科普类阅读理解模拟训练
本文作者： 浙江 余唯贵 云南 赵坚
A About 100 years ago, coal miners would take a bright yellow canary (金丝雀) down into the mines with them. The miners wanted to hear the bird’s sweet song, but not for the reason you might think. As long as the canary sang, the miners knew the air in the mine was clean and safe. If the canary got sick, they knew it was time to go. The expression “a canary in a coal mine” came to mean a warning device. But with global warming, the canary isn’t a canary at all. It’s a purple finch. As temperature across the United States has gotten warmer, the purple finch has been spending its winters more than 400 miles farther north than before. A National Audubon Society study published last month found that more than half of 305 bird species in North America, including robins, gulls, chickadees and owls, are spending the winter about 35 miles farther north than they did 40 years ago. Birds move for many reasons: They get chased away by more buildings and fewer trees, or they go in search of neighborhoods with backyard feeders. But researchers say the only explanation for why so many birds over such a broad area are wintering in more-northern locales is global warming. Over the 40 years covered by the study, the average January temperature in the United States climbed by about five degrees. That warming was most noticeable in northern states, which have already recorded more southern birds. “This is as close as science at this scale gets to proof,” said Greg Butcher, the study’s lead scientist. “It is not what each of these individual birds did. It is the wide diversity of birds that suggests it has something to do with temperature, rather than ecology.” The study “shows a very, very large fraction (部分) of the wintering birds are shifting” northward, said Terry Root, a biologist at Stanford University. “We don’t know for a fact that it is warming. But . . . we know it is not just a figment (虚构) of our imagination.” Some birds will expand their range farther north. For example, the Carolina wren has turned into a Yankee (美国人的北方佬), based on Audubon’s calculations. It is now commonly seen in the winter well into New England as well as its namesake state of South Carolina. Other species, such as the purple finch, spend their summers in the forests of Canada and fly south into the United States for the winter. Climate change could be playing a role in why they are not flying as far south as they used to. AP 1. What is the main topic of the text? A. The effects of climate change on birds’ migration patterns B. The influence of global warming on bird diversity. C. The reasons why the numbers of birds are decreasing D. The causes of global warming in recent years 2. The underlined words “the canary” in Paragraph 2 _______. A. refer to the canary in a coal mine B. refer to the species of the canary C. mean the warning device D. mean any bird 3. What did Greg Butcher’s study find? A. Most birds in North America have to move to new places for food. B. Various species of birds are affected by ecological changes. C. There was a general increase of five degrees in the US in the period of the study. D. More northern birds in North America spend their winters farther south than before. 4. Which of the following statements is TRUE? A. The Carolina wren used to live in New England. B. Scientists do not know for sure why so many kinds of birds winter farther north. C. The purple finch was a very common bird in America 100 years ago. D. The study in this article has been going on for a century. B Take a lot of junk food, feed it to some rats, and see what happens. Scientist Paul Johnson and his team did just that to try to understand how parts of the brain play a role in obesity (肥胖). The scientists observed that the more junk food the rats ate, the more they wanted to eat – a behavior very similar to that of rats addicted to heroin, a dangerous drug. Johnson said the experiment shows that the brain chemistry of obesity and drug addiction may be quite similar. In their experiment, Johnson and his team studied the “pleasure center” of rats’ brains. The pleasure center is a complicated network of nerve cells. If the animal exercises or eats, the cells reward the animal by releasing chemicals into the body that make it feel good. And when the body feels good, the animal – or person – will want to do the behavior again. Pleasure centers can release these chemicals in less healthy ways, too. Drugs like heroin can cause the pleasurable chemicals to be released. For the experiment, Johnson fed foods like cheesecake to one group of rats. Food like this is high in calories and fat. Another group of rats got a regular diet. The rats that ate junk food started to eat more and more. “They’re taking in twice the amount of calories as the control rats,” says Paul Kenny, one of Johnson’s colleagues. Kenny and Johnson wanted to know what was going on in the brains of these rats. They first devised a way to deliver a small electrical charge to the rats’ brains. This electrical charge would stimulate the pleasure centers to release pleasure-causing chemicals. The rats could control how much stimulation – and how much pleasure – they received by running on a wheel. The more the rat ran, the more pleasure it received. The rats that had been eating junk food started running more and more. This behavior suggested that the junk-food-eating rats needed more brain stimulation to feel good compared with rats on a normal diet. In other words, their pleasure centers were becoming less sensitive and the junk food didn’t make them feel good unless they ate more and more. Experiments like this one could help scientists understand how chemicals in the brain contribute to obesity. With that information, they may be able to help people avoid obesity in the first place. 1. What was the purpose of the experiment mentioned in the article? A. To find out how much junk food a rat can eat. B. To understand the role the brain plays in obesity. C. To learn about what makes people happy. D. To study the effects of junk food on people. 2. According to the scientists, why do rats want to eat more and more junk food? A. Because junk food tastes really good. B. Because they need more nutrients to stay healthy. C. Because they need more junk food to stimulate their pleasure centers. D. Because the more junk food they eat, the hungrier they are. 3. The scientists suggest it is actually_______ that makes the rats feel good. A. chemicals in the brain B. a large amount of calories C. doing lots of sports D. some kinds of food 4. According to the article, which of the following is TRUE? A. Eating junk food makes the brain’s pleasure center more sensitive and release more chemicals. B. The more the junk-food-eating rats ran, the more their obesity declined. C. Scientists may invent ways to change the role the brain plays in obesity. D. Taking regular exercise doesn’t help with obesity. C Chances are you’ve fallen down on one or two of your New Year’s Resolutions this year. If so, you will be relieved to hear that willpower is a very limited mental resource. It may not be your fault! So says Jonah Lehrer, the American author of How We Decide. He argues that the makeup of the brain means our willpower is like a muscle that can tire out. “Most of us think that self-control is a character issue, and that we would follow through on our New Year’s Resolutions if only we had a bit more discipline,” Mr Lehrer, 27, told the Wall Street Journal. “But the research suggests that willpower itself is inherently (先天地) limited, and that our January promises fail in large part because the brain wasn’t built for success.” It’s why 88 percent of resolutions end in failure, according to a 2007 survey by Richard Wiseman. Willpower is located in the prefrontal cortex (前额的皮层) in our brains, which is just behind the forehead. However, this area also has to deal with our short-term memory, keeping us focused and solving abstract problems. Trying to add a diet or trying to break a bad habit could be tipping us over the edge, resulting in failure. Lehrer points to an experiment led by Baba Shiv at Stanford University. Shiv divided several dozen undergraduates into two groups. One half was asked to remember a two-digit (两位) number, while the rest were required to remember seven digits. He asked them to walk down the hall and choose between a piece of chocolate cake or a health fruit salad. Those given seven digits were twice as likely to choose the cake than those given the two-digit task. In other words, their “cognitive (认知的) load” made their willpower weaker. Another similar experiment led by Mark Muraven at the University of Albany came to the same conclusion. It found a group who were asked to concentrate on a difficult mental task drank more beer in a follow-up taste test than a group who were given a simple maths test. This was despite both groups being told they would be asked to drive afterwards. But Lehrer has advice for those who want to break bad habits: “Bad habits are ... impossible to break if we try to break them all at once,” he said. Mr Lehrer concluded: “Gritting your teeth (咬紧牙关) isn’t the best approach, as even the strongest mental muscle quickly gets tired.” 1. This passage is mainly about ______. A. resolutions B. the makeup of the brain C. willpower D. two experiments 2. According to Jonah Lehrer, so many New Year’s Resolutions end in failure because _______. A. people don’t have enough discipline B. People have limited willpower C. self-control is a character issue D. the brain has to solve abstract problems 3. Which of the following statements is TRUE? A. You don’t need willpower to stop yourself from disobeying the rules. B. It is your own fault that you can’t complete your New Year’s Resolutions. C. The prefrontal cortex has more than one function. D. It’s easy to break a bad habit. 4. Lehrer used the two experiments to prove that ________. A. willpower is like a muscle that can tire out B. chocolate cake is tastier than fruit salad C. many scientists are interested in willpower D. nobody is able to break a bad habit 5. What does Lehrer mean by saying “Gritting your teeth isn’t the best approach...”? A. You have to grit your teeth if you want to succeed. B. Don’t overuse your willpower as it is quite limited. C. Keeping to your resolutions is the only way to success. D. Strengthen your willpower through exercise D Differing roles in prehistoric times have become differing shopping styles, some researchers believe. While women spent their days gathering food, often with children, men were hunters who made specific plans about how to catch and kill animals. The two approaches to how we used to obtain food mirror how we shop in modern times, the study says. The researchers say women today spend hours trying to find the right clothes, present or object, because women in the past spent so much time trying to find the best quality and healthy foods. Men, on the other hand, decided in advance what animal they wanted to kill and then went looking for it. Once it was found – and killed – they returned home. Professor Daniel Kruger of the University of Michigan said the study could be the answer to why there is so much conflict when couples shop together. Women learned how to get the best quality food in prehistoric times because if they chose the wrong nut it could kill, he said. “When gathering, women must be very adept (擅长的) at choosing just the right color, texture (质地) and smell to ensure food safety and quality,” he said. “In modern terms, women are much more likely than men to know when a specific type of item will go on sale. Women also spend much more time choosing the perfect fabric, color and texture.” Prof Kruger decided to conduct the study after a winter holiday trip with friends across Europe. After exploring sleepy little villages and reaching Prague, the first thing the women wanted to do was shop, Prof Kruger said, and the men could not understand why. “But that is not so unreasonable if you’re thinking about a gathering strategy,” he said. “Anytime you come into a new area you want to scope out the landscape and find out where the food patches are.” Prof Kruger said that on the other hand, in prehistoric times men had to hunt for specific items, which meant they had to be very focused in their approach, just as he claims they are now when shopping. “Men often have a specific item in mind and want to get in, get it and get out,” he said. Prof Kruger said if men and women understood each other’s shopping strategies they could avoid arguments. 1. The study mentioned in this article may help to answer the question ____. A. why women tend to spend more time shopping than men B. why women have more shopping strategies than men C. why women can do better housework than men D. why women stay at home while men have to work to support the family 2. Professor Daniel Kruger implies that different shopping patterns in modern times between men and women result from ______. A. their physical differences B. their different social tasks C. the long history of human evolution D. their different interests and hobbies 3. Unlike women, men ______ when shopping. A. do not know what to buy B. tend to buy things quickly C. like to buy expensive things D. pay no attention to the quality of goods 4. The trip across Europe made Professor Daniel Kruger ______. A. think Prague is a good place for shopping B. think little villages in Europe are really worth visiting C. decide to carry out the study D. believe women and men always have conflicts in their life E ‘We are such stuff as dreams are made on and our little life is rounded with a sleep.’ – Prospero, The Tempest, Shakespeare Does this sentence make you think? What does it make you think about? Shakespeare was a dreamer, and some say he was a philosopher too. In this sentence he tells us that our lives are short but we can think up big and important ideas in that short time. The two Greek words “philo”, which means love, and ‘sophia’, which means wisdom, are the beginnings of the word we use today – philosophy: the love of wisdom. Most people have a philosophy on life. Everybody has an idea of what is right and what is wrong, and why things are the way they are, and who they are and who to trust. A lot of people believe somebody else’s philosophy. That person may be a religious or political leader, or anybody you look up to. Some people have their own philosophy on life, which might be a mixture of theories. Others are philosophers; people who want to know the truth about life for themselves and spend their time studying, thinking and asking questions. Why do we need philosophy? There are plenty of people who think that killing animals is cruel, but eating animals is fine. If you are one of these people, you should ask yourself why. Why is killing animals cruel? Why is it all right to eat animals? You might find that the answer to each question is very different and you could have an argument by yourself using your own ideas. Go on and argue – you will understand more about what you believe. You will begin to understand the subject more deeply. And this helps you to feel comfortable with it. And you might change something or you might not. When we ask ourselves questions, we start to understand ourselves and our lives, and it’s up to us to make changes or not. If the ideas in your head agree, this means you have integrity. What you say and what you do are the same. Everyone respects someone who has integrity. By thinking and questioning, we can understand more and perhaps prevent problems caused by misunderstanding. But philosophy can also cause problems and conflict when people don’t agree. When one group of people choose one philosophy to believe and another group of people choose a different philosophy, when they need to think or make a decision together, they start trying to change each other instead of working together on bigger ideas about life. So when you have some spare time, ask yourself the following philosophical questions: Does the world own us or do we own the world? If a tree falls where nobody can hear it, does it make a sound? And the Zen Buddhist (佛教的) riddle: What is the sound of one hand clapping? By Julie Bray 1. Why does the writer start with a quote from Shakespeare’s Prospero? A. Because the writer wants to introduce Shakespeare to those who don’t know his work. B. Because the writer thinks it shows Shakespeare’s philosophy. C. Because the writer thinks it will inspire us to seize the moment. D. Because this story is mostly about dreams and ideas. 2. According to the text, a person who loves philosophy _______. A. does not believe others’ philosophy B. tend to take up religion or politics C. thinks deeply about the world and life D. does not trust others easily 3. According to the writer, one reason we need philosophy is that it ______. A. promotes understanding B. solve disagreements C. helps us change for the better D. makes us more skillful at life 4. Which of the following would the writer probably agree with? A. It is wrong to think that killing animals is cruel, but eating animals is fine. B. By believing someone else’s philosophy, many people lose their own wisdom. C. Philosophical questions are often too tough for common people. D. We may not be aware of what we ourselves believe. |  |
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
京公网安备 11010502033664号