1 . ＂Did you hear what happened to Adam last Friday?＂ Lindsey whispers to Tori.
With her eyes shining, Tori brags, ＂You bet I did. Sean told me two days ago.＂
Who are Lindsey and Tori talking about? It just happens to be yours truly, Adam Freedman. I can tell you that what they are saying is (a) not nice and (b) not even true. Still, Lindsey and Tori aren’t very different from most students here at Linton High School, including me. Many of our conversations are gossip(闲话). I have noticed three effects of gossip: it can hurt people, it can give gossipers a strange kind of satisfaction, and it can cause social pressures in a group.
An important negative effect of gossip is that it can hurt the person being talked about. Usually, gossip spreads information about a topic — breakups, trouble at home, even dropping out — that a person would rather keep secret. The more embarrassing or shameful the secret is, the juicier the gossip it makes. Probably the worst type of gossip is the absolute lie. People often think of gossipers as harmless, but cruel lies can cause pain.
If we know that gossip can be harmful, then why do so many of us do it? The answer lies in another effect of gossip: the satisfaction it gives us. Sharing the latest rumor(传言) can make a person feel important because he or she knows something that others don’t. Similarly, hearing the latest rumor can make a person feel like part of the ＂in group.＂ In other words, gossip is satisfying because it gives people a sense of belonging or even superiority(优越感).
Gossip also can have a third effect: it strengthens unwritten, unspoken rules about how people should act. Professor David Wilson explains that gossip is important in policing behaviors in a group. Translated into high school terms, this means that if everybody you hang around with is laughing at what John wore or what Jane said, then you can bet that wearing or saying something similar will get you the same kind of negative attention. The do’s and don’ts conveyed through gossip will never show up in any student handbook.
The effects of gossip vary depending on the situation. The next time you feel the urge to spread the latest news, think about why you want to gossip and what effects your ＂juicy story＂ might have.
1. The author uses a conversation at the beginning of the passage to __________.| A．introduce a topic | B．present an argument |
| C．describe the characters | D．clarify his writing purpose |
| A．breaks up relationships | B．embarrasses the listener |
| C．spreads information around | D．causes unpleasant experiences |
| A．gives them a feeling of pleasure |
| B．helps them to make more friends |
| C．makes them better at telling stories |
| D．enables them to meet important people |
| A．provide students with written rules |
| B．help people watch their own behaviors |
| C．force schools to improve student handbooks |
| D．attract the police’s attention to group behaviors |
| A．Never become a gossiper. | B．Stay away from gossipers. |
| C．Don’t let gossip turn into lies. | D．Think twice before you gossip. |
2 . The traffic signals along Factoria Boulevard in Bellevue, Washington, generally don't flash the same length of green twice in a row, especially at rush hour. At 9:30am, the full red/yellow/green signal cycle might be 140 seconds. By 9:33am, a burst of additional traffic might push it to 145 seconds. Less traffic at 9:37am could push it down to 135. Just like the traffic itself, the timing of the signals changes.
That is by design. Bellevue, a fast-growing city just east of Seattle, uses a system that is gaining popularity around the US: intersection(十字路口) signals that can adjust in real time to traffic conditions. These lights, known as adaptive signals, have led to significant declines in both the trouble and cost of travels between work and home.
“Adaptive signals can make sure that the traffic demand that is there is being addressed, ” says Alex Stevanovic, a researcher at Florida Atlantic University.
For all of Bellevue’s success, adaptive signals are not a cure-all for jammed roadways. Kevin Balke, a research engineer at the Texas A&M University Transportation Institute, says that while smart lights can be particularly beneficial for some cities, others are so jammed that only a sharp reduction in the number of cars on the road will make a meaningful difference. “It’s not going to fix everything, but adaptive signals have some benefits for smaller cities,” he says.
In Bellevue, the switch to adaptive signals has been a lesson in the value of welcoming new approaches. In the past, there was often an automatic reaction to increased traffic: just widen the roads, says Mark Poch, the Bellevue Transportation Department’s traffic engineering manager. Now he hopes that other cities will consider making their streets run smarter instead of just making them bigger.
1. What does the underlined word “that” in paragraph 2 refer to?| A．Increased length of green lights. | B．Shortened traffic signal cycle. |
| C．Flexible timing of traffic signals. | D．Smooth traffic flow on the road. |
| A．They work better on broad roads. |
| B．They should be used in other cities. |
| C．They have greatly reduced traffic on the road. |
| D．They are less helpful in cities seriously jammed. |
| A．It is rewarding to try new things. | B．The old methods still work today. |
| C．It pays to put theory into practice. | D．The simplest way is the best way. |
3 . I am an active playgoer and play-reader, and perhaps my best reason for editing this book is a hope of sharing my enthusiasm for the theater with others. To do this I have searched through dozens of plays to find the ones that I think best show the power and purpose of the short play.
Each play has a theme or central idea which the playwright(剧作家) hopes to get across through dialogue and action. A few characters are used to create a single impression growing out of the theme. It is not my intention to point out the central theme of each of the plays in this collection, for that would, indeed, ruin the pleasure of reading, discussing, and thinking about the plays and the effectiveness of the playwright. However, a variety of types is represented here. These include comedy, satire, poignant drama, historical and regional drama. To show the versatility(多面性) of the short play, I have included a guidance play, a radio play and a television play.
Among the writers of the plays in this collection, Paul Green, Susan Glaspell, Maxwell Anderson, Thornton Wilder, William Saroyan, and Tennessee Williams have all received Pulitzer Prizes for their contributions to the theater. More information about the playwrights will be found at the end of this book.
To get the most out of reading these plays, try to picture the play on stage, with you, the reader, in the audience. The houselights dim(变暗). The curtains are about to open, and in a few minutes the action and dialogue will tell you the story.
1. What do we know about the author from the first paragraph?| A．He has written dozens of plays. | B．He has a deep love for the theater. |
| C．He is a professional stage actor. | D．He likes reading short plays to others. |
| A．Stating the plays’ central ideas. | B．Selecting works by famous playwrights. |
| C．Including various types of plays. | D．Offering information on the playwrights. |
| A．Control their feelings. | B．Apply their acting skills. |
| C．Use their imagination. | D．Keep their audience in mind. |
| A．A short story. | B．An introduction to a book. |
| C．A play review. | D．An advertisement for a theater. |
4 . Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is road testing a new way to keep winter roads ice-free – by spreading on them cheese brine, the salty liquid used to make soft cheese, like mozzarella.
Wisconsin, also called "America's Dairyland," is famous for its cheese. The state produced 2.8 billion pounds of cheese last year! As a result, there was a lot of leftover cheese brine. Disposing of(处置)the brine can be expensive. So what should cheese makers do with the waste?
Normally, towns use rock salt to de-ice streets. The salt lowers waters' freezing point, causing ice to melt(融化). But using cheese brine could help both cheese producers and cities save money, while keeping roads safe. Cheese brine has salt in it, which, like the rock salt, helps lower water's freezing point.
In addition to saving money, cheese brine could also be a more environment-friendly option. Many people suspect that all the rock salt used every winter is harming the environment.
Rock salt is made of sodium chloride, the sane con-pound (化合物)in ordinary table salt. Sounds harmless, right? But while you probably add only a small amount of salt to your food, road crews spread about 20 million tons of salt on U.S. Roads every year!
The chemical washes off roads and goes into the ground. There it can pollute drinking water, harm plants. and eat away soil. By spreading cheese brine on streets before adding a layer of rock salt, Milwaukee may be able to cut its rock salt use by 30 percent.
Cheese brine has a downside too – a shell similar to that of bad milk. "I don't really mind it," Emil Norby told Modern Farmer magazine. He works for one of Wisconsin's county highway commissions and came up with the idea of using cheese brine. "Our roads smell like Wisconsin!" he said.
1. Why can cheese brine help keep winter roads ice-free?| A．It is soft. | B．It contains salt. | C．It is warm. | D．It has milk in it. |
| A．Improving air quality. | B．Increasing sales of rock salt. |
| C．Reducing water pollution. | D．Saving the cheese industry. |
| A．barking up the wrong tree | B．putting the cart before the horse |
| C．robbing Peter to pay Paul | D．killing two birds with one stone |
5 . A scientist working at her lab bench and a six-old baby playing with his food might seem to have little in common.After all,the scientist is engaged in serious research to uncover the very nature of the physical world,and the baby is,well, just playing…right?Perhaps,but some developmental psychologists have argued that this “play” is more like a scientific investigation than one might think.
Take a closer look at the baby playing at the table. Each time the bowl of rice is pushed over the table edge, it falls in the ground—and, in the process, it belongs out important evidence about how physical objects interact; bowls of rice do not flood in mid-sit, but require support to remain stable. It is likely that babies are not born knowing the basic fact of the universe; nor are they ever clearly taught it. Instead, babies may form an understanding of object support through repeated experiments and then build on this knowledge to learn even more about how objects interact. Though their ranges and tools differ, the baby’s investigation and the scientist’s experiment appear to share the same aim(to learn about the natural world), overall approach (gathering direct evidence from the world), and logic (are my observations what I expected?).
Some psychologists suggest that young children learn about more than just the physical world in this way—that they investigate human psychology and the rules of language using similar means. For example, it may only be through repeated experiments, evidence gathering, and finally overturning a theory, that a baby will come to accept the idea that other people can have different views and desires from what he or she has. For example, unlike the child, Mommy actually doesn’t like Dove chocolate.
Viewing childhood development as a scientific investigation throws on how children learn, but it also offers an inspiring look at science and scientists. Why do young children and scientists seem to be so much alike? Psychologists have suggested that science as an effort—the desire to explore, explain, and understand our world—is simply something that comes from our babyhood. Perhaps evolution provided human babies with curiosity and a natural drive to explain their worlds, and adult scientists simply make use of the same drive that served them as children. The same cognitive systems that make young children feel good about figuring something out may have been adopted by adult scientists. As some psychologists put it, “It is not that children are little scientists but that scientists are big children.”
1. According to some developmental psychologists, ________.
| A．a baby’s play is nothing more than a game. |
| B．scientific research into babies; games is possible |
| C．the nature of babies’ play has been thoroughly investigated |
| D．a baby’s play is somehow similar to a scientist’s experiment |
| A．scientists and babies seem to observe the world differently |
| B．scientists and babies often interact with each other |
| C．babies are born with the knowledge of object support |
| D．babies seem to collect evidence just as scientists do |
| A．exploring the physical world |
| B．investigating human psychology |
| C．repeating their own experiments |
| D．observing their parents’ behaviors |
| A．The world may be more clearly explained through children’s play. |
| B．Studying babies’ play may lead to a better understanding of science. |
| C．Children may have greater ability to figure out things than scientists. |
| D．One’s drive for scientific research may become stronger as he grows. |
| A．Convincing. | B．Confused. |
| C．Confidence. | D．Cautious. |
6 . It's surprising how much simple movement of the body can affect the way we think. Using expansive gestures with open arms makes us feel more powerful, crossing your arms makes you more determined and lying down can bring more insights(领悟).
So if moving the body can have these effects, what about the clothes we wear? We're all well aware of how dressing up in different ways can make us feel more attractive, sporty or professional, depending on the clothes we wear, but can the clothes actually change cognitive(认知) performance or is it just a feeling?
Adam and Galinsky tested the effect of simply wearing a white lab coat on people's powers of attention. The idea is that white coats are associated with scientists, who are in turn thought to have close attention to detail.
What they found was that people wearing white coats performed better than those who weren't. Indeed, they made only half as many errors as those wearing their own clothes on the Stroop Test(one way of measuing attention). The reserchrs call the effect "enclothed cognition," suggesting that all manner of different clothes probably affect our cognition in many differnt ways.
This opens the way for all sorts of clothes-based experiments. Is the writer who wears a fedora more creative? Is the psychologist wearing little round glasses and smoking a cigar more insightful? Does a chef's hat make the restaurant food taste better?
From now on I will only be editing articles for PsyBlog while wearing a white coat to help keep the typing error count low. Hopefully you will be doing your part by reading PsyBlog in a cap and gown(学位服).
1. What is the main idea of the text?| A．Body movements change the way people think. |
| B．How people dress has an influencee on their feelings. |
| C．What people wear can affect their cognitive performance. |
| D．People doing different jobs should wear different clothes. |
| A．insights | B．movements |
| C．attention | D．appearance |
| A．Academic. | B．Humorous. |
| C．Formal. | D．Hopeful. |
7 . When I was in fourth grade, I worked part-time as a paperboy. Mrs. Stanley was one of my customers. She’d watch me coming down her street, and by the time I’d biked up to her doorstep, there’d be a cold drink waiting. I’d sit and drink while she talked.
Mrs. Stanley talked mostly about her dead husband, “Mr. Stanley and I went shopping this morning.” she’d say. The first time she said that, soda(汽水) went up my nose.
I told my father how Mrs. Stanley talked as if Mr. Stanley were still alive. Dad said she was probably lonely, and that I ought to sit and listen and nod my head and smile, and maybe she’d work it out of her system. So that’s what I did, and it turned out Dad was right. After a while she seemed content to leave her husband over at the cemetery(墓地).
I finally quit delivering newspapers and didn’t see Mrs. Stanley for several years. Then we crossed paths at a church fund-raiser(募捐活动). She was spooning mashed potatoes and looking happy. Four years before, she’d had to offer her paperboy a drink to have someone to talk with. Now she had friends. Her husband was gone, but life went on.
I live in the city now, and my paperboy is a lady named Edna with three kids. She asks me how I’m doing. When I don’t say “fine”, she sticks around to hear my problems. She’s lived in the city most of her life, but she knows about community. Community isn’t so much a place as it is a state of mind. You find it whenever people ask how you’re doing because they care, and not because they’re getting paid to do so. Sometimes it’s good to just smile, nod your head and listen.
1. Why did soda go up the author’s nose one time?| A．He was talking fast. | B．He was shocked. |
| C．He was in a hurry. | D．He was absent-minded. |
| A．He enjoyed the drink. | B．He wanted to be helpful. |
| C．He took the chance to rest. | D．He tried to please his dad. |
| A．recover from her sadness | B．move out of the neighborhood |
| C．turn to her old friends | D．speak out about her past |
| A．Open up to others. | B．Depend on each other. |
| C．Pay for other’s help | D．Care about one another. |
8 . FLORENCE, Italy—Svetlana Cojochru feels hurt. The Moldovan has lived here seven years as a caregiver to Italian kids and elderly, but in order to stay she’s had to prove her language skills by taking a test which requires her to write a postcard to an imaginary friend and answer a fictional job ad.
Italy is the latest Western European country trying to control a growing immigrant(移民) population by demanding language skills in exchange for work permits, or in some cases, citizenship.
Some immigrant advocates worry that as hard financial times make it more difficult for natives to keep jobs, such measures will become more a vehicle for intolerance than integration(融合). Others say it’s only natural that newcomers learn the language of their host nation, seeing it as a condition to ensure they can contribute to society.
Other European countries laid down a similar requirement for immigrants, and some terms are even tougher. The governments argue that this will help foreigners better join the society and promote understanding across cultures.
Italy, which has a much weaker tradition of immigration, has witnessed a sharp increase in immigration in recent years. In 1990, immigrants numbered some 1.14 million out of Italy’s then 56.7 million people, or about 2 percent. At the start of this year, foreigners living in Italy amounted to 4.56 million of a total population of 60.6 million, or 7.5 percent, with immigrants’ children accounting for an ever larger percentage of births in Italy.
Cojochru, the Moldovan caregiver, hoped obtaining permanent residence(居住权) would help her bring her two children to Italy; they live with her sister in Moldova, where salaries are among the lowest in Europe. She was skeptical that the language requirement would encourage integration.
Italians always ＂see me as a foreigner,＂ an outsider, even though she’s stayed in the country for years and can speak the local language fluently, she said.
1. Why does Cojochru have to take a language test?| A．To continue to stay in Italy. |
| B．To teach her children Italian. |
| C．To find a better job in Italy. |
| D．To better mix with the Italians. |
| A．reduce Italy’s population quickly |
| B．cause conflicts among people |
| C．lead to financial difficulties |
| D．put pressure on schools |
| A．She lives with her sister now in Italy. |
| B．She enjoys learning the Italian language. |
| C．She speaks Italian well enough for her job. |
| D．She wishes to go back to her home country. |
A
From the very beginning of school we make books and reading a constant source of possible failure and public humiliation. When children are little we make them read aloud, before the teacher and other children, so that we can be sure they “know” all the words they are reading. This means that when they don’t know a word, they are going to make a mistake, right in front of everyone. After having taught fifth-grade classes for four years, I decided to try at all costs to rid them of their fear and dislike of books, and to get them to read oftener and more adventurously.
One day soon after school had started, I said to them, “Now I’m going to say something about reading that you have probably never heard a teacher say before. I would like you to read a lot of books this year, but I want you to read them only for pleasure. I am not going to ask you questions to find out whether you understand the books or not. If you understand enough of a book to enjoy it and want to go on reading it, that’s enough for me. Also I’m not going to ask you what words mean. “
The children sat stunned and silent. Was this a teacher talking? One girl, who had just come to us from a school where she had had a very hard time, looked at me steadily for a long time after I had finished. Then, still looking at me, she said slowly and seriously, Mr Holt, do you really mean that?” I said just as seriously, “I mean every word of it.
During the spring she really astonished me. One day, she was reading at her desk, From a glimpse of the illustrations I thought I knew what the book was. I said to myself, “It can’t be,” and went to take a closer look. Sure enough, she was reading Moby Dick , in edition with woodcuts. I said, “Don’t you find parts of it rather heavy going?” She answered, Oh, sure, but I just skip over those parts and go on to the next good part. “
This is exactly what reading should be and in school so seldom is, an exciting, joyous adventure. Find something, dive into it, take the good parts, skip the bad parts, get what you can out of it, go on to something else. How different is our mean-spirited, picky insistence that every child get every last little scrap of “understanding” that can be dug out of a book.
1. According to the passage, children’s fear and dislike of books may result from________.
| A．reading little and thinking little |
| B．reading often and adventurously |
| C．being made to read too much |
| D．being made to read aloud before others |
| A．for enjoyment |
| B．for knowledge |
| C．for a larger vocabulary |
| D．for higher scores in exams |
| A．it sounded stupid |
| B．it was not surprising at all |
| C．it sounded too good to be true |
| D．it was no different from other teachers' talk |
| A．She skipped over those easy parts while reading. |
| B．She had a hard time finishing the required reading tasks. |
| C．She learned to appreciate some parts of the difficult books. |
| D．She turned out to be a top student after coming to this school. |
| A．children cannot tell good parts from bad parts while reading |
| B．children should be left to decide what to read and how to read |
| C．reading is never a pleasant and inspiring experience in school |
| D．reading involves understanding every little piece of information |
Below are search record from a university library’s database
Quick Search l Category l Full Text l Advanced
Search full text books for children
Displaying 1 to 100 of 639 titles for children where Category is Education
 Build it ,Make it ,Play it ! Guides for Children and Teens Bomhold Catharine ;Elder Terri,2004 l ABC-CLIO Series: Children’s and Young Adult Literature Reference  AvailableFor busy librarians and educators ,finding instructions for projects ,activities ,sports ,and games that children and teens will find interesting is a constant challenge, This guide is a time-saving,one-stop…. Read this book l View details l Add to Collection |
 Circle Time for Young Children Mosley Jenny,2014 l Taylor and Francis Series: Essential Guides for Early Years Practitioners AvailableJenny Mosley’s quality circle time model involves setting up an on-going, timetable process Of circle-meeting for adults and children ,As a basis for teaching relationship skills, building up self-esteem….. Read this book l View details l Add to Collection |
 Connecting Animals and children in Early Childhood Selly Patty Born,2014 l Redleaf Press  AvailableUnderstand the value of connecting animals and children .From familys pets and wild animals to toys ,stuffed animal ,and media images ,animals are a central part of every child’s world .This book examines…. Read this book l View details l Add to Collection |
 Education and Disadvantaged Children and Young People Matsumoto Mitsuko; Brool Colin,2013 l Bloomsbury Publishiing Series: Education as a Humanitarian Response AvailableDo street children go ti school ,and if not ,why not? What kind of education can be ‘meaningful’ to young people affected by conflict? The contributors explore groups of children and young people who have…. Read this book l View details l Add to Collection |
Children with School problme:A Physkian’s Manual
 The children paediatric Society; Andrews Debra;Mahoney WilliamJ,2012 I wiley Available The physician’s guide to diagnosing and treating learning disabilities in children.1 to 10 Canadians have a learning disability,and doctors must be able to idcntify,diagnose,trear,and manage children… Read this book I view details I Add to Collection |
 Songs in Their Heads:Music and Its Meaning In Children’s Lives Campbell Patricia Shehan,1989 I Oxford University Press Available This book explores the intrest and needs of children in their expressed thounts and actual “musicking”behaviours, This text examines the songs they sing,the ryhthms… Read this book I view details I Add to Collection |
 Young Children as Artists:Art and Design in the Earty Years and Kay Stage 1 Tutchell Suzy 2014 I Taylor Francis Available From the monment a child is born,they intctract with the world,looking at colours,feeding texrures;constructing mental and physical images of what they see and experience.Within all early years… Read this book I view details I Add to Collection |
 Big Ideas for Littles Kids:TEAching Philosophy Through Children’s Liferature Wartnberg Thomas E.2014 I Rowman&Littlefield Publishers Available Big Ideas for Little Kids includes everything a teacher,or a college student needs to teach philosophy to elementary school children from picture books.Written in a clear and accessible style… Read this book I view details I Add to Collection |
1. Suppose you are doing research on children’s relationship skills,you may want to read______.
| A．Circle Time for Young Children |
| B．Children with School Problems:A Phsysician’s Manual |
| C．Education and Disaddvantaged Children and Young People |
| D．Build It,Make It,Do It,Play It!Guides for Children and Teens |
| A．Connecting Animals and Children in Early Childhood. |
| B．Songs in Their Heads:Music and Its Meaning in children’sLives. |
| C．Big Ideas for Little Kids: Teaching Philosophy Through children’s Literature. |
| D．Young Children as Artists:Art and Design in the Early Years and Key Stage 1. |
| A．9. | B．90. | C．118. | D．290. |
| A．educators | B．librarians | C．doctors | D．artists |
