Curiosity is key to learning. In fact, studies show that, when we’re curious about a subject, we are much more likely to remember information we learned about that subject. If you’re an educational professional or are considering earning a teaching degree and entering the classroom, knowing how to enlighten students’ curiosity can help you improve learning outcomes.
Curiosity most often begins with “why”. Why does natural gas burn blue? Why is blue spelled blue and not blew? Why does the wind blow? If you want to fire up your students’ curiosity, you need to encourage them to ask and try to answer questions. That means you should avoid giving tedious lectures where you explain everything. Instead, try designing your classes so that you’re posing questions. And be sure to leave openings for students to participate and ask questions about what they’re learning.
Not every question your students ask will be a question you expect. But all questions prove a curious mind, so don’t dismiss questions that don’t fit with your lesson. Instead, leave unstructured time in class to address unexpected questions, or establish a system whereby unexpected questions can be “stored” for later, like on a whiteboard or in an online document.
In addition to making room for unexpected questions, you should also make room for students’ exploration of their questions. If you give your students enough time to discuss questions, their curiosity is certainly to expand.
Curiosity is a fuel. It drives us to try to figure things out and, finally, to learn. So make sure you give your students time for reflection after every class. Ask them to create a quick piece of art to reflect what they’ve learned. Not only does this kind of reflection aid in learning, it can also teach students to make curiosity a constantly present part of their lives.
1. Why is curiosity vital to study according to the text?| A．It improves students’ memory. |
| B．It helps gain a better learning result. |
| C．It assists teachers in encouraging students. |
| D．It promotes the understanding of each other. |
| A．Dull. | B．Considerable. | C．Essential. | D．Popular. |
| A．By asking as many questions as possible. |
| B．By encouraging students to ask unexpected questions. |
| C．By offering students sufficient time to discuss questions. |
| D．By dismissing the questions that don’t fit with the lesson. |
| A．Definition of curiosity. | B．Significance of imagination. |
| C．Ways of making classes educative. | D．Methods for enlightening curiosity. |
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【推荐1】Most animals living in crowded conditions have particularly strong immune systems, so it long puzzled researchers that honeybees do not.
Part of the answer, discovered in 2015, is that queen bees vaccinate their eggs by moving parts of proteins from disease-causing pathogens to them before they are laid. These act as antigens to trigger the development of a protective immune response in the developing young. But that observation raises the question of how the queen receives her antigen supply in the first place? Dr. Harwood wondered if the nurse bees were taking in parts of pathogens and passing them to royal jelly they were producing while eating the food brought to the hive.
To test this idea, he teamed up with a group at the University of Helsinki, in Finland, led by Dr Heli Salmela. Together, they collected about 150 nurse bees and divided them among six queenless mini hives equipped with baby bees to look after. Instead of honey, they fed the nurses on sugar water, and for three of the hives they added P. larvae, a bacterium causing a hive-killing disease, to the sugar water.
In this case, to stop such an infection happening, Dr Harwood and Dr Salmela heat-treated the pathogens and so killed them in advance. They also labelled the dead bacteria with a fluorescent dye, to track them easily. And, sure enough, it was confirmed that parts of P. larvae were getting into royal jelly released by those bees which had been fed with the sugar water containing that.
All told, these findings suggest that nurse bees are indeed, through their royal jelly, passing antigens onto the queen for vaccinating her eggs. They also mean the nurses are vaccinating baby bees as well, because baby bees, too, receive royal jelly for the first few days after they come out.
1. What does the underlined word “trigger" in Paragraph 2 probably mean?| A．Cut out. | B．Set off. | C．Slow down. | D．Put off. |
| A．Queen bees. | B．Nurse bees. | C．Bee eggs. | D．Baby bees. |
| A．To test if it would cause a hive-killing disease. |
| B．To check how the bacterium would affect the hive. |
| C．To see whether the target bees would favor the taste. |
| D．To confirm the bees would pass pathogens to royal jelly. |
| A．How bees multiply. | B．How antigens function. |
| C．How bees get vaccinated. | D．How immune system works. |
【推荐2】Talking therapies for anxiety and depression
Talking therapies, or psychological therapies, are effective treatments delivered by fully trained and qualified experts. They can help if you’re struggling with things like feelings of depression, excessive worry, social anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).· You can access talking therapies for free on the National Health Service (NHS) in UK.
· You can refer yourself directly to a talking therapies service without recommendation.
· Help is available in person, by video, over the phone or as an online course.
What can talking therapies help with?You do not need to have a diagnosed mental health problem first. Getting support as soon as you start having difficulties can help to reduce their impact.
You may be:
· feeling anxious
· feeling low and hopeless
· having panic attacks
· finding it hard to cope with work, life or relationships
· struggling with flashbacks and nightmares about things from your past
· feeling stressed
Other things that talking therapies can help with include:
· worrying a lot
· excessive thoughts or behaviours
· fear social situations
· being afraid of things, such as spiders, flying or heights
Types of talking therapiesThere are a range of evidence-based talking therapies. Which therapy you are offered depends on which one has been shown to be most helpful for your symptoms.
Examples of talking therapies include:
· guided self-help-where a therapist coaches you as you work through a self-help course in your own time, either using a workbook or an online course
· cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)-based on the idea that thoughts, feelings, what we do, and how our bodies feel physically, are all connected. CBT helps you notice and challenge thoughts or behaviours to help you feel better.
· interpersonal therapy (IPT) or dynamic interpersonal therapy (DIT)-therapies that look at the link between your depression and your relationships
Talking therapies can also help if you have mental health problems resulting from other conditions, such as diabetes (糖尿病), cancer, long-term pain.
Talking therapies are oftered in different ways, including:
· using a self-help workbook with the support of a therapist
· as an online course
· one-to-one sessions either in person, over the phone or as a video consultation
· in a group
1. You are recommended talking therapics if you are________.| A．feeling optimistic about the future |
| B．suffering from diabetes or cancer |
| C．lacking in thoughts or behaviours |
| D．afraid of getting along with others |
| A．You conduct a self-help course all by yourself. |
| B．Your thoughts and how your body feel disconnect. |
| C．You feel better after noticing and challenging thoughts. |
| D．You have to work in a group to receive talking therapies. |
| A．To inform people of talking therapies. |
| B．To persuade people to take talking therapies. |
| C．To call for donation for talking therapies. |
| D．To describe the history of talking therapies. |
【推荐3】Professor Kuniyoshi L. Sakai from the University of Tokyo is an enthusiastic musician, as are many of his colleagues. Inspired by a mode of musical training known as the Suzuki method, which is based on ideas of natural language acquisition (获得), Sakai and his team decided to explore common neurological (神经系统的) aspects of learning music and language.
“In the field of neuroscience, it is well established that there are areas of the brain that deal specifically with language, and even specialized regions that correspond to different aspects of language processing, such as grammar,” said Sakai. “We wondered if training using the Suzuki method might lead to activity in such areas, not when using language, but when engaging with music.”
For their study, the team classified 98 Japanese secondary school students into three groups: Groups S and E were both musically trained from a young age, with Group S using the Suzuki method while Group E not, and Group L was either musically trained at a later age or not trained at all. All the students had their brains scanned and were requested to identify errors in some pieces of music played to them, which had errors in one of four musical conditions: pitch (音高)，tempo (节奏), stress, and articulation (发音)。
During the exercises, Groups S and E showed more overall brain activity than Group L, especially under the pitch and articulation conditions. Furthermore, Groups S and E showed activity in very specific regions depending on the kind of error being tested for.
Interestingly, Group S showed some unique patterns of activation (激活) in areas of the right brain, associated with emotion and melody, under the tempo condition, supporting the ideas behind the Suzuki method.
“The striking observation was that regardless of musical experiences, the highly specific grammar center in the left brain was activated under the articulation condition. This might explain why everyone can enjoy music even if they aren’t musical themselves,” said Sakai. “Other researchers, perhaps those studying neurological characteristics of artistic experts, may be able to build on what we’ve found here. As for ourselves, we wish to dig deeper into the connection between music and language by designing novel experiments to find out more subtle details,” he added.
1. What does the first paragraph mainly tell us?| A．The research background. | B．The significance of the research. |
| C．Sakai’s comments on the Suzuki method. | D．Sakai’s previous scientific achievements. |
| A．Whether the Suzuki method can bring out the best in students. |
| B．Whether advanced language training can enhance musical skills |
| C．Whether music training promotes activity in certain brain areas. |
| D．Whether brain regions specialize in handling different aspects of language. |
| A．Their performances under the tempo condition were alike. |
| B．Their active brain regions changed with the errors in music. |
| C．They received the same musical training before the research. |
| D．They were better at handling stress and articulation than Group L. |
| A．They were uncertain about their findings. |
| B．They were unsatisfied with their experiments. |
| C．They’ll begin to study the neurological features of artistic experts. |
| D．They’ll further explore the link between music and language. |
【推荐1】Decades ago, NASA asked experts to develop the "smell of space1' in order to help prepare astronauts for the experience of outer space. Now, a perfume, Eau de Space, has attracted eager buyers.
According to the Kickstarter campaign, which has been launched to sell Eau de Space, the history of the "smell of space" has been unclear owing to various accounts of its development. Ever since the first spacewalk, astronauts have been shocked by the smell.
NASA astronauts Col. Chris Hadfield said, "The only time you can smell space is when you come back from a spacewalk. As you open the hatch(舱门)，there is a distinctive smell. " Some astronauts and space tourists describe it as fruit, or burnt cookies. Astronauts Gene Cernan talked of another smell he experienced: "The moon smells like spent gunpowder " The smell of space is so distinct that NASA reached out to fragrance makers to recreate the smell, according to NASA documents.
Now, the makers have cooperated with award winning perfumers(香水调配师)，and report that they've secured commercial contracts to reproduce the smell based on astronaut’s accounts.
At S29 per boule. Eau de Space will help support STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) programs for students. “For every bottle of Eau de Space you buy, were going to donate one to a STEM program for low-income. It’s a big promise and isn’t the best decision for a company trying to make a profit. But we really believe in the cause and hope you do too. Imagine that a child who smells Eau de Space today is inspired Io become an astronaut, scientist or engineer,” shows Kickstarter.
Eau de Space will be made in the UK employing low-income labor and environmentally-friendly practices, including zero manufacturing waste, according to the campaign. So far, about 11,000 people have become supporters.
1. Why was the Kickstarter campaign started?| A．To promote Eau de Space. | B．To attract perfume makers. |
| C．To explain the “smell of space”. | D．To recreate the “smell of space”. |
| A．Its makers will make a profit of S28 per bottle, |
| B．It has been available in the market for a long lime. |
| C．It can get astronauts ready for their space experience. |
| D．Its smell is designed according to astronauts' descriptions. |
| A．Part of its profits will support low-income students. |
| B．The company will offer its employees high salaries. |
| C．Its production process won't damage the environment. |
| D．About 11,000 people have tried it out personally so far. |
| A．Eau de Space, a Perfume Used in Space |
| B．The “Smell of Space”, a Perfume on the Way |
| C．The History of Developing the “Smell of Space” |
| D．Astronauts’ Different Accounts about the Space Smell |
【推荐2】Abel Cruz is an industrial engineer living in Lima, the capital of Peru, which is located in the central coastal part of the country, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. When Abel Cruz was a boy,his weekly routine was to climb down a valley in the foothills of the Peruvian Andes to get the family’s water from a spring.
“It was downhill from the house, far away and steep,” he says.
The Peruvian Andes are under the weather influences coming both from the Pacific Ocean and from the jungle and traditionally there is a “dry” and “rainy” season. Recent climatic changes have made the dry seasons even drier and longer.
Cruz began dreaming up better ways to collect water. He noticed that some plants, for example, capture (捕获) rain and mist with their wide leaves. Eventually, he struck upon the idea of a fog net, a concept that he would go on to share around the world.
Each vertical (垂直的) net is 215 square feet of man-made resin (树脂). Micro-droplets (滴液) of water gather together and then fall down into collection tanks. One net can collect 50 to 100 gallons per day. Locals can carry back the water in small containers like buckets for their small farms.
Working in Lima, Peru, with support from the Creating Water Foundation, Cruz has installed (安装) more than 3,600 nets on the bare hillsides around the city to capture fog coming from the Pacific Ocean. This should help bring relief to the city of more than 9 million, which tends to have little rainfall and suffers from frequent lack of water. “The planet has less and less fresh water,” Cruz points out, “because the glaciers (冰川) that are natural water collection tanks are disappearing. So, we must find a way to store and save water for times of drought.”
1. Which of the following can best describe Abel Cruz’s work of getting water from a spring?| A．Tiring. | B．Entertaining. |
| C．Unnecessary. | D．Economic. |
| A．Capturing rain with wide leaves. |
| B．Gathering fog droplets with big nets. |
| C．Turning resin into water droplets. |
| D．Carrying water into collection tanks. |
| A．The net is man-made. |
| B．The collection tanks are made of resin. |
| C．The net is vertically installed on the hillsides. |
| D．Locals must carry water in small containers. |
| A．His concerns over world’s lack of water. |
| B．His engineering experience. |
| C．Support from Creating Water Foundation. |
| D．His geographic knowledge on his home country. |
【推荐3】When humans are feeling lonely, we can call or video chat with friends and family who live far away. But, scientists asked, what about pet parrots? New research suggests that these chatty creatures may also benefit from virtually connecting with their peers.
The idea for this study was not random: In the wild, parrots tend to live in large groups. But when kept in as pets, these social birds are often on their own. Feeling bored and lonely, they may develop psychological issues and can even turn to self-harming behaviours like pulling out their feathers.
In the study, researchers wanted to see whether 18 pet parrots could learn to make and receive video calls when they needed to help reduce loneliness. In the initial stage, the birds learnt to ring a bell and then touch a photo of another bird on a tablet screen to start a call to that bird. Calls would only work when caregivers were able to assist at both ends. In the second stage, the parrots could choose to call other birds at their own will by ringing the bell then selecting the bird they wanted to call. During a two-month study period, owners said they recorded 147 deliberate calls between birds.
“We saw some really encouraging results from the study,” said researchers. The parrots seemed to grasp that they were truly engaging with other birds onscreen and their behaviour often mirrored what we would expect from real-life interactions between these types of birds. “She came alive during the calls,” one pet owner said about her bird, according to a Northeastern University statement.
The team has previously designed similar technology such as DogPhone, which allowed pet dogs to shake a ball to communicate with their owner. “The animal Internet is already here—there are hundreds of products on the market that let pet owners interact with their animals remotely over the net, but their design is primarily focused on what humans want, not what their pets need,” Hirskyj-Douglas from the University of Glasgow added.
1. Why did researchers want to teach parrots to make video calls?| A．To assess the effects of video calls on animals. |
| B．To train parrots’ communication skills. |
| C．To help get pet parrots out of bad moods. |
| D．To improve the relationships between parrots. |
| A．The subjects of the experiment. |
| B．The procedures of the experiment. |
| C．Caregivers’ role in the experiment. |
| D．The significance of the experiment. |
| A．To indicate video calls saved his parrot’s life. |
| B．To show pet parrots like video calls very much. |
| C．To show pet owners are satisfied with the study. |
| D．To illustrate the study produced positive results. |
| A．It uses the Internet technology. | B．It enhances human-animal interaction. |
| C．It satisfies pet owners’ needs. | D．It focuses on animals’ needs. |
