Say “Sit” to your dog, and he’ll likely sit on the floor. But would he respond correctly if the word were spoken by a stranger, or someone with a thick accent? A new study shows he will, suggesting dogs understand spoken words in a clever and complicated way long thought unique to humans.
Holly Root-Gutteridge, a biologist, and her colleagues ran a test. The researchers filmed 42 dogs of different breeds as they sat with their owners near an audio speaker that played noncommand words with similar sounds, such as “had”, “hid”, and “who’d”. The words were spoken-not by the dog’s owner-but by several strangers, men and women of different ages and with different accents.
In the video above, the dog Max turns quickly and listens seriously when he hears a woman say “had” for the first time. But as other women with different accents repeat the word, he loses interest, indicating he knows they are all saying the same word. When a speaker says a new word, like “who’d”, Max cheers up again, but his attention flags when a new voice returns to saying “had”. Together, these reactions suggest dogs recognize words regardless of the speaker-and that they don’t need any training to do it, the team reports today in Biology Letters.
“It’s wonderful—and novel—to see research looking at dogs’ reactions to words that are not commands or requests,” says Alexandra Horowitz, a researcher at Barnard College in New York City. Because of the nature of the test, however, the scientists cannot show that the dogs “understood” what the words meant, Horowitz points out. “But the work clearly demonstrates that dogs are listening to us,” she says, even when our speech is not about them.
1. What can we learn from this study?| A．Dogs can hear some simple words. | B．Dogs can hear words like humans. |
| C．Dogs cannot understand a stranger. | D．Dogs know their owners’ meaning. |
| A．Record their sounds. | B．Record their reactions. |
| C．Train their hearing ability. | D．Train their learning ability. |
| A．The result of the study. | B．A dog filmed in the study. |
| C．An example of the research. | D．Different reactions of the dogs. |
| A．Objective. | B．Favorable. |
| C．Opposed. | D．Unclear. |
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【推荐1】A little social support from your best friends goes a long way, whether you‘re a human or a chimp (黑猩猩). A new study that followed a chimp community in the forests of Uganda has found that quality time with close companions significantly decreased stress hormone (荷尔蒙) levels—whether they were resting, cleaning or facing off against enemies.
Researchers have long known that stress can worsen health and raise the risk of early death in humans as well as other social mammals. “It can have effects on immune function, cognition, and even your mood,” said study co-author Kevin Langergraber, a scientist at Arizona State University.
Maintaining close social bonds can help these animals reduce some of that stress, potentially reducing some health risks. But scientists have yet to work out how. “Social bonds make you survive and produce better—but how do they do that？”Langergraber said.
To find out, the international team of researchers studied members of a chimp community in Uganda‘s Budongo Forest, a group of 15 males, 35 females and 28 young chimps. Like humans, chimps tend to have besties—bond partners with whom they appear to feel close. The researchers wanted to see whether interactions with these bond partners led to lower stress levels during particularly stressful situations, such as when fighting enemies, or whether time spent with friends helped lower stress levels more generally, throughout the day.
The scientists observed the chimps perform three types of activities: resting, cleaning or fighting with other groups of chimps. The researchers kept track of whether the chimps were doing any of these three things with their bond partners or with other chimps in their group.
A team of up to six observers watched the chimps and followed them around to collect urine(尿液) samples. The samples, collected from nine adult male and eight adult female chimps, were tested to see how much of the stress hormone they contained.
The scientists found that chimps‘ levels were 23% lower, on average, during the activities when they were with their bond partner. This was especially true for stressful activities, such as the intergroup rivalries, where any chimp on the front line might face physical harm or even death.
The findings in chimps, some of our closest living relatives, could shed light on the role such close social relationships play in human health too, he said. Such friendships may be just as important during good times as bad—though more research needs to be done before any conclusions can be drawn.
1. How did the scientists carry out their research?| A．By interacting with chimps. |
| B．By studying a chimp community. |
| C．By analyzing previous studies on chimps. |
| D．By comparing chimps’ three types of activities. |
| A．Observers. | B．Chimps. |
| C．Bond partners. | D．Urine samples. |
| A．To emphasize the bad effects of stress on health. |
| B．To show us how chimps control their stress level. |
| C．To inform us friendships benefit both chimps and humans. |
| D．To urge scientists to further study the benefits of friendships. |
【推荐2】The current population of oysters (牡蛎) is only a small part of their historic levels.
The critical nature of oysters in the ecosystem is difficult to overstate. Along the Atlantic shoreline of the United States, the Eastern Oyster is considered a foundation species. Oysters gather together as part of their natural life cycle, forming reefs that provide the habitat for fish, crabs, and other small ocean creatures.
In addition to being the bedrock of many underwater communities, oysters also help maintain the cleanliness of South Carolina’s coastal waters. Dirty water comes in from the ocean and gets filtered by oysters. Water goes back out cleanly.
South Carolina is working hard to rebuild coastal reefs that will support and sustain future oyster populations. It’s worth keeping in mind that every shell removed from the river could be the base for the next year’s new oysters.
| A．Once we lose that natural shell base |
| B．These little tiny fish need somewhere to hide |
| C．Because it is important to recycle the oyster shells |
| D．Even the local tourism industry relies on this effect of oysters |
| E．The best place to settle is going to be where there are adult oysters |
| F．South Carolina is actively working to restore and sustain its wild oysters |
| G．Oyster shells, both live and dead, provide the main habitat for the next generation |
【推荐3】A new study shows the singing noises made by humpback whales (座头鲸) might be a sign of being lonely. Scientists who recorded humpback whale behavior in Australia discovered that fewer whales made the singing noises as their population grew.
“Humpback whale song is loud and travels far in the ocean,” said marine biologist Dunlop of the University of Queensland in Brisbane. She has long studied humpback whales and helped lead the new study. Her work has centered on humpbacks that reproduce near Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. She made an unexpected discovery as the number of whales sharply rose following the end of commercial whaling. ”It was getting more difficult to actually find singers,” she said. “When there were fewer of them, there was a lot of singing. Now that there are lots of them, there is no need to sing so much.”
Scientists first began to hear and study the songs of the humpback whales in the 1970s. They used underwater microphones to do so. Only male whales sing. Scientists think the whales sing to display their power.
Eastern Australia’s humpback whales came close to disappearing in the 1960s, when their number dropped to around 200. But over time the population began to regrow, climbing to about 27, 000 whales by 2015. That number is near pre-whaling levels. As the number of whales increased, their singing behaviors changed. Dunlop said while 2 in 10 males made wailing noises in 2004, 10 years later the number had dropped to 1 in 10.
It is said that humpback whales must have been singers long before whale fishing diminished their numbers. But the new study proves how necessary their beautiful songs were to their survival and recovery. Clearly singing became extremely valuable when their numbers were very low.
1. What is the probable reason why humpback whales sing according to the new study?| A．Danger. | B．Hunting. | C．Loneliness. | D．Hopelessness. |
| A．Humpback whales always keep silent. |
| B．The more humpback whales, the less singing. |
| C．The number of humpback whales increases sharply. |
| D．The farther humpback whales’ songs go, the better. |
| A．To sound a warning. | B．To shout for help. |
| C．To leave for their home. | D．To show off their strength. |
| A．Let down. | B．Let in. | C．Cut down. | D．Cut in. |
【推荐1】Popeye the Sailor first became a popular cartoon in the 1930s.The sailor in that cartoon ate lots of spinach(菠菜) to make him strong. People watched him, and they began to buy and eat a lot more spinach. Popeye helped sell 33 percent more spinach than before! Spinach became a necessary part of many people’s diets. Even some children who hated the taste began to eat the vegetable.
Many people thought that the iron in spinach made Popeye strong, but this is not true. Spinach does not have any more iron than any other green vegetable.
People only thought spinach had a lot of iron because the people who studied the food made a mistake. In the 1890s, a group of people studied what was inside vegetables. This group said that spinach had ten times more iron than it did. The group wrote the number wrong, and everyone accepted it.
Today, we know that the little iron there is in spinach cannot make a difference in how strong a person is. However, spinach does have something else which the body needs—folic acid.
It is interesting to point out that folic acid can help make a person strong. Maybe it was really the folic acid that made Popeye strong all along.
1. A good title for this reading passage is______.| A．The Truth about Spinach | B．Popeye the Sailor |
| C．A Mistake with Numbers | D．Folic Acid Makes You Strong |
| A．They thought Popeye was funny. |
| B．They thought spinach made them strong. |
| C．Spinach had a lot of iron. |
| D．People liked folic acid. |
| A．made Popeye strong |
| B．was a green vegetable |
| C．had more iron than other green vegetables |
| D．had less iron than other green vegetables |
| A．iron | B．exercise |
| C．spinach | D．folic acid |
【推荐2】In a new study released last week，researchers analyzed data from two large-scale surveys about how Americans spend their time.
The researchers found that people with more free time generally had higher levels of subjective well-being—but only up to a point. People who had up to two hours of free time a day generally reported they felt better than those who’d had less time. But people who had five or more hours of free time a day generally said they felt worse. So the free-time “sweet spot” might be two to three hours per day, the findings suggest.
“While too little time is bad，having more time is not always better，”said Marissa Sharif, an assistant professor of marketing at The Wharton School and lead author of the paper, in a press release. Of course, most people know that being too busy can cause stress. But the new study is not the first to question whether more free time will actually make people as happy as they believe it will. Experts note，for example，that some adults struggle with the “retirement blues”, which can be due to a lack of stimulation and structure among other things.
“Sweet spot” has to do with how people spend the extra time they have, the researchers behind the new study argue. They conducted several smaller online experiments. In one they asked participants to imagine having 3 to 7 free hours per day. They were asked to imagine spending that time doing “productive” things or to imagine doing “unproductive” activities. Study participants believed theft well-being would suffer if they spend the free time unproductively.
“Of course，what feels ‘productive’ is up to you. If watching two hours of ‘Real Housewives’ in your free time increases your happiness，you should do that. The point of all of this is self-care，not shame. In other words，how people use their free time matters.” Sharif added.
1. What feeling can be inferred from “retirement blues”?| A．Thrilled. | B．Depressed. |
| C．Amazed. | D．Disappointed. |
| A．To prove people’s attitude towards free time matters. |
| B．To argue which survey has the convincing finding. |
| C．To make participants spend their spare time wisely. |
| D．To tell people less free time can actually cause stress. |
| A．Helping you reduce unnecessary stress. |
| B．Finishing more work within fixed time. |
| C．Making you feel good about yourself. |
| D．Ensuring you to take good care of yourself. |
| A．“Sweet spot” is concerned with people’s well-being. |
| B．More free time enables people to be much happier. |
| C．Productive activities make people save more time. |
| D．Proper spare time boosts people’s sense of happiness. |
【推荐3】People who give, live longer, studies have shown. Now, a new study by University of Michigan shows that why people volunteer—not whether they volunteer—is what really counts.
For the study, Konrath and colleagues analyzed data collected in 2008 and 2012 aiming at the same random samples of 3,376 people. Overall, they found that just 2.3 percent of those who once worked as volunteers had died, compared to 4.3 percent of non-volunteers. They further found that how much people volunteered mattered as well—only 1.8 percent of regular volunteers died, compared with 2.5 percent of occasional volunteers.
But what really made a difference were people’s motives for volunteering. The researchers asked people to rate how important they found various reasons for volunteering, and they found that the more important people rated reasons such as feeling pity for people in need, the more likely they were to be alive. Those who rated motives related to personal benefit as more important were more likely to have died, and just as likely to die as those who didn’t volunteer at all. These reasons included volunteering because they enjoyed the social contact, to escape their own problems, or to explore their own strengths.
Konrath says the current findings suggest it may be a poor idea to encourage people to volunteer because it’s good for them. “Volunteering is increasingly being encouraged in schools and organizations. Some groups say that it’s okay to want benefits for yourself, and encourage people to think of volunteering as an exchange for personal interests. Some groups emphasize the health benefits received through volunteering.” Konrath added, “Of course, it’s reasonable for volunteers to expect benefits for themselves. But the potential health benefits of volunteering are significantly reduced if self-benefit becomes a person’s main motive.”
1. What does the new study mainly find?| A．How we volunteer makes sense to others. | B．How often we volunteer makes a difference. |
| C．Whether we volunteer decides our well-being. | D．Why we volunteer has an impact on our health. |
| A．By analyzing statistics. | B．By rating volunteers’ performances. |
| C．By doing lab experiments. | D．By grouping participants randomly. |
| A．To develop abilities. | B．To make more friends. |
| C．To help the poor people. | D．To solve personal problems. |
| A．Practical suggestions on further studies. | B．A further explanation of the current findings. |
| C．Potential applications of the research method. | D．A reasonable doubt about the research results. |
【推荐1】Years ago, I interviewed James Patterson, an advertising manager, about the latest campaign. But all he wanted to talk about was fiction-writing. “I hope to be a writer. It is always in my head,” he said.
I remember thinking: Sure, you and everybody else.
A decade or so later, however, I was surprised to see James on TV, holding up his new book.
Mr. Patterson’s ability to see himself as a writer illustrates a concept known as “possible selves.” The term, coined in 1986 by the social psychologists Hazel Markus and Paula Nurius, grew out of research on self-concept. While self-concepts – “I am a kind person” or “I am a good parent”- are rooted in the present, the researchers found people are also informed by ideas about what they might become and how they might change.
These possible selves, both positive and negative, are closely related to motivation. A violin student who envisions life as a professional musician might be motivated to practice. A person whose feared possible self is an alcoholic may become a non-drinker. In a small study, when young adults were encouraged to envision themselves as either regular exercisers (hoped-for selves) or inactive(feared selves), both groups exercised more in the weeks afterward.
A possible self can take you beyond daydreams, which are often not necessarily grounded in reality. It can come to fruition if you build a bridge from your “now” self to the possible self. “If you’re regularly dreaming of a different career, enroll in a course, shadow someone, take up a hobby or a side job. Making the transition requires you to say now, today, this week, these are the steps I can actually take to attain the goal,” said Daphna Oyserman, a psychology professor at the University of Southern California.
But don’t quit your job just yet. An analysis of career-transition research concluded that successful reinventions require adjustments and re-evaluations as you go. Mr. Patterson, for example, wrote almost a dozen books while still at his ad agency; he found his style only after many tries.
1. Why does the author mention the interview?| A．To show his expectation. | B．To explain his surprise. |
| C．To display Patterson’s ability. | D．To introduce a concept. |
| A．It involves three aspects. |
| B．It allows for personal growth. |
| C．It ensures one a promising future. |
| D．It includes the idea of self-concept. |
| A．The idea of “now”self. |
| B．The wish for the career transition. |
| C．The importance of concrete action. |
| D．The necessity of expert-consulting. |
| A．Different writing styles. |
| B．Multiple research methods. |
| C．Patterson’s success in his advertising business. |
| D．The exploration and adaptation of job transition. |
【推荐2】A small group of paleontologists (古生物学家) recently discovered 10 species of ancient mammals previously unknown to science with the help of an enormous number of helpers at their dig site——ants.
The study of ancient mammals casts new light on the diversity of mammals that existed in North America around 33 million to 35 million years ago, when the climate was changing drastically. It also pays attention to the harvester ants (收割蚁), with which researchers have long had a love-hate relationship.“The ants are not fantastic when they’re biting you,” said Samantha Hopkins, a professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Oregon.“But I’ve got to appreciate them because they make my job a whole lot easier.”
Most species of harvester ants live in subterranean caves that sit beneath a small hill of dirt. They strengthen the dirt by covering it with bits of rock and other tough materials. The ants have been known to travel over a hundred feet from their caves and to dig six feet deep in pursuit of materials that help secure their caves. The materials include fossils (化石). Harvester ants can carry materials 10 times to 50 times the weight of their body, although they do not weigh very much, so the heaviest fossil they can collect weighs less than the average pill.
Given the size, harvester ant hills are hot spots for what scientists call microvertebrate (微型脊椎动物) fossils, which are animal fossils too small to see without a microscope. For over a century, scientists like Dr. Hopkins have found sediment (沉积物) off the sides of harvester ant hills in search of these fossils, making it easier to find large numbers of fossilized mammal teeth without spending hours in the field sifting through sand and dirt.
1. What is the purpose of the passage?| A．To compare two different species. | B．To provide evidence for discoveries. |
| C．To introduce a kind of ant as a helper. | D．To promote awareness of mammal protection. |
| A．Climate change. | B．Ant numbers. | C．Cave materials. | D．Dirt locations. |
| A．Coastal. | B．Urban. | C．Mountainous. | D．Underground. |
| A．Their caves are miles deep. | B．Materials with fossils are their food. |
| C．They can carry pills around. | D．Fossils may be found around their hills. |
【推荐3】Scientists in Britain have managed to teach bees to pull strings (线) to get to food and then pass on what they have learned to others in their colony (群体) — showing a high level of intelligence despite their tiny brains.
Researchers at Queen Mary University of London said the experiments, often used to test the intelligence of apes (猿) and birds, showed for the first time that some insects are up to the task, and can also pass skills on through several generations.
The findings add to the evidence suggesting the ability for “culture spread”— the ability to learn and pass on knowledge and skills — may not be exclusive to humans.
In the research, published in the journal PLOS Biology on Tuesday, the scientists were able to train 23 out of a group of 40 bees to pull strings with their legs and feet.
The strings were attached to discs — or artificial “flowers” — containing food at their center but placed under a transparent (透明的) screen. The bees, spotting the food beneath the screen, learned to pull the “flowers” out by pulling the string with their legs and feet to be able to get to it.
From another group of bees given the chance to solve the task without any training, only two of 110 were successful.
Another group of bees was then allowed to observe the trained bees pulling the strings, and 60 percent of them successfully learned the skill. Finally, trained bees were put in colonies, and the scientists found the technique spread successfully to a majority of the colony's worker bees.
Lars Chittka, a Queen Mary University professor who guided the project, said the team is interested in figuring out the brain processes behind the bees' learning and teaching skills.
1. Which of the following can replace the underlined word “exclusive” in Paragraph 3?| A．Typical. | B．Limited. |
| C．Obvious | D．Widespread. |
| A．Bees learn best in insects. | B．Bees are as clever as birds. |
| C．Bees are born good learners. | D．Bees can be trained to learn skills. |
| A．What else bees can do. | B．Where bees learn skills. |
| C．How bees teach others. | D．How bees' brains work. |
| A．Small Bees, Great Abilities | B．Bees Can Learn and Teach |
| C．Bees Are Smarter | D．Let Bees Learn |
