Along the river banks of the Amazon and the Orinoco there lives a bird that swims before it can fly, flies
like a fat chicken, eats green leaves, has the stomach of a cow and has claws (爪) on its wings when young.
They build their homes about 4.6m above the river, an important feature (特征) for the safety of the young.
It is called the hoatzin.
      In appearance, the birds of both sexes look very much alike with brown on the back and cream and red
on the underside. The head is small, with a large set of feathers on the top, bright red eyes, and blue skin. Its
nearest relatives are the common birds, cuckoos. Its most striking feature, though, is only found in the young.
     Baby hoatzins have a claw on the leading edge of each wing and another at the end of each wing tip. Using
these four claws, together with the beak (喙), they can climb about in the bushes, looking very much like
primitive birds must have done. When the young hoatzins have learned to fly, they lose their claws.
     During the drier months between December and March hoatzins fly about the forest in groups of 20 to 30
birds, but in April, when the rainy season begins, they collect together in smaller living units of two to seven
birds for producing purposes.

1. What is the text mainly about?

A. Hoatzins in dry and rainy seasons.
B. The relatives and enemies of hoatzins.
C. Primitive birds and hoatzins of the Amazon.
D. The appearance and living habits of hoatzins.

2. Young hoatzins are different from their parents in that _____.

A. they look like young cuckoos
B. they have claws on the wings
C. they eat a lot like a cow
D. they live on river banks

3. What can we infer about primitive birds from the text?

A. They had claws to help them climb.
B. They could fly long distances.
C. They had four wings like hoatzins.
D. They had a head with long feathers on the top.

4. Why do hoatzins collect together in smaller groups when the rainy season comes?

A. To find more food.
B. To protect themselves better.
C. To keep themselves warm.
D. To produce their young.

     Humans are naturally drawn to other life forms and the worlds outside of our own. We take delight in the
existence of creatures and even whole societies beyond our everyday lives.
     This sense of wonder is universal. Look at the efforts that scientists have made to find out whether life of
some kind exists on Mars, and the popularity of fantasy (幻想) literature or movies like The Lord of the Rings.
This sense of wonder draws us to each other, to the world around us, and to the world of make-believe. But
have we gone so far in creating worlds of fantasy that we are missing the pleasure of other worlds that already
exist all around us?
     Human beings, as biologists have suggested, possess an inborn desire to connect with and understand other
life forms. However, people, especially in big cities, often lead rather isolated lives. In a study of British
schoolchildren, it was found that children by age eight were much more familiar with characters from television
shows and video games than with common wildlife. Without modern technology, a small pond could be an
amazing world filled with strange and beautiful plants, insects, birds, and animals. When we lack meaningful
interaction (交互) with the world around us, and sometimes even with our families and friends, we seek to
understand and communicate with things that exist only in our imaginations or on a computer screen.
     The world of make-believe is not necessarily bad. But when the world of fantasy becomes the only outlet
(出路) for our sense of wonder, then we are really missing something. We are missing a connection with the
living world. Other wonderful worlds exist all around us. But even more interesting is that if we look closely
enough, we can see that these worlds, in a broad sense, are really part of our own.

1. The popularity of The Lord of the Rings proves _____.

A. the close connection between man and the fantasy world
B. the wonderful achievements of fantasy literature
C. the fine taste of moviegoers around the world
D. the general existence of the sense of curiosity

2. What can we infer from the underlined sentence in Paragraph 3?

A. People are far less familiar with the world of fantasy.
B. The world around us could serve as a source of wonder.
C. The world of fantasy can be mirrored by a small and lively pond.
D. Modern technology prevents us from developing our sense of wonder.

3. If our sense of wonder relies totally on the world of make-believe, we will _____.

A. fail to appreciate the joy in our lives
B. be confused by the world of make-believe
C. miss the chance to recognize the fantasy world
D. be trapped by other worlds existing all around us

4. What is the main purpose of the passage?

A. To show us the hidden beauty in our world.
B. To warn us not to get lost in the fantasy world.
C. To argue against the misuse of the sense of wonder.
D. To discuss the influence of the world of make-believe.

                                                         The Cost of Higher Education
     Individuals (个人) should pay for their higher education.
     A university education is of huge and direct benefit to the individual. Graduates earn more than non-
graduates. Meanwhile, social mobility is ever more dependent on having a degree. However, only some
people have it. So the individual, not the taxpayers, should pay for it. There are pressing calls on the
resources (资源) of the government. Using taxpayers' money to help a small number of people to earn
high incomes in the future is not one of them.
     Full government funding (资助) is not very good for universities. Adam Smith worked in a Scottish
university whose teachers lived off student fees. He knew and looked down upon 18th-century Oxford,
where the academics lived comfortably off the income received from the government. Guaranteed salaries,
Smith argued, were the enemy of hard work; and when the academics were lazy and incompetent, the
students were similarly lazy.
     If students have to pay for their education, they not only work harder, but also demand more from
their teachers. And their teachers have to keep them satisfied. If that means taking teaching seriously,
and giving less time to their own research interests, that is surely something to celebrate.
     Many people believe that higher education should be free because it is good for the economy (经济).
Many graduates clearly do contribute to national wealth, but so do all the businesses that invest (投资)
and create jobs. If you believe that the government should pay for higher education because graduates
are economically productive, you should also believe that the government should pay part of business
costs. Anyone promising to create jobs should receive a gift of capital from the government to invest.
Therefore, it is the individual, not the government, who should pay for their university education.

1. The underlined word "them" in Paragraph 2 refers to _____.

A. taxpayers
B. pressing calls
C. college graduates
D. government resources

2. The author thinks that with full government funding _____.

A. teachers are less satisfied
B. students are more demanding
C. students will become more competent
D. teachers will spend less time on teaching

3. The author mentions businesses in Paragraph 5 in order to _____.

A. argue against free university education
B. call on them to finance students' studies
C. encourage graduates to go into business
D. show their contribution to higher education

     People from East Asia tend to have more difficulty than those from Europe in distinguishing facial
expressions-and a new report published online in Current Biology explains why.
     Rachael Jack, University of Glasgow researcher, said that rather than scanning evenly (均匀的) across
a face as Westerners do, Easterners fix their attention on the eyes.
     "We show that Easterners and Westerners look at different face features to read facial expressions,"
Jack said. "Westerners look at the eyes and the mouth in equal measure, whereas Easterners favor the eyes
and neglect (忽略) the mouth."
     According to Jack and her colleagues, the discovery shows that human communication of emotion is
more complex than previously believed. As a result, facial expressions that had been considered universally
recognizable cannot be used to reliably convey emotion in cross-cultural situations.
     The researchers studied cultural differences in the recognition of facial expressions by recording the eye
movements of 13 Western Caucasian and 13 East Asian people while they observed pictures of. expressive
faces and put them into categories: happy, sad, surprised, fearful, disgusted, angry, or neutral. They compared
how accurately participants read those facial expressions using their particular eye movement strategies.
     It turned out that Easterners focused much greater attention on the eyes and made significantly more
errors than did Westerners. "The cultural difference in eye movements that they show is probably a reflection
of cultural difference in facial expressions," Jack said. "Our data suggest that whereas Westerners use the
whole face to convey emotion, Easterners use the eyes more and mouth less."
     In short, the data show that facial expressions are not universal signals of human emotion. From here on,
examining how cultural factors have diversified these basic social skills will help our understanding of human
emotion. Otherwise, when it comes to communicating emotions across cultures, Easterners and Westerners
will find themselves lost in translation.

1. The discovery shows that Westerners _____.

A. pay equal attention to the eyes and the mouth
B. consider facial expressions universally reliable
C. observe the eyes and the mouth in different ways
D. have more difficulty in recognizing facial expressions

2. What were the people asked to do in the study?

A. To make a face at each other.
B. To get their faces impressive.
C. To classify some face pictures.
D. To observe the researchers' faces.

3. What does the underlined word"they" in Paragraph 6 refer to?

A. The participants in the study.
B. The researchers of the study.
C. The errors made during the study.
D. The data collected from the study.

4. In comparison with Westerners, Easterners are likely to _____.

A. do translation more successfully
B. study the mouth more frequently
C. examine the eyes more attentively
D. read facial expressions more correctly

5. What can be the best title for the passage?

A. The Eye as the Window to the Soul
B. Cultural Differences in Reading Emotions
C. Effective Methods to Develop Social Skills
D. How to Increase Cross-cultural Understanding

     Too much TV-watching can harm children's ability to learn and even reduce their chances of getting a
college degree, new studies suggest in the latest effort to examine the effects of television on children.
     One of the studies looked at nearly 400 northern California third-graders. Those with TVs in their bedrooms
scored about eight points lower on math and language arts tests than children without bedroom TVs.
     A second study, looking at nearly 1000 grown-ups in New Zealand, found lower education levels among
26-year -olds who had watched lots of TV during childhood.But the results don't prove that TV is the cause
and don't ride out that already poorly motivated youngsters (年轻人) may wash lots of TV.
     Their study measured the TV habits of 26-year-olds between ages 5 and 15. These with college degrees
had watched average of less than two hours of TV per weeknight during childhood compared with an average
of more than 2 1/2 hours those had no education beyond high school.
     In the California study, children with TVs in their rooms but no computer at home scored the lowest while
those with no bedroom TV but who had home computers scored the highest.
     While this study does not prove that bedroom TV sets caused the lower scores, it adds to accumulating
findings that children shouldn't have TVs in their bedrooms.

1. According to the Caledonia study, the low-scoring group might _____.

A. have watched a lot of TV
B. not be interested ted in math
C. is unable to go to college
D. have had computers in their bedrooms

2. What is the researchers' understanding of the New Zealand study results?

A. Poorly motivated 26-year-olds watch more TV.
B. Habits of TV watching reduce learning interest.
C. TV watching leads to lower education levels of the 15-year-olds.
D. The connection between TV and education levels is difficult to explain

3. What can we learn from the last two paragraphs?

A. More time should be spent on computers.
B. Children should be forbidden from watching TV.
C. 'IV sets shouldn't be allowed in children's bedrooms.
D. Further studies on high-achieving students should be done.

4. What would be the best title for this text?

A. Computers or Television
B. Effects of Television on Children
C. Studies on TV and College Education
D. Television and Children's Learning Habits

     On May 23, 1989, Stefania Follini came out from a cave at Carlsbad, New Mexico. She hadn't seen the
sun for eighteen and a half weeks. Stefania was in a research program, and the scientists in the program were
studying body rhythms (节奏). In this experiment Stefania had spent 130 days in a cave, 30 feet in depth.
     During her time in the cave, Stefania had been completely alone except for two white mice. Her living place
had been very comfortable, but there had been nothing to feel the time. She'd had no clock or watches, no
television or radio. There had been no natural light and the temperature had always been kept at 21℃.

1. Stefania stayed in the cave for a long time because _____.

A. she was asked to do research on mice
B. she wanted to experience loneliness
C. she was the subject of a study
D. she needed to record her life

2. 69 hat is a cause for the change of Stefania's body clock?

A. Eating fewer hours of sleep.
B. Having more hours of sleep.
C. Lacking physical exercise.
D. Getting no natural light.

3. Where does the text probably come from?

A. A novel.
B. A news story.
C. A pet magazine.
D. A travel guide.