3 . If you’ re reaching for the last piece of pizza at a party, and meanwhile see another hand going for it, your next move probably depends on how you feel and whom the hand belongs to. Your little sister — you might just grab the pizza. Your boss — you probably will give up.

Now researchers have made progress in understanding how mammals’ brain encodes social rank and uses this information to shape behaviors — such as whether to fight for the last pizza slice. They discovered that an area of the brain called the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) was responsible for representing social rank in mammals; changes to a mouse’s mPFC affected its dominance behavior. But it was unknown how the mPFC represented this information and which neurons(神经元) were involved in changing dominance behaviour.

In the new study, Professor Kay Tye let groups of four mice share a cage. Some mice became more dominant and others more subordinate. As soon as the mice were paired up, he discovered, the activity of their mPFC neurons could predict — with 90 percent certainty — the rank of their opponent.

“We expected animals might only signal rank when they are in a competition,” says co-researcher Nancy. “But it turns out animals walk around with this representation of social rank all the time.”

When the researchers next asked whether the activity of the mPFC neurons was associated with behaviour, they found something surprising. The brain activity patterns were linked with slight changes in behaviour, such as how fast a mouse moved, and they also could predict — a full 30 seconds before the competition started — which mouse would win the food reward.

The winner was not always the more dominant, but the one engaged in a winning mindset. Just as you might sometimes be in a more competitive mood and be more likely to snatch that pizza slice before your boss, a subordinate mouse might be in a more winning mindset than a more dominant mouse and end up winning.

The areas of the mPFC associated with social rank and winning mindset are next to one another and highly connected. Signals on social rank impact the state of the brain involved in winning mindset. In other words, a subordinate mouse’s confidence and winning mindset may partially decrease when faced with a dominant one.

“This is further evidence to suggest that we are in different brain states when we are with others compared to when we’re alone,” says Tye.

Learning English is of great valuable. English is widely used all over the world. It was often used in the international meetings. Most business letters are writing in English. With a help of English we can learn modern science and technology from developed country. We can also introduce our achievements and experience to other countries. Because its importance, English is a requiring subject in high schools and colleges. Now many people are working hardly at English. It’s very important to learn English well. Unless we learn English well, we can not serve for our country better. So I suggest most Chinese learned it well.

A group of frogs were traveling through the woods, and two of them     1    （fall）into a hole．All the other frogs looked down．When they saw how deep     2    hole was，they told the two frogs that they would die soon．

At first, both of the two frogs didn't care their words and tried    3    best to jump out of the hole. The other frogs kept telling them to stop, because they thought there was no chance     4    (jump)out of such a deep hole. Finally, one of the two frogs believed these words and gave up. He fell down and died．

The other frog continued to jump as hard as he could. Once again，the crowd of frogs shouted at him to stop the pain and just die. He jumped even    5    (hard)and finally succeeded. When he got out, the other frogs asked, "Didn't you hear us?"    6    their great surprise, the frog turned out to be a deaf. He thought they were helping him all the time, not    7    (stop) him．

This story teaches us two lessons: There is power of life and death in the tongue. Well-meant words can help people in trouble. But, evil words sometimes can kill them. Be careful of    8    you say．

Remember the power of words. Anyone can speak words     9    are likely to make people give up in difficult     10    (time).

7 . Very few of us become fluent in another language by learning it in high school.

I went to university and then moved across the country to seek a demanding job, married and ________ children. I made a(n) ________ to keep the little hit of French I learned in school, but eventually I realized that this was really ________. I was quite aware that new languages are best learned when young, and that our abilities in that regard decline with ________.

However, just before my 50th birthday, I ________ French classes. After I was tested to see which group I belonged to, I was placed at almost the introductory (入门的) ________. When I looked around at my first class, I was ________ that many of the students were learning French as a third, fourth or even fifth language.

Contrary to my ________ that learning a new language was impossibly difficult, there were people who learned new languages as a matter of course. While I had always thought of myself as a ________ learner, that was no longer the case. I ________ new vocabulary rather slowly. What I learned one week ago seemed to ________ as soon as I learned the next skill. l had to look up the ________ words and language structures over and over. Now, after several years of learning. I can listen to the news in French and ________ 90% of it on the first try, read a novel if the language isn’t too, ________ and hold up my end of a conversation if it doesn’t go too fast. I’ve learned so much beyond grammar and vocabulary. I’ve met people from around the world and all walks of life who have the ________ to make fools of themselves in order to learn something new. I’ve been taught by ________ and inspirational teachers from many comers of the world. Listening to the news as it is ________ to the people of France, I have a renewed understanding of how something can look ________ different from another viewpoint, I’ve leaned that a language is not just a set of words, but a way of ________. But most of all, I’ve learned that it is never too ________ to learn something new.

10 . EVEN the best of communicators can sometimes hit a wrong note, whether with a joke, turn of phrase, or even an ill-timed chuckle（轻笑）.

For instance, a former finance minister Ken Gabriel usually tries to keep things casual when answering reporters’ questions. But in a television interview on the news program 60 Minutes, some people felt his register was a little too casual—even careless.

At one point, Gabriel spoke about the bankers who have been widely blamed for causing the collapse of the financial sector: “I mean there were a whole bunch of folks who, on paper, if you looked at quarterly reports, were wildly successful, selling derivatives that turned out to be …completely worthless,” Gabriel said, with a chuckle.

Shocked by Gabriel’s laughter during the interview, journalist David finally asked: “You’re sitting here. And you’ re—you are laughing. You are laughing about some of these problems.”

Gabriel quickly explained himself by replying, “No, no. There’s gotta be a little humor to get you through the day.” But that exchange ended up making news, as TV pundits, journalists and public relations experts debated Gabriel’s tone.

One unnamed strategist for Gabriel’ s party said that the finance minister’ s attempts at humor were distracting: “Gabriel is gifted in so many ways, but humor is not something that he seems to be comfortable with. He does not come across as a funny guy.”

The TV critic Daniel, meanwhile, came to Gabriel’s defense.

“Gabriel isn’t a rookie …All this laughter seems clearly to be calculated rather than accidental. His laughs last night were designed as laughs of reassurance. They were designed to tell the TV audience he understands the severity of the situation.”

There would have been little debate if Gabriel had not laughed during a speech. Answering questions in a public setting, however, should allow for a more conversational register. But as Gabriel discovered, not everyone agrees on just how casual the tone should be.