Researchers are placing robotic dogs in the homes of lonely old people to determine whether they can improve the quality of life for humans. Alan Beck, an expert in human-animal relationship, and Nancy Edwards, a professor of nursing, are leading the animal-assisted study concerning the influence of robotic dogs on old people's depression, physical activity, and life satisfaction. “No one will argue that an older person is better off being more active, challenged, or stimulated (刺激),” Edwards points out. “The problem is how we promote that, especially for those without friends or help. A robotic dog could be a solution.”
In the study, the robot, called AIBO, is placed for six weeks in the houses of some old people who live alone. Before placing AIBO in the home, researchers will collect baseline data for six weeks. These old people will keep a diary to note their feelings and activities before and after AIBO. Then, the researchers will review the data to determine if it has inspired any changes in the life of its owner.
“I talk to him all the time, and he responds to my voice,” says a seventy-year-old lady. “When I'm watching TV, he'll stay in my arms until he wants down. He has a mind of his own.”
The AIBOs respond to certain orders. The researchers say they have some advantages over live dogs, especially for old people. Often the elderly are disabled and cannot care for an animal by walking it or playing with it. A robotic dog removes exercise and feeding concerns.
“At the beginning, it was believed that no one would relate to the robotic dog because it was metal and not furry,” Beck says. “But it's amazing how quickly we have given up that belief.”
“Hopefully, down the road, these robotic pets could become a more valuable health helper. They will record their masters’ blood pressure, oxygen levels, or heart rhythms. AIBOs may even one day have games that can help stimulate older people's minds.”The purpose of Beck and Edwards’ study is to ____.
| A．understand human-animal relationship |
| B．find the causes of old people’s loneliness |
| C．make lonely old people’s life better |
| D．promote the animal-assisted research |
In the research, the old people are asked to ____.
| A．note the activities of AIBOs |
| B．keep AIBOs at home for 12 weeks |
| C．analyze the collected information |
| D．record their feelings and activities |
What is the advantage of AIBO over live dogs?
| A．It can watch TV with its owner. |
| B．It can help the disabled people. |
| C．It responds to all the human orders. |
| D．It is easier to keep at home. |
The author seems to suggest that the future robotic dogs may ____.
| A．keep old people active |
| B．cure certain diseases |
| C．change people's beliefs |
| D．look more like real dogs |
Library Special Needs Service
Shellharbour City Library provides a rang of Library Special Needs Service for people who are unable to access our library service in the usual way. As long as you live in Shellharbour City, we’ll provide a full rang of library services and resources including:
● Large printed and ordinary printed books
● Talking books on tape and CD
● DVDs and music CDs
● Magazines
● Reference and information requests
You will be asked to complete a ‘Statement of Need’ application form which must be signed by a medical professional.
Home delivery service
Let us know what you like to read and we will choose the resources for you.Our staff will deliver the resources to your home for free. We also provide a service where we can choose the resources for you or someone instead of you choose the things from the library .You can also choose the resources you need personally.
Talking books and captioned videos
The library can provide talking books for people who are unable to use printed books because of eye diseases. You don’t have to miss out on reading any more when you can borrow talking books from the library. If you have limited hearing which prevents you from enjoying movies, we can provide captioned videos for you at no charge.
Languages besides English
We can provide books in a rang of languages besides English. If possible, we will request these items from the State Library of NSW, Australia.
How to join?
Contact the Library Special Needs Coordinator to register or discuss if you are eligible for any of the services we provide ---Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday 9am ---5pm on 4297 2522 for more information.Library Special Needs Service are meant for .
| A．those who are fond of reading |
| B．only those who have walking disabilities |
| C．people living in Shellharbour City with an illness or disability |
| D．those who can’t get medical help in Shellharbour City |
If people with eye diseases want to learn about history, they can choose .
| A．captioned videos | B．talking books |
| C．magazines | D．large printed books |
What can we learn from the passage?
| A．Books with different languages are available. |
| B．Few entertaining resources are offered here. |
| C．People with limited hearing have to pay for captioned videos. |
| D．People have to choose what they need by themselves. |
To get home delivery service, you must .
| A．only choose printed books |
| B．register ahead of time |
| C．pay the library ahead of time |
| D．have others choose the resources for you |
How can you learn more about the special service information?
| A．By emailing the library. |
| B．By visiting the library personally. |
| C．By contacting the library on weekends. |
| D．By phoning the library at the required time. |
An Ofsted (英国教育标准办公室）study reports that teachers are discouraging students who want to leave school and work as apprentices (学徒）in beauty salons (美容中心）or hair dressers.
Inspectors questioned 105 young people for a report on apprenticeships published on Wednesday. They found several examples of young people who felt they had been laughed at by their teachers for wanting to progress to work-based learning, particularly in care or hairdressing, rather than stay on at school.
Right or wrong, is it any surprise that this is happening? From 2014，the government will measure schools according to the rate of their pupils who go to university. Brian Lightman , general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, says the government has already put teachers under “very great pressure to focus on academic subjects”.
On the other hand, the Education Act 2011，which came into force in November, places schools under a duty to give fair career advice to pupils. This advice must include information on all post-16 education and training choices, including apprenticeships. This doesn’t appear to be happening in several schools, according to Ofsted9S report. Many of the young people the inspectors talked to said the advice they had received on apprenticeships was “unsatisfactory”.
Schools were also blamed for lack of work experience courses, which are particularly important for teenagers considering an apprenticeship. They help students decide whether they enjoy a line of work and enable employers to see whether those on work experience have the potential to be hired as apprentices in future years.
But there is a good reason why they can’t do this: they’d be unable to adapt to GCSE (英国普通中等教育证书）exams if they did. Sometimes, it seems, schools just can’t win.Why do teachers oppose the students’ leaving school and working as apprentices?
| A．The government urges teachers to concentrate on academic subjects. |
| B．The students are only wasting time working as apprentices. |
| C．Employers are under great pressure of taking GCSE exams. |
| D．Employers don’t give students chances to work as apprentices |
Pressure for schools to provide pupils with career advice comes from ______.
| A．Association of School and College Leaders | B．Education Act 2011 |
| C．GCSE exams | D．OFSTED |
What does the author think of teachers’ discouraging students working as apprentices?
| A．Surprising | B．Understandable | C．Wrong | D．Right |
Have you ever picked a job based on the fact that you were good at it but later found it made you feel very uncomfortable over time? When you select your career, there’s a whole lot more to it than assessing your skills and matching them with a particular position. If you ignore your personality, it will get you a long-term hurt regardless of your skills or the job’s pay. There are several areas of your personality that you need to consider to help you find a good job. Here are a few of those main areas:
1) Do you prefer working alone or with other people?
There are isolating（孤立的）jobs that will drive an outgoing person crazy and also interactive jobs that will make a shy person uneasy. Most people are not extremes in either direction but do have a tendency that they prefer. There are also positions that are sometimes a combination of the two, which may be best for someone in the middle who adapts easily to either situation.
2) How do you handle change?
Most jobs these days have some elements of change to them, but some are more than others. If you need stability in your life, you may need a job where the changes don’t happen so often. Other people would be bored of the same daily routine.
3) Do you enjoy working with computers？
I do see this as a kind of personality characteristic. There are people who are happy to spend more than 40 hours a week on a computer, while there are others who need a lot of human interaction throughout the day. Again, these are extremes and you’ll likely find a lot of positions somewhere in the middle as well.
4) What type of work environment do you enjoy？
This can range from being in a large building with a lot of people you won’t know immediately to a smaller setting where you’ll get to know almost all the people there fairly quickly.
5) How do you like to get paid?
Some people are motivated by the pay they get, while others feel too stressed to be like that. The variety of payment designs in the sales industry is a typical example for this.
Anyway, these are a great starting point for you. I’ve seen it over and over again with people that they make more money over time when they do something they love. It may take you a little longer, but making a move to do what you have a passion for can change the course of your life for the better.What does the underlined sentence in Paragraph 1 mean?
| A．You may ignore your skills when you select job. |
| B．Job skills are the most important things when you select job. |
| C．There are more important things than job skills when you select job. |
| D．Selecting job, you should assess your skills and match them with the position. |
Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?
| A．Isolating jobs usually drive people mad. |
| B．Interactive jobs make people shy easily. |
| C．Extreme people tend to work with others. |
| D．Almost everyone has a tendency in jobs. |
What is the missing word about a job search in the following chart?
| A．Design | B．Changes | C．Cooperation | D．Hobbies |
What is the best title for this passage?
| A．Lifestyles and Job Pay | B．Jobs and Environment |
| C．Job Skills and Abilities | D．Personalities and Jobs |
Silence is unnatural to man. He begins life with a cry and ends it in stillness. In between he does all he can to make a noise in the world, and he fears silence more than anything else. Even his conversation is an attempt to prevent a fearful silence. If he is introduced to another person, and a number of pauses occur in the conversation, he regards himself as a failure, a worthless person, and is full of envy of the emptiest headed chatterbox (喋喋不休的人). He knows that ninety-nine percent of human conversation means no more than the buzzing of a fly, but he is anxious to join in the buzz and to prove that he is a man and not a waxwork figure (蜡塑人像).
The aim of conversation is not, for the most part, to communicate ideas; it is to keep up the buzzing sound. There are, it must be admitted, different qualities of buzz; there is even a buzz that is as annoying as the continuous noise made by a mosquito (蚊子). But at a dinner party one would rather be a mosquito than a quiet person. Most buzzing, fortunately, is pleasant to the ear, and some of it is pleasant even to the mind. He would be a foolish man if he waited until he had a wise thought to take part in the buzzing with his neighbors.
Those who hate to pick up the weather as a conversational opening seem to me not to know the reason why human beings wish to talk. Very few human beings join in a conversation in the hope of learning anything new. Some of them are content if they are merely allowed to go on making a noise into other people’s ears, though they have nothing to tell them except that they have seen two or three new plays or that they had food in a Swiss hotel At the end of an evening during which they have said nothing meaningful for a long time, they just prove themselves to be successful conservationistsAccording to the author, people make conversation to ______
| A．exchange ideas | B．prove their value |
| C．achieve success in life | D．overcome their fear of silence |
By "the buzzing of a fly" (Para. 1), the author means"________”
| A．the noise of an insect | B．a low whispering sound |
| C．meaningless talks | D．the voice of a chatterbox |
According to the passage, people usually talk to their neighbors ______.
| A．about whatever they have prepared |
| B．about whatever they want to |
| C．in the hope of learning something new |
| D．in the hope of getting on well |
What is the author's purpose in writing the passage? ________.
| A．To discuss why people like talking about weather. |
| B．To encourage people to join in conversations. |
| C．To persuade people to stop making noises. |
| D．To explain why people keep talking. |
Inside their one-store, metal-roofed house on Vancouver Island’s west coast，Janet Schwartz and her domesticated(驯养的) deer, Bimbo, are returning to their normal lives. The law-represented by men and women dressed in black uniforms and carrying guns — is no longer threatening to forcibly separate Schwartz and Bimbo，freeing the l0-year-old deer to the fates (命运) of the surrounding rainforest and its hungry wolves and black bears．
“We love each other，”said Schwartz who turned 70 on Saturday. “she’ll come up to me and she’ll kiss me right on the lips，like a man kisses a woman’’
For four days last week，Schwartz’ life turned as rocky as the rough logging road that connected her life to the outside world. Conservation officers had arrived with orders to loose Bimbo. Schwartz was told she wasn’t allowed to touch Bimbo any more. It seemed somebody had complained，said Environment Minister Terry Lake earlier in the week, noting it’s illegal to keep wild animals as pets.
During those tense days，sleepless nights were made even more restless by nightmares，said Schwartz. There were news stories and Facebook pages which supported Schwartz and by Friday，the government had changed its mind. Schwartz could keep her pet with the help of a veterinarian and conservation officers.
“It makes me feel good，”said Schwartz of the announcement．“She is my life．and I’ve had her since the day she’s been born.”
The relationship began when a friend found the orphaned fawn (幼鹿) along a nearby logging road，more than a kilometer away from her current home，said Schwartz. The friend brought the fawn over because she knew Schwartz had raised a deer before.
Schwartz named the fawn(小鹿) Bimbo，based on a Gene Autry song that was playing inside her home at the time，and began feeding the animal goat’s milk. Days turned into months and years, and now Bimbo is a part of the family.According to Paragraph 1 , Janet Schwartz’s life is returning to normal because
| A．no one disturbs her life again | B．she can continue to keep the deer |
| C．she has married again | D．Bimbo has returned to the forest |
Why didn’t Schwartz want to loose the deer?
| A．It was the only companion in her house |
| B．She wanted to study the lifestyle of the deer． |
| C．The deer had become part of her life． |
| D．She had a veterinarian to help her． |
Conservation officers ordered Janet to loose Bimbo because
| A．the deer was not properly taken care of |
| B．the deer brought harm to the neighborhood |
| C．it was against the law to keep the deer as a pet |
| D．the deer made too much noise |
What made the government change its mind?
| A．Schwartz’s love for the deer. |
| B．The threat to the deer in the wild. |
| C．The change of the law. |
| D．The influence from the press and the Web. |
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