第二部分 阅读理解(共20小题,每小题2分,满分40分)

A

President Barack Obama has apologized for a gaffe (失言) in which he described his bowling skills as akin to participants in the Special Olympics, a sports program for people with intellectual disabilities.

Obama made the mistake during an interview on Thursday night on “The Tonight Show” with host Jay Leno, the first time a sitting U.S. president had been on the show.

Talking about living in the White House, Obama said he had been practicing his bowling in the home’s bowling alley and had scored a 129 out of a possible 300.

It was an improvement on the embarrassing 37 he had rolled during a stop on the presidential campaign trail a year ago. “It’s like—it was like Special Olympics or something,” Obama said.

The Special Olympics is a global nonprofit organization serving some 200 million people with intellectual disabilities, with a presence in nearly 200 countries worldwide.

Soon after the Jay Leno interview, Obama telephoned Special Olympics chairman Tim Shriver to apologize.

Shriver told ABC’s “Good Morning America” television show that Obama had apologized “in a way that I think was very moving” and that he said “he did not intend to humiliate (羞辱) the population, didn’t want to embarrass or give anybody any more reason for pain or kind of suffering.”

Shriver said people should gain a lesson from the incident.

“I think it’s important to see that words hurt. Words do matter. And these words in some respect, can be seen as humiliating or a put-down to people with special needs, do cause pain. And they do result in stereotypes,” Shriver said.

White House spokesman Bill Burton said Obama “made an offhand remark making fun of his own bowling that was in no way intended to look down upon the Special Olympics.”

“He thinks that the Special Olympics are a wonderful program that gives an opportunity to shine to people with disabilities from around the world,” Burton said.

56. What does the underlined word “akin” in Paragraph 1 mean?

A. skillful                 B. similar           C. appealing              D. superior

57. Which of the following statements is true?

A. Obama loves sports and is especially gifted at bowling.

B. Obama apologized for his remarks via ABC’s TV show.

C. The Special Olympics are for various disabled people.

D. The Special Olympics don’t intend to make any money.

58. What does Shriver mean by saying people should gain a lesson from the incident?

A. Disabled people cannot be humiliated.            B. One should be careful with his words.

C. An apology for wrong words is wanted.        D. Words matter even more than actions.

59. The passage is mainly about ________.

A. Obama receiving a TV interview                          B. Obama looking down on the disabled

C. Obama apologizing for his gaffe                 D. Obama being attacked for his words

C

Shaping the Future of TV

Nobody can predict the future of TV with any certainty but some major figures in the industry have recently put forward their thoughts on what will shape TV of the future.

The shaping of a personalized television future is starting to take place, says Intel. The chip giant, who makes the processors found in most personal computers, states that by 2015 there will be just over 12 million devices using IPTV services that will be capable of connecting to over 500 billion hours of TV & video.

This supports the idea to make television a more social, personalized and readily accessible device available anywhere through IPTV services. As more and more people consume TV & video through various mediums, there is now a greater need to distribute and manage this content.

As such, companies like TV Genius are accepting this announcement made at Intel’s Developer Forum (IDF) in the USA by their chief technology officer, Justin Rattner.

With such a variety of content likely to become available, technology firms will need to assist in making personalized TV recommendations more readily accessible.

Mr. Rattner, speaking to the BBC said, “TV will remain at the centre of our lives and you will be able to watch what you want and where you want. We are talking about more than one TV-capable device for every man and woman on the planet. People are going to feel connected to the screen in ways they haven’t in the past.”

One way in which this will happen will also be assisted by a more united service of material combining including video content, internet content, broadcast content, and personal content.

This content will become much more accessible through remote devices like mobile phones using IPTV technology. This means that users will be able to watch their favorite programs away from the traditional media hub, the home.

63. The author uses the passage mainly to ________.

   A. recommend a new type of TV          B. introduce a possible shape of future TV

   C. describe the function of future TV    D. support the new type of TV

64. We know from the passage that the future TV might have major features like _______.

   a. being capable of connecting to many more hours

   b. changing the shape very easily        c. receiving programs at any place

   d. displaying the advanced materials

e. using services accessing the Internet, video, radio, etc

   A. a, b, c  B. c, d, e     C. a, c, e     D. b, c, e

65. The underlined word “this” in the third paragraph refers to __________.

   A. Intel, the chip giant                  B. TV and video

   C. readily accessible device            D. Widely used IPTV services

66. We can infer from the passage that _________.

   A. the present TV will disappear in the near future

   B. the future TV will have a beautiful look

   C. people are developing the technology of TV very quickly

   D. people will spend more time watching TV at home

任务型阅读(满分10分)

Romantic novelists rarely fail to include in their writings that special moment when two strangers look into each other's eyes across a crowded room and feel the tingle of desire. Now these writings have now been validated(证实)by science, for experts have discovered that eye-to-eye contact in fact leads to a burst of activity in the reward center of the brain.

Neuroscientists at University College London asked eight female and eight male volunteers to look at photos of the faces of 40 different people who were either looking at the camera or gazing to one side.

While the volunteers looked at the pictures, they were given a scan with functional magnetic resonance imaging(磁性共振成影仪器), which measures increased blood flows to the various parts of the brain and thus provides a "map" of cerebral activity(大脑活动).

The volunteers were then asked to rate the attractiveness of each face, and their score was matched against the scan.

The result: when volunteer had direct eye contact with the face, there was an increase of activity in the ventral striatum(腹面纹状体), a central part of the brain that anticipates reward or pleasure. But if the eyes did not meet, there was no activity in that brain area at all. The activity increase occurred regardless of the gender of the face in direct eye contact.

However, there was a bigger-than-usual increase if the person giving the eye was found to be attractive. Activity in the ventral striatum surged. But if the cute person gazed to one side, the ventral striatum remained dormant, apparently disappointed that the stranger was clearly not interested.

Interestingly, the ventral striatum also perked up if a plug-ugly person gazed to one side, rather than looked at the volunteer right in the eyes.

Origin of the experiment

Romantic novelists like to describe in their writings that two strangers look into each other's eyes across a crowded room and feel the tingle of desire in a special ____71____.

__72__ of the experiment

Investigate whether eye-to-eye contact ____73____ a burst of activity in the reward center of the brain.

Procedure of the experiment

◆Ask ____74____ volunteers(8 female and 8 male)to look at photos of the faces of 40 different people who were either looking at the camera or gazing to one side.

◆____75____ blood flows to the various parts of the volunteers’ brain and thus provides a "map" of cerebral activity.

◆Ask the volunteers to rate the attractiveness of all ____76____,

◆____77____ their score against the scan.

____78____ of the experiment

◆As long as the eyes meet ____79____, there must be activities in the brain area. On the other hand, there is no activity at all.

◆The activity of the brain is also ___80_____ with the people’s appearance closely.

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