The terrible college entrance exam is not only a big challenge for Chinese high school students, but also
a very important exam in the lives of South Korean students.
     Although the long, cold winter has already started in South Korea, the annual (一年一度的) national
exams have made the atmosphere very heated.
     More than 675,000 South Korean high school graduates (毕业生) took the college entrance exam last
Wednesday. They usually take exams in Korean, maths, sociology (社会学), history and foreign languages.
     Officially there is one college place for every 1.33 students. But because all the students want to go to
the top universities in the country, the competition can reach one place for 10 students. The students want
to attend these colleges for both their famous names and better job opportunities.
     Because students face fierce competition, they have to study very hard to realize their dreams. Park
Seung said he and his classmates often go to school before 7:30 am. After school has finished at 6:30 pm,
most of them go to the library to continue their study instead of returning home. Since many libraries in
South Korea are open 24 hours a day, they often stay long into the night. Many of the Senior 3 students
only sleep for three to four hours a day.
     "I feel a lot of pressure,but I have to study very hard in order to make my dream come true. This is my
lifetime goal and it will be a turning point in my life which could decide my future," Park said.
     The exam day is a very serious day for the whole of South Korea. Vehicles are not allowed within a 200-
metre radius (范围) of all the test sites to make sure the students have quiet surroundings. Tooting (吹奏)
of horns is forbidden, even airplanes are ordered to avoid landing and take-off near the test sites during
listening comprehension test hours.
     Students are told their scores in December before they apply for college. This is followed by face-to-face
oral tests (口试). There are public and private universities in South Korea. Many private universities are well-
known, but their fees can be 18, 000 yuan each term. This has made a lot of students think again.

1. In South Korean _____.

A. there is only one college
B. there is only one top college
C. there are only top universities
D. there are a number of colleges

2. We can infer that there are almost _____ college places for high school graduates.

A. 675, 000
B. 507, 520
C. 500, 000
D. 600, 000

3. Airplanes are not permitted to land near the test sites _____.

A. when the test begins
B. when the test is going on
C. during some period of the test
D. during the tests

4. Before students are allowed to colleges _____.

A. they will be interviewed
B. they will ask questions of colleges
C. they will not be tested any more
D. first they will pay all the education fee at all

                                                      Robot (机器人) revolution
     The day that a robot wakes you up, cleans your room and walks your dog might still be a few decades
off. But increasingly, engineers are saying that robots are going to make the leap (跳跃) from the factory
floor to your family room.
     Companies like Sony and General Electric are working on designs for small robots. Products like the
Roomba, a robot that can clean floors, are flying off the shelves. On the cover of a recent issue of Scientific
American magazine, Bill Gates predicted the "Dawn of the Age of Robots".
     What's behind this new era (时代)? It's partly a matter of technology. Devices that can recognize and
respond (回应) to a human voice have been developed. There are now a few different ways for robots to
move around. They can walk, crawl (爬行) or ride on wheels. They are being made smaller and smaller.
They are also becoming more and more energy efficient.
     A bigger part of the story is on the demand side. From the day Robert Adler invented the television remote
control in the 1950s, people around the world have tirelessly searched for ways to get lazier.
     Also take into consideration the increasing wealth of rich people, the time appears ripe to introduce robots
to ease our daily lives.
     To be sure, robots that walk on two legs and talk like people are still too complex for our present
engineering abilities. Today's robot revolution is to make them for everyday use. Robots will do basic
housework such as cleaning or gardening, or just help you have more fun on the basketball court.
     What makes a robot different from an ordinary cleaning machine is not the presence of computer chips
(芯片). Nowadays even your microwave has a computer chip. It is the ability to sense and make changes
to the environment (环境) in real time.
     For example, a floor-cleaning robot should be able to sense your scared cat and move out of the way.
Today's computing ability is, for the first time, able to make machines that could "think", at least in certain
limited ways.

     If your mother wants to tell you something, she uses words. Birds cannot talk as we do. But some birds
can make sounds to warn their young of danger. They have their own way to make the young birds do certain
things.
     The jackdaw is a kind of blackbirds that lives in Europe. Jackdaws live together in flocks (群). Young
jackdaws do not know their enemies. When an older jackdaw sees a dog, it makes a loud rattling (格格响的)
sound. The younger birds know this sound means an enemy is nearby. The sound warns them to know their
enemies.
     If a young jackdaw is in a dangerous place, a jackdaw parent flies over him from behind. The parent bird
flies low over the young bird's back. The parent's tail feathers (羽毛) move quickly from side to side. It is
trying to say, "Follow me."
     At the same time, the parent calls out, "Key-aw, key-aw." The parent means, "Fly home with me." The
young bird then follows the older home.
     Young jackdaws do not have to learn what certain sounds mean. They know the meaning of these sounds
from the time they hatch.

1. The jackdaw lives in _____.

A. Europe
B. Australia
C. America
D. Africa

2. When an old jackdaw sees a dog, it _____.

A. calls out, "Follow me."
B. makes a loud sound
C. flies away
D. fights the dog

3. Which of the following does this story lead you to believe?

A. All animal parents can talk to their young.
B. Dogs are the most dangerous enemies for jackdaws.
C. Young jackdaws know the meaning of their parents' sound when they grow older.
D. Some birds can give certain information to one another.

                                                                   Memory
     What is your earliest childhood memory? Can you remember learning to walk? Or talk? The first time
you watched a television program? Adults seldom call back events much earlier than the year or so before
entering school, just as children younger than three or four seldom remember any specific, personal
experiences.
     A variety of explanations have been suggested by psychologists (心理学家) for this "childhood amnesia".
Now Annette Simms, a psychologist of Riverdale University, offers a new explanation for childhood amnesia.
According to Dr. Simms, children need to learn to use someone else's spoken description of their personal
experiences in order to turn their own short-term, fast forgotten impressions of them into long-term memories.
In other words, children have to talk about their experiences and hear others talk about them. Without this
verbal reinforcement (语言强化), children cannot form permanent memories of what they have experienced.
     So why should personal memories depend so heavily on hearing them described? Dr. Simms presents
evidence that the human mind organizes memories in that way. Children whose mothers talk with them about
the day's activities before bedtime tend to remember more of the day's special event than those whose mothers
don't. Talking about an event in this way helps a child to remember it. And learning to organize memories as a
continuous story is the key to a permanent mental "autobiography (自传)" of important life events. Dr. Simms
suggests that we humans may be biologically programmed to turn our life experiences into a novel.
     The key to creating this mental life story is language, says Dr. Simms. "Children learn to talk about the past,"
she says. "Talking to others about their short-term memories of the past leads to the establishment (建立) of
long-term memories." One way it does this is by helping a child to recognize that the retelling of an experience
is just the experience itself, recreated in the form of words. The child learns that this "word-description" of an
experience can then be stored in the memory and called back at any time. But a child's language skills are
usually not ready for this until the age of three or four, so they have no way to remember the earliest of their
experiences.

1. Which of the following is the main idea of this passage?

A. Children need to discuss experiences with their parents.
B. Why can't we remember the events of early childhood?
C. Adults can't remember things as well as children.
D. What are memories of early childhood like?

2. What does the word "amnesia" in the second paragraph mean?

A. A mental life story.
B. A childhood memory.
C. Inability to remember.
D. Researches on memory.

3. To form permanent memories of their experiences, young children need to _____.

A. talk about them with others
B. grow older than three or four
C. write a story in their own language
D. have a good relationship with their parents

4. According to Dr. Simms, the reason why children don't form long-term memories before the age of
    three is that children _____.

A. can't call back their experiences
B. have nowhere to store the memories
C. haven't developed enough language skills
D. confuse the memory with the experience itself

     Do dogs understand us?
     Be careful what you say around your dog. It might understand more than you think.
     A border collie named Rico recognizes the names of about 200 objects, say researchers in Germany. The
dog also appears to be able to learn new words as easily as a 3-year-old child. Its word-learning skills are as
good as those of a parrot or chimpanzee (黑猩猩).
     In one experiment, the researchers took all 200 items that Rico is supposed to know and divided the into
20 groups of 10 objects. Then the owner told the dog to go and fetch one of the items and bring it back. In
four tests, Rico got 37 out of 40 commands right. As the dog couldn't see anyone to get clues, the scientists
believe Rico must understand the meanings of certain words.
     In another experiment, the scientists took one toy that Rico had never seen before and put it in a room
with seven toys whose names the dog already knew. The owner then told Rico to fetch the object, using a
word the dog had never heard before.
     The correct object was chosen in seven out of l0 tests, suggesting that the dog had worked out the answer
by process of elimination (排除法). A month later, Rico remembered half of the new names, which is even
more impressive.
     Rico is thought to be smarter than the average dog. For one thing, Rico is a border collie, a breed (种)
known for its mental abilities. In addition, the 9-year-old dog has been trained to fetch toys by their names
since the age of nine months.
     It's hard to know if all dogs understand at least some of the words we say. Even if they do, they can't
talk back. Still, it wouldn't hurt to sweet-talk your dog every now and then. You might just get a big, wet
kiss in return!

1. From paragraph 2 we know that _____.

A. animals are as clever as human beings
B. dogs are smarter than parrots and chimpanzees
C. chimpanzees have very good word-learning skills
D. dogs have similar 'learning abilities as 3-year-old children

2. Both experiments show that _____.

A. Rico is smart enough to get all commands right
B. Rico can recognize different things including toys
C. Rico has developed the ability of learning mathematics
D. Rico won't forget the names of objects once recognizing them

3. Which of the following statements is true?

A. The purpose of the experiments is to show the border collie's mental abilities.
B. Rico has a better memory partly because of its proper early training.
C. The border collie is world-famous for recognizing objects.
D. Rico is born to understand its owner's commands.

4. What does the writer want to tell us?

A. To train your dog.
B. To talk to your dog.
C. To be friendly to your dog.
D. To be careful with your dog.

     Have you ever been at a meeting while someone was making a speech and realized suddenly that your
mind was a million miles away? You probably felt sorry and made up your mind to pay attention and always
have been told that daydreaming is a waste of time.
     "On the contrary," says L. Giambra, an expert in psychology, "daydreaming is quite necessary. Without
it, the mind couldn't get done all the thinking it has to do during a normal day. You can't possibly do all your
thinking with a conscious (有意识) mind. Instead, your unconscious mind is working out problems all the
time. Daydreaming then may be one way that the unconscious and conscious states of mind have silent
dialogues."
     Early experts in psychology paid no attention to the importance of daydreams or even considered them
harmful. At one time daydreaming was thought to be a cause of some mental illnesses. They did not have
a better understanding of daydreams until the late 1980s. Eric Klinger, a professor of psychology, is the
writer of the book Daydreaming. Klinger says, "We know now that daydreaming is one of the main ways
that we organize our lives, learn from our experiences, and plan for our futures. Daydreams really are a
window on the things we fear and the things we long for in life."
     Daydreams are usually very simple and direct, quite unlike sleep dreams, which may be hard to understand.
It's easier to gain a deep understanding of your life by paying close attention to your daydreams than by trying
to examine your sleep dreams carefully. Daydreams help you recognize the difficult situations in your life and
find out a possible way of dealing with them.
     Daydreams cannot be predicated (预料). They move off in unexpected directions which may be creative
and full of ideas. For many famous artists and scientists, daydreams were and are a main source of creative
energy.

1. The writer of this passage considers daydreams _____.

A. hard to understand
B. important and helpful
C. harmful and unimportant
D. the same as sleep dreams

2. The writer quoted (引用) L. Giambra and Eric Klinger to _____.

A. point out the wrong ideas of early experts
B. list two different ideas
C. support his own idea
D. report the latest research on daydreams

3. Which of the following is TRUE?

A. An unconscious mind can work all the problems out.
B. Daydreaming can give artists and scientists ideas for creation.
C. Professor Eric Klinger has a better idea than L. Giambra.
D. Early experts fully understood what daydreams were.

4. What is the main difference between daydreams and sleep dreams?