What kinds of rooms are your favorite spots for studying? We are going to guess that they are probably not painted bright red or yellow. But maybe they should be. Imagine. You are suddenly asked to prepare for an exam. You have two rooms to choose from. One is a pale blue, and the other is a bright red. Which one do you settle into for study? Is one going to get your brain fired up for learning, or let you relax into a best state of concentration?
According to researchers at Curtin University in Australia, it might be the best to camp out in the bright red room when you are looking to store information. It might sound strange, since we often think of pale rooms — soft blues or light greens — as relaxing, or even reassuring (令人安心的). And they seem to be: The Curtin University study showed that pale colors made participants feel more relaxed and calm, while bright colors increased heart rate. But calming and relaxing, it turns out, may not always be the best environment for deep concentration or knowledge gaining. Reading comprehension (阅读理解) was much better in the bright rooms than in the paler rooms. Although participants reported that they generally preferred the pale rooms to study in as an approach to relax into work, the researchers saw just the opposite — that the bright-colored rooms seemed to lead to greater concentration.
While this might seem only surprising, the finding gets into a rather controversial area of psychological (心理学的) study. The Yerkes-Dodson Law says that a little bit of stress is good for achieving best performance, while too much stress negatively affects it. The higher heart rate and the reports of the bright colors creating a heavy atmosphere might just suggest that a little stress was good for the brain.
1. What is the common idea mentioned in the first paragraph?| A．Few people like bright red or yellow. | B．Pale colors are connected with good grades. |
| C．Light-colored rooms make you feel nervous. | D．Bright-colored rooms are not good for studying. |
| A．Participants’ preferences in colors. | B．How participants reacted to colors. |
| C．Time participants spent in the rooms. | D．What participants read in the rooms. |
| A．Most people know how to make use of colors. |
| B．Stress is needed when you want to concentrate. |
| C．The higher the stress, the better your performance. |
| D．Being relaxed is very important to people studying. |
| A．Findings about people’s favourite room colors. |
| B．Bright-colored rooms can create a heavy atmosphere. |
| C．Room colors can affect one’s academic performance. |
| D．Light-colored rooms help people feel relaxed into work. |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】When some people don’t know much about a topic, they may not realise just how little they know. As a result, they may become overconfident and overestimate (高估) what they can do. A person might think he will get a B, for example, when he might not know enough to pass the test at all. The overconfidence has a name — the DunningKruger effect.
Charles Atwood, an educator at the University of Utah, was looking for possible reasons why some students at the university failed chemistry tests. He realised success for the students depended not only on what they knew but also on how much they didn’t know. If he wanted the students to improve, he would have to teach them to recognise the gaps in their knowledge.
Knowing just how bad they are in a subject may not help a student get better. Atwood thought lifting metacognition (元认知) might help the students to make sure where they needed help. Metacognition, according to Atwood, is assessing (评定) how you deal with a problem. That could help the students realise just how much chemistry they didn’t know so they could study accordingly.
To see if metacognition could work, Atwood studied two classes, which were taught chemistry in the same way. But students in one class were asked before each test how they thought they would perform (表现). After each test, students in the class got their scores through a computer program. Then the program gave them some topics which they’d been especially bad at in the test. Then, they were guided into making a study plan that would prepare them for the next test.
After a term, the class that got the guided study did better in the chemistry course, especially those who had been the most overconfident in the beginning. In addition, they reported having stopped their dangerous overconfidence.
It’s no fun shaking students’ confidence, but in the long run, students will get a lot from Atwood’s method. Confidence has its advantages, but students want to be both confident and knowledgeable.
1. Why are some people affected by the Dunning-Kruger effect?| A．They look down upon others. |
| B．They aren’t interested in learning. |
| C．They always want to get good grades in tests. |
| D．They don’t have a correct view of their abilities. |
| A．By giving them encouragement. |
| B．By telling them what topics to learn. |
| C．By helping them set right learning goals. |
| D．By making them learn from their failures. |
| A．After the next test started. | B．Before they got their scores. |
| C．Before they made a study plan. | D．After they made some progress. |
| A．Supportive. | B．Uninterested. | C．Doubtful. | D．Worried. |
【推荐2】Nowadays, it is more common for people to express their thoughts in an e-mail or text. In fact, more and more students use technology for written communication in their lives. Even so, research shows that teaching handwriting skills has its benefits (好处). However, are the benefits worth spending valuable classroom time on teaching handwriting skills when students could be learning more about computer keyboarding?
States across the country have good reasons to require students to learn computer keyboarding skills. For one, students are learning a technology that will help them communicate faster with more people and in many different forms, such as e-mails, websites, blogs, and so on. Also, the better a student's computer keyboarding skills, the greater the chance that student has to become a better writer. Computer tools such as the grammar and spell check make correcting quick and easy, although not 100% accurate (准确无误的). With these and many other tools, students gain important computer skills. Furthermore, students no longer have to worry about their writing being graded poorly by teachers. All in all, computer keyboarding skills are a step in the right direction.
Still, the advantages of computer keyboarding skills may not be enough to leave handwriting instruction in the dust. Marlena Hamilton, professor of neurology at University of Pennsylvania, did an experiment with her co-workers to study what happens in students' brains when writing. They found that many of the areas of the brain light up. These are the same areas that are used to learn to read. They then wondered if the same would be true when students looked at letters on a keyboard. “What we found,” she states, “is that brains are much less involved when we just view letters. When we actually use our hands to make things, the brain works much harder.”
Schools across the nation are looking at the evidence and deciding what to do. William McIntyre, a reading coach at Sunshine Elementary School in Albany, New York, says, “What we have learned from the research is that learning handwriting benefits students educationally. What we also know is that students need to be taught keyboarding skills.” Now, it is up to each school to make a decision.
1. What does the second paragraph mainly want to show?| A．The roles of computer tools. |
| B．The importance of communication skills. |
| C．The advantages of keyboarding skills. |
| D．The necessity of developing writing skills. |
| A．Worried | B．Doubtful | C．Supportive | D．Uncaring |
| A．Handwriting is helpful for learning. |
| B．Keyboarding skills are very useful. |
| C．Keyboarding makes our brain more active. |
| D．Handwriting is more difficult than keyboarding. |
| A．Whether schools should still teach handwriting. |
| B．Whether schools should offer computer classes. |
| C．Whether students should learn keyboarding skills. |
| D．Whether students should use the grammar and spell check. |
【推荐3】In 1939, seven-year-old Mariam Schreiber should have started first grade. Instead, she spent that year — and the following five — trying to survive. She was living in Poland when World War II broke out. “My entire life was ruined within minutes,” she says. “I was looking forward to starting school.” She never made it. And not having a degree has always been a thorn in her side.
Decades later, though, the now-89-year-old Holocaust survivor finally got something she had always longed for. Kapiloff Brander, director of community programs at Jewish Family Services, reached out to the New England Jewish Academy, a Jewish high school, to ask whether the school could help Mariam fulfill her wish. Richard Nabel, the principal of the school, brought a few senior students to Mariam’s home to hear her story before they came up with the idea of presenting her an honorary diploma at the school’s 2020 graduation ceremony.
Mariam suffered a lot in a slave labor camp in Siberia before she got liberated in 1946. She and her remaining family members went to a refugee camp in Germany, where she got married and had her first child at the age of 16. Having spent years in refugee camps in different countries, she finally immigrated to America in 1960. Getting a formal education was never an option for her but she learned seven languages over the years. “I educated myself,” she says. “I read books day and night. I still do.”
On August 16, during a socially distanced ceremony in the school gym, Mariam was presented with a high school diploma from the New England Jewish Academy. “There weren’t too many dry eyes among the 30 of us there,” says Nabel. Mariam’s family was especially moved. “I’m not sure she even realizes the importance of that moment to me,” says Bernie, her eldest son. “I am so proud of her.”
1. What can be learned about Mariam from paragraph 1?| A．She regretted not being educated at school. |
| B．She started first grade at the age of seven. |
| C．She felt lucky to have survived World War II. |
| D．She spent five years in Poland during the war. |
| A．She made it through her own efforts. |
| B．She turned to Kapiloff Brander for help. |
| C．The senior students themselves presented a diploma to her. |
| D．Richard Nabel learned about her story and decided to help. |
| A．Educated. | B．Intelligent. |
| C．Determined. | D．Patient. |
| A．Mariam’s story was ordinary but inspiring. |
| B．Most of those present were deeply touched. |
| C．He was impressed by Mariam and was proud of her. |
| D．He felt honored to present Mariam with a diploma. |
【推荐1】When early humans killed a mammoth, how did they keep the meat before they could eat it all? We don’t know; maybe they didn’t. But perhaps they preserved their mammoth steaks in salt. However, it is hard to know for sure. We do know for certain that by 3,000 years ago, the Babylonians, Egyptians, and Chinese were all experts at salting. They used salt to preserve food.
For thousands of years, salting was a common way to preserve food. But for a long time, no one knew why salt worked. Then, in the 1800s, a Frenchman named Louis Pasteur discovered the secret: bacteria. What does salt have to do with bacteria? First, bacteria need moisture to grow and multiply. Salt pulls moisture out of food, so the bacteria no longer have enough moisture. Besides, salt is poisonous to many bacteria. If you cover food with salt, bacteria outside the food die before they get in, and bacteria already in the food are poisoned by the salt.
So how do you preserve food with salt? For meat or fish, you pour on a layer of salt, then rub it in well. Hams are often made this way. Another way is to alternate layers of food and salt in a big container. The salt will draw the moisture out of the food, creating a brine that the food sits in. You’ll need to make sure the brine completely covers the food; any food left exposed to the air will spoil. If you preserve cabbage this way, you’ll make sauerkraut.
How well salt preserves food depends on how much is used. The more salt, the longer the food is preserved. Unfortunately, using enough salt to preserve food for a very long time can cause problems. It can make food tough. It can destroy flavor. And, of course, it can make the food too salty to eat, which is harmful to our health.
Today, even though we no longer rely on salt to keep our food fresh, we haven’t lost our taste for salt. We don’t want to give up our bacon, salami, and watermelon pickles!
1. Why are examples of the ancient people mentioned in the first paragraph?| A．To make an introduction to the topic. |
| B．To explain our ancestors were very clever. |
| C．To tell us the ancient people had a lot of food to eat. |
| D．To show the ancient people were good at preserving food. |
| A．If you want to make a ham, you should keep it in a brine. |
| B．If you want to make sauerkraut, you’d better pour on a layer of salt and rub it. |
| C．To keep our food longer, you should put as much salt on the food as possible. |
| D．People needn’t give up salty food completely as long as they control the amount. |
| A．To explain how the ancient people preserve food. |
| B．To tell us how salt works in preserving food. |
| C．To persuade people to give up salty food. |
| D．To introduce the way of preserving food with salt. |
【推荐2】More than half of UK parents believe sunglasses should become an official part of school uniform, a study has found.
A study of 1,000 parents with children aged 4-12 found 72 percent worried about protecting their child’s eyes from the sun; however, only three in 10 sent their child to school with sunglasses every time it was sunny, with one-quarter even saying their child was forbidden by their school from wearing sunglasses on school grounds.
A spokesperson for Monkey Monkey Sunglasses, which commissioned(正式委托) the study, said: “Parents are consistently telling us that their children are more likely to wear sunglasses on holiday or during leisure activities than at school. We just want parents to know that the midday and afternoon sun can be equally strong on the school playground, on the school sports field, or on the walk home from school, as it is on the beach. Wearing hats and staying in the shade during these times help reduce UV exposure but are not a surrogate for wearing sunglasses with full UVA and UVB protection, because UV rays reflect through cloud cover and reflect off a variety or surfaces.
Researchers also found only 16 percent of those surveyed said their children always worn sunglasses on a sunny day and one in four said their child did not currently own a pair of sunglasses.
Parents of children who rarely or never wear sunglasses said their kids found them uncomfortable to wear and avoid them if they can. However, 57 percent who have bought their children sunglasses checked the glasses for their UV protection rating before making the purchase.
When asked about their knowledge about surrounding surfaces which reflect and increase UV radiation, 61 percent of parents who took part in the study correctly said that snow reflected UV rays. One in four said concrete(混凝土) surfaces and 56 percent pointed to water as a key reflector of UV rays.
Monkey Monkey’s spokesperson added: “It is said that up to 80 percent of a person’s lifetime exposure to UV is received before the age of 18, when children’s eyes are also not yet fully developed. So we can see what we should do.”
1. What is the finding of the study?| A．Most British schools required students to wear sunglasses. |
| B．Nearly half of British schools forbade students to wear sunglasses. |
| C．Most British parents didn’t help protect their child’s eyes from the sun at school. |
| D．British parents lacked the awareness of protecting their children’s eyes. |
| A．Replacement. |
| B．Requirement. |
| C．Guarantee. |
| D．Solution. |
| A．Few of them bought sunglasses for their children. |
| B．Some of them had a certain understanding of UV rays. |
| C．Most of them didn’t know about UV radiation. |
| D．Some of them thought wearing sunglasses was uncomfortable. |
| A．children should not be exposed to too much sunshine |
| B．children had better not play on the school playground in the afternoon |
| C．it is unnecessary for children to wear sunglasses when taking part in activities |
| D．it is important to protect kids’ eyes from sun exposure at an early age |
【推荐3】Short-form videos, also known as Shorts, have gained great popularity, particularly on platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels.
The phenomenon known as “TikTok Brain” arises from the app’s short and addictive videos. Similar to candy, these videos generate rapid dopamine (多巴胺) releases, stimulating the brain’s pleasure center. A study was conducted to investigate the impact of Shorts on the teenage brains.
Our brains process visual information faster than text, which explains why videos tend to outperform text-based content online. Due to their underdeveloped reading skills, children are more easily to become addicted to visual stimuli. Remarkably, social media platforms can do a lot harm to the development of reading habits among younger users.
According to Jessica Griffin, a professor of child psychology, Shorts affect the developing brains of children and teenagers. The prefrontal cortex (前额叶皮质) is responsible for attention, self-control, memory, and learning flexibility.
In conclusion, the constant exposure to fast-paced and stimulating content in Shorts can impact children’s attention. To address this issue, parents can have open conversations with their children about the potential risks.
| A．Some even do not include text at all. |
| B．TikTok’s feed is created addictive by design. |
| C．But it does not fully mature until around the age of 25. |
| D．It is helpful to use screen time management tools for Shorts. |
| E．Short-term memory and the ability to concentrate are affected. |
| F．It revealed that these videos are personalized, selected and fed to users. |
| G．They’re brief attention-grabbing videos that can be entertaining and addictive. |
【推荐1】Many people assume Egypt is, and always has been, a desert. But considering that climates and landscapes can change over time and that humans have been known to change natural environments, was ancient Egypt a desert?
The simple answer is no. Not all of Egypt, ancient or modern, qualifies as a desert. Areas near the Nile River tend to be lusher (草木繁茂的), and Egyptians — in both ancient and modern times — have had a successful system of agriculture. However, the environment has changed over Egypt’s history, and the construction of the Aswan High Dam (坝) across the Nile between 1960 and 1970 changed the landscape greatly.
Some areas of Egypt that are now desert were wetter in the past. One famous example is the “Cave of Swimmers” in southwestern Egypt. Today, the area is very dry, but thousands of years ago, it was wetter, and some of the rock art found in caves in the area appears to show people swimming, according to the British Museum.
The Aswan High Dam caused some areas in southern Egypt to flood, leading to the creation of Lake Nasser. Many people had to move, and some archaeological (考古的) sites ended up underwater. The construction of the dam also ended the natural flooding of the Nile. The creation of Lake Nasser also led to more moisture (水分) in the air in some areas of southern Egypt.
One effect of the generally higher Nile River levels during the Bronze Age is that around 2500 B. C., when the pyramids at Giza were constructed, the “Khufu branch”, a vanished (消失的) branch of the Nile River, came right next to the pyramids (金字塔). This branch allowed for materials to be transported to the site by boat, aiding in pyramid construction.
The ancient Egyptians who lived by the Nile in some ways viewed themselves as living on an island in the Nile Valley, with the deserts as a sort of great sea.
1. What can we know about “Cave of Swimmers”?| A．It used to be very dry. | B．The rock art shows it used to be wet. |
| C．It’s near the British Museum. | D．It shows ancient Egyptians loved art. |
| A．It saves some Egypt archaeological sites. |
| B．It brings in too much trouble for Egyptians. |
| C．It affects Egypt both positively and negatively. |
| D．It leads to more moisture in the air in the whole Egypt. |
| A．By making Nile River water level higher. |
| B．By helping people build pyramids more easily. |
| C．By making ancient Egyptians live on an island. |
| D．By leading some branches of the Nile River disappear. |
| A．Was Ancient Egypt a Desert? | B．Do You Know Deserts in Egypt? |
| C．Was Egypt a Great Country? | D．Do You Know Ancient Egypt? |
【推荐2】When ivory hunters target elephants, the hunters can affect more than just animal numbers. In Mozambique, past hunting pressure led to an increase of naturally tuskless (无长牙的) elephants in one park, a study finds.
During 1977 to 1992, people hunted elephants and other wildlife for food and ivory. This caused the number of these large animals to drop more than 90 percent in the country’s Gorongosa National Park. Records show that as elephant numbers plummeted, the proportion of tuskless female African savanna elephants rose from about 18 percent to 51 percent.
Decades of poaching appear to have made tusklessness more beneficial from an evolutionary perspective in Gorongosa, encouraging the rapid increase of tuskless females with mutations (变异) in two tooth genes, researchers report in Science.
“The rapid killing of tusked individuals changed the makeup of features in the elephant population in only two decades, leaving behind more tuskless individuals,” say evolutionary biologist Shane Campbell-Staton and his colleagues. “The tuskless feature is heritable (可继承的), and the evolutionary change in the population may stick around for several generations at least, even as poaching eases.”
The team also analyzed the genetic instruction books of 18 tusked and tuskless females, zeroing in on two genes with mutations in tuskless females. “In humans, the influence of one of those genes can cause tooth fragility and the absence of a pair of upper teeth at the front of their mouth,” Campbell-Staton says, “Abnormalities in the other gene’s protein product can cause incorrect formation of the tooth root and tooth loss.”
Hunting “changing the course of evolution” in Gorongosa’s elephants, Campbell-Staton says, can have profound effects through the ecosystem given elephants’ dramatic impact on their surroundings. “Tusks are not just decorative. They serve a purpose,” he says, detailing how elephants use tusks to dig for water and strip tree bark for food. “If an elephant doesn’t have the tool to do those things, then what happens?”
1. Which of the following is true according to the study?| A．Ivory hunters killed elephants for their tusks. |
| B．Elephants lost their tusks due to natural evolution. |
| C．Hunting affects the number and appearance of elephants. |
| D．Human activities brought about great changes to the ecosystem. |
| A．Decreased. | B．Increased. |
| C．Remained stable. | D．Became Unpredictable. |
| A．They have the same genes as the tusked. |
| B．Their tuskless feature can be passed down. |
| C．Their tuskless feature doesn’t exist in males. |
| D．They have a biological advantage over the tusked. |
| A．To explain the cause of gene mutations. |
| B．To show the impact of mutated tooth genes. |
| C．To raise humans’ awareness of protecting teeth. |
| D．To call for actions to protect tuskless elephants. |
【推荐3】Currently, one of the biggest problems in Laos is underfunded education-the government lacks money to build and maintain schools and pay teachers, which, of course, holds back teaching and learning. Despite this, Laos still produces quite a few graduates with valuable skills such as knowing Chinese, English, Korean, or Japanese. The problem is not the students.
Nor does the problem stem from a lack of financial means: Laos has enormous wealth. The problem is that this wealth is not financing a proper system of education. Local corruption(腐败)means that the wealthy do not pay taxes. Laos needs a transparent tax system that functions normally, as in more developed countries such as Malaysia. Laos can learn several lessons from Malaysia’s successful taxation strategies.
Last year, Malaysian students scored exceptionally well on standardized tests in a wide variety of subjects. However, Lao students scored very poorly, especially in math. The 2022 standardized test scores for Laos were the lowest in Asia. Such a terrible result constitutes an emergency. Young people are not adequately educated in Laos, and the main cause is a catastrophic lack of funding due to tax avoidance.
Therefore, I propose that a total change be made in the tax system of Laos. This step is crucial because Laos is a member of ASEANN, and the basic support for education needs to be comparable among the member nations. Laos has always lagged behind other ASEAN member states on this issue of support for education as a percentage of GDP. Experts estimate that Laos will only spend 3.2% of its GDP on education in 2023.
To conclude, I must emphasize that Lao education is in crisis. For many years, their education system has been underfunded as a percentage of GDP compared with other ASEAN countries, and standardized test scores are upsetting. If Lao education can become adequately funded, Lao students will step up and compete with their peers across Asia.
1. What is the best title of this passage?| A．Education in Laos:Challenges and Opportunities. |
| B．Students in Laos:Valuable skills and Poor scores. |
| C．ASEAN Membership in Laos: Emergency and Hope. |
| D．Problems in Laos: Misbehaving students and Low-tax system. |
| A．Students’ low intelligence. | B．The improper tax system. |
| C．Unqualified math teachers. | D．Unfair academic competitions. |
| A．In 2023, only 3. 2% of the Laos’ GDP will be used on education. |
| B．Rich people in Laos pay much more taxes than the poor people. |
| C．The Lao government doesn’t pay enough attention to education. |
| D．ASEAN member states support Laos to promote its education. |
| A．Indifferent | B．Concerned | C．Sympathetic | D．Neutral |
