Scientists have long known that a crow (乌鸦) native to New Caledonia is able to use tools. The birds use them to remove food from deep holes. Now, American researchers have discovered a second species of crow with the same ability. They reported on their experiments with Alala crows, which are from the Hawaiian Islands.
In the experiment, the researchers placed pieces of food in holes inside the wood. The holes were too deep for the crows to reach with their beaks (鸟喙). But, by using small pieces of wood held in their beaks, Alala crows quickly got the food. They used small objects as tools, sometimes changing them by shortening too-long sticks. They also made tools from plant materials.
“The crows use their beaks as people use fingers. Tool use is rare in the animal kingdom.” Said Chritian Rutz of University of St. Andrews. “Current evidence strongly suggests that tool use is part of the species’ natural behavioral pattern. These birds had no special training in the study, yet most of them were skilled at handling stick tools.”
Bird experts claim finding out that the crows use tools is important discovery. “It makes us rethink how to look at the whole tool-use idea now and encourages us to go out and look for things that we may have ignored before.”
All the Alala crows left in the world live in Hawaii. There were less than 20 Alalas left in the late 1990s when scientists decided to bring them into a protected area. Now, it is reported that there are over 100 birds living there. Scientists plan to release a small number of the birds back into the wild later.
1. What can Alala crows do according to the study?| A．Storing food in the wood. |
| B．Making holes in the wood. |
| C．Processing tools as needed. |
| D．Working together to get food. |
| A．Alala crows’ beaks look like people’s hands. |
| B．Using stick tools is not easy for Alala crows. |
| C．Using tools comes naturally to Alala crows. |
| D．Alala crows won’t use tools without being trained. |
| A．Set some of them free in nature. | B．Increase the population of them. |
| C．Move all of them out of Hawaii. | D．Build more protected areas for them. |
| A．A novel. | B．A business report. |
| C．A research plan. | D．A science magazine. |
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【推荐1】Archerfish(射水鱼), a species famous for spitting (吐) water to shoot insects out of the air, can recognize one human face from another.
In the laboratory, instead of shooting insects, the fish were taught to spit at pictures of human faces showed on a computer screen outside their aquarium. The fish were first introduced to two faces, and taught to spit at one of them in exchange for a food reward. The researchers then tested whether the fish would recognize and spit at the face they had learned from among 44 new ones. And they were right more than 80% of the time.
To the researchers’ surprise, even when they did that with faces that were in black and white, the fish were still able to find the face they were trained to recognize.
Telling one human face from another is a surprisingly difficult task. As we all have two eyes above a nose and a mouth, doing so depends on recognizing some extremely small differences.
“It has been supposed that this task is so difficult that it can only be completed by higher animals, which have a large and complex brain,” said Newport, whose study was published in the journal Scientific Reports. “But the archerfish were able to do this without having a neocortex, the most recently developed part of the brain. In humans, the neocortex governs our sense and language.”
“Fish have a simpler brain than humans and they don’t have the section of the brain that humans use for recognizing faces,” Newport said. “Even though, many fish show amazing visual (视力的) behaviors and therefore make the perfect subjects to test whether simple brains can complete complex tasks.”
1. What were the archerfish asked to do in the laboratory?| A．Pick out the face they knew. |
| B．Shoot the computers from a far distance. |
| C．Count the number of faces on the screen. |
| D．Pick out black and white pictures from colorful ones. |
| A．They have a complex brain. | B．Their neocortex is very large. |
| C．They belong to higher animals. | D．They have excellent eyesight. |
| A．To encourage people to protect fish. |
| B．To introduce a kind of fish with special ability. |
| C．To introduce the result of a study on archerfish. |
| D．To show that animals with simpler brains are smarter. |
【推荐2】Neil Jordan, a conservation biologist, has come up with a novel method for protecting cattle from African lions: paint eyes on their behinds. The lions will think their intended prey has seen them and will give up, since they’ve lost the element of surprise.
This psychological trickery has been called “iCow”, which is actually not as strange as it sounds. The eye-like patterns on butterfly wings are known to prevent preying birds and woodcutters in Indian forests wear masks on the backs of their heads when working to discourage hungry tigers.
The inspiration for the iCow strategy came while Jordan was based in a village in Botswana, when two lionesses were killed by local farmers to revenge their cattle’s death. The African lion is a vulnerable species, with numbers dropping from over 100,000 in the 1990s to about 30,000 today. Much of that decline is due to these kinds of revengeful killings because farmers have no effective strategies for protecting their herds.
“Lions are hunters that like to attack by surprise. They move slowly, quietly and carefully to their prey, get close and jump on them unseen,” he said. When Jordan was watching a lion follow an antelope one day, he noticed the lion gave up the hunt once the antelope spotted it.
So he joined one of the local farmers on a 10-week trial study, painting eyes on one-third of a herd of 62 cattle. When the cattle returned each night, they took a head count to see how many had survived. Only three cows were killed by lions during this period-all without the painted eyes on their behinds. And all the painted cows survived. However, Jordan warned that so far this is just a promising idea. He is now back in Botswana for a more ambitious study, armed with GPS devices to better monitor the movement of predators and prey.
1. The iCow strategy is designed to .| A．kill the lions | B．warn the preys of danger |
| C．identify the cattle | D．scare off animals that kill |
| A．give up halfway | B．hesitate to take action |
| C．chase their prey steadily | D．launch surprising attacks |
| A．The iCow strategy is likely to bring great benefit. |
| B．In the 10-week trial study more cattle were killed. |
| C．The farmers will take their revenge on more lions. |
| D．Neil got inspiration from patterns on butterfly wings. |
【推荐3】When people visit their local family-owned pumpkin patch around Halloween, they aren’t usually looking for dinner. The majority of the nearly 2 billion pounds of pumpkins grown in the US each year are carved（雕刻）up instead of being eaten, making them a unique part of the agriculture industry. For people who prefer seasonal recipes to decorations, that may raise a few questions: Are the pumpkins sold for jack-o’-lanterns different from pumpkins sold as food? And are Halloween pumpkins any good to eat?
Carving pumpkins, often with a round shape and deep orange color, don’t taste very good, because they are bred to be decorations first. They have walls that are thin enough to stick a knife through and a texture (质地) that’s unappealing compared to the ones consumers are used to eating. “Uncut carving pumpkins are safe to eat; however, it’s not the best type to use for cooking,” Daria McKelvey, a supervisor for the Kemper Center for Home Gardening at the Missouri Botanical Garden, tells Mental Floss. Unlike decorative pumpkins, cooking pumpkins are small and dense (紧实的). This is one reason they taste better. McKelvey says. “Cooking pumpkins are smaller, sweeter, and have fewer fibers, making them easier to cook with—but not so good for carving.” These pumpkins can be added into soup, or simply roasted.
If you do want to get some use out of your carving pumpkins this Halloween, turn the flesh of your Halloween pumpkin into purée. Adding sugar and spices and baking it into a dessert can do a lot to mask the fruit’s underwhelming flavor(味道). Whatever you do, make sure your pumpkin isn’t carved up already when you decide to cook with it. Never use one that’s been carved into a jack-o’-lantern, otherwise you could be dealing with bacteria, dirt and dust.
1. What’s the writer’s purpose in paragraph 1?| A．To introduce a new concept. | B．To lead readers to the topic. |
| C．To make a summary. | D．To offer background information. |
| A．By providing examples. | B．By following the order of time. |
| C．By making comparisons. | D．By following the order of importance. |
| A．Because they are specifically used for decoration. |
| B．Because they are not so delicious as the ones sold for food. |
| C．Because they are too expensive to serve as a dish. |
| D．Because they are not healthy and safe enough as food. |
| A．A diary. | B．A magazine. |
| C．A novel. | D．A guidebook. |
【推荐1】The Vienna-based researchers showed that dogs will stop doing a simple task when not rewarded if another dog, which continues to be rewarded is present.
The experiment consisted of taking pairs of dogs and getting them to present a paw for a reward. On giving this “handshake” the dogs received a piece of food. One of the dogs was then asked to shake hands, but received no food. The other dog continued to get the food when it was asked to perform the task.
The dog without the reward quickly stopped doing the task, and showed signs of anger or stress when its partner was rewarded.
To make sure that the experiment was really showing the interaction between the dogs rather than just the frustration of not being rewarded, a similar experiment was conducted where the dogs performed the task without the partner. Here they continued to present the paw for much longer.
Dr. Frederike Range from the University of Vienna says this shows that it was the presence of the rewarded partner that was the greater influence on their behavior.
“The only difference is that one gets food and the other doesn’t. They are responding to being unequally rewarded.” she says.
The researchers say this kind of behavior, where one animal gets frustrated with what is happening with another, has only been observed in primates (灵长类) before.
Studies with various types of monkeys and chimpanzees show they react’ not only to seeing their partners receiving rewards when they are not, but also to the type of reward.
The dog study also looked at whether the type of reward made a difference. Dogs were given either bread or sausage, but seemed to react equally to either. Dr. Range says this may be because they have been trained.
1. The dogs refused to give the paw when they ________.| A．found another dog was given nothing | B．felt they were not treated equally |
| C．were aware they received less food | D．were given too much reward |
| A．It would go on with the performance much longer. |
| B．It would be too shy to present its paw. |
| C．It would miss its partner. |
| D．It would compare what it got with that of another. |
| A．pay no attention to the type of reward |
| B．only like to play interesting games |
| C．pay attention to the type of reward as well as whether they are rewarded |
| D．care more about how they are rewarded |
| A．Animals’ various ways to show anger. |
| B．Dogs are more envious than human beings. |
| C．Most animals want to be rewarded for their work. |
| D．Animals also have a sense of fairness. |
【推荐2】Do patients of female doctors seem to live longer? Study after study has shown that it may be true. A recent study looked at the outcomes of male and female heart patients. It found that death rates for both women and men were lower when the doctor was female. Women treated by male doctors had the highest death rate.
The reason is that women doctors are more likely to listen to their patients. They are more likely to take their patients seriously than male doctors do.
Another study focused on listening. It found female doctors spent more time listening to patients than their male colleagues did. But taking time to listen comes with a cost. By the end of the day, the women doctors fell an hour behind in their schedules.
Does this make women “better” doctors? Well, yes and no. Listening skills are the key. It follows that listening leads to taking patients seriously. Listening is particularly important for the well-being of heart patients. Heart attack symptoms can be different in men and women. Chest pains, for instance, are less common in women who are having a heart attack. If there is no chest pain, doctors often leave out a heart attack. Male doctors are less likely to listen to female patients. They may be more likely to miss other heart attack symptoms.
Why do female patients do better when treated by female doctors? It may be that women patients feel more comfortable talking to female physicians. Or it may be that women doctors are more focused on the unique heart disease symptoms that can occur in women. It could be that women doctors are better communicators. Or women doctors may be better at picking up clues from female patients.
1. What can be inferred from paragraph 1?| A．Men treated by male doctors had the highest death rate. |
| B．Women treated by male doctors had lower death rate. |
| C．Men treated by female doctors had the highest death rate. |
| D．Women treated by female doctors had lower death rate. |
| A．Because female doctors are more skilled. |
| B．Because female doctors are more charming. |
| C．Because female doctors know more about patients. |
| D．Because female doctors are unwilling to give up. |
| A．Their health will be badly damaged. |
| B．They won’t make as much money as men do. |
| C．They will miss the time spent with their families. |
| D．They have to spend more time finishing their work. |
| A．uncertain | B．unexpected | C．objective | D．obvious |
【推荐3】Finding it hard to focus in the modern open office setup is a common problem. For some, the only way to actually get things done is to leave the office and work from a coffee shop. It may sound strange, but research shows that workers are able to focus more attentively on their job in a busy coffee shop than from their office. And it's not because of tasty coffee they're sipping on.
A newly study from Harvard Business Review reports that noise may not be the problem — it's the people who are making the noise. A research conducted in the Journal of Consumer Research found that the just right amount of surrounding noise can actually be helpful in thinking creatively. Of course, there may be the same levels of noise in an average office as there are in a coffee shop, but because most workers want or have to engage in office conversations, those noises act as a distraction. Essentially, the white noise present in cafe-like spaces produce an environment that can cause your brain to loosen up and thus think creatively; on the other hand, being in an open office exposes you to distractions from package deliveries to group announcements or your coworkers' whispering. Constantly being interrupted from your workflow is without doubt preventing your most creative thoughts from being realized.
Some employers try to make their open workspaces more like coffee shops, offering employees hang-out spaces in parts of the building with more comfortable seats and non-office settings. The idea is on the right track — focusing on work away from your desk may prevent certain distractions — however, you're still not safe from chatty coworkers entering the space, bringing the latest office stories along with them.
While putting on headphones is a good way to keep the noise from outside your office on a regular basis, when you're working on a big creative project, it may still be best to brainstorm in a coffee shop for an hour or so.
1. What's the issue presented in Paragraph 1?| A．Taste of coffee. | B．Office setting. | C．Worker's concentration. | D．Potential workers. |
| A．Co-workers. | B．Noise of office. | C．Setup of office. | D．Lack of coffee. |
| A．By providing examples. | B．By making comparisons. |
| C．By following the order of time. | D．By following the order of importance. |
| A．Negative. | B．Neutral. | C．Unknown. | D．Supportive. |
【推荐1】People in the United States honor their parents with 2 special days: Mother’s Day on the second Sunday in May and Father’s Day on the third Sunday in June. These days are to show love and respect for parents. They raise their children and educate them to be responsible citizens. They give love and care. These two days offer an opportunity to think about the changing roles of mothers and fathers. More mothers now work outside the home and more fathers must help with child-care.
These two special days are celebrated in many different ways. On Mother’s Day, people wear carnations. A red one symbolizes a living mother. A white one shows that the mother is dead. Many people attend religious services to honor parents. It’s also a day when people whose parents are dead visit the cemetery. On these days families get together at home as well as in restaurants. They often have outdoor barbecues for Father’s Day. These are days of fun and good feelings and memories.
Another tradition is to give cards and gifts. Children make them in school. Many people make their own presents. These are more valued than those bought in stores. It’s not the value of the gift that is important, but “the thought that counts”. Greeting card stores, florists, candy makers, bakers, phone companies and other stores do lots of business during these holidays.
1. Which is NOT a reason for children to show love and respect for parents?| A．Parents bring up children. |
| B．Parents give love and care to children. |
| C．Parents educate children to be good persons. |
| D．Parents pass away before children grow up. |
| A．Both festivals are in May. |
| B．Fewer women worked outside the home in the past. |
| C．Not all the children respect their parents. |
| D．Fathers are not as important as mothers at home. |
| A．It has three kinds of color. |
| B．It refers to the special people on Mother’s Day. |
| C．It’s a kind of flower showing love and best wishes. |
| D．People can wear them only on the second Sunday in May. |
| A．people usually have family parties |
| B．everyone goes to the cemetery |
| C．children always go to parents’ home |
| D．hand-made cards are not the most valuable gifts |
【推荐2】“While animals can’t pick out precise numbers, they can understand that more is more. Interestingly, we know now that numerical competence is present on almost every branch of the animal tree of life,” says Andreas Nieder, a neurobiologist from the University of Tuebingen. “Different groups of animals obviously developed this trait independently from others and that strongly indicates that it has to be of adaptive value.”
Honeybees, for instance, can remember the number of landmarks they pass when searching for food in order to find their way back to the hive. The last common ancestor between honeybees and primates lived about 600 million years ago. But still, they evolved numerical competence that, in many respects, is comparable to vertebrate numerical competence. Also, for example, male frogs sing “advertisement” calls to attract females. The females, listening for the complexity of their calls, choose the male that sings the most calls.
Wolves are more likely to hunt successfully if they have the right number of wolves in their pack for the size of their prey: With prey like deer, only around six to eight wolves are needed, while hunting wild ox requires a pack of nine to thirteen. Their prey also uses this concept to protect themselves from predators—deer tend to live in large herds to reduce the chance of any individual becoming prey. So obviously they are assessing the number of individuals in their groups for their everyday life situations.
Despite these many examples of numerical competence in animals, this subject has not gotten many first-hand studies. “Many of these behavioral findings in the wild have usually been collected as by-products or accidental findings of other research questions,” says Nieder. He argues that more research needs to be done to fully understand the numerical competence.
1. Animals have their own numerical competence shows that______.| A．all groups of animals can know the exact numbers |
| B．numerical competence must have a survival benefit |
| C．animals’ intelligence varies with different environments |
| D．animals’ numerical competence is determined by their adaptability |
| A．It helps them form proper hunting groups. | B．It gives them more options to hunt. |
| C．It makes them discover more prey. | D．It offers them new skills to hunt. |
| A．By listing figures. | B．By asking questions. |
| C．By giving examples. | D．By making comparisons |
| A．A biology textbook. | B．A health magazine. |
| C．A travel brochure. | D．A science report. |
【推荐3】Prosocial behaviors are those intended to help other people. Behaviors that can be described as prosocial include feeling empathy(同感) and concern for others and behaving in ways to help or benefit other people.
Prosocial behavior has long posed a challenge to social scientists seeking to understand why people engage in helping behaviors that are beneficial to others, but costly to the individual performing the action. Why would people do something that benefits someone else but offers no immediate benefit to the doer?
Psychologists suggest that there are a number of reasons why people engage in prosocial behavior. In many cases, such behaviors are fostered during childhood and adolescence as adults encourage children to share, act kindly, and help others. Prosocial behaviors are often seen as being compelled by a number of factors including egoistic reasons (doing things to improve one's selfimage), reciprocal benefits (doing something nice for someone so that they may one day return the favor), and more altruistic reasons (performing actions purely out of empathy for another individual).
Characteristics of the situation can also have a powerful impact on whether or not people engage in prosocial actions. The bystander effect is one of the most notable examples of how the situation can impact helping behaviors. The bystander effect refers to the tendency for people to become less likely to assist a person in distress when there are a number of other people also present. For example, if you drop your purse and several items fall out on the ground, the likelihood that someone will stop and help you decreases if there are many other people present. This same sort of thing can happen in cases where someone is in serious danger, such as when someone is involved in a car accident. In some cases, witnesses might assume that since there are so many other present, someone else will have surely already called for help.
Why do people help in some situations but not in others? Experts have discovered a number of different situational variables that contribute to (and sometimes interfere with) prosocial behaviors. First, the more people that are present decreases the amount of personal responsibility people feel in a situation. People also tend to look to others for how to respond in such situations, particularly if the event contains some level of ambiguity. Fear of being judged by other members of the group also plays a role. People sometimes fear leaping to assistance, only to discover that their help was unwanted or unwarranted. In order to avoid being judged by other bystanders, people simply take no action.
Experts have suggested that some key things must happen in order for a person to take action.
1. Prosocial behaviors are motivated for all the following reasons EXCEPT ________.| A．empathy for another individual | B．instant benefits of helping others |
| C．parental influences in the early life | D．the desire to better one's selfimage |
| A．peace | B．despair |
| C．comfort | D．trouble |
| A．When hearing an injured lady crying for help, the neighbors didn't take action. |
| B．Seeing an old man slipping on the icy road, many people volunteered to help. |
| C．A woman was to give birth on the train and you were the only doctor there. |
| D．On the scene of your colleague's traffic accident, you called the police for help |
| A．possible benefits of prosocial behavior |
| B．various reasons for prosocial behavior |
| C．situational influences on prosocial behavior |
| D．skills and knowledge to provide assistance |
