ago, and is linked to recognizing the smell of babies. Scientists used to believe that mothers recognized their children by sight only. Now, they have started to believe that the sense of smell also helps, but why pleasant smells do not reduce pain in men is a question still to be answered by scientists.
【小题1】Before the experiment, volunteers ______.

A.are gathered and take a training
B.cannot eat or drink for several hours
C.must wash their hands carefully
D.will be interviewed by Dr Finkelstein
【小题2】If both men and women are asked to keep their hands in hot water while taking in some pleasant smells, ______.
A.women may stand the pain of the hot water longer
B.men may keep their hands in the hot water longer
C.they will probably take their hands out at the same time
D.we are not quite sure who will take their hands out earlier
【小题3】From the passage we learn that _________.
A.the reason why women are sensitive to smells is clear
B.the experiment for the sense of smell has come to an end
C.unpleasant smells affect men’s senses more than women’s
D.scientists have not totally explained the result of the study
【小题4】Now scientists believe that _______.
A.mothers recognize their children only by sight
B.men’s sense of smell developed a long time ago
C.strong smells have a great influence on people’s senses
D.smells are helpful for mothers to spot their children
【小题5】The writer wrote the passage in order to ________.
A.supply some entertainment to us
B.show women’s sharper senses than men’s
C.inform the readers of some knowledge
D.call for volunteers for the experiment


B
One of the most difficult questions to answer is how much a job is worth. We naturally expect that a doctor’s salary will be higher than a bus conductor’s wage. But the question becomes much more difficult to answer when we compare, say, a miner with an engineer, or an unskilled man working on an oil-rig(钻油机) in the North Sea with a teacher in a secondary school. What the doctor, the engineer and teacher have is many years of training in order to obtain the necessary qualifications for their professions. We feel instinctively that these skills and these years, when they were studying instead of earning money, should be rewarded. At the same time we recognize that the work of the miner and the oil-rig laborer is both hard and dangerous, and that they must be highly paid for the risks they take.
Another factor we must take into consideration is how socially useful a man’s work is, regardless of the talents he may bring to it. Most people would agree that looking after the sick or teaching children is more important than, say, selling secondhand cars or improving the taste of toothpaste by adding a red stripe to it. Yet it is almost certain that the used car salesman earns more than the nurse, and that research chemist earns more than the school teacher.
Indeed, this whole question of just rewards can be turned on its head. You can argue that a man who does a job which brings him personal satisfaction is already receiving part of his reward in the form of a so-called “psychic(精神的) wage”, and that it is the man with the boring, repetitive job who needs more money to make up for the soul-destroying monotony(单调) of his work. It is significant that that those jobs which are traditionally regarded as “vocations” --- nursing, teaching and the Church, for example --- continue to be poorly paid, while others, such as those in the world of sport or entertainment, carry financial rewards out of all proportion to their social worth.
Although the amount of money that people earn is in reality largely determined by market forces, this should not prevent us from seeking some way to decide what is the right pay for the job. A starting point for such an investigation would be to try to decide the ratio which ought to exist between the highest and the lowest paid. The picture is made more complicate by two factors: firstly by the “social wage”, i.e, the welfare benefits which every citizen receives; and secondly, by the taxation system, which is often used as an instrument of social justice by taxing high incomes at a very high rate indeed. Allowing for these two things, most countries now regard a ratio of 7:1 as socially acceptable. If it is less, the highly-qualified people carrying heavy responsibilities become disillusioned, and might even end up by emigration(移民) (the so-called “brain-drain” is an evidence that this can happen). If it is more, the gap between rich and poor will be so great that it will lead social tensions and ultimately to violence.
74. The professional man, such as the doctor, should be well paid because ______.
A. he has spent several years learning how to do his job
B. his work involves much great intelligence than, say, a bus conductor’s
C. he has to work much harder than most other people
D. he knows more than other people about his subject
75. The “brain-drain” is an evidence that ______.
A. well-educated people are prepared to emigrate whenever they can get a better paid job
B. people with jobs or responsibility expect to be highly paid
C. high taxation is a useful and effective instrument of social justice
D. the poor are generally more patriotic(爱国的) than the rich
76. As far as rewarding people for their work is concerned, the writer, believes that ______.
A. we should pay for socially-useful work, regardless of the person’s talent
B. we should pay people according to their talents
C. market forces will determine how much a person is paid
D. qualified people should be the highest paid
77. The argument of the “psychic wage” is used to explain why ______.
A. people who do socially important work are not always well paid
B. people who do monotonous jobs are highly paid
C. you should not try to compare the pay of different professions
D. some professional people are paid more than others


We continue our Foreign Student Series on higher education in the United States. Now you move on to college life once you are admitted to a school. The first thing you need to value is a place to live. Housing policies differ from school to school. Students might have to live in a dormitory, at least for the first year there.
Dorms come in all sizes. Some have suites. Six or more students may live in one suite. Other dorms have many rooms along a common hallway, usually with two students in each room . Many students say dormitories provide the best chance to get to know other students. Also, dorms generally cost less than apartments or other housing not owned by the school
Most colleges and universities offer single-sex dorms, but usually males and females live in the same building. They might live on the same floors and share the same common bathrooms. They may live in the same room only if they are married.
Edward Spencer is the associate vice president for student affairs at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. He says it is important to understand the rules of the building in which you will live. He advises students to ask questions before they decide about their housing. For example, if a student requires a special diet, will the school provide it ? How much privacy can a student expect ? Will the school provide a single room if a student requests one ? And what about any other special needs that a student might have?
Virginia Tech, for example, had a ban against candles in dorms . But it changed that policy to let students light up candles for religious purposes. The university also has several dorms open all year so foreign students have a place to stay during vacation time.
60. Why do some students in the U.S. choose to live in dorms, according to the passage ?
A. Dorms allow students in the U.S. choose to live in dorms
B. Dorms are safer for students to live in most cases
C. Dorms offer the chance to meet other people and are cheap as well
D. In most schools students are required to live in the dorms
61. The second paragraph is mainly about ______
A. what suites in American schools are like          
B. what dorms in American schools are like
C. what dorms are owned by schools         
D. when people get to know each other
62. We can infer from what Edward Spencer says that ______
A. colleges usually don’t provide a special diet 
B. housing rules differ from one building to another
C. a ban against candles in dorms is necessary 
D. the U.S. college always satisfies students’ requests
63 .What is the passage mainly about ?
A. Places to live in U.S. colleges      
B. housing polices in the U.S
C. Advantages of dormitories     
D. Rules of single-sex dorms

My heart sank when the man at the immigration counter gestured to the back room. I was born and raised in America, and this was Miami, where I live, but they weren’t quite ready to let me in yet.

  “Please wait in here, Ms. Abujaber,” the immigration officer said. My husband, with his very American last name, accompanied me. He was getting used to this. The same thing had happened recently in Canada when I’d flown to Montreal to speak at a book event. That time they held me for 45 minutes. Today we were returning from a literary festival in Jamaica, and I was shocked that I was being sent “in back” once again.

  The officer behind the counter called me up and said, “Miss, your name looks like the name of someone who’s on our wanted list. We’re going to have to check you out with Washington.”

  “How long will it take?”

  “Hard to say…a few minutes,” he said, “We’ll call you when we’re ready for you.” After an hour, Washington still hadn’t decided anything about me.

“Isn’t this computerized?” I asked at the counter, “Can’t you just look me up?”

“Just a few more minutes,” they assured me.

  After an hour and a half, I pulled my cell phone out to call the friends I was supposed to meet that evening. An officer rushed over. “No phones!” he said, “For all we know you could be calling a terrorist cell and giving them information.”

  “I’m just a university professor,” I said. My voice came out in a squeak.

  “Of course you are. And we take people like you out of here in leg irons every day.”

  I put my phone away.

  My husband and I were getting hungry and tired. Whole families had been brought into the waiting room, and the place was packed with excitable children, exhausted parents, and even a flight attendant.

  I wanted to scream, to jump on a chair and shout: “I’m an American citizen; a novelist; I probably teach English literature to your children.”

After two hours in detention (扣押), I was approached by one of the officers. “You’re free to go,” he said. No explanation or apologies. For a moment, neither of us moved. We were still in shock. Then we leaped to our feet.

  “Oh, one more thing,” he handed me a tattered photocopy with an address on it, “If you aren’t happy with your treatment, you can write to this agency.”

  “Will they respond?” I asked.

  “I don’t knowI don’t know of anyone who’s ever written to them before.” Then he added,” By the way, this will probably keep happening each time you travel internationally.”

  “What can I do to keep it from happening again?”

  He smiled the empty smile we’d seen all day, “Absolutely nothing.”

  After telling several friends about our ordeal, probably the most frequent advice I’ve heard in response is to change my name. Twenty years ago, my own graduate school writing professor advised me to write under a pen name so that publishers wouldn’t stick me in what he called “the ethnic ghetto”a separate, secondary shelf in the bookstore. But a name is an integral part of anyone’s personal and professional identityjust like the town you’re born in and the place where you’re raised.

  Like my father, I’ll keep the name, but my airport experience has given me a whole new perspective on what diversity and tolerance are supposed to mean. I had no idea that being an American would ever be this hard.

1.The author was held at the airport because ______.

A. she and her husband returned from Jamaica

B. her name was similar to a terrorist’s

C. she had been held in Montreal

D. she had spoken at a book event

2.She was not allowed to call her friends because ______.

A. her identity hadn’t been confirmed yet

B. she had been held for only one hour and a half

C. there were other families in the waiting room

D. she couldn’t use her own cell phone

3.We learn from the passage that the author would ______ to prevent similar experience from happening again.

A. write to the agency?????????? B. change her name??

C. avoid traveling abroad??????? D. do nothing

4.Her experiences indicate that there still exists ______ in the US.

A. hatred???????????????????? B. discrimination?????

C. tolerance?????????????????? D. diversity

5.The author sounds ______ in the last paragraph.

A. impatient?? B. bitter???????? C. worried??????????? D. ironic (具有讽刺意味的)

 

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