【推荐2】Who would win in a competition to memorize numbers, a chimp or a teenager? The teenager? Think again. Scientists have proved that chimps perform better than human beings when it comes to this kind of problem.

    1    

Memory is our ability to learn something, save it and recall it when needed. Our memories are important to our sense of self, our personalities, and our ability to understand the world.

    2     There is short-term memory and long-term memory. Your short-term memory saves information for a few seconds or a few minutes.     3     Long-term memory involves the information you try hard to keep, because it’s meaningful to you—an example is data about family and friends. And then there is visual memory and sound memory. But these are not hard and fast. In fact, Scientists argue a lot about the nature of memory.

    4     Some memorize better with the help of pictures. Others are helped more by sounds. One thing’s for sure though: If you can put the different kinds of memory together, there can be great results.     5     At the same time, you could listen to recordings of the same group of words. These things may help when it comes to memorizing the words.

Imagination and association can be useful too. By imagination, scientists mean picturing a word in your mind, while association means relating the word to something you already know.

A．So why not try pictures with English words?

B．Then how do chimps have better memories than us?

C．Scientists say that there are different types of memory.

D．We may have to rethink what we believe about human memory.

E．Scientists have also found that people memorize things in different ways.

F．For example, the time it takes to compare the prices of a few items in a store.

G．Short-term and long-term memory differ in the amount of information they can store.

【推荐3】Music lessons may improve memory and learning ability in your children by promoting different patterns of brain development, a study shows．
After a year of musical training, children aged between 4 and 6 performed better at a standard memory test than did children who were not taught music．The findings suggest that music could be useful for building the learning capacity of your minds．
Earlier studies have shown that older children given music lessons become better at IQ tests than those who are musically untrained, but this is the first to show such a benefit in children so young．
Professor Laurek Trainor, of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, also found clear differences in the ways in which children's brains responded to sound after a year of musical training．'This is the first study to show that brain responses in young, musically trained and untrained children change differently over the course of a year," she said．"These changes are likely to be related to the cognitive（ 认知的 ）benefit that is seen with musical training．"
Professor Trainer's team looked at 12 children, 6 of whom had just started extra-curricular （课程外） music lessons and 6 of whom were not being taught any music except that included as a standard part of their school curriculum （课程标准） ．
During the year all 12 children had their brains examined four times using magneto-encephalography （MEG）, and each child was played two types of sound —white noise and a violin tone．The MEG measurements showed that all children responded more to violin sounds than to white noise, reflecting a preferable for meaningful tones, and their response times fell over the course of the year as their brains matured．
1. This passage is mainly about ____．

A．why music lessons are good for the memory

B．the benefit from extra-curricular training for younger children

C．a study on twelve young children's brains

D．new technology to examine children's brains

2. It can be concluded from the text that ____．

A．the study is the first one on the effect of musical training on children's brains

B．scientists got no valuable results from the earlier studies on the topic

C．children musically trained remember things better than those untrained

D．older children get more benefit from musical training than younger ones

3. What do we know about the twelve children tested in the study?

A．None of them had been musically trained before．

B．Only 6 of them had a knowledge of music before．

C．Not all of them had been taught some music in school．

D．All of them were required to learn some music in school．

4. We know from the MEG measurements that ____．

A．the older a child is, the more quickly he/she responds to sounds

B．human brains prefer musical sounds to white noise

C．children of different ages respond to sounds at the same speed

D．all the twelve children like to learn to play the violin very much

【推荐1】The national movement to get rid of plastic bags has been gaining steam — with over 240 cities and counties passing laws that ban (明令禁止) or tax them since 2007 in the US. But these bans may be hurting the environment more than helping it.

University of Sydney economist Rebecca Taylor and her colleagues compared cities with the bans with those without them about the use of bags. For six months, they spent weekends in grocery stores recording the types of bags people carried out.

Taylor found these bag bans did what they were supposed to: People in the cities with the bans used fewer plastic bags. But people who used to reuse their shopping bags for other purposes, like picking up dog waste, still needed bags. “What I found was that sales of garbage bags actually grew sharply after plastic grocery bags were banned,” she says.

Garbage bags are thick and use more plastic than typical shopping bags. “About 30 percent of the plastic that was reduced by the ban comes back in the form of thicker garbage bags,” Taylor says. On top of that, cities that banned plastic bags saw a surge in the use of paper bags, which she thinks resulted in about 80 million pounds of extra paper garbage per year.

A bunch of studies find that paper bags are actually worse for the environment. They require cutting down and processing trees, which needs lots of water, toxic chemicals and fuel. While paper is biodegradable and avoids some of the problems of plastic, Taylor says, the huge increase of paper means banning plastic shopping bags increases greenhouse gas emissions.

The Danish government recently did a study that took into consideration environmental impacts beyond simply greenhouse gas emissions, including the use of water, damage to ecosystems and air pollution. These factors make cloth bags even worse. They estimate you would have to use an organic cotton bag 20,000 times more than a plastic grocery bag to make using it better for the environment.

1. What is the result of banning plastic grocery bags?

A．Plastic bags are no longer needed.

B．People begin to reuse their plastic bags.

C．The amount of garbage is even greater.

D．Most of the reduced plastic returns in the form of garbage bags.

2. What does the underlined word “surge” in paragraph 4 mean?

A．Sharp increase.

B．Slow development.

C．Tight control.

D．Sharp decrease.

3. Why are paper and cloth bags worse for the environment?

A．They are much thicker than plastic bags.

B．They are not as biodegradable as plastic bags.

C．They can’t be reused as many times as plastic bags.

D．They need more natural resources and hurt the environment more than plastic bags.

4. What is the main idea of the passage?

A．Banning plastic may do more harm than good.

B．Banning plastic has great influence on people’s life.

C．Banning plastic increases the use of paper and cloth bags.

D．Banning plastic bags is gaining popularity worldwide.

【推荐2】The world itself is becoming much smaller by using modern traffic and modern communication means. Life today is much easier than it was hundreds of years ago, but it has brought new problems.     1     Pollution means making things dirty. It comes in many ways. We see it, smell it, drink it and even hear it.

Man has been polluting the earth.    2     Many years ago, the problem was not so serious because there were not so many people. When the land was used up or the river was dirty in one place, Man moved to another place. But this is no longer true. Man is now slowly polluting the whole world.

    3     It’s bad for all living things in the world, but it is not the only one kind of pollution. Water pollution kills our fish and pollutes our drinking water. Noise pollution makes us angry more easily.

    4     They stop people from burning coal in houses and factories in the city, and from putting dirty smoke into the air.

The earth is our home. We must take care of it.    5     And we must take care of the rise in population at the same time.

A．One of the biggest is pollution.

B．The more people, the more pollution.

C．Air pollution is still the most serious.

D．That means keeping the land, water and air clean.

E．Many countries are making rules to fight pollution.

F．I hope scientists can find ways to solve the serious problem.

G．Strange diseases have appeared in some places because of pollution.

【推荐1】Do you ever talk to yourself? Although it’s not always a conscious habit, most of us practice self-talk on a daily basis, as away of guiding, motivating or supporting ourselves.

Over the years, research has shown that self-talk can increase productivity, motivation and confidence, and even help manage feelings. “There is solid evidence that self-talk strategies improve learning and performance,” according to sport psychologist Antonis Hatzigeorgiadis, who studies the phenomenon of self-talk.

He explains that there are generally three reasons why we practice self-talk: to instruct, to motivate or to evaluate. Instructional self-talk happens when we need to guide ourselves through a specific task, such as learning a new skill. Motivational self-talk usually is used when we want to prepare ourselves for something challenging; it can help to increase confidence. Evaluative self-talk mostly is related to past events or actions.

Hatzigeorgiadis stresses that if we want to use such self-talk to good advantage, it needs to be short, precise and, most of all, consistent. Of course, self-talk also can be ineffective and even detrimental if it’s not done right.

“It is a matter of personal preference or what works for each person; but generally, it is advised that self-talk be positively rather than negatively phrased and focus on what you should do rather than on what you should avoid,” Hatzigeorgiadis says. So, for example, it would be better to say “stay cool” instead of “don’t get upset”. Although both instructions convey the same meaning, you should use positive words rather than negative ones. In this way you can avoid ill results.

Another thing that can make a difference when practicing self-talk is the way you address yourself. According to research published in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, using “you” rather than “I” when talking to yourself tends to be more effective. The researchers explain that when you think of yourself as another person, it allows you to give more objective and useful feedback.

1. What does the research say about self-talk?

A．It is a daily habit for everyone.	B．It can make people feel better.
C．It may help strengthen memory.	D．It is always an unconscious behavior.

2. What can be concluded from Hatzigeorgiadis’ explanation?

A．Self-talk occurs in different situations.	B．Self-talk usually makes one brave.
C．Self-talk arises with various feelings.	D．Self-talk is closely linked with a certain task.

3. What does the underlined word “detrimental” in paragraph 4 probably mean?

A．Confusing.

B．Useless.

C．Harmful.

D．Unbearable.

4. What can be a suitable title for the text?

A．Self-talk: a close relation to the past	B．Self-talk: a great way to avoid ill results
C．Self-talk: a useful tool to benefit our life	D．Self-talk: a matter of personal preference

【推荐2】Teenagers who talk on the cell phone a lot, and hold their phones up to their right ears, score worse on one type of memory test. That’s the finding of a new study. That memory impairment might be one side effect of the radiation (放射线) that phones use to keep us connected while we’re on the go.

Nearly 700 Swiss teens took part in a test of figural memory. This type helps us remember abstract (抽象的) symbols and shapes, explains Milena Foerster. The teens took memory tests twice, one year apart. Each time, they had one minute to remember 13 pairs of abstract shapes. Then they were shown one item from each pair and asked to match it with one of the five choices. The study volunteers also took a test of verbal memory. That’s the ability to remember words. The two memory tests are part of an intelligence test. The researchers also surveyed the teens on how they use cell phones. And they got call records from phone companies. The researchers used those records to figure out how long the teens were using their phones. This allowed the researchers to work out how big a radiation exposure (接触) each person could have got while talking.

A phone user’s exposure to the radiation can differ widely. Some teens talk on their phones more than others. People also hold their phones differently. If the phone is close to the ear, more radiation may enter the body, Foerster notes. Even the type of network signal that a phone uses can matter. Much of Switzerland was using an older “second-generation” type of cell phone networks, the study reports. Many phone carriers (通讯公司) have moved away from such networks. And more companies plan to update their networks within the next few years.

The teens’ scores in the figural memory tests were roughly the same from one year to the next. But those who normally held their phones near the right ears, and who were also exposed to higher levels of radiation, scored a little bit worse after a year. No group of teens showed big changes on the verbal memory test. Why might one type of memory be linked to cell phone use, but not another? Foerster thinks it could have to do with where different memory centers sit in the brain. The site that deals with the ability to remember shapes is near the right ear.

1. According to Paragraph 2, which of the following is TRUE?

A．The teens took two types of memory tests four times in total.

B．The teens needed to report the average time spent on their phones.

C．Researchers paid little attention to the teens’ habits of using phones.

D．The teens’ ability of remembering words is shown in figural memory test.

2. What can we infer from Paragraph 3?

A．How people hold their phones has no effect on their bodies.

B．Phone users can make more money with new networks.

C．The cell phone network type has little to do the cell phone use.

D．Radiation levels are affected by the cell phone network types.

3. According to the study, teens who use their phones to their right ears a lot do worse in ________.

A．matching numbers	B．reading signals
C．remembering shapes	D．learning words

4. What might be the best title for the text?

A．Cell phone use and safety warnings

B．Facts about cell phone use at school

C．Dangerous levels of cell phone use among teens

D．Teen’s cell phone use linked to memory problems