1 . Birth order, according to conventional wisdom, molds (塑造) personality; Firstborn children, secure with their place in the family, are expected to be mature and more responsible. Younger siblings (兄弟姐妹) work harder to get their parents’ attention and take more risk. That’s the central idea in psychologist Frank J. Sulloway’s “Born to Rebel”, an influential book on birth order.
However, birth order does not appear to influence personality in adults, according to several ambitious studies published in the past few years, which relied on larger data sets and more statistical methods than earlier reports.
Schmukle, a psychologist at University of Leipzig. and his colleagues, in a study published in 2015, assessed birth order for about 20,000 people from different countries and found that birth order did not change any of five broad personality traits (特征). A follow-up study on more specific characteristics, published by Sehmukle two years later, did not find any effect of birth order, either. Rodica Damian, a social psychologist at the University of Houston, studied more than 370,000 high school students and also concluded, in 2015, that birth order does not influence the Big Five.
In the Basel-Berlin Risk Study, one of the most exhaustive attempts to measure risk preference, researchers asked participants about driving too fast and other risky behaviors. “None of these behavioral measures showed any convincing relationship between being a later-born and talking more risks,” the study authors wrote.
We tend to confuse birth order and age. “Some of the birth order effects that we observe in everyday life are not birth order effects, but actually are age effects,” Schmukle said. “It is not surprising that when you look at differences within families, firstborns are more responsible than later-borns. But take age out of the picture, and the effect disappears.”
1. What’s Sulloway’s attitude to birth order effects?| A．Favorable. | B．Cautious. | C．Doubtful. | D．Ambiguous. |
| A．They all proved the birth order effects. |
| B．They were conducted by the same team. |
| C．They concentrated on firstborn children. |
| D．They based the results on statistical data. |
| A．Birth order. | B．Risky behaviors. |
| C．Age effects. | D．Parents’ attention. |
| A．By giving examples. | B．By listing findings. |
| C．By making comparisons. | D．By showing instructions. |
2 . More than 30 volunteers organized by the village Party committee were participating in a group effort to produce gauze (纱布) masks, alcohol liquid and sterilizing powder (消毒粉) at a factory in southwest China's Yunnan Province to help arm the fight against the novel coronavirus (新型冠状病毒). Some villagers also had given away their sewing machines for the production work at Yunnan Xiangsha Medical Material Company in Anning City.
Volunteers addressed the labor, shortage during the Spring Festival holiday at the factory, which had begun to produce on. Friday. They received body temperature checks and training before the work started, with volunteers able to use the sewing machines being more than 50 years old on average. Seventy-nine-year-old Chu Shudong, who had 30 years of tailoring experience, volunteered to repair the sewing machines.“I've not done tailoring for 20 years. I'm old and my eyesight is poor. I hope to do what I can here and make more masks so that people are protected, ”he said. The youngest volunteer, 22-year-old Bi Qiling, joined the: team. She's available because the new semester at her university in Beijing was delayed because of the novel coronavirus outbreak.
“With the volunteers, our production capacity is higher. We have 65 people, divided into two groups, and work on two shifts (轮班) a day. All the machines are working around the clock,”said Hang Kaijin, head of the factory, which has the ability to produce two tons of alcohol liquid and 200 kilograms of sterilizing power every day.
It sent its production information to the city government on a daily basis and the products were all allocated by the government.
1. What did villagers donate for the production?| A．Raw materials. | B．Clean gauze. |
| C．Sewing machines. | D．Alcohol liquid. |
| A．The average age of the volunteers able to use sewing machines was over 50. |
| B．Chu Shudong, an experienced tailor at the age of 78, offered to do some sewing. |
| C．Volunteers having 30 years of tailoring experience should receive body temperature checks. . |
| D．Bi Qiling, a girl, was turned down by the university because of the novel coronavirus outbreak. |
| A．Most of the volunteers worked twice a day. |
| B．All of the volunteers. worked. 12 hours in the daytime. |
| C．Two groups of volunteers took turns to work 24 hours a day. |
| D．Volunteers were divided into two groups, each working 8 hours. |
| A．great minds think alike | B．more hands produce a stronger flame |
| C．two heads are better than one | D．God helps those who help themselves . |
3 . There’s no doubt that one of the greatest human achievements is the exploration of the space. Ever since astronaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to be sent into the orbit around the moon in 1961, scientists have been pushing the boundaries further and further. But until now the exploration into the unknown has been dominated (主导) by men.
Of course, in the past, women were also included in the space projects and played an active role on the ground and behind the scenes. For example, they worked as seamstresses (女裁缝师), sewing vital spaceflight components. In fact, many of NASA’s key works would never have been possible without them. Recently Hollywood produced a movie called Hidden Figures to focus on a group of American female mathematicians, especially the black women, who helped NASA send the first American into space. But this was not women’s only contribution. Back in 1963, Soviet astronaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to be sent into space. However, after that, space flight programs were slow to employ women. In the USA. NASA didn’t accept applications from women to become astronauts until 1978.
But attitudes have changed and leading officials at NASA say that the first person to set foot on Mars should be a woman. The space agency aims to have a sex-balanced workforce but can only achieve that if equal numbers of men and women are trained for science and technology jobs. As Allison McIntryre told the BBC, “My director is a woman. We have female astronauts. We haven’t put a woman on the moon yet. And I think that perhaps the first person to step on Mars should be a woman.”
1. What did Yuri Gagarin do in 1961?| A．He landed on the moon in success. |
| B．He discovered many new boundaries. |
| C．He led scientists to explore the moon. |
| D．He made the first journey into the space. |
| A．To show women are the true heroes of NASA’s first launch. |
| B．To stress that black people have won equal rights in NASA. |
| C．To prove women can do as well as men in NASA’ projects. |
| D．To present women’s contributions to NASA’s space programs. |
| A．Uncaring. | B．Disapproving. |
| C．Supportive. | D．Disappointed. |
| A．Will the First Person to Step on Mars Be a Woman? |
| B．Great Achievements Have Been Made in Space Exploration? |
| C．Why Men Played an Important Role in Exploring the Unknown? |
| D．Men and Women Have Made Equal Contributions to NASA’s Projects? |
4 . Parents can begin good organization (条理) habits with preschool-age kids. Experts recommend asking them to do small, simple actions on a regular basis with the help of parents. Maybe they open their bags and bring their lunch bag to the kitchen, or take their shoes off at the door and put them in a nearby closet. These won’t save parents much time, but they will help develop good habits.
When kids enter primary school, they should be ready for more responsibility. This is the time to teach them about daily routines, and help them take control over theirs. Parents and children might sit down together and make a list of everything that needs to be done to get out of the house in the morning, or get ready for bed at night. Together, parents should figure out how long each activity takes, and when is the best time to do them. Some of the kids might want to get their bags ready and pick out their clothes the night before.
It’s also wise to create a firm schedule for homework. When do kids do their homework? How long do they need? Where do they do it? Where will the homework go once it is done? Figure them out and stick to the schedule as much as possible.
Parents should print up these task lists and help kids finish them step by step. Kids might even check them off each morning or evening. Also, make sure there are clocks in the rooms in which these tasks will take place. Time management is an important part of learning organization, but it can’t be done if kids don’t know what time it is.
Organization gives kids the chance to make it possible to focus on a task and complete it. Kids tend to be more motivated to learn organization skills if they see organization as a challenge to overcome, rather than a fault to repair.
1. Why are kids advised to do small and simple actions?| A．To save parents’ time. |
| B．To join a school organization. |
| C．To form a good relationship with others. |
| D．To help kids form good habits. |
| A．Offer some suggestions only. |
| B．Finish the daily tasks for kids. |
| C．Assist kids in finishing the daily tasks. |
| D．Let the kid finish the daily tasks alone. |
| A．It is a fault to repair. | B．It is nothing special. |
| C．It is easy to achieve. | D．It is a helpful skill. |
| A．Assisting parents with a good parent-child relationship. |
| B．Parents should spend more time with kids. |
| C．Giving advice on developing kids’ good organization habits. |
| D．Parents should make kids more independent. |
5 . In 2005, Winston Duncan was traveling with his mother in Southern Africa when he saw an old lady and young boy walking down a road together. He thought of his own grandmother and wondered how he could help the old lady and others in Africa who have to walk a long way.
Duncan, who lived in Washington State was 10 at the time, and his solution was to give them bikes. With his mom, he started Wheels to Africa, an organization that for the past 14 years has taken bicycles donated from residents of the. Washington area and shipped them across the world to people in need.
Most of the 8000 bikes they have collected have gone to countries in Africa, helping cut down hours of walking for students and other postmen. But last week, Duncan, travelled with a handful of volunteers and 400 bikes to a destination much closer to his home yet still in need: Puerto Rico. More than a year after it was destroyed by Hurricane Maria, the island suffers from transportation problems.
"It was a little chaotic (混乱的) — as soon as they got their bikes, they were just having fun riding around the parking lot," said Austin Higgins, a New Jersey resident who recently joined Wheels to Africa as its photographer and videographer. "Some people who received bicycles were almost speechless, and some of them cried, because it was something they had requested for Christmas from Santa Claus," he said.
The donated bikes included some high-end racing models, which went to teenagers interested in pursuing serious cycling.
Duncan recently graduated from Bard College and is in Arlington working at a political consulting firm. He now encourages kids in the Washington area to get involved with the organization, and some have joined him on trips to Africa and on this trip to Puerto Rico.
"I wanted to try to get people to think about giving back,” he said.
1. Why did Winston Duncan start Wheels to Africa?| A．He hoped to make his grandmother feel happy. |
| B．He was fond of collecting different types of bikes. |
| C．He wanted to help the poor people to live better. |
| D．He was greatly supported by his mother to do so. |
| A．It has been managed for fourteen years. |
| B．It has delivered about 400 bikes to Africa. |
| C．It has many young kids as its members now. |
| D．It collects bicycles from all the areas in the U. S. |
| A．The delivery usually meets with some trouble. |
| B．The people who got bikes were excited and grateful. |
| C．It was very difficult for Duncan to collect enough bikes. |
| D．People in Africa required him to dress up as Santa Claus. |
| A．Wheels to Africa. | B．Trip to Puerto Rico. |
| C．Duncan, a Generous Person. | D．Hurricane in Puerto Rico. |
