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Your Genes, Your Future
How would you feel if someone gave you an envelope with a description of every one of your genes? Supposing this information could tell you what illnesses you were likely to get, or even what illness you might die of, would you open the envelope?
It's a difficult question to answer. But the fact is that scientists have already begun to discover how certain genes influence us. And in the next decade, they will learn a lot more.
We have known for a long time that many of our physical characteristics are inherited（继承）. For example, our eye colour and certain diseases are decided by our genes. As long as you have a good diet, scientists can predict your height by looking at your parents' heights. And we now know that the need to wear glasses has a genetic cause. Our eating habits also appear to be decided by our genes!
With other characteristics, things are not so clear. Certainly, scientists have now shown that some traits（特性，特质） are strongly influenced by our genes. Do you prefer getting up early or late? To a great extent, it's your genes that decide. Do you enjoy dangerous sports such as car racing? There is a gene that influences how much excitement we need.
But with most psychological characteristics, scientists are learning that both our genes and our environment affect us. This is true of things such as how violent we are, and how well we get on with other people. So, even though scientists may soon be able to describe our genes in detail, it does not mean they will be able to predict our future with any real success.
Nevertheless, the fact is that scientists will be able to "read" our genes in the near future. This will create new problems. To give a few examples, insurance companies may not want to insure people whose genes predict certain illnesses. Employers may not want to employ people who have a gene for violence. One thing is already clear -- with these new developments, life is going to become even more complicated!
60. Which characteristics is mostly likely to be inherited?
A. Eye color. B. Interest. C. Future. D. Ability.
61. What kind of problem will these new developments create?
A. You may die of a certain illness described in the envelope.
B. There will be an increased number of violent people.
C. People may take part in dangerous sports such as car racing.
D. Insurance companies may refuse to insure people with a gene for certain disease.
62. Why won’t scientists be able to tell us a lot about our future?
A. Because we’re affected not only by our genes but also by our environment.
B. Because scientists will not be able to read our genes in the near future.
C. Because life in the future will be more complicated.
D. Because scientists can’t describe our genes in detail.
This is a story from 28 years ago. My dad was a used car salesman. Every Thursday night, he would head off to Shreveport, LA for an auction (拍卖会). Most of the time, I drove a car over there for him so he could sell it at the auction.
One day I was riding with my dad when he noticed a hitch-hiker(搭便车的人) with a backpack. Without hesitation, he pulled the car over and offered him a ride. Dad asked him his name, and proceeded to talk to him about all sorts of things. Dad asked him where he was going. The hitch-hiker told him that he was heading for the west. I can’t recall why but he told Dad a lot of things that had occurred to him and that persuaded him to make that decision. He talked about the tragic events that occurred to him several years before. He was low in spirits, but t could see that the hitch-hiker’s attitude was changing as someone was really listening to him.
We drove 45 minutes before the hitch-hiker got off. We pulled over and Dad told him to keep his head up and things would start looking up for him soon. He reached into his pocket and handed the hitch-hiker a twenty-dollar bill. The guy smiled. He nearly lit up right there on the cold, dark highway.
We drove on and my dad did not say a single thing. I was still completely amazed by what I had just witnessed. I was always told by everyone never to pick up a hitch-hiker and yet my dad did it every single time he saw one. While reflecting upon that story I came to understand that just one single kind act could change someone’s life, and I am sure that my father’s deed made that poor man’s day.The underlined words “that decision” in Para. 2 refer to “__________”.
| A．catching the car |
| B．heading for the west |
| C．talking about his experiences |
| D．driving 45 minutes |
What made the hitch-hiker become less upset?
| A．The writer’s father offering him a free ride. |
| B．The writer’s father really listening to him. |
| C．The writer’s father agreeing to drive him to his destination. |
| D．The writer’s father talking to him about all sorts of things. |
When his father helped the hitch-hiker, the writer __________.
| A．was deeply moved | B．strongly disagreed |
| C．admired his father | D．couldn’t understand |
Which of the following words CANNOT be used to describe the father?
| A．Willing to help. | B．Easy-going. |
| C．Far-sighted. | D．Full of sympathy. |
The author wrote the text mainly to __________.
| A．show his respect for his father |
| B．tell a story of his father |
| C．prove his father is the best teacher |
| D．advise people to learn from their father |
British writer John Bunyan was born at Elstow, Bedfordshire, England, in November, 1628. His father was a maker and mender of pots and kettles, and the son followed the same trade. Though he is usually called a tinker, Bunyan had a settled home and place of business. He had little schooling, and he describes his early surroundings as poor and mean. He became much interested in religions, but it was only after a tremendous spiritual conflict, lasting three or four years, that he found peace. His struggles are related with extraordinary vividness and intensity in his “Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners.” His writing began with a controversy against the Quakers (教友派), and shows from the first the command of a homely but vigorous style.
Like most working men at the time, Bunyan had a deep hatred for the corrupted, hypocritical rich who accumulated their wealth “by hook and by crook.” As a stout Puritan(清教徒), he had made a conscientious study of the Bible and firmly believed in salvation (拯救) through spiritual struggle.
Bunyan’s style was modeled after that of the English Bible. With his concrete and living language and carefully observed and vividly presented details, he made it possible for the reader of the least education to share the pleasure of reading his novel and to relive the experience of his characters.
Bunyan’s works include Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666), The Life and Death of Mr. Badman (1680), The Holy War (1682) and The Pilgrim’s Progress (1684).
The Pilgrim’s Progress is the most successful religious allegory (寓言) in the English language. Its purpose is to urge people to observe Christian doctrines and seek salvation through constant struggle with their own weaknesses and all kinds of social evils. It is not only about something spiritual but also bears much relevance to the time. Its predominant metaphor — life as a journey — is simple and familiar. The objects that Christian meets are homely and commonplace, and the scenes presented are typical English ones, but throughout the allegory a spiritual significance is added to the commonplace details. Here the strange is combined with the familiar and the trivial joined to the divine, and, a rich imagination and a natural talent for storytelling also contribute to the success of the work which is at once entertaining and morally instructive.
“The Vanity Fair,” is an excerpt from The Pilgrim’s Progress. The story starts with a dream in which the author sees Christian the Pilgrim, with a heavy burden on his back, reading the Bible. When he learns from the book that the city in which he and his family live shall be burnt down in a fire, Christian tries to convince his family and his neighbors of the oncoming disaster and asks them to go with him in search of salvation, but most of them simply ignore him. So he starts off with a friend, Pliable. Pliable turns back after they stumble into a pit, the Slough of Despond. Christian struggles on by himself. Then he is misled by Mr. Wordly Wiseman and is brought back onto the right road by Mr. Evangelist. There he joins Faithful, a neighbor who has set out later but has made better progress. The two go on together through many adventures, including the great struggle with Apollyon, who claims them to be his subjects and refuse to accept their allegiance to God. After many other adventures they come to the Vanity Fair where both are arrested as alien agitators. They are tried and Faithful is condemned to death. Christian, however manages to escape and goes on his way, assisted by a new friend, Hopeful. Tired of the hard journey, they are tempted to take pleasant path and are then captured by Giant Despair. Finally they get away and reach the Celestial City, where they enjoy eternal life in the fellowship of the blessed.According to the passage, Bunyan hated the rich people mainly because ______.
| A．his father was making and mending pots and kettles |
| B．Bunyan had poor and mean early surroundings |
| C．the rich usually got their wealth in dishonest ways |
| D．Bunyan studied the Bible to save the human souls |
What are the main characteristics of Bunyan’s works?
①The languages are concrete and living.
②The stories are carefully and vividly described.
③The plots are romantic and twisting.
④The works are easy to understand.
| A．①②③ | B．②③④ | C．①③④ | D．①②④ |
John Bunyan wrote the book The Pilgrim’s Progress in order to ______.
| A．advise people to obey religious principles for salvation |
| B．add spiritual significance to the commonplace details |
| C．to combine the strange things with the familiar things |
| D．tell people that life is a simple and familiar journey |
What moral does the story of the last paragraph convey to us?
| A．Any imaginable things might happen in a pilgrim’s dream. |
| B．Christian the Pilgrim likes reading the Bible with a burden. |
| C．People can enjoy eternal life in the fellowship of the blessed. |
| D．People can struggle against weaknesses and evils for salvation |
While residents of wealthy nations tend to have greater life satisfaction, new research shows that those living in poorer nations report having greater meaning in life.
These findings, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological science, suggest that meaning in life may be higher in poorer nations as a result of greater religiosity (笃信宗教). As countries become richer, religion becomes less central to people’s lives and they lose a sense of meaning in life.
“Thus far, the wealth of nations has been almost always associated with longevity, health, happiness or life satisfaction,” explains psychological scientist Shigehiro Oishi of the University of Virginia. “Given that meaning in life is an important aspect of overall well-being, we wanted to look more carefully at differential patterns, correlates (相关物), and predictors for meaning in life.”
Oishi and colleague Ed Diener of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign investigated life satisfaction, meaning, and well-being by examining data from the 2007 Gallup World Poll, a large-scale survey of over 140,000 participants from 132 countries. In addition to answering a basic life satisfaction question, participants were asked: “Do you feel your life has an important purpose or meaning?” and “Is religion an important part of your daily life?”
The data revealed some unexpected trends:
“Among Americans, those who are high in life satisfaction are also high in meaning in life,” says Oishi. “But when we looked at the societal level of analysis, we found a completely different pattern of the association between meaning in life and life satisfaction.”
When looking across many countries, Oishi and Diener found that people in wealthier nations were more educated, had fewer children, and expressed more individualistic attitudes compared to those in poorer countries – all factors that were associated with higher life satisfaction but a significantly lower sense of meaning in life.”
The data suggest that religiosity may play an important role: Residents of wealthier nations, where religiosity is lower, reported less meaning in life and had higher suicide rates than poorer countries.
According to the researchers, religion may provide meaning to life to the extent that it helps people to overcome personal difficulty and cope with the struggles of working to survive in poor economic conditions:
“Religion gives a system that connects daily experiences with the coherent whole (连贯的整体) and a general structure to one’s life … and plays a critical role in constructing meaning out of extreme hardship,” the researchers write.
Oishi and Diener hope to reproduce these findings using more comprehensive measures of meaning and religiosity, and are interested in following countries over time to track whether economic prosperity gives rise to less religiosity and less meaning in life.Which of the following questions couldn’t the participants have answered?
| A．Does your life have a purpose or meaning? |
| B．Do you have relatives living abroad? |
| C．Are you satisfied with your everyday life? |
| D．Is religion involved in your daily life? |
Which of the following statements is true?
| A．Those who have higher life satisfaction usually have lower sense of meaning in life. |
| B．People in wealthier nations were more educated, have fewer children and express less individualistic attitudes compared to those in poorer countries. |
| C．Religion may provide meaning to life in that people can get strong support from it in face of hardship. |
| D．Wealthy people are more likely to commit suicide than poor people. |
What can be inferred from the passage?
| A．The poorer a country is, the more religious its people are. |
| B．Economic prosperity gives rise to less religiosity and less meaning in life. |
| C．If you want to find meaning in life, you must practice a religion. |
| D．Meaning in life doesn’t have much to do with the amount of wealth one possesses. |
The main purpose of the passage is to explain the possible reason why __________.
| A．greater life satisfaction leads to lower sense of meaning |
| B．residents of poorer nations enjoy greater meaning in life |
| C．residents of poorer nations are so religious |
| D．residents of wealthy nations have greater life satisfaction |
Emotional intelligence, or EQ, is the ability to read and understand emotions in ourselves and others. It is said that emotional intelligence makes up 80 percent of one’s success.
Ever since the 1995 publication of US writer Daniel Goleman’s best-seller, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, EQ has been seen by leaders and educators as the solution to many social problems. In some Western countries such as the US, emotional intelligence is now taught widely in secondary, business and medical schools.
EQ is important. But our enthusiasm for it has hidden a dark side, says a recent article in The Atlantic.
Recent research and studies show that as people improve their emotional skills, they become better at manipulating (操控) others. When someone knows what others are feeling, they can motivate them to act against their own best interests.
Does this remind you of those “managers” at pyramid scheme (传销) companies? Hundreds of thousands of otherwise cautious and rational (理性的) people have been brainwashed by their impassioned speeches and become bankrupt as a result.
Social scientists have begun to document this dark side of emotional intelligence. A study by the University of Cambridge found that when a leader gave an inspiring speech filled with emotion, the audience was less likely to look over the message and remembered less of the content.
Researchers call this the “awestruck effect” (敬畏效应), but it may just as easily be described as the dumbstruck effect, says The Atlantic article. Leaders who master emotions can rob us of our ability to reason. If they have self-serving motives, or their values are out of step with our own, emotional intelligence becomes a weapon of manipulation and the results can be destroyed.
Another recent study from Kyoto University shows that people with high interpersonal EQ influence others’ emotions based on their own goals.
A research team led by University College London professor Martin Kilduff shed more light on this dark side of emotional intelligence. According to them, emotional intelligence helps people disguise (伪装) one set of emotions while expressing another for personal gain. Emotionally intelligent people “intentionally shape their emotions to leave favorable impressions of themselves”, Kilduff’s team writes in the journal Research in Organizational Behavior.
It seems that to better understand the dark side of EQ, we need to look no further than Shakespeare’s Macbeth or its modern adaption on TV: House of Cards.Which of the following statements about EQ is NOT true according to the passage?
| A．Many westerners have a good knowledge of EQ. |
| B．EQ plays an important role in solving social problems. |
| C．EQ can help you read and understand emotions in yourself and others. |
| D．If a person has a high level of EQ, he will surely succeed in everything. |
The underlined sentence in the last paragraph but one means that the research team __________.
| A．made clear the dark side of EQ |
| B．hid the positive side of EQ |
| C．understand the positive side of EQ |
| D．discovered the dark side of EQ |
What can we learn from the last paragraph?
| A．Macbeth was adapted from House of Cards. |
| B．House of Cards helps us understand the dark side of EQ better. |
| C．The dark side of EQ is shown neither in Macbeth nor in House of Cards. |
| D．To understand the dark side of EQ better, we’d better not refer to House of Cards and Macbeth. |
What does the passage mainly talk about?
| A．The dark side of EQ. |
| B．The importance of EQ to readers. |
| C．The definition of EQ. |
| D．The positive and negative aspects of EQ. |
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NEMS |
NEWRI Environmental Master of Science |
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| NEWRI: Nanyang Environment & Water Research Institute |
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| Be a leader in environmental science and engineering through the NEMS programme |
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| NEWRI Environmental Master of Science(NEMS) is a primary graduate education and research programme conducted by Nanyang Technological University’s (NTU’s) NEWRI, with summer attachment at Stanford University. It aims to train engineers and scientists to meet the increasing environmental challenges for Asia and the wider region. |
NEWRI-Nanyang Environment & Water Research Institute NEWRI is enabling Singapore to be a global center of environmental science and technology in providing technological solutions to the world. It is committed to environmental and water technologies through its ecosystem of education, research and developmental activities. NEWRI is trying its best to pull together NTU’s water and environment-related centers and institutes, gathering one another’s strengths for the benefit of industry and society. |
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| Master of Science Applications ● Applications open now and close on 30 May 2013 for Singapore applicants. ● Graduates having relevant engineering or science background, including final-year students, are invited to apply. ● Applicants are required to have a certificate of GRE. Further information and application materials are available at the Website: http:// www. Cee.ntu.edu.sg/Graduate/NEMS |
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| Highlights of Programme: ★ Students spend a full summer term at Stanford taking regular courses and continue with the rest of their academic programme at NTU. ★ It is a 12-month full-time course in environmental science & engineering. ★Students under NEMS will have opportunities to do research projects under NEWRI as well as to continue for the Doctor’s degree. ★ Graduating students receive the NTU degree and a certificate from Stanford for their summer attachment. |
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| Scholarship for tuition grants and living expenses at both Stanford and NTU are available |
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| Enquiry contact: Ms Christian Soh Tel：(65) 6861 0507 Fax:(65) 68614606 Email: nems@ntu.edu.sg Information on other graduate programmes available at： www.ntu.edu.sg/cee/program/postgrad.asp |
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If one wants to apply for the NEMS programme, it is essential for him to __________.
| A．have passed the GRE test |
| B．make contact with Ms Soh |
| C．possess a university diploma |
| D．major in engineering or science |
Students admitted to the NEMS Programme __________.
| A．are required to obtain a Doctor’s degree |
| B．will first have regular courses at Stanford |
| C．needn’t be released from their regular jobs |
| D．can receive degrees of both NTU and Stanford |
What’s the main purpose of the NEMS programme?
| A．To offer scholarship for tuition grants and living expenses. |
| B．To strengthen the cooperation between NTU and Stanford. |
| C．To train experts on environmental science and engineering. |
| D．To introduce Nanyang Environment & Water Research Institute. |
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