Our senses aren't just delivering a strict view of what’s going on in the world; they're affected by what’s going on in our heads. A new study finds that hungry people see food-related words more clearly than people who've just eaten.
Psychologists have known for decades that what's going on inside our head affects our senses. For example, poorer children think coins are larger than they are, and hungry people think pictures of food are brighter. Rémi Radel of University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France, wanted to investigate how this happens.
Does it happen right away as the brain receives signals from the eyes or a little later as the brain’s high-1evel thinking processes get involved. Radel recruited 42 students with a normal body mass index. On the day of his or her test, each student was told to arrive at the lab at noon after three or four hours of not eating. Then they were told there was a delay. Some were told to come back in 10 minutes; others were given an hour to get lunch first. So half the students were hungry when they did the experiment and the other half had just eaten.
For the experiment, the participant looked at a computer screen. One by one, 80 words flashed on the screen for about l/300th of a second each. They flashed at so small a size that the students could only consciously perceive. A quarter of the words were food-related. After each word, each person was asked how bright the word was and asked to choose which of two words they’d seen-a food-related word like cake or a neutral word like boat. Each word appeared too briefly for the participant to really read it.
Hungry people saw the food-related words as brighter and were better at identifying food- related words. Because the word appeared too quickly for them to be reliably seen, this means that the difference is in perception, not in thinking processes, Radel says. "This is something great to me. Humans can really perceive what they need or what they strive for. From the experiment, I know that our brain can really be at the disposal of our motives and needs. "Radel says.
【小题1】Why was there a delay on the day of the experiment?
| A．Because hungry people needed time to fill their stomach. |
| B．Because Radel wanted to create two groups of testers, hungry and non-hungry. |
| C．Because noon was not the right time for any experiment. |
| D．Because Radel needed time to select participants in terms of body mass index. |
| A．Human’s senses aren’t just delivering a strict view of what’s going on in the world. |
| B．What’s perceived by our senses affects our way of thinking. |
| C．Human brains can really be at the disposal of our motives and needs. |
| D．Thinking processes guarantee the normal functions of our senses. |
| A．42 participants are too small a number for a serious investigation. |
| B．An experiment with hungry and non-hungry participants is not reliable. |
| C．Our thinking processes are independent of our senses. |
| D．Humans can perceive what they need without involving high-level thinking processes |
【小题1】B
【小题2】C
【小题3】D
解析试题分析：文章大意：我们的五官感觉不仅仅让我们感知世界；五官感觉还受大脑活动的影响，但是文章用一项Radel做的调查测试证明人类可以不受大脑思维的影响感知需要的东西。人的大脑是受我们的动机和需要支配。
【小题1】细节题：根据文章第三段的描述： Radel为了保证42名学生到达实验室时是空腹, 所以要求他们中午到达. 然后告诉一部分学生实验时间推迟了, 请他们10分钟后再来. 他又请另外一部分学生用午餐. Radel用推迟实验的方法造就了两组实验者, 即饥饿组与饱食组. 选项B是答案.
【小题2】主旨题：虽然A、B、D选项均可在文中找到对应部分, 而只属于细节, 而非主旨, 因此不能选. 本文最后一句From the experiment, I know that our brain can really be at the disposal of our motives and needs. "Radel says.给出了直接的答案，人的大脑受我们的动机和需要支配。选C。
【小题3】细节题：选项A所说的实验样本的大小与本题主旨无关, 不是答案, 而是干扰项；B、C内容也不能直接从短文中推断出来. 选项D是答案. 最后一段第二句的“Humans Can really perceive what they need or what they strive for”可知人类可以不受大脑思维的影响感知需要的东西。为选择D项提供了依据.
考点：考查科普类短文
阅读快车系列答案科目：高中英语 来源： 题型：阅读理解
What will people die of 100 years from now? If you think that is a simple question, you have not been paying attention to the revolution that is taking place in bio-technology(生物技术). With the help of new medicine, the human body will last a very long time. Death will come mainly from accidents, murder and war. Today's leading killers, such as heart diseases, cancer, and aging itself, will become distant memory.
In discussion of technological changes, the Internet gets most of the attention these days. But the change in medicine can be the real technological event of our times. How long can humans live? Human brains were known to decide the final death. Cells(细胞) are the basic units of all living things, and until recently, scientists were sure that the life of cells could not go much beyond 120 years because the basic materials of cells, such as those of brain cells, would not last forever. But the upper limits will be broken by new medicine. Sometime between 2050 and 2100, medicine will have advanced to the point at which every 10 years or so, people will be able to take medicine to repair their organs(器官). The medicine, made up of the basic building materials of life, will build new brain cells, heart cells, and so on---in much the same way our bodies make new skin cells to take the place of old ones.
It is exciting to imagine that the advance in technology may be changing the most basic conditional human existence, but many technical problems still must be cleared up on the way to this wonderful future.
【小题1】According to the passage, human death is now mainly caused by _______.
| A．diseases and aging | B．accidents and war |
| C．accidents and aging | D．heart diseases and war |
| A．medicine | B．the internet |
| C．brain cells | D．human organs |
| A．heart disease will be far away from us |
| B．human brains can decide the final death |
| C．the basic materials of cells will last forever |
| D．human organs can be repaired by new medicine |
| A．human life will not last more than 120 years in the future |
| B．human have to take medicine to build new skin cells now |
| C．much needs to be done before humans can have a longer life |
| D．we have already solved the technical problems in building new cells. |
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科目：高中英语 来源： 题型：阅读理解
Below is a selection from a popular science book.
| If blood is red, why are veins (静脉) blue? Actually, veins are not blue at all. They are more of a clear, yellowish color. Although blood looks red when it’s outside the body, when it’s sitting in a vein near the surface of the skin, it’s more of a dark reddish purple color. At the right depth, these blood-filled veins reflect less red light than the surrounding skin, making them look blue by comparison. Which works harder, your heart or your brain? That kind of depends on whether you’re busy thinking or busy exercising. Your heart works up to three times harder during exercise, and shifts enough blood over a lifetime to fill a supertanker（超级油轮）. But, in the long run, your brain probably tips it, because even when you’re sitting still your brain is using twice as much energy as your heart, and it takes four to five times as much blood to feed it. Why do teeth fall out, and why don’t they grow back in grown-ups? Baby (or “milk”) teeth do not last long; they fall out to make bigger room for bigger, stronger adult teeth later on. Adult teeth fall out when they become damaged, decayed（腐烂）and infected by bacteria. Once this second set of teeth has grown in, you’re done. When they’re gone, they are gone. This is because nature figures you’re set for life, and what controls regrowth of your teeth switches off. Do old people shrink（收缩）as they age? Yes and no. Many people do get shorter as they age. But, when they do, it isn’t because they’re shrinking all over. They simply lose height as their spine (脊柱) becomes shorter and more curved due to disuse and the effect of gravity (重力). Many (but not all) men and women do lose height as they get older. Men lose an average of 3-4 cm in height as they age, while women may lose 5 cm or more. If you live to be 200 years old, would you keep shrinking till you were, like 60 cm tall, like a little boy again? No, because old people don’t really shrink! It is not that they are growing backwards—their legs, arms and backbones getting shorter. When they do get shorter, it’s because the spine has shortened a little. Or, more often, become more bent and curved. Why does spinning make you dizzy)? Because your brain gets confused between what you’re seeing and what you’re feeling. The brain senses that you’re spinning using special gravity-and-motion-sensing organs in your inner ear, which work together with your eyes to keep your vision balance stable. But when you suddenly stop spinning the system goes out of control, and your brain thinks you’re moving while you’re not. Where do feelings and emotions come from? Mostly from an ancient part of the brain called the limbic system（边缘系统）. All mammals have this brain area — from mice to dogs, cats, and humans. So all mammals feel basic emotions like fear, pain and pleasure. But since human feelings also involve other, newer bits of the brain, we feel more complex emotions than any other animal on this planet. If exercise wears you out, how can it be good for you? Because our bodies adapt to everything we do to them. And as far as your body is concerned, it’s “use it, or lose it”! It’s not that exercise makes you healthy, it’s more that a lack of exercise leaves your body weak and easily affected by disease. |
| A．Blue | B．Light yellow |
| C．Red | D．Dark reddish purple |
| A．Because their spine is in active use. |
| B．Because they are more easily affected by gravity. |
| C．Because they keep growing backwards. |
| D．Because their spine becomes more bent. |
| A．In the long run, our brain probably works harder than our heart. |
| B．When our brain senses the spinning, we will feel dizzy. |
| C．The brains of the other mammals are as complex as those of humans. |
| D．Our feelings and emotions come from the most developed area in our brain. |
| A．To give advice on how to stay healthy. |
| B．To provide information about our body. |
| C．To challenge new findings in medical research. |
| D．To report the latest discoveries in medical science. |
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科目：高中英语 来源： 题型：阅读理解
We know that sugary sodas aren’t good for our bodies. Now it turns out that they may not be good for our minds, either. A new study of more than 260,000 people has found a link between sweetened soft-drinks and depression, and diet sodas may be making matters worse.
Americans drink far more sodas than people in other countries— as much as 170 liters per person per year. But the impact of this study isn’t limited to the United States. “Sweetened drinks, coffee and tea are commonly consumed worldwide and have important physical consequences. And they may have important mental-health consequences as well,” study author Dr Honglei Chen said in a statement.
The study studied 263,925 people between the ages of 50 and 71. Researchers followed their consumption of drinks like soda, tea coffee, and other soft drinks from 1995 to 1996 and then. 10 years later, asked them if they had been diagnosed with depression since the year 2000. More than 11,3000 of them had.
Participants who drank more than four servings of sodas per day were 30 percent more likely to develop depression than participants who did not drink sodas at all. People who stuck with fruit punch(鸡尾酒), had a 38 percent higher risk than people who didn’t drink sweetened drinks. And all that extra sugar isn’t the actual problem. Researchers say that the artificial sweetener aspartame may be to blame.
The study found a link but could not surely determine whether sodas and other sweet soft drinks cause depression. Still, the results “are consistent with a small but growing body of evidence suggesting that artificially sweetened beverages may be linked to poor health outcomes.”
But there’s a bright side for those who can’t live without their daily sodas. Adults who drank coffee had a 10 percent lower risk of depression compared to people who didn’t drink any coffee, according to the study. “Our research suggests that cutting out or down on sweetened diet drinks or replacing them with unsweetened coffee may naturally help lower your depression risk,” said Chen.
【小题1】What has the new study of more than 260,000 people found?
| A．Sugary sodas aren’t good for the physical health of old people. |
| B．Americans have a special tooth for sweet foods. |
| C．Sweetened soft-drinks may increase the risk of depression. |
| D．Sweetened soft-drinks have important physical consequences. |
| A．About twenty-six thousand people participated in it. |
| B．The oldest participants were below 80 when the study was over. |
| C．Most of the participants had depression when the study was over. |
| D．The study lasted more than ten years from the beginning to the end. |
| A．can reduce the harm of sweetened drinks |
| B．is used to reduce the risk of depression |
| C．is mainly used to make fruit punch |
| D．is used to make something .sweet |
| A．more research is needed to confirm the new findings |
| B．the new findings aren’t consistent with any previous findings |
| C．cutting one’s sodas intake will surely reduce one’s depression |
| D．the new findings won’t have an impact on people’s drinking habits |
| A．Sodas. |
| B．Unsweetened coffee. |
| C．Sugary coffee. |
| D．Fruit punch. |
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科目：高中英语 来源： 题型：阅读理解
To many web-building spiders, most of whom are nearly blind, the web is their essential window on the world: their means of communicating, capturing prey, meeting mates and protecting themselves. A web-building spider without its web is like a men cast away on an island of solid rock，totally out of touch and destined to starve to death. So important is the web to an orb-web spider's survival that the animal will continue to construct new webs daily even if it is being starved. For 16 days the starving spider builds completely normal webs. Then, as the animal gets scrawnier, it constructs a wider-meshed （网孔、网眼）web using fewer strands（线）. Such webs would only trap larger prey, which is more economical from the perspective of a starving spider. The spider stores energy by recycling web protein. It simply eats its own web each evening and reuses it to produce new silk. In studies with radioactivity, labeled materials, it was found that 95 percent of web protein reappears in the next day web. Most of the energy needed for web-building is used in walking over the strands as they are laid down. Scientists are impressed by the adaptability of the spider's highly preprogrammed brain, which is larger for its size than the brain of any other invertebrate（无脊推动物）. If web-building is interrupted, or if some of the existing strands are destroyed, the spider simply goes back to see where the web is left off and then finishes building a normal web. One spider will finish building the incomplete web of another.
【小题1】Which of the following best expresses the main ideas of the passage?
| A．Secrets of Spiders' Adaptability |
| B．Importance of Webs to Spiders |
| C．Secrets of the Spiders' Life |
| D．Spiders' Highly Preprogrammed Brain |
| A．Most spiders will stop conducting webs when hungry. |
| B．One Web-building spider usually conducts one web. |
| C．Web-building spiders will probably die without their webs. |
| D．Web-building spiders have good eyesight. |
| A．weaker but good-looking |
| B．fatter and stronger |
| C．nice and healthier |
| D．thinner and bony |
| A．it has a highly preprogrammed brain |
| B．it reuses its web protein to reproduce new silk |
| C．the web is everything for a spider |
| D．it is able to rebuild a destroyed web |
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科目：高中英语 来源： 题型：阅读理解
Clothes can make phone calls, play music, dial your pal’s number, keep you warm during cold weather and operate your computer?
This is not a fantasy. A British company, called Electrotextiles, has created a wide range of clothes—clothes that have minds of their own! Scientists, working for the company, have invented a kind of fabric that can be blended(混合) with flexible electronic materials to create intelligent clothing. The result are electronic garments.
If you think the wearer has to be wired to different devices, think again. These designer clothes are wire-free, soft to touch and washable! Like any electronic device, these high-tech clothes have to be powered. Currently, a tiny nine-volt battery serves the purpose. But the researchers hope that in the near future the clothes will generate electricity by using body heat. These clothes are 100 percent shock proof, they say.
The Electrotextiles team has also created the world’s first cloth keyboard. This keyboard can be sewn into your trousers or skirt. To use this device, you will have to sit down and tap on your lap! These ‘lap-tap’ gadgets(器具) are all set to take over laptop computers!
Another useful garment is the shirt-cum-mobile phone. This handy invention enables drivers to chat comfortably with others at the wheel! Other popular electronic wear include the denim(牛仔布) jacket with flexible earphones sewn into the hood(风帽) and the electronic ski jacket with a built-in heater. The ski jacket is also programmed to send signals to a satellite. This technology is known as global positioning system and can be used to track lost skiers and wandering kids.
Having completed the cloth keyboard, scientists have already started to work on a new project—a necktie that can be used as a computer mouse. What is the next? Do you have any idea?
【小题1】The electronic garments are similar to other electronic devices in that _________.
| A．they feel smooth and soft | B．they use electricity as power |
| C．they can be washed in water | D．they are made from flexible materials |
| A．Body heat will be used as power. | B．The wearer will not get shocked. |
| C．A tiny nine-volt battery will work. | D．They will get charged automatically. |
| A．The laptop computer. | B．The electronic ski jacket. |
| C．The shirt-cure-mobile phone. | D．The world’s first cloth keyboard. |
| A．The cloth keyboard. | B．The electronic ski jacket. |
| C．The necktie to be used as a mouse. | D．The denim jacket with earphones. |
| A．to advertise for an English company | B．to predict the future trend of science |
| C．to show how rapidly science develops | D．to introduce some intelligent clothing |
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科目：高中英语 来源： 题型：阅读理解
The music of your teenage years probably will stay with you for the rest of your life.I think music is deeply connected with memory because of the emotions it awakens.Music also helps to mark time because of the way the fashions and stars of pop culture come and go.I often connect some summers with particular records (唱片 ) that came out while I was on holiday.But what's really the best way to record your youth? Is it your favorite song, or a picture of the singer?
In my teenage years, one of the special things about Britain was the huge amount of information about music.There were 3 weekly newspapers about music：Sounds, Melody Maker and the New Musical Express.Buying records was expensive and it also meant making a choice.So it was wise to read about music instead, and in some ways, it was actually better as well.It was possible for a group to get onto the front cover of one of the music papers without even having made any records—but they needed things to say for the reporters to write about.In fact, the best pop stars of the 1980s were people whose main talent was exactly that.They weren' t great musicians or singers and they weren't especially good?looking, but they had some unusual acts or habits and a nice way with clever phrases.They were ideal for filling music papers.
When The Face magazine first came out in May, 1980, it was meant to be a rock magazine.I have given away or sold all the records I bought as a teenager, but I think my old copies of The Face will stay with me for ever.Although it started out as a source of information about music, the writers quickly realized that it wasn't really the music that was important—it was the way people spoke and acted, and, above all, the way they looked.
【小题1】According to the author，music can NOT ________.
| A．improve memory | B．awaken emotions |
| C．mark time | D．stay in the mind |
| A．there were few records for customers to buy |
| B．some songs he heard while on holiday impressed him |
| C．he spent most of his holiday time on music |
| D．he loved one pop song the most |
| A．people had few chances to buy records |
| B．it was hard to judge whether records were good or not |
| C．it was not an easy thing for teenagers to get records |
| D．the choice of buying records only depended on newspapers |
| A．people could get onto the music papers without having made any records |
| B．people's talent was not what reporters needed to write about |
| C．reporters wrote about the talents of pop stars |
| D．people read about music |
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科目：高中英语 来源： 题型：阅读理解
Global Positioning Systems are now a part of everyday driving in many countries. These satellite-based systems provide turn-by-turn directions to help people get to where they want to go. But they can also cause a lot of problems, sending you to the wrong place or leave you completely lost. Many times, the driver is to blame. Sometimes a GPS error is responsible. Most often, says Barry Brown, it is a combination of the two.
Barry Brown is with the Mobile Life Centre in Stockholm, Sweden. The center studies human-computer interaction, or HCI, especially communications involving wireless devices. We spoke to Mr. Brown by Skype. He told us about an incident involving a friend who had flown to an airport in the eastern United States. There he borrowed a GPS-equipped car to use during his stay.
Barry Brown: “And they just plugged in an address and then set off to their destination. And, then it wasn’t until they were driving for thirty minutes that they realized they had put in a destination back on the West Coast where they lived. They actually put their home address in. So again, the GPS is kind of “garbage in garbage out”. Mr. Brown says this is a common human error. But, he says, what makes the problem worse has to do with some of the shortcomings, or failures, of GPS equipment.
Barry Brown: “One problem with many GPS units is they have a very small screen and they just tell you the next turn. Because they just give you the next turn, sometimes that means that it is not really giving you the overview that you would need to know that it’s going to the wrong place.”
Barry Brown formerly served as a professor with the University of California, San Diego. While there, he worked on a project with Eric Laurier from the University of Edinburgh. The two men studied the effects of GPS devices on driving by placing cameras in people’s cars. They wrote a paper based on their research. It is called “The Normal, Natural Troubles of Driving with GPS.”
Barry Brown: “One of the things that struck us, perhaps the most important thing was that you have to know what you’re doing when you use a GPS. There are these new skills that people have developed. There are these new competencies that you need to have to be able to use a GPS because they sometimes go wrong.” Barry Brown says this goes against a common belief that GPS systems are for passive drivers who lack navigational (导航) skills.
“The Normal, Natural Troubles of Driving with GPS” lists several areas where GPS systems can cause confusion for drivers. These include maps that are outdated, incorrect or difficult to understand. They also include timing issues related to when GPS commands are given.
Barry Brown says to make GPS systems better we need a better understanding of how drivers, passengers and GPS systems work together.
【小题1】What is the best title for this passage?
| A．Is GPS system reliable to use? | B．What is the use of GPS? |
| C．How to make the most of GPS? | D．Blame! GPS or Passengers? |
| A．GPS is just a garbage device. |
| B．GPS will not correct human errors. |
| C．GPS adjusts your wrong destination. |
| D．GPS is just as smart as human beings. |
| A．Small screen. | B．Timing of commands. |
| C．Outdated maps. | D．Dear cameras GPS uses. |
| A．you have to know where to go when using GPS |
| B．you need to have new competencies to use GPS well |
| C．GPS is proper for drivers with little sense of direction |
| D．GPS is fit for people having good understanding of maps |
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科目：高中英语 来源： 题型：阅读理解
Environmental problems are becoming more and more serious all over the world. For example, cars have made the air unhealthy for people to breathe and poisonous gas is given off by factories. Trees on the hills have been cut down and waste water is being poured continuously into rivers. Furthermore, wherever we go today, we can find rubbish carelessly disposed.
There are different kinds of pollutants, each of which comes from different sources. It is necessary to identify the source of pollution, in order to make a policy to eliminate them.
Different products, processes and activities of our industrialized world together form the major source of pollution. The forms of pollution can be mainly divided into three kinds—solid, liquid and gas.
These pollutions have greatly damaged our planet and continue to do so. In fact, pollution is threatening our existence. The whole ecological balance of the earth is changing. Massive destruction of environment has brought about negative effects and even posed a great threat to man’s existence.
We must face the situation that exists and take action to solve our environmental problems. For instance, new laws must be passed to place strict control over industrial pollution, the public must receive the education about the danger of pollution and so on.
The earth is our home and we have the duty to take care of it for ourselves and our later generation. Fortunately, more and more people have realized these problems. Measures have been taken to deal with these situations by the government. Laws have been passed to stop pollution, I hope the problems will be solved in the near future and our home will become better and better.
【小题1】 How many examples of environmental problems are given in the first paragraph?
| A．2 | B．3 | C．4 | D．5 |
| A．In all there are three kinds of pollution |
| B．If people continue to pollute our planet, there will be no trees. |
| C．Industrial pollution has been completely controlled. |
| D．Laws have been passed to stop pollution and protect our environment. |
| A．2 | B．3 | C．5 | D．6 |
| A．despair | B．negative | C．optimistic | D．hopeless |
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