1 . Great white sharks, the world’s largest predatory (食肉的) fish, eat three to four times more food than previously thought, an Australian study shows.
The U. S. research from the 1980s estimated a meal of 30 kilograms could make a one-tonshark continue living for more than six weeks.
That made assumptions that large sharks could survive long periods without eating.
However, a University of Tasmania-led study published this week in Scientific Reports found that 30kg was only enough for 12-15days.
Researchers tagged (给……附上标签) a dozen great white sharks at Neptune Islands off South Australia and calculated their metabolic (新陈代谢的) rate based on swimming speeds. They worked out how much energy the sharks burned and how much food they required.
“Their metabolic rate is faster than we assumed.”
Jayson Semmens was the lead author on the study. He said, “They (U. S. researchers) picked a shark that probably wasn’t working very hard at the time when they did it . At the time it was a new study. They did some metabolic work similar to us but on one shark.”
“The white sharks, which we tagged, are working pretty hard … they’re coming up to some pretty high speed to catch the seals.” he said, ”Their metabolic rate is much faster than what we had assumed. These animals are probably going to be feeding every day, rather than several weeks.”
The research also sought to improve understanding of how sharks fit into the ocean ecosystem.
“We don’t have a good handle on the population sizes of white sharks. We know that sharks in general are under pressure around the world from overfishing.” Semmens said, “Furthermore, they’re long -lived. They reproduce late in their life and they produce a small number of babies.”
Semmens said the effects of removing white sharks from the ocean were thus far more important than realized. “They’re keeping under control a lot more animals than we thought,” he said.
1. The U.S. research made people believe that .
| A．large sharks could live without eating meat |
| B．sharks gained several kilograms in six weeks |
| C．a one-ton shark needed to eat 30 kg every meal |
| D．large sharks could live without eating for several weeks |
| A．Uninterested | B．Surprised |
| C．Objective | D．Satisfied |
| A．they used different research methods |
| B．they studied sharks of different sizes |
| C．the sharks they used for research were of different species |
| D．the sharks they used for research swam at different speeds |
| A．They play an important role in ocean ecosystem |
| B．They can produce a large number of babies |
| C．They swim more slowly than seals |
| D．They live a short life |
| A．inform | B．persuade |
| C．describe | D．entertain |
2 . Soaping up your hands may do more than just get rid of germs. It may wash away the inner confusion you feel right after being forced to make a choice between two appealing choices, according to a new study. The study builds on past research into a phenomenon known as “the Macbeth effect”.
It turns out that Shakespeare was really onto something when he imagined lady Macbeth trying to clean her conscience（良心）by rubbing invisible bloodstains from her hands. A few years ago, scientists asked people to describe a past wrong act. If people were then given a chance to clean their hands, they later expressed less guilt than people who hadn’t cleaned.
This finding fascinated W. S. Lee, a researcher. “Anything from the past, any kind of negative emotional experiences, might be washed away,” says Lee.
He decided to test hand washing’s effect on one kind of bad feeling: the tension we feel after being forced to choose between two attractive choices, because picking one choice makes us feel that we’ve lose the other. People usually try to calm this inner conflict by later exaggerating（夸大）the positive aspects of their choice.
He had students rank 10 different music CDs. Then he offered students one CD as a gift. Some students then use liquid soap. Others only looked at the soap or sniffed（嗅）it. “Actually, you do not need water and soap,” says Lee.
Later, the students again had to rank all the music. People who didn’t wash their hands had the normal response — they scored their take-home CD higher, suggesting that they now saw it as even more attractive than before. But this wasn’t true for the hand washers. They ranked the music about the same. “they feel no need at all to justify the choice,” say Lee.
But the implications of it just aren’t clear. Schwarz says it’s too soon to know whether people should head for a sink after making a tough choice. He says washing may help decision-makers by cleaning away mental disorder, but perhaps if they don’t go through the usual post-decision process of justifying their choice, they might feel more sorrow in the long run.
1. The Macbeth effect refers to the fact that ________.| A．Shakespeare did scientific research before writing Macbeth |
| B．soaping up one’s hand may help wash away the inner confusion and make a decision |
| C．people feel less guilty by getting rid of invisible germs from their hands |
| D．people feel less ashamed after washing their hands |
| A．they will overstate the goodness of their chosen choice |
| B．they will feel regretful for not choosing another |
| C．they will feel free due to the feeling of losing the other choice |
| D．they will think nothing of their chosen choice any more to calm their inner conflict |
| A．more scientific | B．unnecessary |
| C．a little convincing | D．absolutely useless |
| A．Whether people need to justify their choice. |
| B．Whether people feel more sorrow after washing hands. |
| C．Whether washing hands help over a long period of time. |
| D．Whether washing hands is helpful to make a choice. |
| A．Is Washing Hands Necessary to Defeat Tension? |
| B．Washing Hands, Washes Our Mind |
| C．Washing Hands, Helps Make a Better Choice |
| D．Washing Hands, Reduces the Stress of Decision |
3 . Taking photographs at a birthday or a wedding has become as natural as blowing out candles or cutting the cake. But our obsession with recording every detail of our happiest moments could be damaging our ability to remember them, according to new research. A study has shown that taking pictures rather than concentrating fully on the events in front of us prevents memories taking hold.
Dr. Linda Henkel, from Fairfield University, Connecticut, described it as the “photo-taking impairment effect”. She said: “People so often pull out their cameras almost mindlessly to capture a moment, to the point where they are missing what is happening right in front of them. When people rely on technology to remember for them — counting on the camera to record the event and thus not needing to attend to it fully themselves — it can have a negative impact on how well they remember their experiences.”
Dr Henkel and her team carried out an experiment in a museum, to learn if taking pictures of the exhibits was hindering the ability of visitors to remember what they had seen.
A group of university students were led on a tour at the Bellarmine Museum of Art at Fairfield University and were asked to either photograph or try and remember objects on display. The next day their memory was tested. The results showed that people were less accurate in recognizing the objects they had photographed than those they had only looked at. It was found that their memory for the details of the objects they had photographed was poorer.
Henkel’s lab is currently investigating whether the content of a photo, such as whether you are in it, affects later memory. She is also researching whether actively choosing what to photograph might influence what we remember.
Previous research suggests that reviewing photos we have taken does help us remember the objects, but only if we take the time.
“Research has suggested that the sheer volume and lack of organization of digital photos for personal memories discourages many people from accessing and recalling them. In order to remember, we have to access and interact with the photos, rather than just collect them,” said Dr Henkel.
1. What does the word “them”, in the first paragraph, refer to?| A．Gifts at a birthday. | B．People who go to parties. |
| C．Photos taken at a wedding. | D．Details of the happiest moments. |
| A．Some unhappy events may impair the effects of photos. |
| B．Taking photographs of objects ruins one’s memory of them. |
| C．The effects of photos are strongly affected by bad cameras. |
| D．Memories last forever when people take the photos they like most. |
| A．A group of high school students were involved. |
| B．The memory of participants was tested the following week. |
| C．People who just looked at the objects remembered fewer details. |
| D．People who photographed objects were worse at recognizing them. |
| A．Reviewing photos improves memories of objects. |
| B．Focusing on people at events is the best way to remember. |
| C．Relying on technology to remember affects the memory. |
| D．Counting on cameras to record events is always reliable. |
| A．a health magazine | B．a cultural overview |
| C．an economics report | D．an entertainment website |
4 . When John was growing up, other kids felt sorry for him. His parents always had him weeding the garden, carrying out the garbage and delivering newspapers. But when John reached adulthood, he was better off than his childhood playmates. He had more job satisfaction, a better marriage and was healthier. Most of all, he was happier. Far happier.
These are the findings of a 40-year study that followed the lives of 456 teenage boys from Boston. The study showed that those who had worked as boys enjoyed happier and more productive lives than those who had not. ＂Boys who worked in the home or community gained competence(能力) and came to feel they were worthwhile members of society,＂ said George Vaillant, the psychologist(心理学家) who made the discovery. ＂And because they felt good about themselves, others felt good about them.＂
Vaillant’s study followed these males in great detail. Interviews were repeated at ages 25,31 and 47. Under Vaillant, the researchers compared the men’s mental-health scores with their boyhood-activity scores. Points were awarded for part-time jobs, housework, effort in school, and ability to deal with problems.
The link between what the men had done as boys and how they turned out as adults was surprisingly sharp. Those who had done the most boyhood activities were twice as likely to have warm relations with a wide variety of people, five times as likely to be well paid and 16 times less likely to have been unemployed. The researchers also found that IQ and family social and economic class made no real difference in how the boys turned out.
Working — at any age — is important. Childhood activities help a child develop responsibility, independence, confidence and competence — the underpinnings(基础) of emotional health. They also help him understand that people must cooperate and work toward common goals. The most competent adults are those who know how to do this. Yet work isn’t everything. As Tolstoy once said, ＂One can live magnificently in this world if one knows how to work and how to love, to work for the person one loves and to love one’s work.＂
1. What do we know about John?| A．He enjoyed his career and marriage. |
| B．He had few childhood playmates. |
| C．He received little love from his family. |
| D．He was envied by others in his childhood. |
| A．a description of personal values and social values |
| B．an analysis of how work was related to competence |
| C．an example for parents’ expectations of their children |
| D．an explanation why some boys grew into happy men |
| A．recording the boys’ effort in school |
| B．evaluating the men’s mental health |
| C．comparing different sets of scores |
| D．measuring the men’s problem solving ability |
| A．Quick to react. | B．Having a thin edge. |
| C．Clear and definite. | D．Sudden and rapid. |
| A．Competent adults know more about love than work. |
| B．Emotional health is essential to a wonderful adult life. |
| C．Love brings more joy to people than work does. |
| D．Independence is the key to one’s success. |
5 . We all know that eating junk food can make us fat. However, a new study suggests that it can do more than that – it can also make us lazy, reported CBS News.
In the study, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, US divided 32 female rats into two groups. The first group was fed a diet of healthy food such as corn and fish, while the second was given a diet of highly processed (加工的) food rich in sugar, namely “junk food”.
Within three months, the rats in the second group were already much fatter than those on the healthy diet. And when researchers trained the rats to do simple tasks, they found even more differences between the two groups rather than weight.
During the task – pushing a lever (杠杆) to receive a reward of sugar water – the rats on the junk food diet were found to be less willing to move, and they took longer breaks between each push than the lean rats did.
“It is as if the rat is thinking ‘This is too much work’,” Aaron Blaisdell, leader of the study, told the Los Angeles Times.
But what about the possibility that the fat rats were less passionate about getting sugar water because they were already eating lots of sugar in their daily diet? That’s why researchers repeated the tests by rewarding fat rats with plain water when they were extremely thirsty. However, the results came out just the same.
According to researchers, these differences suggest that junk food changed the chemistry in the rats’ brains.
The experiment didn’t end there. After six months, the rats’ diets were switched, and the overweight rats were given a healthy diet for nine days. However, this change didn’t help reduce their weight or improve their ability to perform tasks, which means the effects of their junk food diet persisted (持续存在). “There’s no quick fix,” said Blaisdell.
For a long time, we’ve believed that people become fat because they are lazy. But this study has proven the opposite to be true as well, which indicates that laziness and obesity are a “vicious cycle (恶性循环)”.
So, if you constantly feel tired, lacking any urge to get up from your chair, it could be that you’ve been studying too hard. But you should also pay attention to your diet.
1. During the first three months of the experiment by researchers at the University of California, ______.| A．rats from the healthy diet group ate nothing but corn and fish |
| B．rats on the junk food diet ate more than those on healthy diet |
| C．rats on the healthy food diet performed better at simple tasks than those on the junk food diet |
| D．rats on the junk food diet seemed uninterested in sugary food |
| A．help them control their weight |
| B．test whether fat rats lost interest in the test because they had taken enough sugar |
| C．change the diet habits of fat rats |
| D．find out the influence of sugar on rats’ brains |
| A．after the rats on the junk food diet had worked hard to get sugar water |
| B．after the type of food rats prefer had been identified |
| C．after a quick cure for obesity had been found |
| D．after the fact that fatter rats are lazier than lean rats had been found |
| A．fat people are usually lazier than lean people |
| B．people should switch between different types of diets to keep healthy |
| C．being overweight and being lazy can feed into each other |
| D．laziness is the main cause of weight problems |
| A．Eating junk food can make us fat. |
| B．Researchers got different results after repeated the tests to fat rats. |
| C．For a long time, we’ve believed that people become fat because they are lazy. |
| D．If you constantly feel tired or study too hard, you need to pay attention to your diet. |
6 . Two things I really believe in --- saving money and saving the planet, and it’s even better when I can do something that accomplishes both at the same time. Rainwater harvesting is just such a thing. In the near future, rainwater harvesting will be as common as twelve-year-old girls carrying cell phones.
Many countries already rely heavily on rainwater. Every building in these countries collects the rainwater from its roof and stores it for later use. However, America is just slightly slow to take action.
There are many ways to harvest rainwater and most of them are easy and inexpensive. For example, use rain barrels（桶）to collect the water that would run off your roof. You’d be surprised at how fast a fifty-gallon（加仑）barrel will be filled with free, usable water. New building construction offers some good ways to gather rainwater, and the cost of set-up is usually made up by reduced usage very quickly. Rainwater can be conveyed by roof pipes into underground containers, where a pump can draw water up as needed.
The rainwater can even be treated to make it drinkable. If that rainwater were not collected, but allowed to run over your lawn（草坪）, into the street and eventually to a storm water treatment facility, it would pick up all sorts of pollutants on its journey --- chemical compositions and agricultural poisons from the grass, motor oil, waste water and such from the roads, and who knows what else. That is to say, the shorter distance it covers the more drinkable it will be.
Depending on where you live, the rainwater may be piped to a treatment plant or it may run in natural channels to allow nature to remove the pollutants. Either way, the treatment of rainwater is high priced. If you reduce the amount of rainwater run-off from your home or office, you reduce the need for treatment.
Water is rapidly becoming one of our most precious resources and it is not as abundant as you may think. In the year 2015, the United States used generally 479 billion gallons of fresh water per day.
1. According to the passage, harvesting rainwater can ______.| A．help us save money and be good for the environment |
| B．help us realize the importance of water |
| C．promote the development of economy and peace |
| D．make us live a better life in the near future |
| A．Little girls can save money by carrying cell phones. |
| B．Many countries can’t afford to harvest rainwater. |
| C．Harvesting rainwater in America is not that common. |
| D．Rainwater harvesting is mainly adopted by developed countries. |
| A．How to take advantage of rainwater. |
| B．How to fix the equipment under the ground. |
| C．How to reduce the cost of the equipment. |
| D．How to harvest rainwater. |
| A．Before it is piped to a treatment plant. |
| B．After it runs over your lawn. |
| C．After it runs into the street. |
| D．Before it drops from the roof. |
| A．it is easy to make rainwater drinkable |
| B．the author calls on people to harvest rainwater |
| C．many countries ignore to harvest rainwater |
| D．it is easy to deal with the pollutants from rainwater |
A test among students in grades 2, 4 and 6 found that they not only wrote faster by hand than by keyboard, but also created more ideas when composing essays with handwriting. And other research shows that the finger movements required to write by hand activate brain areas involved with thought, language, and short-term memory.
A recent Indiana University study had one group of children practice writing letters by hand while a second group just looked at those letters. Then, both groups of kids entered a functional MRI (核磁共振) that scanned their brains as the researchers showed them the same letters. Researchers found that the brain activity in the first group was far more advanced and “adult-like”.
Handwriting also affects other people’s way they think of adults and children. Several studies have shown that the same average essay will score much higher if written with good penmanship and much lower if written out in poor handwriting. These studies have also found that people judge the quality of a person’s ideas based on his or her handwriting. And the consequences are real: On standardized tests with handwritten sections, like the SAT, all essay that is considered hard to recognize gets a big zero.
Studies show that this isn’t only an English-language phenomenon. Chinese and Japanese youths are suffering from “character amnesia”. They can’t remember how to write characters, thanks to computers and text messaging. Some experts fear that Chinese writing and reading are so closely linked in the brain that China’s reading ability as a nation could suffer.
1. According to the passage, it can be learned that ________________.
| A．many researches have been done on handwriting |
| B．essays can’t be composed without handwriting |
| C．all children write faster by keyboard than by hand |
| D．most schools are trying to teach more handwriting |
| A．Children should practice writing letters |
| B．Handwriting can increase brain activity |
| C．It’s good for children to enter a functional MRI. |
| D．Letters should often be shown to children |
| A．Handwriting affects both adults and children. |
| B．Handwriting helps a person write better essays. |
| C．SAT should be done with good handwriting. |
| D．Good handwriting makes a person seem smarter. |
| A．Essays written with keyboards will get lower scores. |
| B．The quality of your ideas depends on your handwriting. |
| C．Chinese and Japanese youths don’t know how to write. |
| D．Less handwriting may affect China’s reading ability. |
| A．keyboards are more popular than handwriting |
| B．we shouldn’t judge people by their handwriting |
| C．handwriting is of great importance |
| D．it’s time to give up using keyboards |
第一节：阅读表达（共5 小题；
阅读下面的短文，并根据短文后的要求答题（请注意问题后的字数要求）。
Researchers found that women are overcome by a burning desire to share gossip (流言蜚语) as soon as they hear it. They will typically tell the secret to at least one other person in 47 hours. Depending on who the gossip is about, their boyfriend, husband, best friend or mother is most likely to be the recipients of the information.
The study of 3000 women aged between 18 and 65 also found that out of ten admitted they were unable to keep a secret—no matter how personal or secret the news was. It was also found that alcohol usually gives us a helping hand to let out secrets—with more than half admitting a glass or two of wine could get them to dish the dirt.
Michael Cox, UK Director of Wines of Chile, said, “It’s official women who can’t keep secrets. We are really eager to find out with this survey how many secrets people are told. What we don’t count on is how quickly these are passed on by those we trust. No matter how precious the piece of information is, it often comes out within 48 hours.”
Three quarters say they are able to keep quiet about a secret, and 83 percent consider themselves 100 percent reliable within each group of friends. Yet, four in ten admit gossiping to a close friend from another friendship group. Nearly half (45 percent) disclose secrets just for the weight to be lifted from their shoulders. More than four in ten think it is acceptable to share a friend’s secret with someone who doesn’t know him or her.
Private issues, true cost of purchases and affairs emerged top of the secret-keeping list, with girls most likely to share a secret chatting face-to-face, on the phone or via a text message. Fortunately, over a quarter (27 percent) said they forgot what they were told the following day.
1. Please explain the underlined words “dish the dirt” in English. (No more than 5 words.)___________________________________________________________________________
2. What makes women more likely pass on gossip? (No more than 3 words.)
___________________________________________________________________________
3. What kinds of secrets are women most interested in? (No more than 10 words.)
___________________________________________________________________________
4. Why do about half women tell secrets to others? (No more than 10 words.)
___________________________________________________________________________
5. Should women tell secrets to others or keep secrets? Please give your reasons. (No more than 30 words.)
___________________________________________________________________________
Overpopulation is one of the main causes behind the threatening of poverty on an individual level as well as a social level. This is simple math. If there are more mouths to feed and less income, definitely much will remain poor.
Another theory which is used as an explanation for poverty is lack of education. If you look at any of the underdeveloped countries, you will find that the level of education there is very low. Lack of education means lack of employment opportunities, thus leading to unemployment coupled with poverty in the future.
Moving away from one’s own homeland to another city or country in search of employment leads to poverty too. It may take these people a lot of time to find jobs. Meanwhile they live in bad conditions. The cost of living in the city or country is most of the time too high for them.
There may be other causes of poverty like the change in business. For example, in America, a couple of decades ago, heavy industry flourished, which employed a lot of African-American people. But now, the focus is more on information technology and health care, both of which employ only skilled and trained people. This has led to unemployment among African-Americans.
Poverty has many ill effects on society. That’s why steps should be taken to get rid of it!
1. What’s the meaning of the underlined word “flourished” in Paragraph 5?
(No more than 5 words)
2. Why is overpopulation a cause of poverty today? (No more than12 words)
3. What’s the situation of education in underdeveloped countries? (No more than 8 words)
4. What does the passage mainly talk about? (No more than 10 words)
5. In your opinion, what’s the most significant cause of poverty today? Please give your reason. (No more than 25 words)
10 . Against the supposition that forest fires in Alaska, Canada and Siberia warm the climate, scientists have discovered that cooling may occur in areas where burnt trees allow more snow to mirror more sunlight into space.
This finding suggests that taking steps to prevent northern forest to limit the release of greenhouse gases may warm the climate in northern regions. Usually large fires destroyed forests in these areas over the past decade. Scientists predict that with climate warming, fires may occur more frequently over next several centuries as a result of a longer fire season. Sunlight taken in by the earth tends to cause warming, while heat mirrored back into space tends to cause cooling.
This is the first study to analyze all aspects of how northern fires influence climate. Earlier studies by other scientists have suggested that fire in northern regions speed up climate warming because greenhouse gases from burning trees and plants are released into the atmosphere and thus trap heat.
Scientists found that right after the fire, large amounts of greenhouse gases entered the atmosphere and caused warming. Ozone（臭氧）levels increased, and ash from the fire fell on far-off sea ice, darkening the surface and causing more radiation from the sun to be taken in. The following spring, however, the land within the area of the fire was brighter than before the fire, because fewer trees covered the ground. Snow on the ground mirrored more sunlight back into space, leading to cooling.
“We need to find out all possible ways to reduce the growth of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.” Scientists tracked the change in amount of radiation entering and leaving the climate system as a result of the fire, and found a measurement closely related to the global air temperature. Typically, fire in northern regions occurs in the same area every 80 to 150 years. Scientists, however, found that when fire occurs more frequently, more radiation is lost from the earth and cooling results. Specifically, they determined when fire returns 20 years earlier than predicated, 0.5 watts per square meter of area burned are soaked up by the earth from greenhouse gases, but 0.9 watts per square meter will be sent back into space. The net effect is cooling. Watts are used to measure the rate at which energy is gained or lost from the earth.
1. According to the new findings, taking steps to prevent northern forest fires may _______.| A．result in a warming climate |
| B．cause the forest fires to occur more frequently |
| C．lead to a longer fire season |
| D．protect the forests and the environment there |
| A．large amounts of greenhouse gases enter the atmosphere |
| B．the levels of ozone which is a type of oxygen increase |
| C．snow on the ground mirrors more sunlight back into space |
| D．ashes from the fire fall on the ice surface and take in more radiation from the sun |
| A．analyze all aspects of how northern fires influence climate |
| B．indicate that forest fires will pollute the atmosphere |
| C．suggest that people should take measures to protect the environment |
| D．suggest that the fires will speed up climate warming |
| A．released | B．absorbed |
| C．created | D．distributed |
| A．warm the climate as the supposition goes |
| B．allow more snow to reflect more sunlight into space and thus cool the climate |
| C．destroy large areas of forests and pollute the far-off sea ice |
| D．help to gain more energy rather than release more energy |
