1 . When British musician Paul Barton performs in central Thailand lately, his energetic listeners react wildly. Some pull his hair or jump on his piano. Others steal his music. The behavior is normal, however, because these crowds are truly barbaric-monkeys to be exact.
Barton plays often to the animals in Lopburi, an area known for its populations of macaque monkeys. The pianist hopes the music shows bring calm to the animals during the coronavirus crisis. The disease has caused problems for the monkeys, too. They are hungry. The "restrictions on tourism mean fewer people come to see the monkeys and feed them.
“We need to make an effort to make sure that they eat properly. And when they eat properly they will be calmer and will not be aggressive, ”said Barton.
Barton has played at four sites in Lopburi, including at an ancient Hindu temple, a store and an old movie theater. The macaques quickly surround Barton when he plays Greensleeves, Beethoven's Fur Elise and Michael Nyman's Diary of Love. Some of the creatures sit on his chair, while others climb up his body and touch his head.
“A wonderful opportunity to see the wild animals just being themselves," said Barton, from. Yorkshire in northern England. Barton keeps his attention on his performance, even as a small monkey runs over his hands on the instrument Other monkeys take control of his music papers. However, he added, “I wasn't going to let those things distract from the project which is to play the music for these wonderful macaques. In fact, I was surprised to find that they were actually eating the music as I was playing it.”
The monkeys are Barton's latest animal fans. Past wildlife audiences included elephants living in special protected areas.
Barton hopes to raise awareness of the monkeys' hunger. At the same time, he hopes to study their behavior as they react to- classical music. "It's possible that the music can play a part in the treatment process,“ he said.
1. What does the underlined word "barbaric" in paragraph 1 refer to?| A．Gentle. | B．Envious. | C．Aggressive. | D．Cruel. |
| A．Caring. | B．Ambitious | C．Romantic. | D．Generous. |
| A．To attract more tourists. | B．To promote classic music. |
| C．To bring peace to the animals. | D．To study the monkey's population. |
| A．A Musician Plays for Monkeys in Thailand. |
| B．Music can Play a Part in the Treatment Process. |
| C．The Wild Macaque Monkeys Like Listening to Music. |
| D．The Coronavirus has Caused Problems for the Monkeys. |
2 . Personality is the pattern of thoughts, feelings and behaviors unique to a person. People tend to think of personality as fixed. But according to psychologists, that’s not how it works. “Personality is a developmental phenomenon,” said Brent Roberts, a psychologist at the University of Illinois.
That’s not to say that you’re a different person each day you wake up. “In the short term, change can be barely detectable,” Roberts said Individuals’ levels of each personality trait tended to stay consistent within each decade of life. But those decades add up. “Throughout all those years, our personality is still changing, but slowly,”Roberts said. “It’s something that’s subtle,” he added. “You don’t notice it on that five-to-10-year time scale, but in the long term, it becomes pronounced.”
In 1960, psychologists surveyed over 440,000 high school students, 1952 of whom were tracked down and given the same survey fifty years later. The results, published in 2018 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, found that in their 60s, participants scored much higher than they had as teenagers on questions measuring calmness, self-confidence, leadership and social sensitivity. There’s good evidence that the average self-control of a30-year-old is higher than a 20-year-old. At the same time, people who are relatively self-controlled at 18 also tend to be relatively self-controlled at age 30.
So why do we change so much? Evidence suggests it’s not dramatic life events, such as marriage, the birth of a child or loss of a loved one. Some psychologists actually suggest these events strengthen your personality as you bring your characteristics with you to that particular situation.
`“Instead, changing expectations placed on us—as we adjust to university, starting a family—slowly wears us in, almost like a pair of shoes,” Roberts said. “Over time you are asked in many contexts across life to do things a bit differently,” he added. “There’s not a user handbook for how to act, but we unconsciously follow the way we are supposed to behave in these situations. So we adapt.”
1. What do we know about personality from paragraph 1 and paragraph 2?| A．Individual personality has a lot in common. |
| B．Personality develops slowly in the long run. |
| C．Every day personality is a new phenomenon. |
| D．Short-term change in personality can be detected. |
| A．Obvious. | B．Skeptical. | C．Steady. | D．Rewarding. |
| A．Clearly a 30-year-old tends to lose temper more easily than a 20-year-old. |
| B．440,000 high school students surveyed in 1960 were traced fifty years later. |
| C．Participants behave more calmly and confidently in their 60s than as teenagers. |
| D．People who are relatively self-controlled at 18 are surely not self-controlled at 30. |
| A．Dramatic life events. |
| B．Changing expectations on others. |
| C．Different contexts across life. |
| D．Constant adaptation to situations. |
3 . One of the problems damaging our planet is the number of things we throw away. Rubbish of all kinds is piling up in landfills and polluting our rivers and oceans. A more recent addition to the list of things we chuck away is e-waste--electronic items that are broken and not recycled. Now solutions are being found to give this stuff a new life.
Many millions of tons of televisions, phones, and other electronic equipment are discarded each year, partly because it's cheaper to replace them than fix them, but also because we lack the skills to repair them. A UN report claims the 50 million tons of e-waste generated every year will more than double to 110 million tons by 2050, making it the fastest growing waste stream in the world.
However, there's a growing trend for repair events and clubs which could be part of a solution to the growing amount of electrical and electronic junk. The BBC visited a Restart Project in London, which is one of many found around the world. One of its volunteers, Francesco Calo, said, “This project allows you to reduce waste, extend the life of objects, and it helps people who cannot afford to get rid of items that have developed a fault. ”
As many electrical items contain valuable metals, another idea is e-waste mining. An experiment at the University of New South Wales involves extracting these materials from electronic gadgets. It's thought that doing this could be more profitable than traditional mining. With phones typically containing as many as 60 elements, this could be part of the solution to our appetite for new technology.
At present, in countries where there is no legislation, much of it just gets dumped. However, the European Union, for example, is trying to tackle the problem by insisting manufacturers make appliances longer-lasting and supply spare parts for machines for up 10 years.
1. What is the passage mainly about?| A．The Restart Project founded to get rid of e-waste. |
| B．The phenomenon of the sharp rise of electronic junk. |
| C．The damage caused by quantities of things we throw away. |
| D．Possible solutions to the growing amount of electronic waste. |
| A．Produced. | B．Promoted. | C．Recycled. | D．Abandoned. |
| A．It aims to reduce e-waste by providing repair service. |
| B．It offers poor people new devices to replace old ones. |
| C．It is a project recycling electrical and electronic junk. |
| D．It intends to make great profits by e-waste mining. |
| A．A science textbook. | B．An environmental magazine. |
| C．A research paper. | D．An economic journal. |
4 . The cultures of the East and the West are really different from each other a lot. This is because the culture systems are two separate ones on the whole.
The origin (起源) of the Eastern culture is mainly from two countries: China and India. Both of the two cultures are developed by rivers — the Yellow River in China and the Hindu River in India. They helped the two cultures develop for centuries and form their own styles.
When the two mother rivers gave birth to the Eastern culture, another famous culture was up on the Mesopotamian Plain — the Mesopotamian Civilization. This civilization later on developed into the cultures of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. And these two are well-known as the base of the European culture. Like the Chinese culture, the European culture also crossed waters. When the British settled down in America, their culture went with them over the Atlantic Ocean. So the American culture doesn’t have much difference from the European culture.
At the same time, some other differences add to the cultural differences. Take the language system for example. In the East, most languages belong to the pictographic (象形) language while the western languages are mostly based on the Latin system. Other causes like human race differences count as well. But what’s more, due to the far distance and the steep areas between the East and the west, the two cultures seldom communicate until recent centuries. So they grew up totally in their own ways with almost no interference from the other.
The differences are everywhere. They are obvious and make people’s ways of thinking and their views of the world different. But different cultures make the world of 21st century more colorful. The cultural difference should not be the obstacle (障碍) to the civilization of human being. It ought to be the driving force of our going farther.
1. What is the text mainly about?| A．The origin of cultures. | B．Culture differences. |
| C．Language systems. | D．Colorful world. |
| A．Both of the two cultures have a very long history. |
| B．They have the same mother rivers as the Chinese culture. |
| C．The early settlers from Britain brought their culture to America. |
| D．Both the British and the American live along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. |
| A．difference | B．influence |
| C．confidence | D．environment |
| A．A diary. | B．A magazine. |
| C．A novel. | D．A guidebook. |
