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 has discovered that subordinate (隶属的)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 non-breeding females, each being 5–10% smaller than its next largest competitor. We wanted to find out how they keep this 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 limiting 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(排他的) 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.”
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 |
The underlined words “the evicted fish” in Paragraph 3 refer to _______.
| A．the fish beaten up | B．the fish found out |
| C．the fish fattened up | D．the fish driven away |
The experiment showed that the smaller fish_______.
| A．fought over a feast | B．went on diet willingly |
| C．preferred some extra food | D．challenged the boss fish |
What is the text mainly about?
| A．Fish dieting and human dieting. | B．Dieting and health. |
| C．Human dieting. | D．Fish dieting. |
You will spend hours at the gym training your body, but do you ever think about training your brain? Here are four ways to keep your brain mentally (脑力上地) active and healthy.
Play games
Your brain is a muscle just like the ones in the rest of your body. If you don’t use it, you will lose it. For example, doing a crossword puzzle (纵横填字游戏) once a day is a good way to give the brain the exercise it needs. This kind of puzzle is good at training different areas of the brain. But remember that when doing this puzzle, you should gradually increase the complexity (复杂度); otherwise, it will become repetitive (重复乏味的) and stop being mentally challenging.
Talk aloud
Although it might sound strange to you, talking aloud is a great way to boost your memory. A good exercise to try is counting to 99 in threes as fast as you can.
Be a team leader
If you find you can do your work very easily, you should find a new task. It is important that your job should be mentally challenging. Complex jobs are often more challenging and make the brain work a little harder.
Learn a language
A study found that, compared with those who could speak only one language, the people who could speak two languages had a slower rate of cognitive (认知能力) decrease. Learning a new language is very challenging and it makes sure that different areas of the brain have their lights on. What is the main idea of this passage?
| A．Why you should train your brain. |
| B．How to be a good team leader. |
| C．Training the brain is more important than training the body. |
| D．How to make your brain healthy and work actively. |
Which word can replace the word "boost" in the third paragraph?
| A．Change. | B．Promote. | C．Decrease. | D．Lose. |
We should gradually increase the complexity when doing crossword puzzles because ______.
| A．if we don’t use our brain, we will lose it |
| B．we should make our brain face different challenges |
| C．our brain is a muscle like other parts in our bodies |
| D．these puzzles can work on different areas of the brain |
Which group of people have a slower rate of cognitive decrease?
| A．Those who don’t often do crossword puzzles. |
| B．Those who don’t often count to 99 in threes. |
| C．Those who do their work very easily. |
| D．Those who can speak more than one language. |
I come from a city on the United States’east coast. It’s a ten-hour flight for me to get home from Shanghai. When I got off the plane, I took photos of the blue sky and white clouds along the way. After two weeks, I returned to Shanghai. Much to my surprise, the blue sky in Shanghai that I liked before was not as blue as that in the US. I couldn’t help wondering what had happened.
A few days later, I went to tour Waitan (a famous tourist attraction in Shanghai) by the Huangpu River with some of my friends. There we saw five Ferrari sports cars by the side of the road. The red and yellow cars looked so nice that everyone was looking at them. However, when I turned my head, I noticed the sky over Waitan, I was shocked to find that the buildings in the Lujiazui area on the other side of Huangpu River could hardly be seen. It was then that I realized that Ferrari cars could be bought with money, but a blue sky couldn’t.
Shanghai is an important economic (经济的) and trade center in China. It has made great contributions (贡献) to the whole nation’s economic development. However, we need to protect the environment during economic growth. Pollution is poisoning our air and our rivers. Without clean air and rivers, how will people be able to survive?The author mentioned the Ferrari sports cars in order to _______.
| A．tell us that Shanghai is a developed city |
| B．ask us to stop driving sports cars |
| C．tell us how much people like cars |
| D．focus our attention on air pollution |
What can we learn about the author?
| A．He comes from Shanghai. |
| B．He likes to visit different places. |
| C．He wants to buy a Ferrari sports car. |
| D．He is socially responsible (责任). |
Who might be interested in this passage?
| A．Those who love Ferrari sports cars. |
| B．Those who care about the environment. |
| C．Those who want to travel in Shanghai. |
| D．Those who like to take photos. |
What is the best title for this passage?
| A．Money Can Buy Ferraris, But Not a Blue Sky |
| B．Where People Should Live |
| C．Different Opinions on Cars |
| D．Different Places Have Different Skies |
“In wilderness(荒野) is the preservation of the world.” This is a famous saying from a writer regarded as one of the fathers of environmentalism. The frequency with which it is borrowed mirrors a heated debate on environmental protection: whether to place wilderness at the heart of what is to be preserved.
As John Sauven of Greenpeace UK points out, there is a strong appeal in images of the wild, the untouched; more than anything else, they speak of the nature that many people value most dearly. The urge to leave the subject of such images untouched is strong, and the danger exploitation(开发) brings to such landscapes(景观) is real. Some of these wildernesses also perform functions that humans need—the rainforests, for example, store carbon in vast quantities. To Mr. Sauven, these “ecosystem services” far outweigh the gains from exploitation.
Lee Lane, a visiting fellow at the Hudson Institute, takes the opposing view. He acknowledges that wildernesses do provide useful services, such as water conservation. But that is not, he argues, a reason to avoid all human presence, or indeed commercial and industrial exploitation. There are ever more people on the Earth, and they reasonably and rightfully want to have better lives, rather than merely struggle for survival. While the ways of using resources have improved, there is still a growing need for raw materials, and some wildernesses contain them in abundance. If they can be tapped without reducing the services those wildernesses provide, the argument goes, there is no further reason not to do so. Being untouched is not, in itself, a characteristic worth valuing above all others.
I look forward to seeing these views taken further, and to their being challenged by the other participants. One challenge that suggests itself to me is that both cases need to take on the question of spiritual value a little more directly. And there is a practical question as to whether wildernesses can be exploited without harm.
This is a topic that calls for not only free expression of feelings, but also the guidance of reason. What position wilderness should enjoy in the preservation of the world obviously deserves much more serious thinking.John Sauven holds that________________.
| A．many people value nature too much |
| B．exploitation of wildernesses is harmful |
| C．wildernesses provide humans with necessities |
| D．the urge to develop the ecosystem services is strong |
What is the main idea of Para. 3?
| A．The exploitation is necessary for the poor people. |
| B．Wildernesses cannot guarantee better use of raw materials. |
| C．Useful services of wildernesses are not the reason for no exploitation. |
| D．All the characteristics concerning the exploitation should be treated equally. |
What is the author’s attitude towards this debate?
| A．Objective. | B．Disapproving. | C．Sceptical. | D．Optimistic. |
Which of the following shows the structure of the passage?
A． |
B． |
C． |
D． |
CP: Central Point P: Point Sp: Sub-point(次要点) C: Conclusion
Global Positioning Systems are now a part of everyday driving in many countries. These satellite-based systems provide turn-by-turn directions to help people get to where they want to go. But, they can also cause a lot of problems, send you to the wrong place or leave you completely lost. Many times, the driver is to blame. Sometimes a GPS error is responsible. Most often, says Barry Brown, it is a combination of the two.
We spoke to Mr. Brown by Skype. He told us about an incident involving a friend who had flown to an airport in the eastern United States. There he borrowed a GPS-equipped car to use during his stay. Barry Brown: “And they just plugged in an address and then set off to their destination. And, then it wasn’t until they were driving for thirty minutes that they realized they actually put in a destination back on the West Coast where they lived. They actually put their home address in. So again, the GPS is kind of 'garbage in garbage out'.”
Mister Brown says this is a common human error. But, he says, what makes the problem worse has to do with some of the shortcomings, or failures, of GPS equipment. Barry Brown: “One problem with a lot of the GPS units is they have a very small screen and they just tell you the next turn. Because they just give you the next turn, sometimes that means that it is not really giving you the overview that you would need to know that it’s going to the wrong place.”
Barry Brown formerly served as a professor with the University of California, San Diego. While there, he worked on a project with Eric Laurier from the University of Edinburgh. The two men studied the effects of GPS devices on driving by placing cameras in people’s cars. They wrote a paper based on their research. It is called “The Normal, Natural Troubles of Driving with GPS.” It lists several areas where GPS systems can cause confusion for drivers. These include maps that are outdated, incorrect or difficult to understand. They also include timing issues related to when GPS commands are given.
Barry Brown says to make GPS systems better we need a better understanding of how drivers, passengers and GPS systems work together.In Paragraph 2, Mr. Brown mentioned his friend in the conversation to _____________.
| A．build up his own reputation |
| B．laugh at his stupid friend |
| C．prove the GPS system is only garbage |
| D．describe an example of human error |
With which of the following statement would Barry Brown most likely agree?
| A．GPS units are to blame for the most GPS service failures. |
| B．We should introduce higher standard for the driving license. |
| C．Cameras are urgently needed to help improve GPS systems. |
| D．Drivers, GPS systems and passengers should unite to improve GPS systems. |
What is Mr. Brown’s attitude towards GPS?
| A．Unconcerned | B．Prejudiced | C．Objective | D．Critical |
What would be the best title for the text?
| A．driving with GPS can be difficult |
| B．driving confusions can be caused by small screen |
| C．driving without GPS should be much more convenient |
| D．GPS equipment in driving: to be deserted or improved? |
Human wants seem endless. When a starving man gets a meal, he begins to think about an overcoat; when a manager gets a new sports car, he dreams of country clubs and pleasure boats dance into view.
The many wants of mankind might be regarded as making up several levels. When there is money enough to satisfy one level of wants, another level appears.
The first and most basic level of wants is food. Once this want is satisfied, a second level of wants appears: clothing and some sort of shelter. By the end of World War II these wants were satisfied for a great majority of Americans. Then a third level appeared. It included such items as cars and new houses.
By 1957 or 1958 this third level of wants was fairly well satisfied. Then in the late 1950s a fourth level of wants appeared: the “life-enriching” level. While the other levels mean physical satisfaction—the feeding, comfort, safety and transportation of the human body—this level means mental needs for recognition, achievement and happiness. It includes a variety of goods and services many of which could be called “luxury” items. Among them are vacation trips, the best medical care and entertainment. Also included here are fancy foods and the latest styles in clothing.
On the fourth level, a greater percentage of consumers spending goes to services, while on the first three levels more is spent on goods. Will consumers raise their sights to a fifth level of wants as their income increases, or will they continue to demand luxuries and personal services on the fourth level?
A fifth level probably would be wants that can be achieved by community action. Consumers may be spending more on taxes and crime. After filling our stomachs, our garages, and our minds, we now may seek to ensure the health and safety to enjoy more fully the good things on the first three levels.According to the passage, man will begin to think about such needs as housing and clothing only when _______
| A．he has saved up enough money |
| B．he has grown dissatisfied with his simple shelter |
| C．he has satisfied his hunger |
| D．he has learned to build houses |
It can be inferred from the passage that by the end of World War II most Americans ______
| A．were very rich |
| B．were very poor |
| C．Had the good things on the first three levels |
| D．didn’t own cars |
Which of the following is NOT related to “physical satisfaction”?
| A．A successful career | B．A comfortable house |
| C．A good service | D．A family car |
The author thinks that a fifth level______
| A．would be a little better than the fourth level |
| B．may be a lot more desirable than the first four |
| C．can be the last and most satisfying level |
| D．will come true if the government takes actions |
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