Mosquitoes(蚊子) ruin countless American picnics every year, but around the world, this bloodsucking beast isn’t just annoying--it causes a health problem. More than a million people die from the spread of mosquito-borne diseases like malaria and yellow fever each year. Attempts to control populations via insecticides like DDT have had ruinous side effects for nature and human health. Neurobiologist Leslie B. Vosshall has a different solution for stopping the insects and the spread of disease. “I believe the key to controlling mosquito behavior is to understand better how they sense us,” she says.
At their Rockefeller University lab, Vosshall and her colleagues are studying the chemical sensory processes by which mosquitoes choose hosts. How do they sense heat, humidity, carbon dioxide, and body odor(气味)? What makes some people more attractive to a mosquito than others? It takes blood and sweat to find out. To study how mosquitoes assess body odor, Vosshall and her teammates might wear stockings on their arms and keep from showering for 24 hours to create sample smells, Then comes the hard part. They insert their arms into the insects’ hidden home to study how mosquitoes land, bite, and feed and then they document how this changes. This can mean getting anywhere from one bite to 400, depending on the experiment. Studying male mosquitoes is more pleasant. Since they don’t feed on blood, the lab tests their sense of smell using honey.
Vosshall and her team have also begun to study how genetics contribute to mosquitoes’ choice of a host. She’s even created a breed that is unable to sense carbon dioxide, an important trigger for the insects. “By using genetics to make mutant(变异的) mosquitoes, we can document exactly how and why mosquitoes hunt humans,” Vosshall says.
Once Vosshall figures out what makes mosquitoes flock to us, she can get to work on making them leave us alone. Many of her lab’s proposed solutions sound simple enough, including bracelets(手镯) that carry long-lasting repellants(驱虫剂) or traps that can reduce populations, but the breakthroughs, when they come, may save millions of lives in the developing world—and a lot of itching everywhere else.Vosshall and her colleagues are mainly studying mosquitoes’ ______.
| A．appearance | B．size |
| C．behavior | D．change |
By saying the underlined part “Then comes the hard part”, the author probably means that______.
| A．the insects smell terrible |
| B．the experiment will last long |
| C．The researchers will probably suffer |
| D．the researchers have to study lots of documents. |
Why is it less challenging to study male mosquitoes?
| A．They are not bloodsuckers. |
| B．They are afraid of stockings. |
| C．They have a poor sense of smell. |
| D．They are protective of their hosts. |
It can be inferred from the last paragraph that Vosshall’s research______.
| A．looks very promising |
| B．has saved millions of lives |
| C．is facing great difficulties |
| D．is quite simple to carry out. |
A friendly English Springer Spaniel named Bonnie, who also happens to be deaf, is being praised by her owner for helping him catch a suspected intruder(入侵者，闯入者) in their Salem home.
Dan Strasser said he heard Bonnie running around the living room at about 6 a.m. Saturday, so he got out of bed to see why she was so excited.
"She smelled him because she does have a very good sense of smell," said Strasser. "She jumped up and got all excited thinking someone was there to play."
He said Bonnie didn't bark or bite like a guard dog, but the commotion she made was enough to alert him.
When he walked into the living room, Strasser said he caught the intruder trying to steal his laptop. Strasser said the man took off, but instead of running out the back door where he came in, he accidentally ran into the garage, where he was cornered.
"As you can imagine there's a lot going on in his mind, like ‘How do I get out of this place?' It's dark and he doesn't know it."
Strasser said he grabbed his gun and held the intruder in the garage while his girlfriend called 911.
"There was a lot of, ‘I'm sorry,'" said Strasser. "He starts talking about how he wants to go home and see his kid and asks if I would please let him go. All the stuff you'd say if you're caught and you don't want to go to jail."
Police showed up and arrested the intruder, who they later identified as Thomas Lowell, 25. He was arraigned in court Monday on charges of burglary and possession of methamphetamine. He is due back in court Oct. 2.
Strasser said Lowell got in through the back door, which he kept open at night so Bonnie could get into the backyard. He plans to keep it closed and locked from now on.What does the underlined word mean?
| A．sudden noise |
| B．happily rolling |
| C．crazily biting |
| D．angrily barking |
Bonnie is being praised by her owner because________.
| A．she was a lovely dog. |
| B．she did have a very good sense of smell. |
| C．she didn't bark or bite like a guard dog. |
| D．she helped her owner catch a intruder. |
After the intruder took the laptop, he ________.
| A．ran out the back door. |
| B．ran into the garage. |
| C．ran away from the owner’s home. |
| D．fought against Bonnie. |
Which of the following sentences is wrong according to the passage?
| A．Strasser’s girl friend called 911. |
| B．Strasser used to keep the back door open at night. |
| C．Strasser let the intruder go home because he wanted to see his kid. |
| D．Strasser plans to keep the back door closed to prevent something from being stolen. |
Weather changes when the temperature and the amount of water in the atmosphere change. We can see and feel water coming from the atmosphere when we have rain. But the water must somehow get back to the atmosphere. Meteorologists call this the water cycle.
There are many stages in the water cycle. Rain falls when water vapour in clouds condenses(冷却成液体). Drops of water form and fall to the ground. The water soaks into the ground and feeds streams and rivers. A lot of rain falls into the sea. The heat of the sun evaporates some of the water in the ground and in the rivers, lakes and the sea. It changes the liquid water into water vapour. The vapour rises onto the air. Water vapour is normally invisible. On a very damp or humid day, however, you can sometimes see water vapour rising from a puddle or pond in a mist above the water. Water vapour also gets into the air from living things. Trees and other plants take in water through their roots and give off water vapour from their leaves. People and land animals drink water and breathe out water vapour. In all these ways the water returns to the air. There it gathers to form clouds and condenses to form rain. The rain falls to earth, and the cycle starts again. It contains even if snow or hail fall instead because both eventually melt and form water. The amount of water vapour is more in the air tropics than in the cold polar regions.What is the main idea of the passage?
| A．Water cycle. | B．Water vapour. |
| C．How rain forms. | D．Water, vapour, rain. |
How many ways of the water returning to the air are discussed in the text?
| A．Three | B．Four | C．Five | D．Six |
Whether water vapour can be seen or not depends on_____.
| A．how much water is evaporated |
| B．how good your eyes are |
| C．in which way water is evaporated |
| D．climate or weather |
From the passage, we get to know_____.
| A．there is more water vapour in the air tropics than in cold polar regions |
| B．there is more water vapour in the air in cold polar region than in the tropics |
| C．it gets more rain in the tropics than in cold polar regions because there is less vapor |
| D．the amount of water vapour in the air depends on how often it rains |
People from East Asia tend to have more difficulty than those from Europe in distinguishing facial expressions — and a new report published online in Current Biology explains why.
Rachael Jack, University of Glasgow researcher, said that rather than scanning evenly(均匀的) across a face as Westerners do, Easterners fix their attention on the eyes.
"We show that Easterners and Westerners look at different face features to read facial expressions," Jack said. "Westerners look at the eyes and the mouth in equal measure, whereas Easterners favor the eyes and neglect (忽略) the mouth."
According to Jack and her colleagues, the discovery shows that human communication of emotion is more complex than previously believed. As a result, facial expressions that had been considered universally recognizable cannot be used to reliably convey emotion in cross-cultural situations.
The researchers studied cultural differences in the recognition of facial expressions by recording the eye movements of 13 Western Caucasian and 13 East Asian people while they observed pictures of. expressive faces and put them into categories: happy, sad, surprised, fearful, disgusted, angry, or neutral. They compared how accurately participants read those facial expressions using their particular eye movement strategies.
It turned out that Easterners focused much greater attention on the eyes and made significantly more errors than did Westerners. "The cultural difference in eye movements that they show is probably a reflection of cultural difference in facial expressions," Jack said. "Our data suggest that whereas Westerners use the whole face to convey emotion, Easterners use the eyes more and mouth less."
In short, the data show that facial expressions are not universal signals of human emotion. From here on, examining how cultural factors have diversified these basic social skills will help our understanding of human emotion. Otherwise, when it comes to communicating emotions across cultures, Easterners and Westerners will find themselves lost in translation. The discovery shows that Westerners .
| A．pay equal attention to the eyes and the mouth |
| B．consider facial expressions universally reliable |
| C．observe the eyes and the mouth in different ways |
| D．have more difficulty in recognizing facial expressions |
What were the people asked to do in the study?
| A．To make a face at each other. | B．To get their faces impressive. |
| C．To classify some face pictures. | D．To observe the researchers' faces. |
What does the underlined word "they" in Paragraph 6 refer to?
| A．The participants in the study. |
| B．The researchers of the study. |
| C．The errors made during the study. |
| D．The data collected from the study. |
In comparison with Westerners, Easterners are likely to .
| A．do translation more successfully |
| B．study the mouth more frequently |
| C．examine the eyes more attentively |
| D．read facial expressions more correctly |
What can be the best title for the passage?
| A．The Eye as the Window to the Soul |
| B．Cultural Differences in Reading Emotions |
| C．Effective Methods to Develop Social Skills |
| D．How to Increase Cross-cultural Understanding |
Every year 2.2 million tons of oil are spilled ( 散落，溅出 ) into the ocean. Actually, this only amounts to a small percentage of the total 1.6 billion tons of oil shipped around the world each year.However, this spilled oil has terrible effects on ocean life, including the coastlines where the off washes up onto shore. Some of the largest spills in history were caused by oil tankers running into each other or by an oil tanker sailing into shallow water and hitting the bottom of the ocean. After these spills, officials try to discover who or what was at fault to help prevent similar accidents in the future.
One of the worst oil spills in history occurred along the Alaskan coastline in 1989. In this accident, 42,000 tons of oil spilled from a tanker which resulted in terrible damage to this sensitive natural area. In this spill, the tanker's captain, who was tired from overwork and drinking alcohol, had gone to take a rest. He gave control of the ship to the third mate. The third mate was unfamiliar with the path the ship took, and he ran the ship onto Blighe Reef. Blighe Reef is a natural underwater rock wall near the Alaskan coast. Damaged by the reef, the ship leaked oil out into the ocean. More than 1,600 kilometers of coastline were affected by the oil spill. Some scientists who studied nature in the area guessed that 580,000 birds and 5,500 otters died when the oil from the spill covered their skin. As well, smaller shellfish and other sea creatures were later eaten by seals, whales, and other animals.
The most oil ever spilled was actually dumped on purpose as an act of ecological warfare. The term ecological warfare means to fight by doing harm to nature in the area under attack. In 1990, Iraq sent soldiers into Kuwait and set off the Persian Gulf War. As part of the Iraq war plan,900,000 tons of oil were let out into the Persian Gulf Way Iraq. This oil covered 1,500 square kilometers of water in the Persian Gulf. The oil also damaged 650 kilometers of the coastline of both Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. In some places, oil floating on the water was measured to be 43 centimeters thick. Water birds, water plants, and baby fish were all seriously affected by the oil. The long-term effects of this act on the food chain in the area are bound to cause problems tar into the future.Which cause of oil spills is described in the second paragraph?
| A．Dumping | B．War |
| C．Accidents | D．Throwing about carelessly |
The creatures affected by the oil spill near Alaska were_________.
| A．birds and otters | B．shellfish |
| C．seals and whales | D．all of the above |
The third mate ran the thanker agound (触礁) in this accident because_______.
| A．he was tired | B．he was drunk |
| C．he was talking on the phone | D．he did not know the sea |
________ was responsible for dumping oil into the Persian Gulf.
| A．The United States | B．Kuwait | C．Saudi Arabia | D．Iraq |
When you consider what subject to study in college, chances are that you and your parents will think about what you can make out of it after graduation. You will likely ask the question: “Can I find a well-paid job or simply a job with a degree in this in the future?”
This consideration also influences students when they come to choose between studying science or humanities (人文学科) at college. People generally believe that the humanities, which include literature , history, cultural studies and philosophy, do not prepare students for a specific vocation (职业). Science subjects, however, are considered vocational courses that produce scientists, engineers and economists (经济学家).
“I've decided to take finance as my college major. My parents and I think this subject will help me get a good job or start a business,” said Huachen Yueru, 17, a science student at Wuxi No. 1 High School.
Even those who choose a liberal arts (文科) education often pick the humanities subject which they think will best help them later find a job.
“I'm going to study Spanish in college, which I believe will open doors to a high-paying job for me,” said Liu Chao, 18, a Senior 2 student at Dalian No 20 High School. He said few of his classmates show interest in subjects like philosophy and history, which are seen as “less promising” in job markets.
The popularity of liberal arts subjects among college students has also been decreasing in the United States. American scholars (学者) and universities are concerned that in the ongoing economic crisis (经济危机) liberal arts subjects will be hit hardest. As money tightens (紧缩), they worry that the humanities may become “a great luxury (奢侈品) that many cannot afford”, according to the New York Times. When you consider what to study in college, what does you and your parents usually think about ?
| A．whether you are interested in the subject. |
| B．if you can lead a happy life. |
| C．what you can make out of it after graduation. |
| D．How much you can learn in the college. |
Why do students show little interest in the subjects, like philosophy or history ?
| A．Because they are not interested in them. |
| B．Because they think these subjects are useless. |
| C．Because they see these subjects as less-promising in job market. |
| D．Because they like the science subjects. |
What can we infer from the passage ?
| A．Humanities are becoming less and less popular with the students. |
| B．Studying science subjects is sure to find a well-paid job. |
| C．The humanities in college should be cancelled. |
| D．The writer thinks those who choose the liberal arts education will choose their favorite subjects. |
What does the underlined word “it” refer to in the first paragraph ?
| A．the subject you study in college | B．science | C．humanities | D．liberal arts |
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类别：细节理解+推理判断题+词义猜测题 本文标题 ：…Arts in crisis…
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