Passage One Women's minds work differently from men's. At least, that is what most men are convinced of. Psychologists view the subject either as a matter of frustration or a joke. Now the biologists have moved into this minefield, and some of them have found that there are real differences between the brains of men and women. But being different, they point out hurriedly, is not the same as being better or worse. There is, however, a definite structural variation between the male and female brain. The difference is in a part of the brain that is used in the most complex intellectual processes—the link between the two halves of the brain. The two halves are linked by a trunk line of between 200 and 300 million nerves, the corpus callosum (胼胝体). Scientists have found quite recently that the corpus callosum in women is always larger and probably richer in nerve fibers than it is in men. This is the first time that a structural difference has been found between the brains of women and men and it must have some significance. The question is "What?", and, if this difference exists, are there others? Research shows that present-day women think differently and behave differently from men. Are some of these differences biological and inborn, a result of evolution? We tend to think that is the influence of society that produces these differences. But could we be wrong? Research showed that these two halves of the brain had different functions, and that the corpus callosum enabled them to work together. For most people, the left half is used for word-handing, analytical and logical activities; the right half works on pictures, patterns and forms. We need both halves working together. And the better the connections, the more harmoniously the two halves work. And, according to research findings, women have the better connections. But it isn't all that easy to explain the actual differences between skills of men and women on this basis. In schools throughout the world girls tend to be better than boys at "language subjects" and boys better at maths and physics. If these differences correspond with the differences in the hemispheric trunk line, there is an unalterable distinction between the sexes. We shan't know for a while, partly because we don't know of any precise relationship between abilities in school subject and the functioning of the two halves of the brain, and we cannot understand how the two halves interact via the corpus callosum. But this striking difference must have some effect and, because the difference is in the parts of the brain involved in intellect, we should be looking for differences in intellectual processing.
1. Which of the following statement is CORRECT?
A.Biologists are conducting research where psychologists have given up.
B.rain differences point to superiority of one sex over the other.
C.Results of scientific research fail to support popular belief.
D.The structural difference in the brain between the sexes has long been known.
Passage Two Even as Americans have been gaining weight, they have cut their average fat intake from 36 to 34 percent of their total diets in the past 15 years. And indeed, cutting fat to control or lose weight makes sense. Fat has nine calories per gram. Protein and carbohydrates have just four. Moreover, the body uses fewer calories to metabolize fat than it does to metabolize other foods. Compared with protein and carbohydrates—which break down into amino acids and simple sugars, respectively, and can be used to strengthen and energize the body—dietary fat is more easily converted to body fat. Therefore, it's more likely to stay on buttocks, thighs and bellies. But cutting fat from your diet doesn't necessarily mean your body won't store fat. For example, between nonfat and regular cookies, there's trivial difference in calories because manufacturers make up for the loss of fat by adding sugar. Low-fat crackers, soups and dressings can also be just as high in calories as richer versions. No matter where the calories come from, overeating will still cause weight gain. The calories from fat just do it a little quicker. A Wisconsin computer programmer who decided with a diet coach to eat only 40 grams of fat a day learned the lesson firsthand. He wasn't losing weight. Then he showed his food diary to his coach and revealed he'd been eating half a pound of jelly beans a day. "They don't have any fat," he explains. But they had enough sugar to keep him from shedding an ounce. Nonfat foods become add-on foods. When we add them to our diet, we actually increase the number of calories we eat per day and gain weight. That was borne out in a Pennsylvania State University study. For breakfast, Prof. Barbara Rolls gave two groups of women yogurt that contained exactly the same amount of calories. One group's yogurt label said "high fat"—the other, "low fat." The "low fat" yogurt group ate significantly more calories later in the day than the other group. "People think they've saved fat and can indulge themselves later in the day with no adverse consequences," says Richard Mattes, a nutrition researcher at Purdue University. "But when they do that, they don't compensate very precisely, and they often end up overdoing it."
1. Why Americans are still gaining weight?
A.They eat too much fat.
B.They overeat.
C.They eat low-fat crackers, soups and dressings.
D.They eat sugar.
A B C D
B
[解析] 细节题。全文章主要论述美国人在过去的15年中虽然少吃含脂肪多的食物,但他们还在长胖。原因在于过量饮食会导致卡路里的过量的摄入而导致肥胖。其中第二段第四句No matter where the calories come from, overeating will still cause weight gain. (不管卡路里来自哪里,过量饮食仍会导致体重增加),因此选B。
2. What lesson did the computer programmer learn?
A.Overeating will cause weight gain.
B.He can eat half a pound of jelly beans a day.
C.He didn't eat any fat.
D.His coach gave him a lecture.
A B C D
A
[解析] 细节题。这个计算机程序员的经历是对第二段第四句的证明,表明他亲身体验了此教训。“No matter where the calories come from, overeating will still cause weight gain. ”不论卡路里来自何处,过量饮食也会增加体重。
3. Prof. Barbara's experiment proved that ______.
A.Two groups ate the same amount of calories.
B.Two groups ate the same amount of yogurt.
C.The "low fat" yogurt group ate significantly more calories later in the day than the other group.
D.People increase the number of calories they eat per day and gain weight.
A B C D
D
[解析] 细节题。巴巴拉教授对两组妇女的研究证明了“we actually increase the number of calories we eat per day and gain weight. ”随着我们每天摄入卡路里的增长,体重也在增长。
4. According to the author, ______ has less calories.
A.fat
B.protein and carbohydrates
C.amino acid
D.sugar
A B C D
B
[解析] 细节题。第一段第三句,和脂肪相比,每克蛋白质和碳水化合物只含有四个卡路里。
5. What can you infer from the passage?
A.To keep from being overweight, people have to eat non-fat food.
B.The calories from fat just do it a little quicker than that from protein and carbohydrates.
C.People should avoid temptation.
D.Americans realize that it is necessary to count calories before eating the food.
Passage Three Archaeology can tell us plenty about how humans looked and the way they lived tens of thousands of years ago. But what about the deeper questions? Could early humans speak, were they capable of self-conscious reflection, did they believe in anything? Such questions might seem to be beyond the scope of science. Not so. Answering them is the focus of a burgeoning field that brings together archaeology and neuroscience. It aims to chart the development of human cognitive powers. This is not easy to do. A skull gives no indication of whether its owner was capable of speech, for example. The task then is to find proxies (普代物) for key traits and behaviors that have stayed intact over millennia. Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of this endeavor is teasing out the role of culture as a force in the evolution of our mental skills. For decades, development of the brain has been seen as exclusively biological. But increasingly, that is being challenged. Take what the Cambridge archaeologist Colin Renfrew calls "the sapient (智人的) paradox (矛盾)" Evidence suggests that the human genome, and hence the brain, has changed little in the past 60,000 years. Yet it wasn't until about 10,000 years ago that profound changes took place in human behavior: people settled in villages and built shrines. Renfrew's paradox is why, if the hardware was in place, did it take so long for humans to start changing the world? His answer is that the software—the culture—took a long time to develop. In particular, the intervening time saw humans vest (赋予) meaning in objects and symbols. Those meanings were developed by social interaction over successive generations, passed on through teaching, and stored in the neuronal connections of children. Culture also changes biology by modifying natural selection, sometimes in surprising ways. How is it, for example, that a human gene for making essential vitamin C became blocked by junk DNA? One answer is that our ancestors started eating fruit, so the pressure to make vitamin C "relaxed" and the gene became unnecessary. By this reasoning, early humans then became addicted to fruit, and any gene that helped them to find it was selected for. Evidence suggests that the brain is so plastic that, like genes, it can be changed by relaxing selection pressure. Our understanding of human cognitive development is still fragmented and confused, however. We have lots of proposed causes and effects, and hypotheses to explain them. Yet the potential pay-off makes answers worth searching for. If we know where the human mind came from and what changed it, perhaps we can gauge where it is going. Finding those answers will take all the ingenuity the modem human mind can muster.
1. The questions presented in the first paragraph ______.
A.seem to have no answers whatever
B.are intended to dig for ancient human minds
C.are not scientific enough to be answered here
D.are raised to explore the evolution of human appearance
Passage Four Despite the numerous warnings about extreme weather, rising sea levels and mass extinctions, one message seems to have got lost in the debate about the impact of climate change. A warmer world won't just be inconvenient. Huge swathes (片) of it, including most of Europe, the US and Australia as well as all of Africa and China will actually be uninhabitable—too hot, dry or stormy to sustain a human population. This is no mirage. It could materialize if the world warms by an average of just 4℃, which some models predict could happen as soon as 2050. This is the world our children and grandchildren are going to have to live in. So what are we going to do about it? One option is to start planning to move the at-risk human population to parts of the world where it will still be cool and wet. It might seem like a drastic move, but this thought experiment is not about scaremongering (危言耸听). Every scenario is extrapolated from predictions of the latest climate models, and some say that 4℃ may actually turn out to be a conservative estimate. Clearly this glacier-free, desertified world—with its human population packed into high-rise cities closer to the poles—would be a last resort. Aside from anything else, it is far from being the most practical option: any attempt at mass migration is likely to fuel wars, political power struggles and infighting. So what are the alternatives? The most obvious answer is to radically reduce carbon dioxide levels now, by fast-tracking green technologies and urgently implementing energy-efficient measures. But the changes aren't coming nearly quickly enough and global emissions are still rising. As a result, many scientists are now turning to "Earth's plan B". Plan B involves making sure we have large scale geoengineering technologies ready and waiting to either suck CO2 out of the atmosphere or deflect the sun's heat. Most climate scientists were once firmly against fiddling with the Earth's thermostat, fearing that it may make a bad situation even worse, or provide politicians with an excuse to sit on their hands and do nothing. Now they reluctantly acknowledge the sad truth that we haven't managed to reorder the world fast enough to reduce CO2 emissions and that perhaps, given enough funding research and political muscle, we can indeed design, test and regulate geoengineering projects in time to avert the more horrifying consequences of climate change. Whatever we do, now is the time to act. The alternative is to plan for a hothouse world that none of us would recognize as home.
1. To begin with, the author is trying to remind us of ______.
A.the likelihood of climate change making life inconvenient
Passage Five American researchers are working on three antibodies that many mark a new step on the path toward an HIV vaccine, according to a report published online Thursday, July 8, 2010, in the journal Science. One of the antibodies suppresses 91 percent of HIV strains, more than any AIDS antibody ever discovered, according to a report on the findings published in the Wall Street Journal. The antibodies were discovered in the cells of a 60-year-old African-American gay man whose body produced them naturally. One antibody in particular is substantially different from its precursors, the Science study says. The antibodies could be tried as a treatment for people already infected with HIV, the WSJ reports. At the very least, they might boost the efficacy of current antiretroviral drugs. It is welcome news for the 33 million people the United Nations estimated were living with AIDS at the end of 2008. The WSJ outlines the painstaking method the team used to find the antibody amid the cells of the African-American man, known as Donor 45. First they designed a probe that looks just like a spot on a particular molecule on the cells that HIV infects. They used the probe to attract only the antibodies that efficiently attack that spot. They screened 25 million of Donor 45's cell to find just 12 cells that produced the antibodies. Scientists have already discovered plenty of antibodies that either don't work at all or only work on a couple of HIV strains. Last year marked the first time that researchers found "broadly neutralizing antibodies," which knock out many HIV strains. But none of those antibodies neutralized more than about 40 percent of them, the WSJ says. The newest antibody, at 91 percent neutralization, is a marked improvement. Still, more work needs to be done to ensure the antibodies would activate the immune system to produce natural defenses against AIDS, the study authors say. They suggest there are test methods that blend the three new antibodies together—in raw form to prevent transmission of the virus, such as from mother to child; in a microbicide gel that women or gay men could use before sex to prevent infection; or as a treatment for HIV/AIDS, combined with antiretroviral drug. If the scientists can find the right way to stimulate production of the antibodies, they think most people could produce then, the WSJ says.
1. We can learn from the beginning of the passage that ______.
A.a newly discovered antibody defeats 91% of the HIV strains
B.a new antiretroviral drug has just come on the market
C.American researchers have developed a new vaccine for HIV
D.the African-American gay man was cured of his HIV infection
3. The newest antibody found in Donor 45 reflects a dramatic advance in terms of ______.
A.pathology
B.pharmacology
C.HIV neutralization
D.HIV epidemiology
A B C D
C
[解析] 细节题。题干:在Donor 45中新发现的抗体反映了在______的巨大进步。从倒数第三段最后一句...neutralization, is a marked improvement可知,这里marked improvement与题干中dramatic advance是同义改写的关系。故本题答案为C。
4. According to the study authors, the three test methods are intended to ______.
A.advance the technology in condom production to prevent HIV infection
B.facilitate the natural immune defense against AIDS
Passage Six That shabby unknown bundle of neglect and despair that was dropped off by the police six weeks ago—later to be identified by his mother, who turns up occasionally—is now a driving force on the infants' ward. Once he was bathed a few times and his rashes were treated, he turned out to be a 14-month-old boy named Vergil, still recovering from premature birth—birth weight, 21/2 pounds. It came obvious he had never received any real attention, and practically no solid food, and it was never very clear who assumed responsibility for him in his family, if anyone. Miraculously he survived, with almost no outside help. At first he just lay there, withdrawn, sucking on an empty bottle as he had been used to doing at home. After a few days it became clear he was ravenously hungry and he downed bottle after bottle of milk. Slowly he began to respond to the ward staff around him who hung over the side of his crib, tempting him back to life. He started by cautiously "chewing" on people, sniffing and tasting them warily like a little wild creature. Gradually he climbed to a standing position, pulling himself up on the bars of his crib. Then he began to discover noise—that came from himself. When he learned that it was acceptable, in this place, to scream when enraged, he filled his corner of the room with garbled speech-like sounds, and loud baby-bellows of demand. If nobody responded he would fix each passerby with a coy look that evolved into a seductive grin, revealing four widely space little teeth. Someone always stopped, grinning back at this adorable creature, then picking him up and cuddling him. We on the staff took personal pride and delight in his steady progress. During the day we moved his crib from the infants' ward to the playroom where there are people coming and going. He loved it, standing and cruising in his crib, commenting happily on the scene, crowing and babbling. One afternoon, when his crib was moved adjacent to the wall, he became unusually quiet, deep in concentration. With the stealth of a cat, using his little fingers like tiny screwdrivers, he had taken apart the wall oxygen unit. Our delight in his progress turned to real respect. Perhaps we could steer him toward the right path before it was too late. Vergil definitely had a future.
1. In the infants' ward, Vergil ______.
A.was treated as an orphan
B.was born prematurely
C.had himself renamed
D.drove the staff busy
A B C D
D
[解析] 细节题。这里的关键是in the infants' ward(在婴儿房里)找到了母亲,所以不是(孤儿)A,B(早产)不是发生在婴儿房里的事,C(更名)在文章中未提及,所以答案为D,也就是孩子在婴儿房里得到了很好的照顾和治疗。
2. The ward staff must have been marveled at Vergil's ______.