People who have lost the ability to understand or use words due to brain damage are called aphasics(失语症患者).Such patients can be extremely good at something else.From the changing expressions on speakers’ faces and the tones of their voices,they can tell lies from truths.
Doctors studying the human brain have given a number of examples of this amazing power of aphasics.Some have even compared this power to that of a dog with an ability to find out the drugs hidden in the baggage.
Recently,scientists carried out tests to see if all that was said about aphasics was true.THEY STUDIED A MIXED GROUP OF PEOPLE.Some were normal;others were aphasics.It was proved that the aphasics were far ahead of the normal people in recognizing false speeches—in most cases,the normal people were fooled by words,but the aphasics were not.
Some years ago,Dr.Oliver Sacks wrote in his book about his experiences with aphasics.He mentioned a particular case in a hospital.Some aphasics were watching the president giving a speech on TV.Since the president had been an actor earlier,making a good speech was no problem for him.He was trying to put his feelings into every word of his speech.
But his way of speaking had the opposite effect on the patients.They didn’t seem to believe him.Instead,they burst into laughter.The aphasics knew that the president did not mean a word of what he was saying.He was lying!
Many doctors see aphasics as people who are not completely normal because they lack the ability to understand words.However,according to Dr.Sacks,they are more gifted than normal people.Normal people may get carried away by words.Aphasics seem to understand human expressions better,though they cannot understand words.
【小题1】What is so surprising about aphasics?
| A.They can fool other people. | B.They can find out the hidden drugs. |
| C.They can understand language better. | D.They can tell whether people are lying. |
| A.By asking them to watch TV together. |
| B.By organizing them into acting groups. |
| C.By comparing them with normal people. |
| D.By giving them chances to speak on TV. |
| A.What one says reflects how one feels. |
| B.Aphasics have richer feelings than others. |
| C.Normal people often tell lies in their speeches. |
| D.People poor at one thing can be good at another. |
Thinking
| ·Some scientists claim that we humans are the only living things that are conscious(有意识的)—we alone are aware that we are thinking. ·No one knows how consciousness works—it is one of science’s last great mysteries. ·All your thoughts take place in the cerebrum(大脑皮质),which is at the top of your brain,and different kinds of thought are linked to different areas,called association areas. ·Each half of the cerebrum has four rounded ends called lobes(脑叶)—two at the front(frontal and temporal lobes)and two at the back(occipital and parietal lobes). ·The frontal lobe is linked to your personality and it is where you have your bright ideas. ·The temporal lobe is where you hear and understand what people say to you. ·The occipital lobe is where you work out what your eyes see. ·The parietal lobe is where you record touch,heat and cold,and pain. ·The left half of the brain controls the right side of the body.The right half controls the left side. ·One half of the brain is always dominant(in charge).Usually,the left brain is dominant,which is why 90% of people are right-handed. |
| A.The frontal lobe. | B.The temporal lobe. |
| C.The occipital lobe. | D.The parietal lobe. |
| A.One’s personality has something to do with the frontal lobe. |
| B.Bright ideas come from the parietal lobe. |
| C.The occipital and temperal lobes are at the back of the cerebrum. |
| D.The occipital lobe is in charge of sound. |
| A.their frontal lobe is usually dominant |
| B.their temporal lobe is usually dominant |
| C.their right brain is usually dominant |
| D.their left brain is usually dominant |
Many facts suggest that children are overweight and the situation is getting worse,according to the doctors.I feel there are a number of reasons for this.
Some people blame the fact that we are surrounded(包围)by shops selling unhealthy,fatty foods,such as fried chicken and ice cream,at low prices.This has turned out a whole generation of grown-ups who seldom cook a meal for themselves.If there were fewer of these restaurants,then probably children would buy less take-away food.
There is another argument that blames parents for allowing their children to become overweight.I agree with this,because good eating habits begin early in life,long before children start to visit fast food shops.If children are given fried chicken and chocolate rather than healthy food,or are always allowed to choose what they eat,they will go for sweet and salty foods every time,and this will carry on throughout their lives.
There is a third reason for this situation.Children these days take very little exercise.They do not walk to school.When they get home,they sit in front of the television or their computers and play computer games.Not only is this an unhealthy pastime(消遣),it also gives them time to eat more unhealthy food.What they need is to go outside and play active games or sports.
The above are the main reasons for this problem,and therefore we have to encourage young people to be more active,as well as steering them away from fast food shops and bad eating habits.
【小题1】According to the text,what kind of children may eat more unhealthy food?
| A.Those who often take exercise. |
| B.Those who often watch television. |
| C.Those who often have meals at home. |
| D.Those who often walk to school. |
| A.their parents often cook meals for them |
| B.they are too busy to go out and play |
| C.they can’t choose what to eat |
| D.there are too many fast food shops around |
| A.forcing | B.guiding |
| C.driving | D.moving |
| A.tell a story | B.provide facts |
| C.give advice | D.compare opinions |
What will people die of 100 years from now?If you think that is a simple question,you have not been paying attention to the revolution that is taking place in bio-technology(生物技术).With the help of new medicine,the human body will last a very long time.Death will come mainly from accidents,murder and war.Today’s leading killers,such as heart disease,cancer,and aging itself,will become distant memories.
In discussion of technological changes,the Internet gets most of the attention these days.But the change in medicine can be the real technological event of our times.How long can humans live?Human brains were known to decide the final death.Cells(细胞) are the basic units of all living things,and until recently,scientists were sure that the life of cells could not go much beyond 120 years because the basic materials of cells,such as those of brain cells,would not last forever.But the upper limits will be broken by new medicine.Sometime between 2050 and 2100,medicine will have advanced to the point at which every 10 years or so,people will be able to take medicine to repair their organs(器官).The medicine,made up of the basic building materials of life,will build new brain cells,heart cells,and so on—in much the same way our bodies make new skin cells to take the place of old ones.
It is exciting to imagine that the advance in technology may be changing the most basic condition of human existence,but many technical problems still must be cleared up on the way to this wonderful future.
【小题1】According to the passage,human death is now mainly caused by _______.
| A.diseases and aging | B.accidents and war |
| C.accidents and aging | D.heart disease and war |
| A.medicine | B.the Internet |
| C.brain cells | D.human organs |
| A.heart disease will be far away from us |
| B.human brains can decide the final death |
| C.the basic materials of cells will last forever |
| D.human organs can be repaired by new medicine |
| A.human life will not last more than 120 years in the future |
| B.humans have to take medicine to build new skin cells now |
| C.much needs to be done before humans can have a longer life |
| D.we have already solved the technical problems in building new cells |
People diet to look more attractive. Fish diet to avoid being beaten up, thrown out of their social group, and getting eaten as a result. That is the fascinating conclusion of the latest research into fish behavior by a team of Australian scientists.
The research team have discovered that subordinate fish voluntarily diet to avoid challenging their larger competitors. “In studying gobies we noticed that only the largest two individuals, a male and female, had breeding (繁殖) rights within the group,” explains Marian Wong. “All other group members are nonbreeding females, each being 5-10% smaller than its next largest competitor. We wanted to find out how they maintain this precise size separation.”
The reason for the size difference was easy to see. Once a subordinate fish grows to within 5-10% of the size of its larger competitor, it causes a fight which usually ends in the smaller goby being driven away from the group. More often than not, the evicted fish is then eaten up.
It appeared that the smaller fish were keeping themselves small in order to avoid challenging the boss fish. Whether they did so voluntarily, by restraining how much they ate, was not clear. The research team decided to do an experiment. They tried to fatten up some of the subordinate gobies to see what happened. To their surprise, the gobies simply refused the extra food they were offered, clearly preferring to remain small and avoid fights, over having a feast.
The discovery challenges the traditional scientific view of how boss individuals keep their position in a group. Previously it was thought that large individuals simply used their weight and size to threaten their subordinates and take more of the food for themselves, so keeping their competitors small.
While the habits of gobies may seem a little mysterious, Dr. Wong explains that understanding the relationships between boss and subordinate animals is important to understanding how hierarchical (等级的) societies remain stable.
The research has proved the fact that voluntary dieting is a habit far from exclusive to humans. “As yet, we lack a complete understanding of how widespread the voluntary reduction of food intake is in nature,” the researchers comment. “Data on human dieting suggests that, while humans generally diet to improve health or increase attractiveness, rarely does it improve long-term health and males regularly prefer females that are fatter than the females’ own ideal.”
【小题1】When a goby grows to within 5-10% of the size of its larger competitor, it .
| A.faces danger | B.has breeding rights |
| C.eats its competitor | D.leaves the group itself |
| A.the fish beaten up | B.the fish found out |
| C.the fish fattened up | D.the fish driven away |
| A.fought over a feast | B.went on diet willingly |
| C.preferred some extra food | D.challenged the boss fish |
| A.Fish dieting and human dieting. |
| B.Dieting and health. |
| C.Human dieting. |
| D.Fish dieting. |
I know what you’re thinking: pizza(比萨饼)? For breakfast? But the truth is that you can have last night’s leftovers in the a.m. if you want to.
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I know lots of women who skip breakfast (不吃早饭), and they have a ton of different excuses for doing it. Some say they don’t have time, others think they’re “saying” calories (卡路里),still others just don’t like breakfast food.
学科But the bottom line is that eating in the morning is very important when you’re trying to lose weight .“Eating just about anything from 300 to 400 calories would be better than nothing at all,” says Katherine Brooking, R.D. , who developed the super-easy eating plan for this year’s “SELF CHALLENGE”. And even pizza can be healthy if it’s loaded with vegetables, and you stick to one small piece.
学科Breakfast is one meal I never miss, and the same goes for most weight loss success stories. Research shows that eating breakfast keeps you from overeating later in the day. Researchers at the University of Southern California found that breakfast skippers have a bigger chance of gaining weight than those who regularly have a morning meal.
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So eat something in the morning, anything. I know plenty of friends who end up having no breakfast altogether, and have just coffee or orange juice. I say, try heating up last night’s leftovers – it may sound crazy, but if it works for you, do it! I find if I tell myself, “You can always eat it tomorrow.” I put away the leftovers instead of eating more that night. Try it … you may save yourself some pre-bedtime calories. And watch your body gain the fat-burning effects.
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【小题1】The word “leftovers” in paragraph I probably means ______.
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| A.food remaining after a meal | B.things left undone |
| C.meals made of vegetables | D.pizza topped with fruit |
| A.Working women usually have breakfast in a hurry. |
| B.Many people have wrong ideas about breakfast. |
| C.There are some easy ways of cooking a meal. |
| D.Eating vegetables helps save energy. |
| A.eat something for breakfast | B.be careful about what you cat |
| C.heat up food before eating it | D.cat calorie-controlled food |
| A.who go to work early | B.who want to lose weight |
| C.who stay up late | D.who eat before sleep |
Drunken driving sometimes called American's socially accepted form of murder has become a national epidemic(流行病).Every hour of every day about three Americans on average are killed by drunken drivers, adding up to an incredible 250,000 over the past ten years.A drunken driver is usually referred to as one with 0.10-blood alcohol content or roughly three beers, glasses of wines or shots of whisky drunk within two hours.Heavy drinking used to be an acceptable part of the American manly image and judges were lenient in most courts, but the drunken killing has recently caused so many well-publicized tragedies, especially concerning young children, that public opinion is no longer tolerant.
Twenty states have raised the legal drinking age to 21, reversing a trend (逆转潮流) in the 1960s to reduce it to 18.After New Jersey lowered it to 18, the number of people killed by 18-20-year-old drivers more than doubled, so the state recently upped it back to 21.
Reformers, however, fear raising the drinking age will have little effect unless accompanied by educational programs to help young people to develop "responsible attitudes" about drinking and teach them to resist peer pressure to drink.
Some states are punishing bars for serving customers too many drinks.A bar in Massachusetts was fined for serving six or more double brandies to a customer who was "obviously drunk" and later drove off the land, killing a nine-year-old boy.
As the accidents continue to occur daily in every state, some Americans are even beginning to speak well of the 13 years national prohibition (禁令) of alcohol that began in 1919, which President Hoover called the "noble experiment".They forget that legal prohibition didn't stop drinking, but encouraged political corruption (腐败) and organized crime.As with the booming drug trade generally, there is no easy solution.
【小题1】It can be inferred from the passage that drunken driving has become a major problem in the United States because___.
| A.most Americans like drinking |
| B.heavy dinking is hard to avoid |
| C.Americans are not shocked by traffic accidents |
| D.many Americans are killed by traffic accidents |
| A.Drivers should not be allowed to drink. |
| B.Young drivers were usually bad. |
| C.The legal drinking age should be raised. |
| D.Some drivers didn't reach the legal drinking age. |
| A.cruel | B.serious | C.determined | D.merciful[来源:Z§ |
| A.It may cause organized crime. |
| B.The new laws can stop heavy drinking. |
| C.There should be no bars to serve drinks. |
| D.It is difficult to solve the problem. |
We have met the enemy and he is ours We bought him at a pet shop. When monkey-pox, a disease usually found in the African rain forest suddenly turns up in children in the American .Midwest it’s hard not to wonder of the disease that comes from foreign animals is homing in on human beings. “Most of the infections (感染)we think of as human infections started in other animals “ says Stephen Morse director of the Center for Public Health Preparedness at Columbia University.
It’s not just that we’re going to where the animals are; we’re also bringing them closer to us Popular foreign pets have brought a whole new disease to this country A strange illness killed Isaksen’s pets and she now thinks that keeping foreign pets is a bad idea “I don’t think it’s fair to have them as pets when we have such a limited knowledge of them “says Isaksen
“Laws allowing these animals to be brought in from deep forest areas without stricter control need changing “says Peter Schantz Monkey-pox may be the wake-up call. Researchers believe infected animals may infect their owners. We know very little about these new diseases A new bug(病毒)may be kind at first. But it may develop into something harmful(有害的)Monkey-pox doesn’t look a major infectious disease But is not impossible to pass the disease from person to person
【小题1】We learn from Paragraph I that the pet sold at the shop may_______.
| A.come from Columbia |
| B.prevent us from being infected |
| C.enjoy being with children |
| D.suffer from monkey-pox |
| A.They attack human beings |
| B.We need to study native animals |
| C.They can’t live out of the rain forest |
| D.We do not know much about them yet |
| A.a new disease |
| B.a clear warning |
| C.a dangerous animal |
| D.a morning call |
| A.may have to fight against more new diseases |
| B.may easily get infected by diseases from dogs |
| C.should not be allowed to have pets |
| D.should stop buying pests from Africa |