【推荐1】An important lesson in the moral education of children could be as close as the book in their hands. Stories can play a role in shifting the importance of particular moral values in young audiences, according to the results of a new study.

“Media can markedly influence separate moral values and get kids to place more or less importance on those values depending on what is uniquely stressed in that content,” says Lindsay Hahn, PhD, an assistant professor of communication in the University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences.

Hahn is the first author of the new study, which adds an important part to a body of literature that explores how media content affects children. While many previous studies have focused on broad conceptualisations (概念化), like positive or negative effects of specific content, Hahn’s study looks at how reading of content featuring specific moral values (care, fairness, loyalty, and authority) might influence the weight kids place on those values. Do children reading about particular moral characteristics absorb those qualities as building blocks for their own morality? The findings suggest so, and further support how this indirect approach to socializing children’s morality can add to the direct teaching of moral principles kids might receive through formal instruction.

For the study, Hahn and her colleagues took the main character from a teen story and edited the content to reflect in each version (版本) the study’s focus on one of four moral values. A fifth version was changed in a way that featured an amoral main character. The stories were shared with about 200 participants between the ages of 10 and 14.

The team then created a scale (量表) designed to measure the importance kids place on moral values to find out how participants might be influenced by specific stories.

“Measuring these effects can be difficult,” says Hahn of the research, published in the Journal of Media Psychology, “That’s why one purpose of this research was to develop a measure of moral values for kids. Nothing like that exists yet, that we know of.”

1. What does the underlined word “shifting” in paragraph 1 mean?

A．increasing

B．changing

C．reflecting

D．replacing

2. What can you learn from the results of the study?

A．Good virtues can help carry children through hard times.

B．Reading stories is a better approach than formal instructions.

C．Teaching moral principles directly to kids seems useless.

D．Good morals in stories help shape children’s values.

3. What is paragraph 3 mainly about?

A．The response of the general public to Hahn’s study.

B．The contribution of Hahn’s study to children’s literature.

C．The difference between Hahn’s study and previous studies.

D．The branches of research on media influences on children.

4. What did Hahn’s team do for the study?

A．They created a chain story out of an old character.

B．They tested different moral principles in children.

C．They illustrated the study for younger participants.

D．They adapted a character and created five stories.

【推荐3】Pieter Bruegel’s 1565 realistic painting The Harvesters hangs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “The work describes farmers cutting wheat nearly as tall as they are,” Ghent University biologist Ive De Smet says. “Nowadays, if you walk through a wheat field, you basically see wheat is about knee—high, which is a consequence of selective breeding(培育)from the second half of the 20th century.” De Smet says he’s teaming up with art historian David Vergauwen of Amarant to look at things where they can spot differences in shape, in color, and in size. Wheat is just one example of how historical artwork can help track the transformation of food crops over time.

Friends since childhood, they took interest in plants in artwork and began with a visit to the Hermitage Museum in Russia—where they noticed an odd—looking watermelon in an early—17th—century painting by Flemish artist Frans Snyders.

“So if you think of a watermelon, you cut it through, it should be dark red on the inside. But that one appeared to be pale and white.” De Smet assumed the painter had done a poor job. But Vergauwen said, “This is one of the best painters ever from that era So if he paints it like that, that’s the way it must have been.” Other paintings showed that both red and white watermelons were raised during the 17th century.

The team hopes to set up an online research database of historical plant artwork. They create a social media hashtag(主题标签)for it. Anyone could send pictures of relevant artwork and details of plants when they visit a museum or exhibit through the hashtag. But, they add, the sources need to be realistic. “If you’re going to use, for example, Picasso to understand how a pear looked, you might be misled.”

1. What can we learn from De Smet’s words in paragraph 1?

A．Humans have mainly fed on wheat since 1565.

B．Selective breeding affects agricultural structure.

C．Wheat has gone through great changes in height.

D．The scene in The Harvesters may be unbelievable.

2. What is Vergauwen’s attitude to the watermelon painted by Frans Snyders?

A．Curious

B．Disapproving.

C．Doubtful.

D．Favorable.

3. Why is the social media hashtag created?

A．To collect more paintings for their database.

B．To encourage people to focus on art.

C．To advertise their research database.

D．To share some historical plant artwork.

4. What is the text mainly about?

A．Ancient paintings focused on food crops.

B．Historical artwork reveals agricultural information.

C．Two men create a database of plant artwork.

D．Plants today are different from their ancestors.

【推荐1】Natural selection is the process by which one type of animal within a species thrives because of certain characteristics that make it more likely to live than others in its group. The history of the peppered moth（灰蛾）is an example of the natural selection process.

In 19th century England, certain types of peppered moths were able to better blend（融合）into their surroundings. During that time period, great changes were happening in Great Britain. The Industrial Revolution was part of this change, and with it came air pollution. Natural selection often takes hundred or even thousands of years to occur. For the peppered moth, this process occurred comparatively quickly.

At the beginning of the Industrial Age, most peppered moths in England were light-colored and covered with black markings, although a few moths had dark-colored wings. Because the light-colored moths blended into the light-colored bark on the trees, they could not be easily seen by birds that would eat them. As the air grew more polluted, however, tree trunks became covered with soot（烟煤）and became darker. The light-colored moths became easy for birds to see against the dark tree trunks. Since the dark-colored moths now had the advantage, their numbers grew. Within 50 years, the peppered moth went from being mostly light-colored to being mostly dark-colored.

In the 20th century, the air cleared up, and the peppered moth population changed again. As tree trunks lighted due to less soot in the air, light-colored moths once again had an advantage. Their numbers increased as soot levels declined. Depending on their environment, the coloration of the moths helped them to be “naturally selected” to survive.

1. In 19th century, what was one of the causes of great changes in Great Britain?

A．The surroundings.	B．The Industrial Revolution.
C．The natural selection.	D．The peppered moth.

2. What can we infer about the peppered moth’s natural selection process?

A．The length of time was unusual.

B．The soot levels in England did not affect it.

C．The color of peppered moths changed at random.

D．It was a good example of environmental protection.

3. What’s the difference between light-colored and dark-colored moths?

A．Dark-colored moths were originally easy to see on trees.

B．Both kinds of moths preferred the dark-colored trees.

C．Birds failed to see light-colored moths.

D．The color of moths was unimportant.

4. Which would most likely happen if soot darkened England’s trees again?

A．Birds would eat fewer moths.

B．Moths would not be able to stay alive.

C．Light-colored moths would disturb people’s life.

D．The population of dark-colored moths would increase.

【推荐3】Nowadays women appear to have a positive image of themselves as safer drivers than men. In a survey done for insurer MetLife, 51% of women said they drive more safely.

The evidence is on their side: Men are 3.4 times more likely than women to get a ticket for careless driving and 3.1 times as likely to be punished for drunk driving. “Women are on average less aggressive and more law abiding drivers, which leads to fewer accidents,” the report says. However, not all male driver share the same opinion. Of the men surveyed by MetLife, 39% claimed male drivers were safer. The findings did back them up on one point: automotive knowledge. The report showed that more men are familiar with current safety equipment such as electronic stability control, which helps prevent rollover accidents.

Auto safety unavoidably matters to money. Insurance companies focus on what classes of drivers have the lowest dollar amounts of claims,and for now, that mainly includes women. In general, women pay about 9% less for auto insurance than men. A study by the website Insweb also showed that auto insurance rates are lower for women in most states. Among individual states, women get the greatest advantage in Wyoming (where they pay 20% less), South Dakota and Washington D.C, where their insurance costs are 16% lower.

“More than 11,900 male drivers died in US traffic accidents in 2009, compared with just under 4,900 women drivers” according to the study. “Based on miles traveled, men died at a rate of 2.5 deaths per 100 million miles traveled, VS 1.7 deaths for women.”

1. According to the study, female drivers ________.

A．are more likely to obey traffic laws

B．are more aggressive while driving

C．are more interested in auto knowledge

D．are more familiar with safety equipment

2. Insurance companies focus on female driver clients probably because they ________.

A．cause more accidents on the road

B．take the most part of the insurance clients

C．pay more money to the insurance companies

D．have the lowest amount of money on insurance claims

3. We can infer from the passage that________ .

A．more female drivers die every year than male drivers

B．men are 3.1 times more likely to get tickets than women

C．women are generally safer drivers than the opposite gender（性别）

D．all women in the USA pay the same for their auto insurance

4. The writer mainly develops the news story by_______ .

A．giving examples	B．making comparisons
C．drawing a conclusion	D．presenting an argument