1 . Young children who have experienced compassionate (有同情心的) love and empathy (认同感) from their mothers may be more willing to turn thoughts into action by being generous to others, a University of California, Davis’ study suggests.
In lab studies, children tested at ages 4 and 6 showed more willingness to give up the tokens (代金券) they had earned to fictional children in need when two conditions were present—if they showed bodily changes when given the opportunity to share and had experienced positive parenting that modeled such kindness. The study initially included 74 preschool-age children and their mothers. They were invited back two years later, resulting in 54 mother-child pairs whose behaviors and reactions were analyzed when the children were 6.
“At both ages, children with better physiological regulation and with mothers who expressed stronger compassionate love were likely to donate more of their earnings,” said Paul Hastings, UC Davis professor of psychology. “Compassionate mothers likely develop emotionally close relationships with their children while also providing an early example of satisfying the needs of others,” researchers said in the study, published in November in Frontiers in Psychology” Emotion Science.
In each lab exercise, after attaching a monitor to record children’s heart-rate activity, the examiner told the children they would be earning tokens for a variety of activities, and that the tokens could be turned in for a prize. The tokens were put into a box, and each child eventually earned 20 prize tokens. Then before the session ended, children were told they could donate all or part of their tokens to other children.
Taken together, the findings showed that children’s generosity is supported by the combination of their socialization experiences—their mothers’ compassionate love—and their physiological regulation, and that these work like “internal and external supports for the ability to act prosocially that build on each other”.
In addition to observing the children’s propensity (习性) to donate their game earnings, Hastings suggested that “being in a calmer state after sharing could reinforce (加强) the generous behavior that produced that good feeling.”
1. How do young children loved by their mother tend to become in later years?| A．Considerate. | B．Emotional. |
| C．Generous. | D．Optimistic. |
| A．The process of the research. | B．The result of the experiment. |
| C．The reactions of the children. | D．The importance of Mom’s love. |
| A．Their moms love them deeply. | B．They donate the tokens easily. |
| C．They behave physiologically. | D．They are calmer after sharing. |
| A．What Contributes to Generosity? |
| B．The More You Give, the Calmer You Will Be |
| C．Do You Prefer to Receive or Give? |
| D．More Giving, Less Receiving |
2 . Nearly everyone knows eBay is a website where you can buy and sell pretty much anything. There are other Internet auction (拍卖) sites, but none come close to eBay for brand-name recognition. And for good reason: eBay is the largest English-language online auction site in the world. Buyers come to eBay for the best chance of finding the particular thing they want. Sellers come for the largest pool of buyers, which they hope means the best chance of selling at the highest possible price.
Buying things on eBay is pretty simple. You can type a term into the search field, or click through the categories list to get to what you want. Inside an individual item listing, you’ll see the current asking price, and a little button to click if you wish to place your own bid. Enter a price, occasionally come back to see if someone has bid higher than you and wait for the end of the auction period. If your bid is the highest, you win! Now all you have to do is arrange payment and shipping method with the seller. eBay is only in the business of putting buyers and sellers together for a small fee from the seller. It doesn’t handle the actual payment or shipping of goods. In other words, it isn’t a big department store, or a warehouse. It’s the owner of a flea market, and you have to do your own deals with the individual sellers in their virtual stalls.
To be a skillful eBay buyer, you should learn when to trust sellers and how a proxy (代理人) bid can save you from going online every half-hour to up your bid. Experienced eBay users also know how to use escrows (公正托管) to guarantee goods, and how to avoid selling tricks such as fake bids that push up prices. The more often you buy on eBay, the more you learn.
1. Why is eBay the best website for people to buy and sell things?| A．Because it has all brand products. |
| B．Because the trade language is English. |
| C．Because sellers and buyers can close their deals. |
| D．Because sellers can find a swimming pool there. |
| A．Find the current asking price. |
| B．Click a button to place your own bid. |
| C．Enter a price which is higher than others. |
| D．Find what you want in the categories list. |
| A．Get goods from eBay. |
| B．Determine payment and shipment. |
| C．Send somebody for the goods. |
| D．Talk about the price of the goods. |
| A．How to be a skillful buyer at eBay. |
| B．How to make sure of qualified goods. |
| C．How to avoid being cheated by others. |
| D．How to spare you from going online frequently. |
3 . We often hear friends ask why they should read fiction. There is so much to learn from history, from what is going on at the frontiers of science, and from contemporary studies of human behavior. Why should they spend their scarce "free time" reading fiction, the purpose of which, at best, is only entertainment?
We are disappointed about such comments. Yes, we respond, we do find pleasure in reading fiction. But we also learn much about how to best live our lives in ways that can only be captured by fiction. We recognize that some novels are entertaining, but leave no lasting impression. What makes a novel more than entertainment?
Our answer is that we don't just read great books - they read us as well. The human condition is complex and contradictory, layered like an ice-cream dessert, with flavors mixed among the layers. A great novel reflects that complexity. We may read it several times, as we do with our favorites, and each time it is like finding an old friend and gaining new insights from that friend. We put it down with new understandings of the world around us and, most important, of ourselves.
Let's look at the novel Frankenstein, written in 1818 by Mary Shelley. Frankenstein is not the monster, but a young man seeking out the secrets of the universe. He collects body parts and charges it with life. When the dull yellow eyes open, however, Frankenstein, shocked by what he has done, abandons the creature, which ultimately kills Frankenstein's brother, his bride, and his best friend.
On one level, Frankenstein is entertaining - a good horror story, though a little dated. But Shelley writes more than just that. On a deeper level, her book forces us to ask whether humans reach too far to gain knowledge that is as forbidden as the fruit of the Garden of Eden. This theme, as old as the legend of Prometheus （普罗米修斯），dominates Frankenstein. Shelley, of course, knew nothing of genetic （遗传的）engineering that happens today. She was deeply troubled by what human beings might discover about themselves, and the effects of those discoveries on society. Our reading of great literature can also be enriched by understanding the author's personal interests and anxieties.
1. How does the author feel about fiction reading?| A．It is a window to a whole new world. |
| B．It helps us discover the frontiers of science. |
| C．It offers insight into how to live best lives. |
| D．It holds some clues to understanding our memory. |
| A．Because they deserve reading several times. |
| B．Because they lead us to a rich and colorful life. |
| C．Because they explore humans' complex reality. |
| D．Because they improve the writer-reader relationship. |
| A．It is based on a grand theme. |
| B．It is a record of a historic event. |
| C．It is merely a great horror story. |
| D．It is about the legend of Prometheus. |
| A．Why should we read fiction? |
| B．Can novel reading last long? |
| C．Read for fun or read for none? |
| D．Is Frankenstein really entertaining? |
4 . With the world’s attention on vaccines (疫苗), now feels like a good moment to sing the praises of an often forgotten contribution to their development. Three hundred years ago this month, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu got her daughter inoculated (接种) against smallpox, making her child the first person in the West to be protected in this way. Without Montagu’s willingness to adopt a practice she had learned from other cultures, the introduction of vaccines around 80 years later would never have taken place.
Montagu first witnessed inoculation when she accompanied her husband to Turkey in 1717. Inoculation had started in Asia, probably in China, as early as the 10th century AD. Montagu observed how older women in Turkey took a tiny amount of pus (脓) from a person with smallpox. They then used needles to make cuts on people’s wrists and ankles and added the pus to their bloodstream. This helped people gain immunity from future infection.
Like other visitors to the country, Montagu took steps to ensure that her son was inoculated in Turkey. This worked well, but she knew that trying it in England would be far more challenging. Inoculation performed by unlicensed amateurs would threaten doctors’ professional standing and potentially rob them of valuable income. Churchmen also disagree with the practice, as they saw it as going against nature.
Back in England, Montagu observed the increased severity of smallpox infections. Eventually, in April 1721, she decided to use the Turkish practice to have her daughter inoculated, because she believed that the rewards would outweigh the risks. After a safe time had passed following the inoculation, Montagu allowed doctors to examine her daughter.
Doctors in Britain gradually accepted the practice. About so years later, a pioneering physician found smallpox vaccines to destroy smallpox completely. As early as last century, academics argued that Montagu was no more than an enthusiastic amateur. In truth, she made a vital scientific contribution towards finding the cure for smallpox.
1. What is the second paragraph mainly about?| A．The origin of smallpox inoculation. |
| B．Montagu’s first access to inoculation. |
| C．The benefits from smallpox inoculation. |
| D．Turkish women’s invention of inoculation. |
| A．it was against human nature | B．it might harm doctors’ interests |
| C．it was beyond doctors’ abilities | D．it might shake churchmen’s belief |
| A．The increased severity of smallpox infections. |
| B．A physician’s discovery of smallpox vaccines. |
| C．The result of Montagu’s daughter’s inoculation. |
| D．Montagu’s focus on its rewards rather than its risks. |
| A．An unsung hero | B．No limit to creation |
| C．Development of vaccines | D．A historic medical innovation |
5 . Chimps use loud calls and gestures to make their feelings known but until now, the exact meaning for individual movements has remained a mystery. Now researchers believe they have translated the key gestures used in the chimp community and identified their intentions for the first time.
From 4,351 gestures, experts were able to identify 66 that are used for 19 specific message meanings, including showing a foot to tell a child they can climb on their back. The researchers were able to narrow down these 66 gestures to 36 that are used intentionally to achieve 15 purposes. The translations were made by Dr Catherine Hobaiter and her colleagues at St Andrews University in Scotland.
Dr Hobaiter used behavior sampling and filmed all recorded cases of gestural communication. Other gestures include stomping their feet to ask another chimp to stop what they are doing, and slapping objects together to ask another to follow them. Of the 19 meanings,17 encouraged interactions to start, or to develop, such as “move closer,” and “change play”. Some of the gestures were found to have more than one meaning. and only 10 of the 66 gestures were used for only a single meaning.
Researchers collected a total of 471 video clips from two social groups of chimps at a shelter near Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. As well as identifying what the gesture means, they also discovered the technique needed to increase the chances of success.
“Human children use gestures to communicate before they produce their first words, and their earliest gestures typically appear around 10 months of age,” explained the researchers. “In great apes, there is good evidence that language-trained individuals are capable of acquiring and understanding signals, but this is far less clear in their natural communication. ”
1. Chimps slap the objects to____________.| A．tell others to stop what they are doing | B．ask others chimps to join them |
| C．gather other chimps to move closer | D．encourage interactions to start |
| A．Chimps trained in language are good at understanding signals. |
| B．Two social groups of chimps live at a shelter near Kinshasa. |
| C．Language-trained individuals do well in natural communication. |
| D．Chimps’earliest gestures appear around 10 months of age. |
| A．By analyzing causes. | B．By examining differences. |
| C．By making comparisons. | D．By following time order. |
| A．A New Research on Chimps | B．Human Children and Chimps |
| C．Getting the Chimps Trained for Language | D．Translating the Sign Language of Chimps |
6 . Bangkok's future hangs in the balance. Rising sea levels, unchecked development and rapid urban population growth have left millions helpless to natural disasters — scientists warn the city Bangkok may not survive the century.
But it does have a secret weapon in its battle to resist the impact of a hotter planet — LANDPROCESS, a Bangkok-based landscape architecture and urban design company founded in 2011 by the landscape architect Kotchakom Vbrkaakhom. She wants to shift the orientation from growth to the actions on environment and land and promotes mindful development instead of mindless construction.
She made her name by creating the internationally acknowledged Chulalongkorn University Centenary Park, an 11-acre space in central Bangkok, which tilts（倾斜）downward at a 3-degree angle, allowing rainwater to flow through the grass and wetlands. Water that’ s not absorbed by the plants runs down to a pond at the base of the park, where it can be stored for use during dry spells. In case of severe flooding, the park can hold up to a million gallons of water.
In 2018, she created Asia’s largest rooftop farm, which imitates the region’s famed rice terraces（梯田）, preserving both water and soil. Uniquely, winding around the 22,400m2rooftop is a jogging path and a lawn.
Green space design of ecological cities emerged one after another, which not only expanded the design ideas of landscape industry, but also provided new strategies for people to deal with climate problems.
Later this year she will carry out plans to transform a vast, unused bridge crossing the Chao Phraya River into a park with bicycle lanes, bringing more green space. Kotchakom has even greater ambitions for her hometown — she wants to reuse the more than 1,000 canals that snake through Bangkok that are currently used for waste water. "Canals have so much life, so much potential to be public green space and a skeleton（框架）of the whole city," she explains.
LANDPROCESS has always listened to the needs of the society, and established a harmonious relationship between nature and human beings through design, so as to create a public landscape that can really give back to the society.
1. Why is Bankok’s future mentioned in paragraph 1?| A．To make a prediction of the city. |
| B．To provide some scientific knowledge. |
| C．To stress the urgency of solving problems. |
| D．To draw readers’ attention to climate change. |
| A．Its space. | B．Its green coverage. |
| C．Its landscape. | D．Its tilt design. |
| A．She collects rainwater for industrial use. |
| B．Her rooftop farm has made the best of urban spaces. |
| C．She will reconstruct the canals to recycle waste water. |
| D．She always designs sports facilities in her green parks. |
| A．A Productive Architecture Company |
| B．An Architect with Green Growth Mindset |
| C．Bangkok's Future Hangs in the Balance |
| D．Mindful and Mindless Construction in Bangkok |
