Find a quiet location. Keep a routine. Focus on one subject at a time. It all seems like sound advice for students who need to hit the books, but recent studies indicate the conventional wisdom is all wrong.
Here's a list of tips from Carey, a sc ientist, for getting the most out of your study time：
Test yourself：Doing practice quizzes can help you retrieve information on test day. “Tests have a very bad reputation as a measurement tool,” Carey says. But psychologists have found self-tests slow down the forgetting of material you've studied. “If you study something once, and then you test yourself on it,” Carey says, “you do better than if you study it twice over.”
Move around: Changing up where you study can help you retain more information. “If you move around and study the same material in several places,” he says, “you may be forming…multiple associations for the same material, the same words and so on. So it's better organized in your brain, and you can pull it out easier.”
Mix it up：Think about a football player who does strength training, speed training and drills. Carey says alternating between different facets of a subject in a single sitting can “leave a deeper impression on the brain”. For example, when studying French, do some verbs, some speaking and some reading. Spending your time in deep concentration on just verbs, say, isn't as effective.
Space it out：Information learned in a hurry is lost just as fast. Carey lik es cramming your brain to speed-packing a cheap suitcase—it all falls out. So if you really want to learn, space out shorter, hour-long study sessions. “There's no doubt you can cram your way through an exam,” Carey says. The problem is that it's so easy to forget what you just crammed—and once it's gone, Carey says, “It's gone. You're not getting it back.”
Of course, nothing can replace the power of motivation and discipline. But Carey says the overall message is encouraging：“Studying can sort of be incorporated into a more varied life, much more easily than we thought.”According to the text, the best way to learn is ________．
| A．to learn one's subject at a time in a quiet place |
| B．to be strongly motivated to learn something |
| C．to mix up everything that you will learn |
| D．to do self-tests after you learn immediately |
Why are you advised to move around while learning?
| A．Because it can make your brain focus on learning. |
| B．Because you can save time by missing the same words. |
| C．Because you can connect materials with different things. |
| D．Because it keeps your brain in a completely resting state. |
How did the writer develop the fifth paragraph?
| A．By telling an interesting story. |
| B．By presenting in the time order. |
| C．By analyzing causes and effects. |
| D．By making a comparison. |
It can be inferred from what Carey said in the third paragraph that ________．
| A．tests used to be treated as a tool to judge learners |
| B．tests would slow down your study |
| C．tests were the best way to learn new information |
| D．tests do good to you more than learning itself |
I told my friend Graham that I often cycle the two miles from my house to the town centre but unfortunately there is a big hill on the route. He replied, "You mean fortunately." He explained that I should be glad of the extra exercise that the hill provided.
My attitude to the hill has now changed. I used to grumble as I approached it but now I tell myself the following. This hill will exercise my heart and lungs. It will help me to lose weight and get fit. It will mean that I live longer. This hill is my friend. Finally as I wend my way up the incline I console myself with the thought of all those silly people who pay money to go to a gym and sit on stationery exercise bicycles when I can get the same value for free. I have a smug smile of satisfaction as I reach the top of the hill.
Problems are there to be faced and overcome. Helen Keller was the first deaf and blind person to gain a University degree. Her activism and writing proved inspirational. She wrote, "Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved."
One of the main determinants of success in life is our attitude towards adversity. From time to time we all face hardships, problems, accidents, afflictions and difficulties. Some are of our making but many confront us through no fault of our own. Whilst we cannot choose the adversity we can choose our attitude towards it.
The biographies of great people are littered with examples of how they took these kinds of steps to overcome the difficulties they faced. The common thread is that they did not become defeatist or depressed. They chose their attitude. They chose to be positive. They took on the challenge. They won. Which of the following would be the best title of the passage?
| A．Attitude makes difference |
| B．Well begun is half done. |
| C．The early bird gets the worm. |
| D．Easier said than done. |
From Helen Keller’s example we can infer that__________.
| A．Great people are born to be great and successful |
| B．Life is hard and difficult so we have to give up |
| C．We cannot achieve anything with an easy life |
| D．Practice makes people successful and powerful |
What do you think the author is most likely to suggest if he/she continues to write?
| A．Some examples of our daily life. |
| B．His stories of overcoming difficulties. |
| C．Stories of some unlucky great people. |
| D．Some examples of his friend Graham. |
The underlined word “adversity ” in the fourth paragraph probably NOT refers to ______.
| A．problems | B．difficulties | C．hardships | D．advertisements |
In 1924, Hachiko was brought to Tokyo by his owner, Hidesaburo Ueno, a professor in the agriculture department at the University of Tokyo. During his owner's life Hachiko saw him off from the front door and greeted him at the end of the day at the nearby Shibuya Station. The pair continued their daily routine until May 1925 when Professor Ueno didn't return on the usual train one evening. The professor had suffered a stroke at the university that day. He died and never returned to the station where his friend was waiting. 
Hachiko was given away after his master's death but he routinely escaped, showing up again and again at his old home. After time, Hachiko realized that Professor Ueno no longer lived at the house. So he went to look for his master at the train station where he had accompanied him so many times before. Each day, Hachiko waited for Professor Ueno to return. And each day he didn't see his friend among the crowd at the station.
Hachiko became a permanent figure at the train station, which eventually attracted the attention of many people. Many of the people who frequented the Shibuya train station had seen Hachiko and Professor Ueno together each day. Realizing that Hachiko waited for his dead master, their hearts were touched. They brought Hachiko treats and food to nourish him during his wait. This continued for 10 years, with Hachiko appearing only in the evening, precisely when the train was due at the station.
Hachiko: The True Story of the Royal Dogs of Japan is Hachiko's story, as well as an informative look at dog culture in Japan and the history and tradition of the Akita-ken, one of the most ancient, beloved and faithful dog breeds ever. The underlined word “his friend ” in the first paragraph refers to ______.
| A．Hachiko | B．Ueno | C．Tokyo | D．Shibuya |
Which of the following statements about Hachiko is NOT true?
| A．Hachiko saw his master off from the front door everyday. |
| B．Hachiko appeared every evening in the station for ten years. |
| C．Many people offered Hachiko food during his waiting. |
| D．Hachiko was adopted by others after his master's death. |
The first four paragraphs are developed mainly__________ .
| A．by cause and effect | B．by order in space |
| C．by order in time | D．by examples |
We can infer that Hachiko: The True Story of the Royal Dogs of Japan is likely to be ____.
| A．a book | B．a magazine | C．a song | D．a picture |
One day a teacher asked her students to list the names of the other students and write down the nicest thing they could say about each of their classmates. That Saturday, the teacher wrote down the name of each student on a separate sheet of paper, and listed what everyone else had said about that individual. On Monday she gave each student his or her list. Before long, the entire class was smiling. “Really?” she heard whispered. “I never knew that I meant anything to anyone!” and, “I didn’t know others liked me so much,” were most of the comments.
No one ever mentioned those papers in class again. She never knew if they discussed them after class or with their parents. Several years later, one of the students was killed in Vietnam and his teacher attended his funeral. As she stood there, one of the soldiers came up to her. “Were you Mark’s math teacher?” he asked. She nodded: “yes.” Then he said: “Mark talked about you a lot.”
After the funeral, Mark’s mother and father were waiting there, “We want to show you something,” his father said, taking a wallet out of his pocket, “They found this on Mark when he was killed. We thought you might recognize it.”
The teacher carefully removed two worn pieces of notebook paper that had obviously been taped, folded and refolded many times. The teacher knew without looking that the papers were the ones on which she had listed all the good things each of Mark’s classmates had said about him. “Thank you so much for doing that,” Mark’s mother said, “As you can see, Mark treasured it.”
The density of people in society is so thick that we forget that life will end one day. And we don’t know when that one day will be. So please, tell the people you love and care for, that they are special and important. The underlined word individual in paragraph one probably mean___________.
| A．one student | B．one teacher | C．one parent | D．one comment |
From the soldier’s words in the second paragraph we can infer that_________.
| A．Mark disliked his math teacher very much |
| B．That particular class has no influence on Mark |
| C．Mark often mentioned that class to his friends |
| D．Mark loved to learn math very much |
According to the passage which of the following statements is TRUE?
| A．Students did not care others’ comments. |
| B．Mark always had the papers with him. |
| C．Mark lost his wallet in the battle. |
| D．Mark lost the papers in the battle |
Which of the followings can be the best title of the passage?
| A．Tell them, before it is too late. |
| B．Too busy to show your love. |
| C．Love is action instead of words. |
| D．Good words turn away coldness. |
At the heart of the debate over illegal immigration lies one key question: are immigrants good or bad for the economy? The American public overwhelmingly thinks they're bad. Yet the consensus among most economists is that immigration, both legal and illegal, provides a small net boost to the economy. Immigrants provide cheap labor, lower the prices of everything from farm produce to new homes, and leave consumers with a little more money in their pockets. So why is there such a discrepancy between the perception of immigrants' impact on the economy and the reality?
There are a number of familiar theories. Some argue that people are anxious and feel threatened by an inflow of new workers. Others highlight the strain that undocumented immigrants place on public services, like schools, hospitals, and jails. Still others emphasize the role of race, arguing that foreigners add to the nation's fears and insecurities. There's some truth to all these explanations, but they aren't quite sufficient.
To get a better understanding of what's going on, consider the way immigration's impact is felt. Though its overall effect may be positive, its costs and benefits are distributed unevenly. David Card, an economist at UC Berkeley, notes that the ones who profit most directly from immigrants' low-cost labor are businesses and employers – meatpacking plants in Nebraska, for instance, or agricultural businesses in California. Granted, these producers' savings probably translate into lower prices at the grocery store, but how many consumers make that mental connection at the checkout counter? As for the drawbacks of illegal immigration, these, too, are concentrated. Native low-skilled workers suffer most from the competition of foreign labor. According to a study by George Borjas, a Harvard economist, immigration reduced the wages of American high-school dropouts by 9% between 1980-2000.
Among high-skilled, better-educated employees, however, opposition was strongest in states with both high numbers of immigrants and relatively generous social services. What worried them most, in other words, was the fiscal (财政的)burden of immigration. That conclusion was reinforced by another finding: that their opposition appeared to soften when that fiscal burden decreased, as occurred with welfare reform in the 1990s, which curbed immigrants' access to certain benefits.
The irony is that for all the overexcited debate, the net effect(净效应) of immigration is minimal. Even for those most acutely affected – say, low-skilled workers, or California residents – the impact isn't all that dramatic. "The unpleasant voices have tended to dominate our perceptions," says Daniel Tichenor, a political science professor at the University of Oregon. "But when all those factors are put together and the economists calculate the numbers, it ends up being a net positive, but a small one." Too bad most people don't realize it.What can we learn from the first paragraph?
| A．Whether immigrants are good or bad for the economy has been puzzling economists. |
| B．The American economy used to thrive on immigration but now it's a different story. |
| C．The consensus among economists is that immigration should not be encouraged. |
| D．The general public thinks differently from most economists on the impact of immigration. |
In what way does the author think ordinary Americans benefit from immigration?
| A．They can access all kinds of public services. |
| B．They can get consumer goods at lower prices. |
| C．They can mix with people of different cultures. |
| D．They can avoid doing much of the manual labor. |
Which of the following words has the closest meaning to “curb” in paragraph four?
| A．strengthen | B．deny | C．encourage | D．limit |
What is the irony about the debate over immigration?
| A．People care too much about something of small impact. |
| B．Those who are opposed to it turn out to benefit most from it. |
| C．Even economists can't reach a consensus about its impact. |
| D．There is no essential difference between seemingly opposite opinions. |
Recent research has claimed that an excess of positive ions in the air can have an ill effect on people’s physical or psychological health. What are positive ions? Well, the air is full of ions, electrically charged particles, and generally there is a rough balance between the positive and the negative charged. But sometimes this balance becomes disturbed and a larger proportion of positive ions are found. This happens naturally before thunderstorm, earthquakes when winds are blowing in certain countries. Or it can be caused by a build-up of static electricity indoors from carpets or clothing, or from TV sets, duplicators or computer display screens.
When a large number of positive ions are present in the air many people experience unpleasant effects such as headaches, fatigue (疲劳), excessive anger, and some particularly sensitive people feel sick or even suffer mental disturbance. Animals are also affected, particularly before earthquakes, snakes have been observed to come out, rats to flee from their burrows, dogs howl and cats jump about unaccountably. This has led the US Geographical Survey to fund a network of volunteers to watch animals in an effort to foresee such disasters before they hit vulnerable areas such as California.
Conversely, when large numbers of negative ions are present, then people have a feeling of well-being. Natural conditions that produce these large amounts are near the sea, close to waterfalls or fountains, or in any place where water is sprayed, or forms a spray. This probably accounts for the beneficial effect of a holiday by the sea, or in the mountains with streams or waterfalls.
To increase the supply of negative ions indoors, some scientists recommend the use of ionisers. They claim that ionisers not only clean and refresh the air but also improve the health of people sensitive to excess positive ions. Of course, there are the detractors, other scientists, who dismiss such claims and are skeptical about negative/positive ion research. Therefore people can only make up their own minds by observing the effects on themselves, or on others, of a negative rich or poor environment. After all it is debatable whether depending on seismic readings to anticipate earthquakes is more effective than watching the cat.What is an ion according to the passage?
| A．It’s a charged particle. |
| B．It’s basically static electricity indoors. |
| C．It’s a balance between the positive and negative charged. |
| D．It’s an ill effect on people’s physical and psychological health. |
What effect does exceeding positive ionization have on most of the people?
| A．They will throw up. |
| B．They will be sick and tired of life. |
| C．They may feel rather bad-tempered. |
| D．They may feel they are out of their mind. |
A high negative ion count is likely to be found .
| A．in a mountainous area. | B．by a water spray in a garden. |
| C．close to a slow-flowing river. | D．near a pound with a water pump. |
What is the author’s attitude towards the use of ionisers?
| A．Neutral. | B．Opposed. | C．Supportive. | D．Ambiguous. |
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