Children's Fine Motor Skills
Using a fork to eat, zipping up a sweatshirt and turning a doorknob are all things most people do without thinking, but children spend their early years developing and refining these abilities. They are known as fine motor skills,
The elementary school years and beyond see
In fact, when working on fine motor skills in the classroom, short lessons provide the most benefit for learning,. Play-based learning is also one of the strategies that are preferred. Teachers may also use hand-eye coordination - the ability of a child's eyes
2 . Is It Smarter Than a Seven-month-old?
By the age of seven months, most children have learned that objects still exist even when they are out of sight. Put a toy under a blanket and a child that old will know it is still there, and that he can reach underneath the blanket to get it back.
It is also something that self-driving cars do not have. And that is a problem. Autonomous vehicles are getting better, but they still don't understand the world in the way that a human being does. For a self-driving car, a bicycle that is momentarily hidden by a passing van is a bicycle that has ceased to exist.
This failing is basic to the now-widespread computing discipline that has claimed to be the slightly misleading name of artificial intelligence（AI）. Current Al works by building up complex statistical models of the world, but it lacks a deeper understanding of reality.
Modern AI is based on the idea of machine learning. If an engineer wants a computer to recognize a stop sign, he does not try to write thousands of lines of code that describe every pattern of pixels（像素）which could possibly indicate such a sign.
| A．Instead, he writes a program that can learn for itself, and then shows that program thousands of pictures of stop signs. |
| B．The high-tech vision system has the potential to be more successful than humans in detecting dangerous situations |
| C．How to give AI at least some appearance of that understanding—the reasoning ability of a seven-month-old child, perhaps—is now a matter of active research |
| D．Programmers have developed procedures that behave like the neurons（神经元） in a brain. They can "learn" from the actions taken in previous situations and infer what to do in a new, similar situation. |
| E．This understanding of "object permanence", is a normal developmental milestone, as well as a basic principle of reality. |
| F．Similar techniques are used to train self-driving cars to operate in traffic. |
3 . On a September afternoon in 1940, four teenage boys made their way through the woods on a hill overlooking Montignac in southwestern France. They had come to explore a dark, deep hole said to be an underground passage to the nearby manor（庄园）of Lascaux. Squeezing through the entrance one by one, they soon saw wonderfully lifelike paintings of running horses, swimming deer, wounded wild oxen, and other beings—works of art that may be up to 20,000 years old.
The collection of paintings in Lascaux is among some 150 prehistoric sites dating from the Paleolithic period（旧石器时代）that have been documented in France's Vezere Valley. This corner of southwestern Europe seems to have been a hot spot for figurative art. The biggest discovery since Lascaux occurred in December 1994, when three cave explorers laid eyes on artworks that had not been seen since a rockslide 22,000 years ago closed off a large deep cave in southern France. Here, by unsteadily shining firelight, prehistoric artists drew outlines of cave lions, herds of rhinos（犀牛）and magnificent wild oxen, horses, cave bears. In all, the artists drew 442 animals over perhaps thousands of years, using nearly 400,000 square feet of cave surface as their canvas（画布）. The site, now known as Chauvet-Pont-1'Arc Cave, is sometimes considered the Sistine Chapel of prehistory.
For decades scholars had theorized that art had advanced in slow stages from ancient scratchings to lively, naturalistic interpretation. Surely the delicate shading and elegant lines of Chauvet's masterworks placed them at the top of that progression. Then carbon dates came in, and prehistorians felt shocked. At some 36,000 years old—nearly twice as old as those in Lascaux—Chauvet's images represented not the peak of prehistoric art but its earliest known beginnings.
The search for the world's oldest cave paintings continues. On the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, for example, scientists found a large room of paintings of part-human, part-animal beings that are estimated to be 44,000 years old, older than any figurative art seen in Europe.
Scholars don't know if art was invented many times over or if it was a skill developed early in our evolution. What we do know is that artistic expression runs deep in our ancestry.
1. According to the passage, where did the boys find the paintings?| A．In the woods on a hill | B．In a deep cave in France. |
| C．In a manor of Lascaux. | D．On an Indonesian island |
| A．conveys concepts by using accurate numbers and forms |
| B．makes stories in contrast to scientific subjects |
| C．represents persons or things in a realistic way |
| D．expresses ideas or feelings by using shapes and patterns |
| A．the Chauvet's paintings had been sealed by a rockslide until 1994 |
| B．the style of Chauvet's paintings is similar to that of the Sistine Chapel |
| C．Chauvet's images are the earliest figurative paintings that have been found |
| D．the main objects of Chauvet's images are part-human, part-animal beings |
| A．Value of Paleolithic Artwork | B．Preservation of Figurative Art |
| C．Artistic Expressions of Nature | D．Searches for Cave Paintings |
4 .
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| A．a social organization that helps customers | B．a website that offers different shipping services |
| C．an inquiry department that solves customers' problems | D．a company that sells various products and services |
| A．161.5 dollars | B．137.5 dollars. | C．118 dollars. | D．153 dollars. |
| A．promote the shipping services | B．describe the product features |
| C．introduce the shipping fees | D．prove the advantages of shipping |
How Quality Sleep Protects Your Brain
Having trouble thinking creatively? Not able to focus on tasks that need to get done? Poor sleep could potentially be
Research suggests not getting enough quality sleep can have serious permanent negative consequences. On the other hand, good sleep habits can have lasting benefits. Below are three research-backed brain benefits of sleep.
Stimulates creativity
Thinking in new, imaginative ways requires a well-rested brain. On the contrary, a brain
A study
More than twice as many participants gained insight into the hidden rule after sleep as those who did after wakefulness, regardless of the time of day. The researchers concluded that "sleep, by restructuring new memory representations,
Reduces depression
Often influenced by chemical imbalances in the brain, depression and sleep problems go hand-in-hand. People with depression may either have a hard time sleeping or else get too much sleep.
While it's not clear
Solidifies memories
One of sleep's main functions is to help improve memory. It does this by enabling the brain to strengthen some neural pathways（神经通路）
6 . Is that “empathy”（移情） or “sympathy” you’re showing? While the two words are often incorrectly used interchangeably, the difference in their emotional impact is important.
Empathy, literally “walk a mile in others’ shoes”, goes beyond sympathy, a simple expression of concern for another person’s misfortune. Empathy requires the ability to recognize the suffering of another person from their point of view and to openly share their emotions, including painful distress. Since it requires shared experiences, people can generally feel empathy only for other people, not for animals. While people may be able to sympathize with a horse, for example, they cannot truly empathize with it.
Sympathy is a feeling and expression of concern for someone, often accompanied by a wish for them to be happier or better off. “Oh dear, I hope the new plan can really work.” In general, sympathy implies a deeper, more personal, level of concern than pity, a simple expression of sorrow. However, unlike empathy, sympathy does not imply that one’s feelings for another are based on shared experiences or emotions.
Psychologists say that empathy is essential in forming relationships and acting toward others. Since it involves experiencing another person’s point of view — stepping outside one’s self —empathy enables genuinely helping behaviors that come easily and naturally, rather than having to be forced.
Empathetic people work effectively in groups, make more lasting friendships, and are more likely to step in when they see others being mistreated. It is believed that people begin to show empathy in infancy and develop the quality through childhood and adolescence. Despite their level of concern for others, however, most people tend to feel deeper empathy for people similar to themselves compared to people outside their family, community, race, or cultural background.
However, taken to extremes, deep or extended feelings of empathy can actually be harmful to one’s emotional health. Empathy can make people angry — perhaps dangerously so — if they mistakenly perceive that another person is threatening a person they care for.
For years, psychologists have reported cases of too empathetic patients endangering the well-being of themselves and their families by giving away their life savings to random needy individuals. Such too empathetic people who feel they are somehow responsible for the distress of others have developed an empathy-based guilt.
1. What does the phrase “walk a mile in others’ shoes” in Paragraph 2 mean?| A．Put oneself in others’ situation. |
| B．Walk a long distance in others’ shoes. |
| C．Accompany others in the long jogging. |
| D．Walk with others to share their experiences. |
| A．Pity = sympathy. | B．Sympathy = empathy. |
| C．Pity < sympathy. | D．Sympathy > empathy. |
| A．Empathy is a feeling that exists between human beings and animals. |
| B．Empathy is essential to form relationship, so the deeper, the better. |
| C．Empathy is to just express sadness to other without shared experiences. |
| D．People are more likely to show empathy to those who have something in common. |
| A．Empathy, Good or Bad? | B．Two Important Human Feelings. |
| C．Empathy vs. Sympathy. | D．Empathy, A Must in Relationship. |
7 . Why do old people dislike new music? As I’ve grown older, I often hear people my age say they just don’t make good music like they used to. Why does this happen? Luckily, psychology can give us some insights into this puzzle. Musical tastes begin to become clear as early as age 13 or 14. By the time we’re in our early 20s, these tastes get locked into place pretty firmly.
In fact, studies have found that by the time we turn 33, most of us have stopped listening to new music. Meanwhile, popular songs released when you’re in your early teens are likely to remain quite popular among your age group for the rest of your life.
There could be a biological explanation for this, as there’s evidence that the brain’s ability to make subtle distinctions between different chords, rhythms, and melodies weakens with age. So to older people, newer, less familiar songs might all “sound the same.”
But there are maybe some simpler reasons for older people’s dislike to newer music. One of the most researched laws of social psychology is something called the “mere exposure effect”, which in essence means that the more we’re exposed to something, the more we tend to like it.
This happens with people we know, the advertisements we see and, the songs we listen to. When you’re in your early teens, you probably spend a fair amount of time listening to music or watching music videos. Your favorite songs and artists become familiar, comforting parts of your routine.
For many people over 30, job and family obligations increase, so there’s less time to spend discovering new music. Instead, many will simply listen to old, familiar favorites from that period of their lives when they had more free time.
Psychology research has shown that the emotions that we experience as teens seem more intense than those that come later. And we also know that intense emotions are associated with stronger memories and preferences. Both of these might explain why the songs we listen to during this period become so memorable and beloved.
So there’s nothing wrong with your parents because they don’t like your music. Rather it’s all part of the natural order of things.
1. What have studies found about most people by the time they turn 33?| A．They no longer listen to new music. |
| B．They find all music sounds the same. |
| C．They can make subtle distinctions about music. |
| D．They seldom listen to songs released in their teens. |
| A．Tom likes the book, so he reads it more times. |
| B．Andy recites the words repeatedly and he is fed up with them. |
| C．Mike often listens to the same song and becomes more and more interested in it. |
| D．Peter goes to school by bike every day, and therefore his riding skills are better and better. |
| A．Teenagers are much more sensitive. | B．Teenagers are much more emotional. |
| C．Teenagers’ preferences are more lasting. | D．Teenagers’ emotions are more intense. |
| A．Quality issues of new music. | B．Older people’s dislike of new music. |
| C．Older people’s changing musical tastes. | D．Insights into the features of good music. |
| A. associated B. Additionally C. countless D. existence E. fundamental F. highlight G. Meanwhile H. signal I. strengthened J. surprise K. uniquely |
What Sociology Can Teach UsAbout Thanksgiving
Sociologists （社会学家） believe that the celebrations practiced within any given culture serve to restate that culture’s most important values and beliefs. This theory dates back to founding sociologist Émile Durkheim and has been proved true by
It may not be much of a（n）
In most households across the U. S. women and girls do the work of preparing, serving, and cleaning up after the Thanksgiving meal.
One of the most interesting sociological research findings is that overeating
9 . Across the country, university students sit in lectures every day, listening to someone speak for an hour in crowded theatres. Most are daydreaming, checking Facebook, surfing the web, texting and tweeting; if they're particularly motivated or the lecture is unusually good, some might actually be paying attention.
At the same time, millions of learners around the world are watching world-class lectures online about every subject imaginable, from fractional reserve banking to moral philosophy to pharmacology, supplied by Harvard, MIT, and The Open University.
One group gets its education for free, and the other pays thousands of pounds per year. It's a situation that can't continue, and unless universities face-up to the internet's fierce competition they won't have any future.
We have a romantic ideal of universities being places of higher education where students absorb knowledge, skills and critical thinking—an ideal modeled over centuries on universities like Oxford and Heidelberg. Since they used a multi-year, highly structured residential course of lectures, tutorials, and exams to produce smart graduates, we now believe that this same model ought to work for the majority of the adult population.
We're wrong. The simple fact is that university lectures never worked that well in the first place—it's just that for centuries, we didn't have any better option for transmitting information. In fact, the success of top universities, both now and historically, is in spite of lectures, not because of it.
The mediocrity of the average lecturer was made very clear when I watched Professor Michael Sandel's fantastically engaging Harvard philosophy lectures on Justice on YouTube, seen by millions around the world. Other universities, including MIT's Open Course Ware and The Open University, now offer videos of lectures free as a matter of course.
Today, we don't go to the music hall to hear songs—we can listen to the most popular performers on iTunes or the radio. Most of us don't visit the theatre for an evening's entertainment—we can watch TV. You can guess where this is heading with universities. Anyone online can now watch thousands of world-class lectures whenever they want. They can pause and rewind if they don't understand something and they can review the transcript when revising. At some universities, they can even email questions to lecturers without the risk of embarrassment. Undergraduate education should be paid for by the government—after all, most of us have enjoyed free or highly subsidized education that also benefits the whole country. However, if universities are going to cost over f 7,000 a year, students should think very hard about whether they're getting value for money.
Freely available online lectures and textbooks give universities the opportunity to reduce costs and increase quality, while focusing resources on what really matters: contact time between teachers and students. The simple fact is that the education most universities provide isn't worth the money. If they don't have world-class reputations, and only a few do—then they need to change fast, or watch an exodus of students away to cheaper, better alternatives.
1. Which of the following cannot be inferred from Paragraph 4?| A．University is Garden of Eden in every learner's heart. |
| B．Oxford and Heidelberg are like the precursor of universities. |
| C．In college, students can equip themselves with knowledge and skills. |
| D．University's educational model has barely changed so far |
| A．Traditional high educational system is not that efficient as expected. |
| B．Most lecturers are little more than talking textbooks. |
| C．Lectures, tutorials and exams have done little in transmit knowledge. |
| D．Lectures are not a decisive factor in judging whether a university is good or not. |
| A．tuition fees vs. free | B．residential vs. network-based |
| C．world-renowned vs. barely recognized | D．boredom vs. entertainment |
| A．Why free online lectures will destroy university. |
| B．Online lecturing vs. traditional universities. |
| C．Universities should get their act together to avoid extinction. |
| D．Online lecturing is gaining ground among educational community. |
10 . The 2021 Nobel Economics Prize has been awarded to Robert Wilson and Paul Milgrom for their work in analyzing auctions and how to make them more efficient.
At the heart of the work for which Milgrom and Wilson have been awarded is the winner's curse.
Wilson's work has shown that the fear of the winner's curse leads rational bidders to bid less than the own valuation.
Milgrom built on this to examine the case of auctions where there is not only a common value but also a private value that differs between bidders. In focusing again on the winner's curse, Milgrom determined that English-style auctions, where the price starts low and is bid upward, are better at avoiding the winner's curse than Dutch-style auctions---where the price starts high and is bid downward.This is because bidders gain more information about an item's value during an English-style auction,as other bidders drop out.
How have such insights help society? For one thing, Milgrom and Wilson developed the Simultaneous Multiple Round Auction'(SMRA). In these auctions, all biddable items are offered at the same time and bidders can bid on any portion of the items.The SMRA is useful,for example,if a company wants to bid for a license in one area only if it can also have the license in another area.
| A．If the auctions were held sequentially,the uncertainty about winning the second auction would depress bids in the first auction. |
| B．It arises from common value auctions where people bid for something whose value is unknown at the time but will be agreed upon later. |
| C．From determining the placement of every ad on a webpage to assigning the rights to fly to hub airports,auctions play a big role in contemporary society. |
| D．Greater uncertainty or the belief that some participants have more information than others will make bidders even more cautious. |
| E．He found that more details about the object's value,such as other bidders' valuations,tend to result in higher revenue. |
| F．This year's Nobel Economics Prize is a clear example of the practical effects on the interests of the public. |
