Winter begins in the north on December 22nd. People and animals have been doing what they always do to prepare for the colder months. Squirrels (松鼠), for example, have been busy gathering nuts from trees. Well, scientists have been busy gathering information about what the squirrels do with the food they collect.
They examined differences between red squirrels and gray squirrels in the American state of Indiana. The scientists wanted to know how these differences could affect the growth of black walnut (黑胡桃) trees. The black walnut is the nut of choice for both kinds of squirrels. The black walnut tree is also a central part of some hardwood forests.
Rob Swihart of Purdue University did the study with Jake Goheen, a former Purdue student now at the University of New Mexico. The two researchers estimate that several times as many walnuts grow when gathered by gray squirrels as compared to red squirrels. Gray squirrels and red squirrels do not store nuts and seeds in the same way. Gray squirrels bury nuts one at a time in a number of places. But they seldom remember where they buried every nut. So some nuts remain in the ground. Conditions are right for them to develop and grow the following spring. Red squirrels, however, store large groups of nuts above ground. Professor Swihart calls “death traps for seeds”.
Gray squirrels are native to Indiana. But Professor Swihart says their numbers began to decrease as more forests were cut for agriculture. Red squirrels began to spread through the state during the past century.
The researchers say red squirrels are native to forests that stay green all year, unlike walnut trees. They say the cleaning of forest land for agriculture has helped red squirrels invade Indiana. Jake Goheen calls them a sign of an environmental problem more than a cause.The study done by Rob Swihart and Jake Goheen is to ________.
| A．find out the living conditions for squirrels |
| B．learn squirrels’influence on black walnut trees |
| C．do something to get rid of squirrels |
| D．save the forests in the American state of Indiana |
The difference between gray squirrels and red squirrels mainly lies in ________.
| A．the way they gather the walnut |
| B．the time they have winter sleep |
| C．the place they have winter sleep |
| D．the place they store the walnuts |
Professor Swihart’s study shows that________.
| A．red squirrels eat more nuts than gray squirrels |
| B．gray squirrels and red squirrels will have severe fights |
| C．red squirrel’s way to store nuts stops nuts growing. |
| D．black walnuts are harmful to other animals |
According to the passage, which of the following is true?
| A．The black walnut is equally attractive to both gray and red squirrels. |
| B．Gray squirrels do more harm to the forest than red squirrels. |
| C．Red squirrels and gray squirrels have helped the spread of walnut trees. |
| D．The cleaning of forest land benefits red squirrels directly. |
More than 1.5 billion people around the world live without electricity. Finding better ways to bring light to the poor is the goal of researchers like Professor Irvine. In the late 1990s, he was working in Nepal when his return flight was canceled. A delay gave him time to take a fourteen-day hiking trip in the Himalayas.
One day he looked in the window of a school and noticed how dark it was. This is a common problem for millions of children around the world. Many families use kerosene oil (煤油) lamps. There are many problems with these lamps. They produce only a small amount of light. They are dangerous to breathe. And they are a big fire danger, causing many injuries and deaths each year. Kerosene costs less than other forms of lighting, but it is still costly in poor countries. Professor Irvine says many people spend over 100 dollars a year on the fuel.
When he returned to Canada, he began researching ways to provide safe and clean lighting. He began experimenting with light-emitting diodes (发光二极管), LEDs, at his lab. As a professor of renewable energy, he already knew about the technology. Light-emitting diodes are small glass lamps that use much less electricity than traditional bulbs (灯泡) and last much longer. He used a one-watt bright white LED made in Japan. He found it on the Internet and connected it to a bicycle-powered generator (发电机). He remembers thinking it was so bright that a child could read by the light of a single diode.
In 2000, after much research and many experiments, he returned to Nepal to put the systems into homes. Now the homes of 25,000 people in 51 countries have been equipped with it. “The one-time cost of our system which basically lives forever, as well as the solar panel — is less than one hundred dollars. So, one year of kerosene would pay for a solid-state lighting system,” he said. Now his aim is to develop a lower-cost lighting system. In January, Irvine is leaving the University of Calgary. He has also decided to start his own company in India.We can learn from the second paragraph that kerosene oil lamps ______.
| A．cost more than other forms of lighting |
| B．have damaged children’s eyesight |
| C．have wasted only a little fuel |
| D．have a lot of disadvantages |
Irvine connected a white LED to a bicycle-powered generator to prove ______.
| A．whether it can work without electricity |
| B．whether it can work well with less electricity |
| C．whether it can last longer than a generator |
| D．whether it is brighter than a traditional bulb |
We can learn from the text that Irvine ______.
| A．likes India rather than Nepal |
| B．is good at making new kinds of bulbs |
| C．is giving up his job in the university |
| D．is to earn much money from his company |
Next time a customer comes to your office, offer him a cup of coffee. And when you’re doing your holiday shopping online, make sure you’re holding a large glass of iced tea. The physical sensation of warmth encourages emotional warmth, while a cold drink in hand prevents you from making unwise decisions—those are the practical lesson being drawn from recent research by psychologist John A. Bargh.
Psychologists have known that one person’s perception (知觉) of another’s “warmth” is a powerful determiner in social relationships. Judging someone to be either “warm” or “cold” is a primary consideration, even trumping (打败) evidence that a “cold” person may be more capable. Much of this is rooted in very early childhood experiences, Bargh argues, when babies’ conceptual sense of the world around them is shaped by physical sensations, particularly warmth and coldness. Classic studies by Harry Harlow, published in 1958, showed monkeys preferred to stay close to a cloth “mother” rather than one made of wire, even when the wire “mother” carried a food bottle. Harlow’s work and later studies have led psychologists to stress the need for warm physical contact from caregivers to help young children grow into healthy adults with normal social skills.
Feelings of “warmth” and “coldness” in social judgments appear to be universal. Although no worldwide study has been done, Bargh says that describing people as “warm” or “cold” is common to many cultures, and studies have found those perceptions influence judgment in dozens of countries.
To test the relationship between physical and psychological warmth, Bargh conducted an experiment which involved 41 college students. A research assistant who was unaware of the study’s hypotheses (假定), handed the students either a hot cup of coffee, or a cold drink, to hold while the researcher filled out a short information form. The drink was then handed back. After that, the students were asked to rate the personality of “Person A” based on a particular description. Those who had briefly held the warm drink regarded Person A as warmer than those who had held the iced drink.
“We are grounded in our physical experiences even when we think abstractly,” says Bargh. In Bargh’s experiment, the students were asked to _______.
| A．evaluate someone’s personality |
| B．write down their hypotheses |
| C．fill out a personal information form |
| D．hold coffee and cold drink alternatively |
We can infer from the passage that _______.
| A．abstract thinking does not come from physical experiences |
| B．feelings of warmth and coldness are studied worldwide |
| C．physical temperature affects how we see others |
| D．capable persons are often cold to others |
What would be the best title for the passage?
| A．Drinking for Better Social Relationships |
| B．Experiments of Personality Evaluation |
| C．Developing Better Drinking Habits |
| D．Physical Sensations and Emotions |
The flag, the most common symbol of a nation in the modern world, is also one of the most ancient. With a clear symbolic meaning, the flag in the traditional form is still used today to mark buildings, ships and other vehicles related to a country.
The national flag as we know it today is in no way a primitive artifact. It is, rather, the product of thousands of years’ development. Historians believe that it had two major ancestors, of which the earlier served to show wind direction.
Early human beings used very fragile houses and boats. Often strong winds would tear roofs from houses or cause high waves that endangered travelers. People’s food supplies were similarly vulnerable. Even after they had learned how to plant grains, they still needed help from nature to ensure good harvests. Therefore they feared and depended on the power of the wind, which could bring warmth from one direction and cold from another.
Using a simple piece of cloth tied to the top of a post to tell the direction of the wind was more dependable than earlier methods, such as watching the rising of smoke from a fire. The connection of the flag with heavenly power was therefore reasonable. Early human societies began to fix long pieces of cloth to the tops of totems (图腾) before carrying them into battle. They believed that the power of the wind would be added to the good wishes of the gods and ancestors represented by the totems themselves.
These flags developed very slowly into modern flags. The first known flag of a nation or a ruler was unmarked: The king of China around 1,000 B.C. was known to have a white flag carried ahead of him. This practice might have been learned from Egyptians even further in the past, but it was from China that it spread over trade routes through India, then across Arab lands, and finally to Europe, where it met up with the other ancestor of the national flag. The underlined word “ vulnerable” in paragraph 3 means _______.
| A．easy to damage | B．likely to be protected |
| C．impossible to make sure of | D．difficult to find |
The earliest flags were connected with heavenly power because they _______.
| A．could tell wind direction | B．could bring good luck to fighters |
| C．were believed to stand for natural forces | D．were handed down by the ancestors |
What does the author know of the first national flag?
| A．He knows when it was sent to Europe. | B．He doubts where it started. |
| C．He thinks it came from China. | D．He believes it was made in Egypt. |
What will the author most probably talk about next?
| A．The role of China in the spread of the national flag. |
| B．The importance of modern flags. |
| C．The use of modern flags in Europe. |
| D．The second ancestor of the national flag. |
Department stores sell ready- to-wear clothing, which is also called ready-made clothing. Such clothing is made in fixed sizes. Those people who find that ready-made clothing fits them well can save money by buying it. Most often, people do not fit exactly into a producer’s size. Their clothing must be altered to make it fit better. However, most alterations are not very expensive. The small cost of most alterations means that ready-made clothing can meet the needs of most customers.
Those who can afford it often get someone to design and make their clothing. Such clothing is called custom-made. The person who makes it measures the customer, and then sews it so that it fits perfectly. Alterations are not needed. Custom-made clothing is largely sewn by hand, has better quality, better material, and is of the style you have chosen. Of course, it costs much more than ready-to-wear clothing. You need to pay the difference for the special fitting and better skill that you are receiving. This often means that you spend double or more than you would for a ready-made garment.
Custom-made clothing is not always that much better than ready-made clothing. It costs more partly because only one garment has been made, just for you. Companies that produce ready-made products make thousands of garments at a time. This means they can buy large quantities of material. Workers cut each size by the hundreds. Companies work out ways to make the garments quickly by machine and pay workers according to their skill. Thus they can sell the finished products at a low price while still making money. Most of the clothing sold in the United States is made in this way. Customers gain from the lower prices which are made possible by mass production. It may or may not give them high quality. According to the passage, people who buy ready-made clothing ______.
| A．wish to make alternations | B．will spend less money |
| C．want to make it better | D．can fit into the sizes |
We can learn from the passage that custom-made clothing is_______.
| A．specially made | B．fashionably designed |
| C．chosen by few people | D．made with difficulties |
Which of the following is true about ready-made clothing?
| A．It is of poor quality. | B．It suits all people. |
| C．It is labor-saving to make it. | D．It takes more time to make it |
The purpose of the writer is _______.
| A．to explain why custom-made clothing costs more |
| B．to show the advantages of mass production |
| C．to tell readers how to make money from ready-made clothing |
| D．to provide information about different kinds of clothing |
Intellectual property (IP) is a product of the mind that has commercial value. The concept dates back to 1623, when the first patent law to protect IP rights was passed. IP rights protect an artist from having his/her creative ideas copied by another. For example, if somebody generated an idea for a novel, that idea is protected by IP rights. If someone else wishes to represent the idea or develop it further, he/she must consult the original artists, who will normally be rewarded financially for its use. Back in the 17th century, IP rights were primarily carried out to protect newly developed manufacturing processes against stealing, but today intellectual property rights are also enjoyed by those who create music, art and literature.
In recent years, IP rights have been the focus of a great deal of discussion because of a technology which looks set to weaken them altogether: the Internet. Many years ago, if you wanted a recoding of a song, you would have to purchase it from a music store; if a novel, from a book store. In those days, IP rights were easily protected since it was very difficult to obtain intellectual property without paying for it. However, a lot of IP, including songs, films, books and artwork, can be downloaded today free of charge using the internet. This practice has now taken the world by storm, dramatically affecting the way in which we view IP rights.According to the writer, in the beginning, IP rights were mainly of use to _______.
| A．those creating music, art and literature |
| B．novelists |
| C．those not receiving financial reward for their work |
| D．engineers and inventors |
What do we know about the Internet according to the passage?
| A．It does not affect the way we understand IP rights. |
| B．It sells songs and films. |
| C．It makes IP rights harder to protect. |
| D．It prevents the production of artwork. |
According to paragraph 2, what has “taken the world by storm”?
| A．Intellectual property rights. | B．Free downloading. |
| C．The Internet. | D．The large number of songs, films and books. |
A possible title for this passage could be _______.
| A．IP Rights and Our Attitudes | B．Ways to Protect Your IP Rights |
| C．The Present and the Future of IP rights | D．A History of IP Rights |
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