Recently, a group of scientists decided to find out what the funniest joke in the world was. This is obviously a difficult task, as no two people really agree about what is funny and what is not — especially when they are from different countries.
Here is the joke which the experts decided was the funniest joke in the world:
Two hunters were out in the woods. One of them fell to the ground. He didn’t seem to be breathing; his eyes were closed. The other hunter took out his mobile phone and called the emergency services. “My friend is dead!” he cried to the operator. “What can I do?” The operator said, “Don’t worry. First, make sure he’s dead.” There was a silence, and then a shot was heard. Bang! The hunter’s voice came back on the line. He said, “OK, now what?”
This is perhaps amusing. Culturally, it depends on us knowing that often hunters are not considered to be very intelligent people, and that often they are quite violent. But perhaps this is not so all over the world. It’s also quite a black joke — a joke about something that isn’t really a funny subject. The experts also found the second funniest joke in the world. Here it is:
Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson went on a camping trip. After dinner, they went to sleep. Some hours later, Holmes woke up. “Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see.”
“I see millions of stars, Holmes,” replied Watson.
“And what do you infer from that?”
“Well, there are billions of stars... we are a small part of the universe.” “Watson, you idiot! (笨蛋)” he said. “Someone has stolen our tent!” I personally think this is better.
Can scientists in the end decide what is funny? Some things are much too complicated, even for scientists.
1. What can we learn from the first paragraph?| A．Few jokes can make scientists laugh. |
| B．Only scientists can find out the funniest joke. |
| C．There are different jokes in different countries. |
| D．People hold different opinions about what is funny. |
| A．It is not so funny as the experts thought. |
| B．It is really the funniest joke he has ever heard. |
| C．It can greatly affect readers’ attitudes toward hunters. |
| D．It shows that not all hunters are intelligent. |
| A．The person’s feeling. |
| B．The length of the joke. |
| C．The person’s cultural background. |
| D．The language that the teller uses. |
| A．Uninteresting Jokes |
| B．Different Kinds of Jokes |
| C．The Funniest Joke in the World |
| D．Tips on How to Make Others Laugh |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】Typically, people are more likely to share things that can lead to an exchange of saliva (唾液), such as kisses or an ice cream cone, with family members or close friends than with an acquaintance or a colleague. As a result, it can be markers of a “thick relationship”, which can help babies work out who is in close relationships with one another, a study suggests.
Ashley Thomas, a developmental psychologist at MIT, and colleagues ran experiments of people engaging with puppets (木偶). Researchers, of course, can’t know exactly what babies are thinking. But tracking where they look is one way to get a hint. The idea is not that young children might be expecting an adult to comfort the puppet, Thomas says. Instead, the researchers expected that the young children would look toward the person that they expect to move first when the puppet expresses distress (悲伤), and that would be the person who has a closer relationship with the toy, she says.
For some of the experiments, the team showed 8-to 10-month-old babies or 16-to 18-month-old toddlers videos of a woman sharing an orange slice with a puppet. A second video depicted another woman and the puppet playing with a ball. During a final video that showed the puppet seemingly crying while seated between the two women, the kids’ eyes were drawn to the woman who had shared the orange slice — a sign the kids may have been expecting her to react.
The team saw similar results when one woman interacted with two puppets. The woman stuck her finger in her mouth and then one puppet’s mouth to share her saliva. For the other, she touched only her forehead and then the puppet’s forehead. Infants and toddlers spent more time looking at the puppet that had swapped saliva after the woman showed distress.
This study throws new light on child’s psychology. But it’s unclear how the findings relate to the daily lives of young children. Future experiments could switch out actresses in the study for family members or teachers to better understand the role saliva may play in how babies and toddlers distinguish different types of relationships.
1. What can help babies figure out close relationships?| A．Things that can result in an exchange of emotion. |
| B．Intimate actions that share saliva. |
| C．An ice cream cone in the Sweet Stop. |
| D．Behaviors that comfort the puppet. |
| A．By finding what babies are thinking. |
| B．By tracking where babies point. |
| C．By knowing who the young children look toward. |
| D．By watching who come to comfort the puppet. |
| A．To give supporting evidence for the study results. |
| B．To show potential application of the study findings. |
| C．To make a brief conclusion of the study results. |
| D．To raise a reasonable doubt about the study process. |
| A．Favorable. | B．Intolerant. | C．Objective. | D．Unclear. |
【推荐2】We all know that staying healthy is important. So here is another health tip: Empathy, which refers to the ability to share another person’s feelings and emotions as if they were your own. How can this be? Isn’t empathy about focusing on the other person?
Empathy helps you survive
Empathy can save your life, which certainly is good for your health!
Empathy connects you to others
Stress may be brought on by many different things. Over periods of time, this state of pressure becomes unhealthy. When you fully engage in empathy, you draw on skills for emotion regulation (调节). In doing so, you are also controlling emotions that can be stressful.
Empathy guides your moral code of conduct
Perhaps larger than almost everything is how you treat others and expect to be treated.
| A．Empathy can lower your stress |
| B．How does practicing empathy benefit you |
| C．Empathy encourages you to show your emotions |
| D．How can empathy help you behave well in a connected world |
| E．The ability to read others helps you make decisions in your favor |
| F．Empathy connects you to other people in deep and meaningful ways |
| G．Empathy helps you identify what you consider to be acceptable behavior |
【推荐3】"Allez," caretaker Bernard Nsangu shouts in French as he gets ready to distribute a morning snack. Bonobos (倭黑猩猩) nearby tell their friends in the forest that pineapple is coming. Soon, more than a dozen bonobos have gathered near the grassy edge of their enclosure. With chimpanzees, the expectation of food can lead to aggression. But bonobos take a different approach, says Suzy Kwetuenda, a biologist at Lola. As you see, there is many negotiation," she says. "So that makes peace."
This sort of harmony is why, for more than a decade, scientists from around the world have been coming to this reserve just outside Kinshasa, along the banks of the Lukaya River. The researchers think bonobos may help explain how humans evolved the ability to be nice–at least some of the time.
Bonobos look like smallish chimpanzees, with whom they share 99.6% of their DNA. And both of these great apes share 98.7% of their DNA with humans, making them our closest living relatives.
What intrigues scientists is that bonobos and chimps often behave very differently, despite their genetic similarity. What's more, human behavior seems to include aspects of both species.
One way that bonobos differ from other great apes is in their eagerness to share, something that has been documented in experiments.
In one experiment, the scientists put two bonobos in next rooms. Then they gave one of the animals a plate of prized food, like bananas or apples, which have to be imported. The fruit plate was topped with a type of cream Kwetuenda calls "bonobo sauce." The bonobo with food was given a choice: eat alone, or use a special key to let in their neighbor.
"In our mind, we thought that because of nice food they would first eat," Kwetuenda says. "But we were surprised to see that roommate is more important than favorite food."
Later, the scientists repeated the experiment with three bonobos, one of whom was a stranger. This time, the bonobo with food usually shared with the stranger first, then invited the friend to join in.
1. What does the author want to tell us by the example in Paragraph 1?| A．Food makes chimps aggressive. |
| B．Bonobos and chimps fight for food. |
| C．Bonobos and chimps get along well. |
| D．Bonobos are in harmony with each other. |
| A．To build a relationship between chimps and bonobos. |
| B．To have a better understanding of the life of bonobos. |
| C．To explore how human develop the capability to be kind. |
| D．To tell the difference between bonobos and human beings. |
| A．Interests. | B．Annoys. |
| C．Threatens. | D．Thrills. |
| A．Bonobos were put in different rooms. |
| B．Bonobos were willing to share with others. |
| C．Bonobos were expected to enjoy food together. |
| D．Bonobos treated friends better than strangers. |
【推荐1】How to Tell a Great Story
In this information age, business leaders won’t be heard unless they’re telling stories. Facts and figures don’t stick in our minds at all. But stories create "sticky" memories by attaching emotions to things that happen.
Start with a message
Every story-telling exercise should begin by asking: Who is my audience and what is the message I want to share with them?
The best story-tellers look to their own life details and memories for ways to draw attention to their message. There may be a tendency not to want to share personal events at work, but experiences that indicate how they overcome their struggle are what make leaders appear authentic.
Keep it simple
Some of the most successful and memorable stories are relatively simple and straightforward. Don’t tell your audience what shoes you were wearing if it doesn’t better the story.
Don’t make yourself the hero
You can be a central figure in a story, but the final focus should be on people you know, lessons you’ve learned, or events you’ve witnessed. When you talk about how great you are, the audience shuts down.
| A．Show good humor |
| B．Provide vital details |
| C．Use personal experiences |
| D．Each decision about your story should flow from those questions |
| E．Leaders always tell stories to persuade others to support a project or to face challenges |
| F．The more you make yourself a star, the less likely your audience will buy your message |
| G．That means leaders who can create and share good stories gain a great advantage over |
【推荐2】A new study published in the journal Educational Studies shows that the elementary school a child attends has almost no influence on their desire to progress to higher education.
The research was carried out by Josip Šabić and Boris Jokic at the Centre for Educational Research and Development of the Institute for Social Research in Zagreb, Croatia. The authors wanted to discover the main factors affecting pupils’ intention to continue to higher education as they reach the end of elementary school.
To find out children’s aims, they asked just over 1,000 pupils aged 14-15 at 23 elementary schools in Zagreb to complete three separate questionnaires during their last two years at elementary school. The researchers also obtained information on the pupils’ academic grades, as well as on the size of each school and its classes, the grade point average (GPA) for each school, and property prices in the area around each school as a measure of socioeconomic status.
The study revealed that none of the school-level factors, including school and class size, the GPA of the school and property prices, had any influence on the desire to continue to higher education. In contrast, several factors related to parents and home life, such as parental educational aspirations, maternal (母亲的) academic support and having a desk to work on, did have an influence. As did gender, with girls more likely than boys to want to continue to higher education. And while school-level factors didn’t have any influence, performance at school did: high academic grades were the single strongest predictor of a pupil’s desire to continue to higher education, while enjoying school was also an important factor.
“The major finding arising from the present study is that none of the school level variables used in our analysis contributes to the explanation of pupils’ aspirations (志向) for higher education,” said Josip Šabić. “Another important finding is that parents can influence their child’s aspirations by expressing their expectations regarding the child’s educational path and by providing the basic conditions for completing homework and learning.”
1. What does the research focus on?| A．Where do pupils go for help in choosing college? |
| B．Who gives pupils more support to go to college? |
| C．What makes pupils choose to attend college? |
| D．Which do pupils like most in choosing further education? |
| A．Class sizes. | B．Family incomes. |
| C．Property prices. | D．Academic grades. |
| A．The GPA of school blocks pupils from going to college. |
| B．Gender has little influence on choosing a college. |
| C．Decisions of parents make pupils choose what to do. |
| D．Pupils’ preference to their school is important. |
| A．School level variables. |
| B．Financial support to pupils. |
| C．Parental academic supports. |
| D．Learning environments for pupils. |
【推荐3】We all follow pretty much the same pattern with any skill we learn, from baking a pie to writing a descriptive paragraph. We typically start with a general idea and receive instruction before practicing to reach an acceptable level of performance, and then let it become automatic. However, once we reach this point, we often stop improving. People often misunderstand this because they assume that their continued baking or writing is a form of practice and that they are bound to get better at it as long as they keep doing it.
Research has shown that additional years of “practice” may not lead to improvement and can even result in a decline in performance. So what do you need if you are not satisfied with this automated level of performance? Purposeful practice turns out to be a successful approach.
Purposeful practice has several characteristics that set it apart from what we might call “naive practice, ” which is essentially just doing something repeatedly, and expecting that the repetition alone will improve one’s performance.
First of all, purposeful practice has well-defined, specific goals. It is all about putting a bunch of baby steps together to reach a longer-term goal.
Furthermore, purposeful practice involves feedback. You have to know whether you are doing something right and, if not, how you may be going about it the wrong way. Without feedback—either from yourself or from outside observers—you cannot figure out what you need to improve on or how close you are to achieving your goals.
Purposeful practice also requires getting out of one’s comfort zone, which means trying to do something that you couldn’t do before. This is perhaps the most important part of purposeful practice. Sometimes you may find it easy to accomplish that new thing, and then you keep pushing on. At other times, however, you run into something that stops you cold. The best way to get past any barrier is to come at it from a different direction, which is one reason why it is useful to work with a teacher or coach.
1. What is the author’s attitude towards aimless continued practice?| A．Positive. | B．Negative. | C．Indifferent. | D．Unclear. |
| A．Practice that involves specific goals and feedback. |
| B．Practice repeatedly will improve one’s performance. |
| C．Practice that involves getting out of one’s comfort zone. |
| D．Practice that is only about repetition without improvement goals. |
| A．Feedback is not necessary for purposeful practice. |
| B．Purposeful practice involves getting out of one’s comfort zone. |
| C．Purposeful practice requires a teacher or coach to help overcome barriers. |
| D．Purposeful practice involves doing something repeatedly without specific goals. |
| A．The Shortcut to Success | B．Not All Practice Makes Perfect |
| C．Automation Makes Satisfaction | D．The Challenges of Learning a New Skill |
