【推荐1】I was typing papers for new school students when Mama called. We talked about some senseless things for a while before she finally told me about it. “Well, Donner, there’s this class up at the high school this summer.” She said. “They say they can teach me to read and write. I’m trying to decide whether.”

“Of course, you should do it! That would be so wonderful. I’d be so proud of you.” I answered. She was 63 and had survived two alcoholic husbands and was an expert at buying and selling garage sale junk to keep food on her own table and buy Christmas presents for me and my brother’s kids. She used food stamps to buy food and other goods. Mama laughed, seemingly with relief. “Well, you know, I’d about gotten used to being the silliest old lady in town,” she said.

It turned out that her neighbor had found the class for her. The young woman had been doing Mama’s “business” for a while in my absence, helping to relieve my guilt over leaving Mississippi. The friend was a little crazy, but Mama liked her. She was real and, by then, I hated pretension as much as Mama did. When I was little, she would tell me: “Remember, Donner Kay, nobody’s better than anybody else.”

Three months into the class. Mama left a message on my answering machine: “Donner, I taught a class tonight!” She was almost singing the words. “The teacher let me teach the class!” She soon wrote me a letter in a careful, boxy print I had never seen, instead of the strange way she had long written family names she had memorized.

The next time I flew home to visit, we both laughed like 12-year-olds as she read words from billboards on the way from the airport. Her grammar was getting better. She kept talking about her classes and the other students.

1. Why did Donner’s mother phone her according to Paragraph 1?

A．To advise Donner to take a course.	B．To show her support for Donner.
C．To tell Donner her decision.	D．To ask Donner for advice.

2. How did Donner’s mother feel when she left a message for Donner?

A．Shocked.

B．Delighted.

C．Puzzled.

D．Worried.

3. What does the author want to tell us in the last two paragraphs?

A．What progress Donner’s mother made.

B．The difficulty Donner’s mother had in learning.

C．How Donner’s mother learned to read and write.

D．The effects other students had on Donner’s mother.

【推荐1】What does it mean to be intelligent? If it’s defined by having the biggest brain, then sperm whales (抹香鲸) — whose brain is 20 pounds — would be the brightest creatures on Earth. But, more likely, it’s how a brain is wired. Viewed in this way, intelligence is what gives an organism the best chance to survive in an environment. Language may be one of the best ways to demonstrate that kind of smarts.

“Language allowing humans to be a more advanced species is a hypothesis that somebody came up with one day without really trying to prove it,” says Erich Jarvis, a professor who studies the neuro-biology of vocal learning. “The idea stuck around, but so have other common beliefs that are not really supported with evidence,” he points out.

To get a better grasp of vocal learning and cognition, the study authors turned to songbirds. The team performed seven cognitive experiments on 214 songbirds from 23 different species. Of these, 21 species were caught from the wild. The rest two studied are domesticated (家养的). The behavioral tests examined the birds’ problem solving, for instance, figuring out how to remove an object to access the food reward. The researchers also tested two other skills often associated with intelligence: learning by association, plus what’s called reversal (倒转的) learning, in which an animal adjusts its behavior to get a reward. They then looked at whether being vocal learners helped develop the three skills, comparing 21 bird species to two others which were non-vocal learners.

Jarvis’ new study provides some of the first evidence that vocal learning — one of the crucial components for a spoken language — is associated with problem solving. Vocal learning bird species could come up with innovative ideas, such as getting seeds, or catching a worm trapped under a cup by removing the obstacle or pulling it apart. All three abilities — problem solving, associative learning, and reversal learning — are typically considered “components of intelligence,” he says.

“One question left unanswered is why there’s such a strong relationship between problem-solving abilities and vocal learning. The brain areas in charge of vocal learning are not the same ones that get activated when we need to troubleshoot (分析解决) an issue,” says Michael Goldstein, a professor of psychology at Cornell University who studies vocal learning in songbirds and humans but was not involved in the study.

1. Which can probably define intelligence according to Paragraph 1?

A．Language.	B．Brain size.
C．Brain structure.	D．Environment.

2. What does the underlined word in Paragraph 2 mean?

A．Guarantee.	B．Assumption.
C．Category.	D．Distribution.

3. What are Paragraphs 3&4 mainly about?

A．Habits of songbirds.

B．Methods of domesticating songbirds.

C．Outline of the study.

D．Three phases of displaying intelligence.

4. What may the text talk about next?

A．The mechanism that bridges all the brain regions.

B．The functions of the brain areas that can troubleshoot issues.

C．The reasons why songbirds’ intelligence can not develop further.

D．The reasons why vocal learning influence problem-solving abilities.

【推荐3】(You may read the questions first.)

Below is a selection about some Guinness World Records.

Top 6 Unusual Guinness World Records

Fastest 100 m running on all fours

The 2008 Guinness World Records Day was, according to GWR, their biggest day of record-breaking ever, with more than 290,000 people taking put in record attempts in 15 different countries. Kenichi Ito’s record attempt was port of this special day. He is just another example of Japanese with “super powers”. His “super power” is to run with great speed on all fours. Kenichi Ito ran 100 m on all fours in 18.58 seconds. The Japanese set this record at Setagaya Kuritsu Sogo Undojyo, Tokyo, in 2008.

Most people inside a soap bubble

The Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana, California celebrated this year the 15th anniversary of the Bubble (泡泡) Festival. A bubble’s math principles and science were presented and demonstrated at the three-week-long exhibition. The intriguing Bubble Show was also part of the program. Fan Yang and Deni Yang impressed the audience with their awesome skills for bubble making. The Yang family cooperated with the Discovery Science Center to set a new Guinness World Record for most people inside a soap bubble and they succeeded.

The family that has been working with soap bubbles for 27 years created a huge soap bubble and got 118 people inside it. The record was set on. April 4, 2011.

Longest ears on a dog

A bloodhound from Illinois has the longest ears ever measured a dog. The right ear is 13.75 inches long and the left one 13.5 inches. The dog named Tigger earned this title in 2004 and is owned by Christina and Bryan Flessner.

Mr. Jeffries is the previous record holder of this title. Each of his ears measured approximately 11.5 inches long. His grandfather used to hold this amazing world record, but when he died Mr. Jeffries look over.

Most living generations

Did you ever wonder what is the Guinness World Record for most living generation in one family? Seven is the answer.

The ultimate authority on record-breaking mentions on the website that the youngest great-great- great-great grandparent of this family was Augusta Bung “aged 109 years 97 days, followed by her daughter aged 89, her granddaughter aged 70, her great grand-daughter aged 52, her great-great grand-daughter aged 33 and her great-great-great granddaughter aged 15 on the birth of her great-great-great-great grandson on January 21, 1989”.

Most T-shirts worn at once

Believe it or not, there is a record also for this category. Krunoslav Budiseli set a new world record on May 22, 2010 for wearing 245 T-shirts at the same time. The nun from Croatia was officially recognized as the new record bolder by Guinness World Records after he managed to put on 245 different T-shirts in less than two hours. The T-shirts weighted 68 kg and Budiseli said he began struggling around T-shirt No. 120. He dethroned the Swedish Guinness record holder who wore 238 T-shirts.

1. Why is Kenichi Ito described as a man with a “super power”?

A．He set a good example to all Japanese.

B．He made record attempts in 15 different countries.

C．He set a new record for “Fastest 100 m running on all fours”.

D．He participated in the 2008 Guinness World Records Day activities.

2. Jeffries is the name of _______.

A．the owner of the dog with the longest ears

B．the grandfather of the dog with the longest ears

C．the present holder of the record for “Longest ears on a dog”

D．the former holder of the record for “longest ears on a dog”

3. How many T-shirt had Krunoslav Budisell put on before he felt it difficult to go on?

A．68	B．120
C．238	D．245

4. According to the given information, which Guinness World Record was most recently set?

A．The record for “Most people inside a soap bubble”.

B．The record for “Most living generations”.

C．The record for “Most T-shirts worn at once”.

D．The record for “Heaviest pumpkin”.