Passage One Why do people always want to get up and dance when they hear music? The usual explanation is that there is something embedded in every culture—that dancing is a "cultural universal". A researcher in Manchester thinks the impulse may be even more deeply rooted than that. He says it may be a reflex reaction. Neil Todd, a psychologist at the University of Manchester, told that he first got an inkling that biology was the key after watching people dance to deafeningly loud music. "There is a compulsion about it," he says. He reckoned there might be a more direct, biological, explanation for the desire to dance, so he started to look at the inner ear. The human ear has two main functions: hearing and maintaining balance. The standard view is that these tasks are segregated so that organs for balance, for instance, do not have an acoustic function. But Todd says animal studies have shown that the sacculus, which is part of the balance-regulating vestibular system, has retained some sensitivity to sound. The sacculus is especially sensitive to extremely loud noise, above 70 decibels. "There's no question that in a contemporary dance environment, the sacculus will be stimulated," says Todd. The average rave, he says, blares music at a painful 110 to 140 decibels. But no one really knows what an acoustically stimulated sacculus does. Todd speculates that listening to extremely loud music is a form of "vestibular self-stimulation": it gives a heightened sensation of motion. "We don't know exactly why it causes pleasure," he says. "But we know that people go to extraordinary lengths to get it." He lists bungee jumping, playing on swings or even rocking to and fro in a rocking chair as other examples of pursuits designed to stimulate the sacculus. The same pulsing that makes us feel as though we are moving may make us get up and dance as well, says Todd. Loud music sends signals to the inner ear which may prompt reflex movement. "The typical pulse rate of dance music is around the rate of locomotion," he says. "It's quite possible you're triggering a spinal reflex."
4. When the sacculus is acoustically stimulated, according to Todd, ______.
A.functional balance will be maintained in the ear
B.pleasure will be aroused
C.decibels will shoot up
D.hearing will occur
A B C D
B
[解析] 细节题。本题题意是“根据Todd的理论,当球囊受到听觉上的刺激时,会……”。根据第五段第二句话we don't know exactly why it causes pleasure可判断B正确。
5. What is the passage mainly about?
A.The human ear does more than hearing than expected.
B.Dancing is capable of heightening the sensation of hearing.
C.Loud music stimulates the inner ear and generates the urge to dance.
D.The human inner ear does more to help hear than to help maintain balance.
A B C D
C
[解析] 主旨大意题。本题题意是“本段文字的中心意思是什么?”参见文章提要。
Passage Two Advances in cosmetic dentistry and plastic surgery have made it possible to correct facial birth defects, repair damaged teeth and tissue, and prevent or greatly delay the onset of tooth decay and gum disease. As a result, more people smile more often and more openly today than ever in the past, and we can expect more smiles in the future. Evidence of the smile's ascent may be seen in famous paintings in museums and galleries throughout the world. The vast majority of prosperous bigwigs (要人) , voluptuous nudes, or middle-class family members in formal portraits and domestic scenes appear to have their mouths firmly closed. Soldiers in battle, children at play, beggars, old people, and especially villains may have their mouths open; but their smiles are seldom attractive, and more often suggest strain or violence than joy. Smiles convey a wide range of meanings in different eras and cultures, says art historian Angus Trumble, currently curator (馆长) of Yale University's Center for British Art, in his book A Brief History of the Smile. Compare, for instance, the varying impressions made by the shy dimples (酒窝) of Leonardo's Mona Lisa; the rosy-cheeked, mustachioed Laughing Cavalier of Frans Hals; and the "Smiley Face" logo perfected (though not invented) in 1963 by American graphic artist Harvey R. Ball. In some non-Western cultures, Trumble notes, even a warm, open smile does not necessarily indicate pleasure or agreement. It can simply be a polite mask to cover emotions considered too rude or shocking to be openly displayed. Subtle differences in muscle movement can convey enormous differences in emotion, from the tranquility of bronze Buddhas, to the erotic bliss of couples entwined in stone on Hindu temples, to the fierce smirk (假笑) of a guardian demon at the entrance to a Chinese tomb. Trumble expects the impact of Western medicine and mass media to further increase the pressure on people to grin broadly and laugh openly in public. "Faint smiles are increasingly thought of in scientific and psychological circles as something that falls short of the true smile," and therefore suggest insincerity or lack of enthusiasm, he says. With tattooing, body piercing, and permanent cosmetics already well established as fashion trends, one can imagine tomorrow's beauty shops adding plastic surgeons and dentists to their staffs. These corner-store cosmeticians would offer style makeovers to reshape our lips, teeth, and jawlines to mimic the signature smile of one's favorite celebrity. What can you say to that except "Have a nice day?"
1. Had it not been for cosmetic advances, as inferred from the passage, ______.
A.people would not have been as happy as they are today
B.the rate of facial birth defect would not have declined
Passage Three On September 7, 2001, a 68-year-old woman in Strasbourg, France, had her gall bladder (胆囊) removed by-surgeons operating, via computer from New York. It was the first complete telesurgery procedure performed by surgeons nearly 4000 miles away from their patient. In New York, Marescaux teamed up with surgeon Michel Gagner to perform the historic long-distance operation. A high-speed fiber-optic service provided by France Telecom made the connection between New York and Strasbourg. The two surgeons controlled the instruments using an advanced robotic surgical system, designed by Computer Motion Inc. that enabled the procedure to be minimally invasive. The patient was released from the hospital after about 48 hours and regained normal activity the following week. The high-speed fiber-optic connection between New York and France made it possible to overcome a key obstacle to telesurgery time delay. It was crucial that a continuous time delay of less than 200 milliseconds be maintained throughout the operation, between the surgeon's movements in New York and the return video (from Strasbourg) on his screen. The delay problem includes video coding decoding and signal transmission time. France Telecom's engineers achieved an average time delay of ]50 milliseconds. "I felt as comfortable operating on my patient as if I had been in the room," says Marescaux. The successful collaboration(合作) among medicine, advanced technology, and telecomm unications is likely to have enormous implications for patient care and doctor training. Highly skilled surgeons may soon regularly perform especially difficult operations through long-distance procedures. The computer systems used to control surgical movement can also lead to a breakthrough in teaching surgical techniques to a new generation of physicians. More surgeons-in-training will have the opportunity to observe their teachers in action in telesurgery operating rooms around the world. Marescaux describes the success of the remotely performed surgical procedure as the beginning of a "third revolution" in surgery within the last decade. The first was the arrival of minimally invasive surgery, enabling procedures to be performed with guidance by a camera, meaning that the abdomen (腹部) and thorax (胸腔) do not have to be opened. The second was the introduction of computer-assisted surgery, where complicated software algorithms (计算法) enhance the safety of the surgeon's movements during a procedure, making them more accurate, while introducing the concept of distance between the surgeon and the patient. It was thus natural to imagine that this distance-currently several meters in the operating room could potentially be up to several thousand kilometers.
1. The title that best expresses the main idea is ______.
3. How long did it take the patient to resume her normal activity after the operation? ______
A.24 hours.
B.48 hours.
C.About a week.
D.Almost a month.
A B C D
C
[解析] 细节题。题目问的是手术后病人需要多久的时间恢复。定位到第二段的“The patient was released from the hospital after about 48 hours and regained normal activity the following week”意为“病人大约48小时后可以出院,第二个星期就能正常活动”,故选C。
4. What is the major barrier to telesurgery? ______
A.Distance.
B.Advanced technology.
C.Delay.
D.Medical facilities.
A B C D
C
[解析] 细节题。题目问的是远程手术的障碍是什么?定位到第三段的“The high-speed fiber-optic connection between New York and France made it possible to overcome a key obstacle to telesurgery time delay”意为“纽约和法国之间的高速光纤使得克服远程手术中的时间延迟变得可能”,故选C。
5. The writer implies that ______.
A.difficult operation can be successfully performed all over the world now
B.compared to the "third revolution" in surgery, the first two are less important
C.all patients can be cured by a gall bladder-removal operation
D.a new breakthrough has been made in surgery
A B C D
D
[解析] 推断题。题目问的是哪一项是作者暗示的?定位到第五段的“The computer systems used to control surgical movement can also lead to a breakthrough in teaching surgical techniques to a new generation of physicians”意为“用来控制手术的电脑系统也能使得在教授新一代医生手术方法上有所突破”,故选D。
Passage Four It seems intuitive that going to a specialist physician will result in more thorough and up-to-date care for whatever ails you. In fact many studies support this idea—but health-care researchers caution that they may not tell the whole story. The first question is whose patients are sicker? Specialists tend to treat more complicated forms of disease but generalists—family physicians and general practitioners—are more likely to treat patients with several coexisting diseases. A second question is what counts as the most valuable treatment? Specialists are more familiar with standards of care for the diseases they treat regularly, says Harlan M. Krumholz of Yale University. On the other hand, a generalist may do a better job of coordinating a patient's care and keeping an eye on a person's overall health, says Martin T. Domohoe of the Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland. To further complicate comparisons many generalists will consult with specialists on complicated cases but medical records do not always show that, says Carolyn Clancy of the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research in Rockville, Md. That said stroke patients treated by neurologists are more likely to survive than stroke patients treated by generalists. Among about 38,000 stroke sufferers nationwide, 16.1% of those treated by a neurologists died within 3 months compared with 25.3 percent of those treated by family physicians. Several studies have shown that people with heart disease fare better when they are treated by cardiologists, says S. Nash of the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York. But it's hard to figure out exactly why. "Physician specialty, in addition to being a measure of formal training in the field, is also a proxy for clinical experience." he says, "It's very difficult to separate out the overlapping concepts. One, that practice makes perfect; two, the effect of the educational and time investments in a clinical problem the physician is simply interested in; and three, the issue of formal training." Differences between specialist care and generalist care, however. Pale in comparison with the finding that both specialists and generalists often fail to put the latest knowledge into practice, contend both Donohoe and Clancy. A report by the US General Accounting Office documented that heart attack survivors who saw cardiologists regularly were more likely to take cholesterol-lowering drugs and beta blockers which reduce heart rate and blood pressure than those who received care from a generalist. Even so, these life-prolonging drugs were not prescribed to many patients who appeared to be eligible for them, implying that both generalists and specialists could do better. "Maybe we are focusing too much energy on the differences between generalist and specialist care," says Donohoe. Perhaps, he adds, "We should focus more intently on improving the quality of communication between generalists and specialists and on developing and promoting practice guidelines that might have a much bigger effect on the overall health of Americans."
1. Which of the following questions can most probably come out of the questions raised in the passage?
Passage Five Scientists have developed a slimming drug that successfully suppresses appetite and results in a dramatic loss of weight without any apparent ill effects. The drug interferes with appetite control and prevents the build-up of fatty tissue. More importantly, the drug appears to prevent a serious decline in metabolic rate—causing tiredness and lethargy—which is typically associated with living on a starvation diet. As a result, mice taking the drug lost 45 percent more weight than mice fed the same amount of food, which compensate for the lack of food by becoming more sluggish. The scientists, from the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, said that C 75 is likely to produce a similar effect on humans because appetite control in the brain is thought to be based largely on the same chemical pathways as those in mice. "We are not claiming to have found the fabled weight-loss drug. What we have found, using C 75, is a major pathway in the brain that the body uses naturally in regulating appetite, at least in mice," said Francis Kuhajda, a pathologist and senior team member. "We badly need effective drugs for weight loss. Obesity is a huge problem. We're hoping to explore the possibilities of this new pathway," he said. Discovering a biochemical pathway in the brain that controls appetite raises new prospects for developing slimming aids. Research on leptin, a hormone produced in fatty tissue for controlling fat deposits, has so far failed to produce the expected slimming drug breakthrough. The latest study, published in the journal Science, showed that even moderate doses of C 75 produced a significant loss of appetite, which returned to normal after a few months. The scientists believe that C 75, which they produced synthetically in the laboratory, binds to an enzyme called fatty acid sythase, which is involved in storing excess food intake as fat. Inhibiting the enzyme causes a build-up of a chemical in the liver which acts as a precursor to fat deposition. This precursor is thought to have an indirect effect on the brain, causing appetite suppression. Normally, when animals fast, a hormone called neuropeptide Y increases sharply in the appetitecontrol centers of the brain, stimulating the desire for food. However, when animals are given C 75, levels of this hormone fall, leading to a loss of interest in food. Dr. Kuhajda said discovering that C 75 has no effect on metabolic rate is one of the most significant findings of the study. "If you try to lose weight by starving, your metabolism slows down after a few days," he said. "It's a survival mechanism that sabotages many diets. We see this in fasting mice. Yet metabolic rate in the C 75-treated mice doesn't slow at all." Further animals studies will be needed before C 75 could be tested on humans.
1. Living on a starvation diet may result in ______.
A.a dramatic loss of weight without any ill effects
B.a long-term loss of interest in eating
C.a slowdown of fat deposition
D.fatigue and inactivity
A B C D
D
[解析] 文中第一段在介绍这种新型减肥药C75的特点时,将新药的特点与传统上通过节食减肥(a starvation diet)对代谢率的影响进行比较,第一段第三句提到,“causing tiredness and lethargy—which is typically associated with living on a starvation diet.”可知,通过节食减肥会引起疲劳、无力等症状。故正确答案为D。
2. The scientists from the Johns Hopkins University said that C 75, the slimming drug proved effective in mice, is likely to work on humans because ______.
A.the chemical pathway responsible for appetite control in human is believed to be the same as that in mice
B.it is a major pathway in the brain which is activated to regulate appetite
C.it is especially effective in the battle against obesity
D.its effect has also been proved by human studies
A B C D
A
[解析] 文章第二段开头便表明了人们可使用C75来减肥的原因“because appetite control in the brain...as those in mice”,即因为大脑中的食欲控制在很大程度上是基于一种化学途径,而该化学途径与小鼠体内的相同,所以C75在人身上有可能产生类似的小鼠身上的减肥效果,故答案为A项。
3. Leptin ______.
A.refers to a new biochemical pathway in the brain that controls appetite
B.raises new prospects for developing slimming drugs
C.is a hormone produced in fatty tissue for controlling fat build-up
D.has turned to a breakthrough in the search for effective slimming drug
A B C D
C
[解析] 文中第三段中第二句话“Research on leptin, a hormone produced in fatty tissue for controlling fat deposits, has so far failed to produce the expected slimming drug breakthrough.”对Leptin做出了解释:它是脂肪组织中分泌的一种可以控制脂肪积聚量的激素(a hormone produced in fatty tissue for controlling fat deposits)。故正确答案为C。
4. The newly-found slimming drug can successfully suppress appetite because ______.
A.C 75 made synthetically in the laboratory, works effectively on human body
B.fatty acid sythase is involved in storing excess food intake as fat
C.C 75 inhibits the activity of an enzyme called fatty acid sythase
D.it increases a hormone called neuropeptide Y in the appetite-control centers of the brain
5. What is the most remarkable about the new slimming drug C 75?
A.It successfully suppresses appetite.
B.It encourages the scientists to study slimming drugs from new perspectives.
C.It generates a new hormone that may prove to be the key to overweight.
D.It doesn't affect the metabolic rate, a survival mechanism in living beings.
A B C D
D
[解析] 文章在第一段“More importantly, the drug appears to prevent a serious decline in metabolic rate...”和最后一段“...that C 75 has no effect on metabolic rate is one of the most significant findings of the study”中两次提到这种新型减肥药的独特之处,即对生命体的新陈代谢不产生影响。故正确答案为D。
Passage Six Are smart people just naturally attracted to study art or perform music, dance, or drama? Or does early education in the art actually cause changes in the brain that develop important components of cognition? Recent findings show that there may be some significant causal relationships between arts training and the brain's ability to learn. The Dana Foundation, an organization with interest in neuroscience, immunology, and arts education, just released a three-year study that found that early training in the arts is possibly good for your brain. Neuroscientists and psychologists at several universities have now enhanced understanding of just how the arts might improve thinking, memory, and language skills. Music education is linked with the ability to control both short-term and long-term memory, geometric representation, and development of reading skills. Dance training improves thinking though mimicry and acting classes seem to expand language. Visual arts lessons outside the classroom in childhood are linked to improved math calculations. In retrospect, I wish I had more art lessons before I took on that advanced math class in high school. It's not a new idea that the arts can make us smarter. The notion caught fire in the 1990s when researchers showed that college students did better on certain math tests' after listening to a little bit of Mozart. And while the current report from the Dana Foundation did not provide definite theories as to how arts make us smart, what it does is to end the popular notion that people are either right-or left-brain learners. Apparently artists are not that fundamentally different and perhaps there is even an underlying connection between the cognitive processes that give rise to both arts to both arts and sciences.
1. At the beginning of the passage, two questions are raised to explore the relation between ______.
2. From music education to dance training to visual arts lessons, the researchers found the ______.
A.early training in the arts improved cognitive skills
B.early education in the arts enhanced the learning by heart
C.art training was widely conducted during childhood
D.the artistic education took many forms for children
A B C D
A
[解析] 题干:从音乐教育到舞蹈培训,再到视觉艺术课程,研究者发现______。第二段提到了题干中这些课程及训练名称,并指出“have now enhanced understanding of just how the arts might improve thinking, memory, and language skills”(提高了对艺术如何提高思维、记忆及语言技能的理解)。因此可知,本题A是正确答案(早期的艺术培训能改善认知技能)。
3. What can be inferred about the author's art lessons during childhood?
A.They are proficient.
B.They are deficient.
C.They are popular
D.They are various.
A B C D
B
[解析] 题干:关于作者童年时期的艺术课程我们能推理得知什么?从第二段末尾可知“I wish I had more art lessons before I took on that advanced math class in high school. ”(我希望在高中开始上高等数学前多上点艺术课程),从其中的虚拟语气可以推理得知作者童年时期的艺术课程是不够的。因此本题选B。
4. According to the passage, the current findings ______.
A.present the working mechanism of the fight and left brains
B.challenge the popular division of right-or left-brain learners
C.reveal the fundamental differences between artists and scientists
D.interpret the different cognitive processes in scientists and artists
A B C D
B
[解析] 题干:根据文章表述,现有的发现______。从最后一段“what it does is end the popular notion that people are either right-or left-brain learners”可知,现在的发现结束了人们不是右脑学习者就是左脑学习者这一观点。由此可推理得知,现有发现是对这一观点的挑战。故本题选B。
5. Which of the following can be the best title for the passage?