Why is the human brain so mighty? It has billions of nerve cells to carry out its commands. Without the brain, you would not be able to think, feel, move, remember, or do all the things that make you the special person you are.
At birth, the brains of infants (婴儿) weigh the same. But by adulthood, that changes. The average male brain weighs about 11 to 12 percent more than woman’s brain. But brain weight and size have nothing to do with intelligence. What matters is what’s inside the brain.
Despite its small size (about 3 pounds), the brain is able to receive and send an unlimited number of messages. It does this with the help of the spinal cord, the sense organs, and the automatic nervous system. The brain carries out this task by assigning jobs.
It puts the cerebellum in charge of balance and coordination.
The brainstem regulates heartbeat, breathing, and blood pressure.
And the largest parts of the brain, the cerebral cortex and the cerebrum, control thoughts, feelings, and actions.
The cerebrum is divided into two halves. Each controls the muscles on the opposite side of the body. So, if you usually eat with your right hand and kick with your right foot, then your brain’s left half is said to “dominate”, and you’re right-handed. When the opposite is true, your brain’s’ right half takes the lead and you’re left-handed.
People use both halves of the brain, but the left half is especially good at helping you with words and numbers and helping you read and speak. The right side is better at creative tasks, such as music and art. And your sense of humor develops there.
Each half has four sets of lobes (脑叶). The frontal lobes behind your forehead do lot of the thinking and planning. The parietal lobes toward the back of your head sense pain. And the occipital lobes at the base of the brain allow you to see. The temporal lobes behind your ears store memories of music, taste, vision, and touch.
1. What is the writing purpose of starting the text with a question?| A．To stress the importance of the brain. |
| B．To explain reasons for the power of the brain. |
| C．To leads readers into the main topic. |
| D．To share with readers the author’s problem. |
| A．The cerebral cortex. | B．The cerebrum. | C．The cerebellum. | D．The brainstem. |
| A．Draw with the right hand. |
| B．Write with the left hand. |
| C．Eat with the right hand. |
| D．Kick a soccer ball with the right foot. |
| A．The brain is a small organ that does a lot for the human body. |
| B．An intelligent person has a bigger brain size than other people. |
| C．The brain has two halves that control which hand you write with. |
| D．The lobes in the brain play an important role and do different tasks. |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】A study published in Blood Pressure Monitoring stated that sitting with your legs crossed can increase your blood pressure. The reason this happens is because the blood in your legs has to work against gravity to be pumped back to your heart, crossing one leg over the other increases resistance, making it even harder for the blood to circulate. This causes your body to increase your blood pressure to push the blood back to the heart. You won’t feel any immediate effects, but if you sit for long periods of time it’s important that you take note of how long you have your legs crossed for. You shouldn’t have your legs crossed for more than 15 minutes, and it’s important that you get up and walk around at least once every hour.
Crossing your legs can also lead to neck and back pain. Ideally, it’s best for our bodies to sit with our feet planted flat, hip width apart, on the floor, but it’s not easy to maintain perfect posture all day at the office. When you sit with your legs crossed your hips are in a twisted position, which can cause one of your pelvic bones to rotate. Since your pelvic bone supports your neck and spine, this can cause pressure on your lower and middle back and neck.
You also might notice that when you sit with your legs crossed for long periods of time your feet and legs get tingly or have the feeling of being asleep. This is because when one leg sits on top of the other it causes pressure on the veins and nerves in your legs and feet. It can cause numbness and/or temporary paralysis in the legs, ankles, or feet. While the feeling of discomfort may only last a minute or two, repeatedly crossing your legs until they feel numb can cause permanent nerve damage.
1. What can be learned from the text?| A．We will feel blood pressure increased immediately after crossing legs. |
| B．It’s easy for us to keep correct posture all day. |
| C．The pelvic bone can cause pressure on your lower and middle back and neck. |
| D．Your legs will get pain with legs crossed for long periods of time. |
| A．Causing the pain of neck and back. |
| B．Increasing the blood pressure. |
| C．Leading to the pain of feet and legs. |
| D．Resulting in the disability of arms. |
| A．Do not often cross your legs while sitting. |
| B．Cross your legs for more than 15 minutes every day. |
| C．Get up and walk around at least once every other hour. |
| D．Cross your legs to lower your blood pressure. |
【推荐2】Nail-biting(咬指甲) is one of the most common annoying habits in children.
Give alternatives (替代物).
Use bitter solutions(溶液). Forcing a child to keep this solution on his/her fingers may feel like a punishment.
| A．It’s also likely to continue as the child grows up. |
| B．Help the child become aware of the habit. |
| C．You should also consider asking for professional help. |
| D．Make an agreement on how you’re going to stop it together. |
| E．The best thing children can do is communicate with their parents. |
| F．The child needs to go through the process painlessly and in agreement with you. |
| G．That will keep his/her hands occupied when he/she is likely to bite his/her nails. |
【推荐3】While learning the science lessons, I used to get a doubt-why ears, nose, tongue and eyes should be called as special senses? The basic reason is that these are the channels through which we maintain contact with the surroundings. Though apparently it may feel like these are individual sensory organs, they do show some connectivity. Interestingly, our hearing is less sharp after we eat a heavy food. Isn't it good for a sound nap after a stomach-full meal? That does not mean we go deaf after a meal, but the hearing pitch does change after a heavy meal.
We usually give credit of the taste to our tongue, but do you know that unless saliva dissolves something, our tongue cannot recognize the taste of the food eaten？Taste is nothing but the food chemicals dissolved in the saliva being sensed by the taste buds present on the tongue. Try to dry off your tongue and mouth with a tissue paper and then taste something.
Women are much better smellers than men. They are born with this characteristic ability and can correctly pinpoint the exact fragrance of the sample. We all can store almost 50, 000 different scents, which are strongly tied to the memories.
Pupils do not respond to light alone, but to the slightest bit of noise around too. Thus surgeons, watchmakers and those professionals who have to perform a much delicate job do prefer to have a sound-free environment. Even a small noise can dilate their pupils, change the focus and blur their vision. If you do not wear glasses or contact lens due to having a 6/6 vision, you are just among the one third of the human population. It is now statistically proved that only one third of the population has perfect vision, the rest all are either wearing glasses or are trying to read with a compromised vision.
Each and every one of us has a particular or individualistic or characteristic smell, which is unique to us, except for the identical twins. This smell is very subtle yet can be sensed even by a newborn. It may be due to this scent that the newborn recognizes the presence of his parents around. Many of us can pinpoint the smell of our significant friends and colleagues. A significant part of this phenomenon is guided by genetics but it is also changed by the environment, diet and personal hygiene. This all together creates the unique chemistry that is individualistic for each person.
1. What does the example of “heavy meal and hearing” in the first paragraph prove?| A．Every sensory organs has its specific function. |
| B．We easily fall asleep after eating a heavy meal |
| C．We feel the world through our eyes, ears, nose and tongue. |
| D．All the individual sensory organs are actually connected. |
| A．Our sense of taste becomes sharper when our tongue is dry. |
| B．The chemical dissolved in the saliva helps digest food eaten. |
| C．Saliva plays an important role in identifying the taste of food. |
| D．The taste buds works better when there is less saliva in the mouth. |
| A．A craftsman who is working on a diamond. | B．An actor who is doing rehearsal. |
| C．A pilot who is flying a plane. | D．An engineer who is checking machines. |
| A．The identical genes guide him. | B．He can recognize their unique smell |
| C．He can hear their individual voices. | D．The sensor in his brain picks them out. |
| A．The discovery of special senses. | B．The functions of sensory organs. |
| C．The connectivity of our organs. | D．The differences in sense among people. |
【推荐1】Character is how you live out what you believe to be true about life, people, and the world.
Attaining virtue and being fully self-aware require us to develop qualities including judgment, perspective, bravery, perseverance, self-regulation, gratitude, hope, humor, and spirituality.
When facing a challenge, we reveal our character. Mandela was imprisoned for nearly three decades because of his efforts to oppose the South African government non-violently. However, he was able, upon his release, to have the wisdom, courage, humanity, and justice to shake hands with the prison guards who had kept him locked up for more than 27 years.
“Good character is not formed in a week or a month,” wrote Greek philosopher Heraclitus. It is created little by little.
| A．He had good character |
| B．Good character is more than just one value |
| C．Patience is needed to develop good character |
| D．It shows how you live and how you treat others |
| E．He hated the injustice that had put him in prison |
| F．These are among the characteristics of a strong person |
| G．Character changes over the course of our life experiences |
【推荐2】Do you like to drink Coca-Cola? You can thank enslaved Africans. They brought the kola nut — one of the main parts of Coca-Cola — to what is now the United States. They also brought watermelon, black-eyed peas, some peppers and many more. These foods are eaten in the U.S. today. They show how Africans forced into slavery — beginning in the 1500s — influenced the American diet.
History professor Frederick Opie wrote a book about some of the foods that connect Africa and America—Soul Food from Africa to America. He says, “If you know what people eat, you can find out where they’re from.”
Opie explains that people who were bringing enslaved Africans to North America wanted to keep them alive and earn a profit. As a result, Africans on the slave ships were fed food they knew and liked. Those foods landed along with the people. Fruit and vegetables brought from Africa grew well in America. One reason is that enslaved Africans planted their own gardens to help feed themselves. In time, the plants from Africa slowly moved from gardens of the enslaved to those of the wealthy and powerful. For example, the homes of U.S. presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson had gardens planted with seeds from Africa.
Those fruit and vegetables changed the way cooks made foods in America. Take pies as an example. In England, pies were made with meat. African-Americans took the English meat pie and made it with fruit or vegetables, such as sweet potatoes. Yet for the most part, the skilled black chefs have been written out of American history. In fact, both their work and their skill shaped American food. Some ways of cooking that are well-known in the U.S. today were reported in West Africa before 1500. They include deep frying fish and barbecuing meats.
1. What can be known from the first two paragraphs?| A．Peppers aren’t to most Americans’ taste. |
| B．Africans are the real creator of Coca-Cola. |
| C．Eating habits generally differ from place to place. |
| D．Africans and Americans learn from each other in cooking. |
| A．To show African plants were spreading in the U.S. |
| B．To confirm Americans enjoyed growing their own gardens. |
| C．To explain why African plants could grow well in America. |
| D．To prove seeds from Africa were popular with American presidents. |
| A．By making comparisons. | B．By listing differences. |
| C．By following time order. | D．By giving examples. |
| A．Many American Foods Aren’t American at All |
| B．How Enslaved Africans Influenced American Diet |
| C．The Journey of Slaves: from Africa to America |
| D．Why African Foods Can Grasp Americans' Stomachs |
【推荐3】There are two kinds of memory: short-term and long-term. Information in long-term memory can be remembered at a later time when it is needed. The information may be kept for days or weeks. However, information in short-term memory is kept for only a few seconds, usually by repeating the information over and over. The following experiment shows how short-term memory has been studied.
Henning studied how students who are learning English as a second language remember vocabulary. The subjects in his experiment were 75 college students. They represented all levels of ability in English: beginning, intermediate (中等), and native speaking students.
To begin, the subjects listened to a recording of a native speaker reading a paragraph in English. Following the recording, the subjects took a 15-question test to see which words they remembered. Each question had four choices. The subjects had to circle the word they had heard in the recording, some of the questions had four choices that sound alike. For example, weather, whether, wither, and wetter are four words that sound alike. Some of the questions had four choices that have the same meaning. Method, way, manner, and system would be four words with the same meaning. Finally the subjects took a language proficiency test.
Henning found that students with a lower proficiency in English made more of their mistakes on words that sound alike; students with a higher proficiency made more of their mistakes on words that have the same meaning. Henning's results suggest that beginning students hold the sound of words in their short-term memory, and advanced students hold the meaning of words in their short-term memory.
1. Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?| A．Henning gave a separate test on vocabulary to his students. |
| B．Long-term memory can be achieved only by training. |
| C．It is easier to test short-term memory than long-term memory. |
| D．Information in short-term memory is different from that in long-term memory. |
| A．the theme of listening material | B．the student experimented on |
| C．a branch of knowledge studied | D．a native speaker |
| A．advanced students always remember words by their meaning |
| B．beginners have difficulty distinguishing the pronunciation of words |
| C．it is difficult to remember words that sound alike |
| D．it is difficult to remember words that have the same meaning |
| A．an experiment on students | B．two kinds of memory |
| C．short-term memory | D．memory |
【推荐1】If you visit Uluwatu temple in Bali, be cautious. The long-tailed temple monkeys there are well-known thieves. Since a long time ago, they have made a living by robbing visitors of their possessions and then holding those objects until a ransom in the form of food is paid. But Jean-Baptiste Leca of the University of Lethbridge, in Canada, wondered whether these monkeys are cleverer still. Sometimes, they do not accept the first offer and hold out for more. He therefore asked himself whether they are able to assess how valuable an object is to its owner, and factor that into their negotiations.
Dr. Leca and his colleagues conducted their experiment by wandering around the temple with video cameras, recording the activities of the monkeys. Every time they saw a monkey show interest in a particular tourist, they recorded the interaction. To work out what was going on, they had first to establish the relative values of food rewards to monkeys, and of stealable objects to people.
To confirm which stealable objects are most valued by people, they divided them into six classes: empty containers, such as phone cases and plastic bottles; accessories (搭配物) such as hairpins and key rings; hats and shoes; spectacles and sunglasses; and electronics and wallets. They then observed how often victims bothered to bargain with the thief for the return of property belonging to different classes, and thus classified objects into low value, medium value and high value.
They found that monkeys do, indeed, have a complicated sense of what they are doing — at least, adults and sub-adults do. These animals have a preference for stealing high-value items, and will often hold out either for more rewards, or for better ones, if they are in possession of such items. But this is something that they have to learn how to do as they grow up. Young monkeys make no such distinctions, and sub-adults are less good at doing so than adults.
1. What is the purpose of Leca's research?| A．To prove monkeys are cleverer than men. |
| B．To find out what is valuable for monkeys. |
| C．To record the negotiations between monkeys. |
| D．To make sure monkeys can judge item values. |
| A．Bill. | B．Reward. |
| C．Tax. | D．Rent. |
| A．By the material of objects. | B．By the preference of victims. |
| C．By the frequency of bargaining. | D．By the buying price of objects. |
| A．Monkeys' stealing is an acquired skill. |
B．All monkeys prefer high-value items. |
| C．Monkeys have a simple sense of acts. |
| D．Young monkeys can evaluate items. |
【推荐2】Now you can have polar bears as pen friends. First you need to find one, then tranquilize (麻醉) it and quickly give it the necessary tools before it wakes up. It’s an awkward first encounter—how many friendships do you know that start with tranquilizers? —and admittedly a one-sided correspondence, but soon they’ll be sending messages daily.
Every morning, Jon Aars, a senior researcher at the Norwegian Polar Institute, receives a bunch of emails from several female polar bears, letting him know where they are. Each year, Aars and his colleagues fit around 70 polar bears with a tracking collar which continuously logs movement. Once a day the collar sends the last 24 hours of data back to the Institute.
“Data about movement has been very important to understand how they might respond to climate change.” Aars explains.
A warming climate means a vast amount of sea ice is melting. Several seal species—polar bears’ main food—rely on sea ice, and more often than not, so do polar bears. As a result, polar bears will spend more time on land and look for different options. Aars explains. “They hunt reindeer and they will take more birds and eggs. We have seen that bears are in different areas than they used to be—so much further north.”
The collar can also record body temperature, which can tell scientists if a bear has moved inside a habitat—an indication that the animal is going to give birth. Sea ice loss is also having an impact on where polar bears are born. “Important areas that they used to go to give birth to cubs (幼兽) are more or less lost,” says Aars. “Bears are now swimming as far as 200 kilometers to reach an island habitat,” he adds, “something they did not need to do 20 years ago.”
Aars hopes his research could reveal how to help his pen friends hold out a little longer. “Changes are so significant and so fast; we will reach some stage in the future where it will get much harder to be a polar bear in Svalbard.”
1. What does the underlined word “correspondence” in paragraph 1 possibly mean?| A．Communication. | B．Agreement. | C．Performance. | D．Control. |
| A．It prevents polar bears from being attacked. |
| B．It allows researchers to detect the melting sea ice. |
| C．It makes it easier for polar bears to search for food. |
| D．It helps researchers to monitor polar bears’ activities. |
| A．Polar bears can easily adapt to climate change. |
| B．Polar bears are living in tough conditions. |
| C．The collar helps polar bears give birth to curbs. |
| D．Polar bears swim hard to find their old habitats. |
| A．Optimistic. | B．Tolerant. | C．Uncaring. | D．Concerned. |
【推荐3】Recently, many climate change campaigns and organizations have marketed themselves using images of polar bears losing their habitat.This has led many people to view the polar bear as the global icon(象征物)for our climate crisis.
The polar bear has become so widespread because it does an excellent job of playing on an audience's emotions and convincing them that there is an urgent problem on Earth. The imagery of a polar bear is also much more attractive than a scientific graph(图表)or chart of increasing sea levels or extreme weather event occurrences.
However,using polar bears as the only icon of our changing climate is flawed(有错的).For one,it only represents one effect of climate change, global warming,and not climate change itself. It neglects to address other aspects such as extreme weather events, ocean acidification, etc.While global warming is an important impact of climate change, the other aspects need to be communicated as well since climate change may not even cause warming in certain parts of the world—it could lead to severe snowstorms or colder winters instead. Thus, communicating these other elements is vital because it can reduce much of the misinformation surrounding our climate and gives the audience a more comprehensive understanding of our planet.
Moreover,using polar bears is problematic because most people do not live anywhere near polar bear habitat.This makes polar bears feel far removed from our own personal reality-thus making climate change feel far removed from our lives. Since climate change is anything but a distant phenomenon, a symbol that communicates the ways in which the climate crisis affects humans could be more convincing and push more people to act.
Even though using the polar bear as the icon of climate change is limited in conveying the full scope of our climate crisis, it can act as an agent of opening up the conversation about environmental issues and inspiring viewers to dive deeper into learning about climate change.
1. Why are polar bears preferred as marketing images?| A．Their imagery is more convincing. |
| B．They are likely to lose their habitats. |
| C．They are unique victims of the climate crisis. |
| D．The data on them often appear in scientific graphs. |
| A．Polar bears are the only indicator of climate change. |
| B．Climate change is bound to result in global warming. |
| C．All elements of climate change have been communicated to the public. |
| D．Using polar bears as the only icon of climate change will cause some problems. |
| A．Failing to understand our planet. |
| B．Refusing to take immediate action. |
| C．Living apart from polar bear habitat. |
| D．Using polar bears to explain climate change. |
| A．The occurrence of climate change |
| B．The possible impact of climate change |
| C．The dangerous symbol of polar bears |
| D．The importance of protecting polar bears |
【推荐1】When I was about 5 years old, I experienced my very first random act of kindness. I was sitting at the roadside one evening, crying alone for some reason when suddenly, a boy came up to me and gave me a plastic rose, I remember the moment when I took the rose from his hand; I was smiling from ear to ear, whispering “I want to be like him” to myself as I watched him walking away.
From then on, I made it as my life mission to do random acts of kindness whenever I can. I was very determined to make other people smile. That was the only reason why I joined my school’s Red Crescent Society and became a volunteer. Unfortunately, not everyone thinks in the same way as I did. Whenever I do something nice to others, people around me will start to judge my actions. Often I will just keep quiet and ignore what they say, but every once in a while, they do drive me up the wall.
These people like to complain about how humans nowadays are lacking of humanities and compassion. However, when they actually see somebody doing a good deed in front of them, they start to question and criticize that person’s honesty. Perhaps it is the increasing crime rate and the never-ending rat race that caused them to be so suspicious to nice strangers. In other words, people nowadays have lost sight of the real meaning of kindness and just let it go unnoticed. That is why I think random acts of kindness are really important. These selfless acts are not only capable of bringing joy to the receivers but also to the givers. Because of this, I want to help spread the idea of these random acts to the whole world. I want to show the people how the little things they give could make a big difference in someone else’s life.
1. What was the influence of the boy’s rose on the author?| A．It made the author feel ashamed. | B．The author decided to follow suit. |
| C．The author said a lot to the boy. | D．It gave the author strength and hope. |
| A．To be a volunteer. | B．To live a happy life. |
| C．To make others smile. | D．To have a good time. |
| A．Make me very angry. | B．Bring difficulty to me. |
| C．Force me to climb the wall. | D．Force me to the dead corner. |
【推荐2】Learning a foreign language can be a difficult task for most people. The degree of difficulty, however, differs from one person to another. Like studying any other subject, we have to spend much effort and time. Besides, an individual’s learning ability can be determined by the following factors.
My husband says I am a quick learner, but I easily forget new information, especially dates and figures. But my husband spends more time learning a new subject but seldom forgets what he has learned. Some people can learn new information fast, while others have to work a little bit harder at it. Others retain new knowledge longer, like my husband, while others easily forget what they just learned. How fast and well you learn new things are determined by your genes and your environment. My mother is a fast learner, while my husband has slow learning parents. The way we learn also differs. I like to write down what I’ve just learned. I also find that drawing diagrams and relationships work better for me. Compared with my husband, I hate memorizing data. I remember things better when I can visually picture them in my mind.
Foreign language resources are not so common here in our area. I’ve seen a few dictionaries in some bookstores but haven’t seen any CD or DVD about it. I don’t even think the stores here sell electronic dictionaries! I have to go to a big city just to buy one. However, you may easily get all of these materials. Make a list of all the resources you have access to in your neighborhood. In this way, when you attend a language school, you’ll know just where to find dictionaries to help you in your course.
In my opinion, this is the most important factor in learning a foreign language: your drive to learn. Different people are driven by different motivations. I want to learn a new language because I find it challenging. Others may need to learn it because of having a new job or working in foreign countries. The point is to determine whether you truly need or just want to learn a foreign language.
1. What does the underlined word “retain” in Paragraph 2 mean?| A．Remember | B．Acquire | C．Spread | D．Improve |
| A．likes to draw diagrams | B．hates memorizing data |
| C．learns new things slowly | D．easily forgets new information |
| A．The resources one can get in the neighborhood. |
| B．The determination to overcome difficulties. |
| C．The motivation to learn a foreign language. |
| D．The ability to learn a foreign language. |
| A．share her experience in learning a foreign language |
| B．analyze why people cannot learn a foreign language well |
| C．tell us how to find the method of learning a foreign language |
| D．introduce some factors affecting our language learning ability |
【推荐3】People think of cats as cute. But research published in a psychology journal calls them neurotic and unstable. Researchers from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and the Bronx Zoo in New York compared the personalities of domestic house cats with those of four different types of wildcats.
To better understand their personalities, the researchers rated a number of animals’ behaviors on what psychologists call the Big Five human personality traits: openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and extraversion.
Domestic house cats have similar personality structures to African lions. “It's what cats do pretty much on a daily basis, things like being anxious, being timid, being excitable, being aggressive toward humans, being aggressive toward each other," said Max Wachtel, a Denver psychologist who didn't participate in the study. “All of those are characteristics you see in those cute little house cats, and you also see them in lions.”
If you ever thought your cat was anxious, insecure, tense, suspicious or aggressive toward you, you aren't making it up, he said. If they were bigger, they probably would consider killing you.
But the news isn't all bad: Just like lions, house cats are also playful, excitable and funny. They just aren't very predictable. One moment cats will be enjoying belly scratches, and the next they will be biting you to make you stop.
“It is good to understand the personality characteristics of our pets,” Wachtel said. “Different cats have different personalities, but as a species, there are a lot of commonalities."
The researchers also studied personality traits of Scottish wildcats and some other animals. “Across the five species we assessed, personality structure was strikingly similar and also seemed to be related to other studies' findings, such as in tigers,” the researchers wrote in their study in the November 2014 issue of the Journal of Comparative Psychology. But house cats were most like lions, potentially because they live in semi-social surroundings and lions are the most social of cats.
“They're cute and furry, but we need to remember when we have cats as pets, we are inviting little predators (捕食者) into our house,” Wachtel said. “Cats can be fantastic, sweet companions until theyturn onyou.”
1. According to the passage, cats can be described as _____.| A．funny and safe | B．cute and stable |
| C．fantastic and devoted | D．neurotic and unpredictable |
| A．By giving examples. | B．By providing explanations. |
| C．By making comparisons. | D．By analyzing cause and effect. |
| A．The book really turned me on to science. |
| B．Upon entering the room, he turned on the light. |
| C．The hungry suddenly turned on each other for food. |
| D．The trial turned on the medical evidence presented by the defense. |
| A．Cats are best pets. | B．Your cat may want to kill you. |
| C．Domestic cats and wildcats. | D．Different cats, different personalities. |
