1 . It’s hair-raising news for criminals on the run. Scientists behind a new study have worked out how to identify individuals only based on the proteins in a single strand of their hair.
While the police already look at DNA from hair as part of investigations, the technique is far from ideal: DNA is easily degradable, meaning it can only be analyzed within a certain time period after the crime. But the new technique could even be used to solve historical or archaeological cases, making it far superior to DNA sequencing in many ways.
DNA degradation depends on several environmental factors including temperature, humidity and PH. It is also affected by the activity of bacteria and other microorganisms. In contrast, actual hairs can survive for a long time — sometimes centuries. After bones and teeth, hair is in fact one of the most resistant structures of the human body.
In order to understand how the protein can be used to identify individuals, it is important to understand mat proteins are coded by DNA. This means that a certain level of the genetic variation that we see in different people’s DNA passes into their proteins. In fact, genetic information in the DNA is translated into amino-acid chains that make up proteins.
The method not only allows for human identification but it can also reveal how old the sample is and what region it comes from, so that we can distinguish between current and ancient samples. But while the discovery is exciting, the technique is not quite polished enough to be used in the court room. The main task now will be to analyze hair samples from all over the world, which will make it a lot more reliable.
The new discovery will boost the significance of hair as evidence in courts, at a time when some forensic disciplines have been criticized in the US. It will also be of great use in archaeology.
1. What’s the main idea of the passage?| A．DNA evidence is far from ideal. | B．Criminals on the run get hair-raising news. |
| C．Scientists are planning a test of human hair. | D．Humans can be identified by proteins in hair. |
| A．Lost teeth. | B．The footprint. |
| C．Personal belongings. | D．Damaged DNA. |
| A．Serving as evidence in courts. | B．Possessing genetic information. |
| C．Inferring the height of a person. | D．Distinguishing the region of a person. |
| A．Test hair samples worldwide. | B．Legalize the hair evidence. |
| C．Apply protein-test to archaeology. | D．Map the structure of DNA. |
| A．Criminals. | B．Employers. | C．Hairdressers. | D．Archaeologists. |
2 . Rather than rolling your eyes when it’s your turn to bow your head and give thanks, try being grateful. The result just might be good for you, from improving your feeling to your relationships. If you don’t want to voice your gratitude, writing a letter may work, according to various studies by Steve Toepfer of Kent State University and his colleagues.
Toepfer and his colleagues had 219 students with an average age of 25 fill out questionnaires（问卷）to measure their happiness. They returned to the lab to fill out the survey three more times, with each visit about a week apart. Some of the students wrote a letter of gratitude each time they returned to the lab, while the control group didn’t write about being thankful.
“The letter writers were instructed to write a letter of gratitude to anyone they wanted, however, the letter couldn’t be a‘thank you’note for a gift,” Toepfer said. “The participants had to write about something that was important to them.”
The results showed that their levels of happiness and life satisfaction improved after each letter they wrote. In addition, depressive symptoms decreased over time with the letter writing.
Gratitude doesn’t just cheer you up—it can improve your health and energy levels as well. A 2007 study conducted by researchers found that organ-transplant(器官移植) receivers who kept “gratitude journals” listing five things or people that they were grateful for each day scored better on measures of general health, and mental health than those who only made routine notes about their days.
A successful relationship may depend on your gratitude. Research reported in 2011 looking at more than 65 couples who were in satisfying relationships showed that each couple’s relationship quality corresponded with one partner’s feelings of gratitude. Researchers show that one partner expressed feelings of gratitude; both partners experienced a positive emotional response.
1. According to the passage, if you want to get along well with others, you’d better________.| A．write letters to them frequently |
| B．pay more attention to their feelings |
| C．show your thanks from time to time |
| D．take care of them when they are in need |
| A．is cold to others’ kindness |
| B．is not good at writing letters |
| C．is unwilling to express their feelings |
| D．is not allowed to write thank-you letters |
| A．nervous | B．careless |
| C．depressed | D．optimistic |
| A．it’s better to write a thank-you letter than to say gratitude with words |
| B．the results of different ways of showing gratitude are all the same |
| C．the good relationship of each couple is based on trust |
| D．gratitude is beneficial to health |
| A．Why you should be grateful |
| B．Ways of changing your feeling |
| C．How to show your gratitude to others |
| D．Thank-you letters’ role to human relations |
3 . According to Guglielmo Cavallo and Roger Chartier, reading aloud was a common practice in the ancient world, the Middle Ages, and as late as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Readers were “listeners attentive to a reading voice,” and “the text addressed to the ear as much as to the eye.” The significance of reading aloud continued well into the nineteenth century.
Using Charles Dickens’s nineteenth century as a point of departure, it would be useful to look at the familial and social uses of reading aloud and reflect on the functional change of the practice. Dickens habitually read his work to a domestic audience or friends. In his later years he also read to a broader public crowd. Chapters of reading aloud also abound in Dickens’s own literary works. More importantly, he took into consideration the Victorian practice when composing his prose, so much so that his writing is meant to be heard, not only read on the page.
Performing a literary text orally in a Victorian family is well documented. Apart from promoting a pleasant family relationship, reading aloud was also a means of protecting young people from the danger of solitary（孤独的）reading. Reading aloud was a tool for parental guidance. By means of reading aloud, parents could also introduce literature to their children, and as such the practice combined leisure and more serious purposes such as religious cultivation in the youths. Within the family, it was commonplace for the father to read aloud. Dickens read to his children: one of his surviving and often-reprinted photographs features him posing on a chair, reading to his two daughters.
Reading aloud in the nineteenth century was as much a class phenomenon as a family affair, which points to a widespread belief that Victorian readership primarily meant a middle-class readership. Those who fell outside this group tended to be overlooked by Victorian publishers. Despite this, Dickens, with his publishers Chapman and Hall, managed to distribute literary reading materials to people from different social classes by reducing the price of novels. This was also made possible with the technological and mechanical advances in printing and the spread of railway networks at the time.
Since the literacy level of this section of the population was still low before school attendance was made compulsory in 1870 by the Education Act a considerable number of people from lower classes would listen to recitals of texts. Dickens’s readers, who were from such social backgrounds, might have heard Dickens in this manner. Several biographers of Dickens also draw attention to the fact that it was typical for his texts to be read aloud in Victorian England, and thus literacy was not an obstacle for reading Dickens. Reading was no longer a chiefly closeted form of entertainment practiced by the middle class at home.
A working class home was in many ways not convenient for reading: there were too many distractions, the lighting was bad, and the home was also often half a workhouse. As a result, the Victorians from the non-middle classes tended to find relaxation outside the home such as in parks and squares, which were ideal places for the public to go while away their limited leisure time. Reading aloud, in particular public reading, to some extent blurred the distinctions between classes. The Victorian middle class defined its identity through differences with other classes. Dickens’s popularity among readers from the non-middle classes contributed to the creation of a new class of readers who read through listening.
Different readers of Dickens were not reading solitarily and “jealously,” to use Walter Benjamin’s term. Instead, they often enjoyed a more communal experience, an experience that is generally lacking in today’s world. Modern audiobooks can be considered a contemporary version of the practice. However, while the twentieth and twentieth-first-century trend for individuals to listen to audiobooks keeps some characteristics of traditional reading aloud—such as “listeners attentive to a reading voice” and the ear being the focus—it is a far more solitary activity.
1. What does the author want to convey in Paragraph 1?| A．The history of reading aloud. |
| B．The significance of reading aloud. |
| C．The development of reading practice. |
| D．The roles of readers in reading practice. |
| A．He started to write for a broader public crowd. |
| B．He included more readable contents in his novels. |
| C．Scenes of reading aloud became common in his works. |
| D．His works were intended to be both heard and read. |
| A．2. | B．3. |
| C．4. | D．5. |
| A．Working place. | B．His/her own house. |
| C．Nearby bookstores. | D．Trafalgar Square. |
| A．Different classes started to appreciate and read literary works together. |
| B．People from lower social classes became accepted as middle-class. |
| C．The differences between classes grew less significant than before.. |
| D．A non-class society in which everyone could read started to form. |
| A．New reading trends for individuals. |
| B．The harm of modern audiobooks. |
| C．The material for modern reading. |
| D．Reading aloud in contemporary societies. |
4 . Electric cars are dirty. In fact, not only are they dirty, they might even be more dirty than their gasoline-powered cousins.
People in California love to talk about “zero-emissions(排放) vehicles”, but people in California seem to be clueless about where electricity comes from. Power plants mostly use fire to make it. Aside from the new folks who have their roofs covered with solar cells, we get our electricity from generators(发电机). Generators are fueled by something--usually coal, oil, but also by heat generated in nuclear power plants. There are a few wind farms and geothermal
(地热) plants as well, but by far we get electricity mainly by burning something.
In other words, those "zero-emissions" cars are likely coal-burning cars. It’s just because the coal is burned somewhere else, it looks clean. It is not. It's as if the California Greens are covering their eyes—“If I can't see it, it's not happening.” Gasoline is an incredibly efficient way to power a vehicle; a gallon of gas has a lot of energy in it. But when you take that gas (or another fuel) and first use it to make electricity, you waste a nice part of that energy, mostly in the form of wasted heat—at the generator, through the transmission lines, etc.
A gallon of gas may propel your car 25 miles. But the electricity you get from that gallon of gas won't get you nearly as far—so electric cars burn more fuel than gasoline-powered ones. If our electricity came mostly from nukes or geothermal, or hydro or wind or solar, then an electric car truly would be clean. But for political, technical, and economic reasons, we don't use much of those energy sources.
In addition, electric cars' batteries which are poisonous for a long time will eventually end up in a landfill. And finally, when cars are the polluters, the pollution is spread across all the roads. When it's a power plant, though, all the junk is in one place. Nature is very good at cleaning up when things are too concentrated, but it takes a lot longer when all the garbage is in one spot.
1. What does “clueless” mean in paragraph 2?| A．People see the California Greens everywhere. |
| B．People there have no idea that so far electricity mainly comes from burning coal, oil, etc. |
| C．People in California love to have their roofs covered with solar cells. |
| D．People in California love to talk about zero-emissions vehicles. |
| A．Electric cars are not clean at all. |
| B．Electric cars are better than gasoline-powered ones. |
| C．People cast doubts on electric cars’ batteries. |
| D．Gasoline is an efficient way to power a vehicle. |
| A．not less than 25 miles | B．as far as 50 miles |
| C．as far as 25 miles | D．not more than 25 miles |
| A．are more environmentally friendly |
| B．burn more fuel than gas-powered ones |
| C．are very good at cleaning up when things are not too concentrated |
| D．are poisonous for a long time and will eventually end up in a landfill |
| A．being green is good and should be encouraged in communication |
| B．electric cars are now the dominant vehicle compared with gasoline-powered cousins |
| C．zero-emissions vehicles should be chosen to protect our environment |
| D．electric cars are not clean because we get electricity mainly by burning something |
5 . By trying to tickle(挠痒痒) rats and recording how their nerve cells respond, Shimpei Ishiyama and his adviser are discovering a mystery that has puzzled thinkers since Aristotle expected that humans, given their thin skin and unique ability to laugh, were the only ticklish animals.
It turns out that Aristotle was wrong. In their study published on Thursday, Ishiyama and his adviser Michael Brecht found that rats squeaked and jumped with pleasure when tickled on their backs and bellies. These signs of joy changed according to their moods. And for the first time, they discovered a special group of nerve cells. These nerve cells made this feeling so powerful that it causes an individual being tickled to lose control.
To make sure that he had indeed found a place in the brain where tickling was processed, Ishiyama then stimulated(刺激) that area with electrical currents. The rats began to jump like rabbits and sing like birds.
“It’s truly ground-breaking,” said Jeffrey Burgdorf, a neuroscientist at Northwestern University who reviewed the paper. “It takes the study of emotion to a new level.”
Burgdorf has played a central role in our understanding of animal tickling. He was part of a team that first noticed, in the late 1990s, that rats made special noises when they were experiencing social pleasure. Others had already noted that rats repeatedly made short and high sounds during meals. But the lab where Burgdorf worked noticed that they emitted similar sounds while playing. And so one day, the senior scientist in the lab said, “Let’s go and tickle some rats.” They quickly found that those cries of pleasure doubled.
“The authors have been very adventurous,” said Daniel O’Connor, a neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins University who studies touch. To him, that finding was very surprising.
“Why does the world literally feel different when you are stressed out?” he said. “This is the first step towards answering that question. It gives us a way to approach it with experimental rigor(严谨).”
1. What contributed to humans’ being ticklish according to Aristotle?| A．Their special skin. | B．Their social pleasure. |
| C．Their nervous system. | D．Their willingness to touch. |
| A．To discover the special group of nerve cells. |
| B．To experiment on different animals. |
| C．To follow the process of tickling. |
| D．To prove their finding. |
| A．The research process is full of risks. |
| B．The finding of the study is surprising and unbelievable. |
| C．The new discovery is beneficial for the study of emotion. |
| D．The finding of the study actually contradicts modern science. |
| A．give a smile | B．make a noise |
| C．burst into tears | D．watch with staring eyes |
| A．The Life of Rats | B．How Rats Laugh |
| C．A Wonderful Scientist | D．A New Discovery about Rat |
6 . Playing a musical instrument throughout: your life protects your hearing in old age, a Canadian study suggests. The study, published in Psychology and Aging, carried out hearing tests on 74 adult musicians and 89 non-musicians. It found a 70-year-old musician’s hearing was as good as that of a 50-year-old who did not play.
Hearing normally declines as people age. By 60, 10-30% of people have moderate hearing loss. By 80, that goes up to as many as 60%. Problems are particularly seen in the central auditory (听觉的) processing system, which is associated with understanding speech, especially when there is background noise.
Previous studies have shown musicians have better hearing than non-players. But this research, by a team at the Rotman Research Institute in Toronto, looked at adults of all ages - from 18 to 91 - to see how people were affected as they aged. They carried out hearing tests on 74 amateur and professional musicians (who had played since the age of 16, were still practising and had been given formal music lessons) and 89 non-musicians (who had never played an instrument). Musicians were significantly better at picking out speech against noise.
The researchers suggest that lifelong musicianship reduces age-related changes in the brain, probably due to musicians using their auditory systems at a high level on a regular basis.
The head of biomedical research at Action on Hearing Loss, Dr Ralph Holme, said: “While this study suggests that musicians might be more able to cope with the consequences of hearing loss, it is far better to reduce damage in the first place by using appropriate ear protection. We have always campaingned for everyone who plays a musical instrument or listens to loud music to wear hearing protection, like earplugs, which reduce the risk of damaging your hearing permanently.”
1. What can we learn from Paragraph 2?| A．A person aged 80 will lose 30% hearing. |
| B．A person aged above 60 must have bad hearing. |
| C．People have fewer problems with background noise. |
| D．People’s hearing usually becomes worse when they get older. |
| A．It tested the hearing of 162 people. |
| B．The finding of the study wasn’t published publicly. |
| C．Playing a musical instrument may do good to hearing. |
| D．Musicians were as good at picking out speech against noise as non-musicians. |
| A．They like to take more exercise. |
| B．They use their hearing more and regularly. |
| C．They don’t expose themselves to background noise. |
| D．They pay more attention to protecting their hearing. |
| A．Get help from musicians. |
| B．Listen to loud music less. |
| C．Protect hearing properly. |
| D．Play a musical instrument more. |
| A．entertain the readers |
| B．advertise a musical instrument |
| C．complain about people’s hearing loss |
| D．inform readers of a research on hearing |
7 . Do you listen to the songs that your parents like? Chance are that you don’t. You probably think the music that they like is old and dull and that the Songs on your playlist are much cooler.
But here is what scientists found recently: people’s music tastes change as they age, according to a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. So it’s likely that your own musical preference will follow a similar path to your parents’ whether you like it or not.
We used to think that culture and personality are the only factors that affect one’s music choice. But researchers at the University of Cambridge, UK, gathered data from more than 250,000 people over the past 10 years. They noticed that as people age, their social circumstances change, and so does their music taste.
There are three musical periods that people pass through as they mature-intense”, “contemporary” and “sophisticated”.
The first period comes in the teenagers years, during which time people like intense music such as punk and rock because teenagers tend to be aggressive and want to establish their identity as independent individuals.
But as people move into early adulthood, their lifestyle changes—they socialize more and want to build close relationships with others. As a result, they become more fond of contemporary music, such as pop and R&B, which is usually uplifting and danceable and played at parties where people hang out together and chat.
When middle age comes, things have settled down for most people. This period will be dominated by more “sophisticated” music, such as jazz and classical, as well as more catchy music like country, folk, and blues.
“For many, this life stage is frequently exhausted by work and family, and there is a requirement for relaxing, emotive music,” Jason Rentfrow, a researcher member, told The telegraph.
But you must be thinking: “Aren’t there old people who are still into rock music?” Of course there are. But Rentfrow explained that their reasons for listening to rock music may have changed. “We use music for different reasons,” he said, and thus at that age people may listen to remind themselves of their youths.
1. Why do children usually like different songs from their parents according to the passage?| A．Children prefer cool music. | B．Music taste changes with age. |
| C．parents’ songs are always dull. | D．Parents have better social circumstances. |
| A．touching and easily remembered | B．awkward and easily captured |
| C．elegant but difficult to understand | D．flexible and difficult to catch |
| A．have an aggressive goal | B．like Pop and R&B |
| C．desire close connections with others | D．lead a stressful life |
| A．Old people don’t like rock music. | B．Music can serve as a reminder. |
| C．Rock music makes old people younger. | D．Listening to rock music needs reasons. |
| A．Why do people like music? | B．How can you improve your music talent? |
| C．What influences peopled music taste? | D．Why do different people like different music? |
8 . I read somewhere that we spend a full third of our lives waiting. But where are we doing all of this waiting, and what does it mean to an impatient society like ours? To understand the issue, let’s take a look at three types of “waits”.
The very purest form of waiting is the Watched-Pot Wait. It is without doubt the most annoying of all. Take filling up the kitchen sink(洗碗池) as an example. There is absolutely nothing you can do while this is going on but keep both eyes fixed on the sink until it’s full. During these waits, the brain slips away from the body and wanders about until the water runs over the edge of the counter and onto your socks. This kind of wait makes the waiter helpless and mindless.
A cousin to the Watched-Pot Wait is the Forced Wait. This one requires a bit of discipline. Properly preparing packaged noodle soup required a Forced Wait. Directions are very specific. “Bring three cups of water to boil, add mix, simmer three minutes, remove from heat, let stand five minutes.”I have my doubts that anyone has actually followed the procedures strictly. After all, Forced Waiting requires patience.
Perhaps the most powerful type of waiting is the Lucky-Break Wait. This type of wait is unusual in that it is for the most part voluntary. Unlike the Forced Wait, which is also voluntary, waiting for your lucky break does not necessarily mean that it will happen.
Turning one’s life into a waiting game requires faith and hope, and is strictly for the optimists among us. On the surface it seems as ridiculous as following the directions on soup mixes, but the Lucky-Break Wait well serves those who are willing to do it. As long as one doesn’t come to rely on it, wishing for a few good things to happen never hurts anybody.
We certainly do spend a good deal of our time waiting. The next time you’re standing at the sink waiting for it to fill while cooking noodle soup that you’ll have to eat until a large bag of cash falls out of the sky, don’t be desperate. You’re probably just as busy as the next guy.
1. While doing a Watched-Pot Wait, we tend to ___________.| A．keep ourselves busy |
| B．get absent-minded |
| C．grow anxious |
| D．stay focused |
| A．The Forced Wait requires some self-control. |
| B．The Forced Wait makes people passive. |
| C．The Watched-Pot Wait needs directions. |
| D．The Watched-Pot Wait engages body and brain. |
| A．It is less voluntary than the Forced Wait. |
| B．It doesn’t always bring the desired result. |
| C．It is more fruitful than the Forced Wait. |
| D．It doesn’t give people faith and hope. |
| A．Take it seriously. |
| B．Don’t rely on others. |
| C．Do something else. |
| D．Don’t lose heart. |
| A．exploring various causes of “waits”. |
| B．describing detailed processes of “waits”. |
| C．analyzing different categories of “waits” |
| D．revealing frustrating consequences of “waits” |
9 . New research, attempting to throw light upon how male and female brains differ, has found that timing is everything. American Vanderbilt University researchers Stephen Camarata and Richard Woodcock discovered that females have a significant advantage over males in timed tests and tasks. The study involved more than 8,000 males and females ranging in age from 2 to 90 from across the US.
“We found hardly any differences in overall intelligence. But we discovered that females performed better than men in time limited situations,” Camarata said, “It is very important for teachers to understand this difference in males and females when it comes to assigning work and tests.”
Many males can do a better job without strict time limits, added Camarata.
“Consider that many classroom activities, including testing, are directly or indirectly related to processing speed,” the researchers wrote in their report. “The higher performance in females may contribute to a classroom culture that favors females, not because of teacher bias(偏见)but because of inherent(与生俱来的)differences in gender processing speeds.”
The researchers found that males scored lower than females in all age groups in tests measuring processing speed. However, the study also found that males consistently outperformed females in some language abilities, such as identifying objects and knowing antonyms(反义词)and synonyms(同义词). The research contradicts the popular belief that girls develop all communication skills earlier than boys.
The researchers found no significant overall intelligence differences between males and females in any age groups.
“We believe there are fundamental differences in how male and female brains end up getting organized,” Camarata said, “Our next studies will give us some insight into where these processing differences are occurring.”
1. The new research referred to in the passage is intended to ________.| A．find whether age has something to do with people's intelligence |
| B．help teachers to assign work and arrange tests for students |
| C．find what's the differences between male and female brains |
| D．prove the differences in processing speed between males and females |
| A．to achieve better results than someone |
| B．to perform worse in some aspect than someone |
| C．to do something as well as someone |
| D．to be not so good at something as someone |
| A．there're hardly any differences between males' and females' overall intelligence |
| B．teachers favor girl students instead of boy students in schools |
| C．girls develop their language skills earlier than boys |
| D．females have a significant advantage over males in all subjects |
| A．The researchers interviewed more than 8,000 males and females all over the world. |
| B．Generally speaking, males can do better jobs with strict time limits than females. |
| C．Females scored higher than males in any age groups in any situations. |
| D．The differences in gender processing speeds occur when people are born. |
| A．The researchers will continue to study how the gender differences in timing occur. |
| B．A female mathematician will make greater achievements than a male one. |
| C．School teachers have already known about these processing differences before. |
| D．If a girl has a higher processing speed than a boy, she must be more intelligent than him. |
10 . Be careful what you say around your dog. It might understand more than you think.
A border collie named Rico recognizes the names of about 200 objects, say researchers in Germany. The dog also appears to be able to learn new words as easily as a 3-year-old child. Its word-learning skills are as good as those of a parrot or chimpanzee(黑猩猩).
In one experiment, the researchers took all 200 items that Rico is supposed to know and divided them into 20 groups of 10 objects. Then the owner told the dog to go and fetch one of the items and bring it back. In four tests, Rico got 37 out of 40 commands right. As the dog couldn't see anyone to get clues, the scientists believe Rico must understand the meanings of certain words.
In another experiment, the scientists took one toy that Rico had never seen before and put it in a room with seven toys whose names the dog already knew. The owner then told Rico to fetch the object, using a word the dog had never heard before.
The correct object was chosen in seven out of l0 tests, suggesting that the dog had worked out the answer by process of elimination(排除法). A month later, Rico remembered half of the new names, which is even more impressive.
Rico is thought to be smarter than the average dog. For one thing, Rico is a border collie, a breed (品种) known for its mental abilities. In addition, the 9-year-old dog has been trained to fetch toys by their names since the age of nine months.
It's hard to know if all dogs understand at least some of the words we say. Even if they do, they can't talk back. Still, it wouldn't hurt to sweet-talk your dog every now and then. You might just get a big, wet kiss in return!
1. What’s the best title of the passage? (No more than 15 words)2. What do the underlined words “a border collie” in Paragraph 2 refer to? (No more than 12 words)
3. Why does Rico seem smarter than the average dog? (No more than 15 words)
4. What does the writer advise us to do by saying “it wouldn’t hurt to sweet-talk…”? (No more than 10 words)
5. Would you like to keep a dog as a pet? Why? (No more than 25 words)
