Many psychologists in the early twentieth century believed that humans use only 10 percent of their brains, and even the great Albert Einstein once wrote that most people use only a small portion of the grey matter between their ears. It’s a theory that has often been put forward in television documentaries; magazines, advertisements and books over the past century.
But nearly all scientists now agree the 10 percent theory is completely unfounded. In fact, they question how this figure was ever arrived at in the first place and what areas of the brain are supposed to be unneeded. The theory supposes that if 90 percent of the brain were removed, a person would Still be able to function normally, while in reality it is known that damage to even a small area of the brain can result in extremely serious physical injury different activities and that many areas of the brain are used at the same time for some complex activities or thought processes.
Throughout the course of one day, most .areas of the brain are active at some time, even during sleep. The 10 percent theory suggests that certain areas o’ the brain are not used, but scans slow activities throughout the entire brain and not in any separate part. The final argument against the 10 percent theory is the fact that doctors carefully map the brain before removing brain cancers so that they don’t affect other essential areas.
From an evolutionary point of view, it’s highly unlikely butt our comparatively larger brains would have evolved from our ancestors if the extra areas were not needed. In fact, there is absolutely no evidence support the 10 percent theory.How did the 10 percent theory get such widespread popularity?
| A．It was promoted in various types of copular media. |
| B．Albert Einstein argued strongly in support. |
| C．It was proven in scientific research. |
| D．Few people could prove it wrong. |
The underlined word "unfounded" is chest in meaning to _________.
| A．undiscovered | B．unproven | C．unknown | D．unnecessary |
Which of the following is true according to the writer?
| A．We use less than 10% of our brains. |
| B．Most brain disorders affect the same part of the brain. |
| C．The brain is less active during times of sleep. |
| D．The 10 percent theory does not make evolutionary sense. |
What can we infer from the passage?
| A．People today use more of their brain than in the past. |
| B．Scientific opinion about the topic of brain use is equally divided. |
| C．Our understanding of the brain has changed greatly in the past decades. |
| D．Modern scientists have a complete picture of how the brain works. |
What is the main purpose of the passage?
| A．To present two sides of brain theory. |
| B．To criticize the 10 percent theory. |
| C．To explain how brain works. |
| D．To describe the history of brain research. |
Audrey Hepburn won an Academy Award as Best Actress for her first major American movie, Roman Holiday, which was released in 1953. But she is remembered as much for her aid work as for her acting.
Born in Belgium in 1929, Audrey’ s father was British and her mother was Dutch.
Audrey was sent to live at a British school for part of her childhood. During World War II , she lived and studied in the Netherlands. Her mother thought it would be safe from German attacks. Audrey studied dance as a teenager and during college when she returned to London after the war. But she realized she wasn’ t going to be a ballerina. So she began taking acting parts in stage shows. Later she began to get small parts in movies.
But it was Audrey Hepburn’ s move to America that brought her true fame. In 1951 she played the character “Gigi” in the Broadway play of the same name to great critical praise. Two years later, Roman Holiday made her a star at the age of 24.
Audrey made more than 25 movies. Among her most popular roles was Holly Go lightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s in 1961. Three years later she played Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady.
She was married two times and had one son by each husband. In 1989, the UN Children’ s Fund named Audrey a goodwill ambassador. She travelled all over the world in support of UNICEF projects. The UN agency said she was a tireless worker. She often gave 15 interviews a day to gain money and support for UNICEF projects.
Audrey Hepburn often said her loyalty to UNICEF was the result of her experiences as a child during World War Ⅱ. She said she knew what it was like to be starving and to be saved by international aid. She was a goodwill ambassador until her death in 1993 from colon cancer.In Paragraph 1, “her aid work” means ________.
| A．winning an Academy Award as Best Actress |
| B．taking acting parts in stage shows |
| C．making movies |
| D．acting as a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF |
The reason why Audrey lived and studied in the Netherlands was that ________.
| A．she wanted to be a ballerina |
| B．her parents were from Britain |
| C．the education there was excellent |
| D．it was safe there |
We can infer from the passage that ________.
| A．Audrey’ s parents lived in Germany during World War Ⅱ |
| B．Audrey lived in America in the 1950s |
| C．Audrey was made to give up dancing |
| D．the character “Gigi” in the Broadway play was her most popular role |
________is NOT mentioned in the passage about Audrey Hepburn.
| A．Marriage | B．Identity |
| C．Contribution | D．Religion |
________is the right order for Audrey’ s life.
①The first time she began to play in movies.
②She returned to London from the Netherlands.
③She won an Academy Award as Best Actress.
④She travelled all over the world in support of UNICEF projects.
⑤She played a part in My Fair Lady.
| A．②①③⑤④ | B．①②③⑤④ |
| C．②①⑤③④ | D．①②⑤③④ |
Negative thinking appears to be more prevalent than positive thinking. It seems that with most people positive thinking requires some effort, while negative thinking comes easily and uninvited. This has much to do with education and the environment one has been living in.
If you have been brought up in a happy and positive atmosphere, where people value success and self-improvement, then it will be easier for you to think positively and expect success. If you have been brought up under poor or difficult situations, you will probably go on expecting difficulties and failure.
We all view everything through our main mental attitude. If our thoughts are positive, that is fine, but if they are negative, our lives and circumstances will probably mirror these thoughts.
If you believe that you are going to fail, you will unconsciously destroy every opportunity to succeed. If you are afraid of meeting new people or having close relationships, you will do everything to avoid people and relationships, and then complain that you are lonely and nobody loves you.
Do you often think about difficulties, failure and disasters? Do you keep thinking about the negative news you have seen on the TV or read in the newspapers?
Do you see yourself stuck and unable to improve your life or your health? Do you frequently think that you do not deserve happiness or money, or that it is too difficult to get them? If you do, then you will close your mind, see no opportunities, and behave and react in such ways, as to turn away from people and opportunities.
The mind does not usually judge or examine thoughts and opinions before accepting them. If what it hears, sees and reads is always negative, it accepts this as the standard way of thinking and behavior.
Open your mind to positive attitude, happenings and events. Expect them and think about them, and soon your life will change for the better.According to the author, happy and positive situations cause people to________.
| A．turn away from people and opportunities |
| B．expect difficulties and failure |
| C．viewing everything by negative thinking |
| D．think positively and expect success |
Some people think that they have few friends in their lives perhaps because________.
| A．their thoughts are positive |
| B．their thoughts are negative |
| C．they avoid people and relationships |
| D．destroy every opportunity to make friends |
What does the author want to tell us in the fifth and sixth paragraphs?
| A．one has no reasons for his negative thinking and behavior |
| B．one mustn’t always think about difficulties, failure and disasters |
| C．one’s living environment has the decisive function upon his thinking |
| D．one should never think of things happily and positively |
From the passage we can learn that________.
| A．positive thinking has much to do with education and the environment one has been living in |
| B．thinking negatively is much easier than thinking positively |
| C．the moment you see something sad, you will feel sad too |
| D．the positively we think and behave, the happier we will be |
Picture an everyday scene. You’re in a high street coffee shop. All around you people are drinking coffee. Some people are chatting with friends and others are using their mobile phones. In a corner of the coffee shop an internet café has been set up. At one table a couple of teenagers are laughing at a message in a chat room, while at another table an old man searches the Web for something.
Now imagine this scene through the eyes of a technologist from 100 years ago. This is someone who has thought carefully about how technology and society might develop during the twentieth century.
Surprising may be the realization that some of the people here are working in an easy way. Most surprising perhaps will be the technological tools most people seem to be using. The technologist is aware of the telephone, which was invented about 30 years earlier. But most of these twenty-first century people seem to have wireless pocket-size personal communicators they can use to send messages or speak to anyone anywhere in the world.
Some are using a handheld machine that contains thousands of pieces of information that can be accessed instantly, and can do calculations in a fraction of a second that would have taken a team of operators with mechanical calculators hours or even days. And these machines, like the only slightly larger versions in the corner, can be connected to a global brain from which the people can call up almost any information, news, idea, opinion or gossip that exists anywhere on the planet.
Most of the changes in technology, compared to 100 years ago, are due to the continual inventive activity of a large number of people. Most of us don’t do anything other than maybe form a vague idea about how a product or process might be improved. In some people, however, this inventive drive is so strong that they act on it.The author tries to tell us in the first paragraph that__________.
people around you all like drinking coffee
people chat with each other by mobile phone
we are living in a modern society
we are making use of the InternetThe author uses the word “communicators” to mean __________.
| A．telephone | B．mobile phone |
| C．vision phone | D．computer |
The author is describing________ in the fourth paragraph.
| A．a mechanical calculator |
| B．a machine held in one hand |
| C．a pocket-size communicator |
| D．a laptop computer |
It can be inferred from the text that_____________.
| A．with an computer, you can access almost any information that exists anywhere on the planet |
| B．in any internet café you can search the Web for how technology and society may develop in 2000 years |
| C．the continual inventive activity of a large number of people will cause more innovations |
| D．act on a vague idea and you are sure to be able to make a surprising invention in the future. |
Several overseas trips with the family have taught us that they can be rewarding, but you always have to be careful of pickpockets.
On a lovely visit to Paris an encounter with a pickpocket gave the would-be thief a little more than he bargained for!
While walking down the famous Champs Elysee, I was astonished to feel someone unzip my handbag and remove my purse. I turned to glimpse a young man turning away and pretending to be absorbed in the mouth-watering contents on display in a bakery window.
Being only a teenager at the time, I had no idea what to do. So I tapped the young man in question on the shoulder and said.
“Excuse me can you please give me back my purse?”
Of course the pickpocket had no idea what I was saying (and didn’t want to know) and proceeded to shrug his shoulders and basically say (in French) “I don’t speak English”?
Meanwhile my Mother (a Scotswoman with a bad temper), came to see why I had stopped walking and what was going on. When I informed her of the situation she lost control and started yelling at the thief who still stood there making gestures in French while a crazy Scotswoman harangued(指责) him. At this stage we were starting to attract onlookers, and when my Mother started hitting the young man with her handbag the would-be thief decided it was time to get away.
Luckily, amid all the disorder the thief lost his control of my purse, and as he made a break-for-it, my purse dropped to the ground! I quickly snatched it up and for the rest of vacation we walked around with our handbags clutched against our chests!This passage is a story about_________________.
| A．several overseas trips | B．Champs Elysee |
| C．a lovely visit to Paris | D．pickpockets |
The underlined phrase ‘bargained for’ in Paragraph 2 most probably means ______.
| A．exchanged for | B．wished for |
| C．asked for | D．answered for |
The author discovered the pickpocket because__________.
| A．his handbag was specially made to stop pickpocketing |
| B．the author was old enough and experienced there |
| C．the pickpocket was too inexperienced to steal his purse |
| D．his purse was very heavy so that he felt it was removed |
Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?
| A．The pickpocket didn’t know English and had no idea what I was saying. |
| B．His Mother tried to beat the thief so that he ran away immediately. |
| C．It was the bad tempered mother that caused the thief to lose control of the purse. |
| D．The author was old enough to deal with the case independently at the time. |
阅读理解（共15小题;每小题2分，满分30分）
Loulan, an ancient city in the Lop Nur, was first “discovered” by Swedish explorer Sven Hedin in 1900. The finding of Loulan brought about new and unexpected fame for the ancient history of the Central Asia and thus began the exploration of the Taklamakan Desert.
The City of Loulan is known both in China and throughout the world as the Middle Kingdom’s ‘Pompeii’ in the desert and one of the cradles of the civilization. It wasn’t hard to imagine how excited Sven Hedin must have been when he was awarded the Victoria Medal by the Royal Geography Association. From that point forward, the mysterious covering of Loulan was gradually lowered and was no more a silent unknown hero but became an immediate worldwide sensation (引起轰动的事). Adventurers from America, Britain, Japan and Sweden, including Huntington, Stein, Otani Kozui and Bergman set foot here for several times. In the 1930s, Chinese archaeologist Huang Wenbi came here for the first time and made a survey of this area, which was found even then in terrible conditions due to uncontrolled digging with many wonderful cultural historic relics taken away to distant foreign lands.
In 1979, a group of tombs called Sun Tombs, known for their unique and attractive burial forms, were unearthed in the Gumugou Graveyard, the public graveyard of the Lop Nur citizens in the Bronze Age. In early 1980s, in the Tiebanhe River Delta area of the lower reaches of the Peafowl River in Lop Nur, a female mummy dating back some 3,800 years was unearthed and was considered by the Japanese as the “Loulan Beauty”. This set off a wave of current exploration of the Silk Road.
The archaeological unearthing being currently conducted in the Xiaohe (Small River) Graveyard is now the focus of the world’s most important academic event. The Xiaohe Graveyard, 175km west of the City of Loulan, is located in the lower reaches of the Peafowl River in the Lop Nur. When the Graveyard was found, it is said that there were some 1,000 coffins. It is large in scale with sand dunes(沙丘) as high as eight metres, on which about 140 wooden stakes(树桩) in various shapes were closely arranged. These burial customs are, to say the least, unusual… with the unearthed relics dated back to China’s most ancient days.Which of following statements shows the correct position of the City of Loulan?
A. It lies in the Tiebanhe River Delta
It lies in the lower reaches of the Peafowl River
It lies south of the Gumugou Graveyard.
It lies 175 km east of the Xiaohe Graveyard.Which of the following is the closest in meaning to the word ‘Pompeii’?
| A．A city as world famous as the Middle Kingdom’s “Pompeii”. |
| B．A buried city in the desert with great historical value. |
| C．A buried city to be unearthed like the Italian city “Pompeii”. |
| D．A city visited by many archaeologists all over the world like “Pompeii”. |
From the passage, it can be inferred that_____________.
| A．it was a Chinese archaeologist that first discovered the City of Loulan |
| B．it is of the greatest importance and value to be unearthing the Xiaohe Graveyard |
| C．foreign adventurers did much damage to the exploration and relics of the City of Loulan |
| D．one after another important discovery about Loulan was made, causing worldwide sensation |
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