fish, chickens, pigs, goats, and cows, I started to wonder: Will the new science of \animals\bring an ethical (伦理的) revolution in terms of who we eat? In other words, will our ethics start to catch up with the development of our science?
Animal activists are already there, of course, mitted to not eating these animals. But what about the rest of us? Can paying attention to the thinking and feeling of these animals lead us to make changes in who we eat?
1. According to Annie Potts, hens have the ability of_____________.
A. interaction B. analysis C. creation D. abstraction 2. The research into pigs shows that pigs___________.
A. learn letters quickly B. have a good eyesight
C. can build up a good relationship D. can apply knowledge to new situations 3. Paragraph 4 is mainly about________.
A. the similarities between mammals and humans B. the necessity of long-term studies on mammals C. a change in people's attitudes towards animals D. a discovery of how animals express themselves 4. What might be the best title for the passage?
A. The Inner Lives of Food Animals. B. The Lifestyles of Food Animals. C. Science Reports on Food Animals. D. A Revolution in Food Animals.
B
Some of the best research on daily experience is rooted in rates of positive and negative interactions, which has proved that being blindly positive or negative can cause others to be frustrated or annoyed or even to tune out.
Over the last two decades, scientists have made remarkable predictions simply by watching people interact with one another and then scoring the conversations based on the rate of positive and negative interactions. Researchers have used the findings to predict everything from the likelihood that a couple will divorce to the chances of a work team with high customer satisfaction and productivity levels.
More recent research helps explain why these brief exchanges matter so much. When you experience negative emotions as a result of criticism or rejection, for example, your body produces higher levels of the stress hormone, which shuts down much of your thinking and activates conflict and defense mechanisms (机制). You suppose that situations are worse than they actually are.
When you experience a positive interaction, it activates a very different response. Positive exchanges increase your body’s production of oxytocin(后叶催产素), a feel-good that increases your ability to municate with, cooperate with and trust others. But the effects of a positive occurrence are less dramatic and lasting than they are for a negative one.
We need at least three to five positive interactions to outweigh every one negative exchange. Bad moments simply outweigh good ones. Whether you’re having a conversation, keep this simple short cut in mind: At least 80 percent of your conversations should be focused on what’s going right.
Workplaces, for example, often see this. During performance reviews, managers routinely spend 80 percent of their time on weaknesses and “areas for improvement”. They spend roughly 20 percent of the time on strengths and positive aspects. Any time you have discussions with a person or group, spend the vast majority of the time talking about what is working, and use the remaining time to address weaknesses.
5. The underlined phrase “tune out” in Paragraph 1 probably means . A. stop listening B. gain courage
C. sing aloud D. feel stressed
6. What will happen if you experience negative emotions? A. The situations are sure to bee worse. B. Much of your thinking will be prevented.
C. You will feel an urge to improve and bee better. D. You’ll be motivated to resolve conflicts with people. 7. From Paragraph 4, we can learn that .
A. we need a positive feeling to beat one negative feeling B. positive interactions have greater effects than negative ones C. our conversation should center on what needs improvement
D. the effect of negative feelings lasts longer than that of positive ones 8. What is the best title for the passage? A. Harmful Negatives.
B. More Positive Interactions.
D. Less Time on Strengths and Positive Aspects.
C
Only two countries in the advanced world provide no guarantee for paid leave from work to care for a newborn child. Last spring one of the two, Australia, gave up the bad reputation by setting up paid family leave starting in 2018. I wasn’t surprised when this didn’t make the news here in the United States — we’re now the only wealthy country without such a policy.
C. How to Be a Productive Manager.
The United States does have one clear family policy, the Family and Medical Leave Act, passed in 1993. It gives workers the right of as much as 12 weeks’ unpaid leave for care of a newborn or dealing with a family medical problem. Despite its benefit, the mittee of Enterprise and other business groups fought it bitterly, describing it as “government-run personnel management” and a “dangerous precedent (先例)”. In fact, every step of the way, as Democratic (民主党)leaders have tried to introduce work-family balance measures into the law, business groups have been strongly opposed.
As Yale law professor Anne Alstott argues, defending the appropriateness of parental support depends on defining the family as the social goods that, in one sense, society must pay for. Parents are burdened in many ways in their lives: there is “no exit” when it es to children. Society expects —and needs—parents to provide their children with continuity of care. And society expects—and needs—parents to continue in their roles for 18 years, or longer if needed.
While most parents do this out of love, there are public punishments for not providing care. What parents do, in other words, is of deep concern to the state, for the obvious reason that caring for children is not only morally urgent but important to the future of society. To classify parenting as a personal choice for which there is no collective responsibility is not merely to ignore the social benefits of good parenting; really, it is to steal those benefits because they accrue (累积) to the whole of society as today’s children bee tomorrow’s citizens. In fact, by some rough calculations, the value of parental investments in children, investments of time and money, is equal to 20%～30% of GDP. If these investments bring huge social benefits—as they clearly do—the benefits of providing more social support for the family should be that much clearer.
9. What do we learn about paid family leave from Paragraph 1? A. It came as a surprise when Australia adopted the policy. B. Setting up this policy made Australia less influential. C. It has now bee a hot topic in the United States. D. No such policy is applied in the United States.
10. What makes it hard to take work-family balance measures in the States?
A. The inpetence of the Democrats. B. The severe attack from business circles. C. The lack of a precedent in American history. D. The existing Family and Medical Leave Act. 11. What is Professor Anne Alstott’s argument for parental support? A. Children need continuous care. B. Good parenting benefits society.
C. The cost of raising children has been growing.
D. The U. S. should keep up with other developed countries.
12. Why is the author against classifying parenting as a personal choice? A. Parenting is regarded as a moral duty parents should bear. B. Parenting relies largely on society for financial support. C. Parenting produces huge moral benefits and profitable rewards. D. Parenting is basically a task that society hands over to parents. 第二节 （共 5 小题, 每小题 1 分, 满分 5 分）
根据短文内容, 从短文后的选项中选出能填入空白处的最佳选项, 选项中有两项为多余选项。
The Art of Slow Reading
If you are reading this article in print, chances are that you will only get through half of what I have written. And if you are reading this online, you may not even finish a fifth. ___1___ They suggest that many of us no longer have the concentration to read articles through to their conclusion.
So are we getting stupider? Actually, our online habits are damaging the mental power we need to process and understand textual information. Round-the-clock news makes us read from one article to the next without necessarily engaging fully with any of the content. Our reading is frequently stopped by the noise of the latest email and we are now absorbing short bursts of words on Twitter and Facebook more regularly than longer texts. ___2___ But we are gradually forgetting how to sit back, think carefully, and relate all the facts to each other.
___3___ A desperate bunch of academics want us to take our time while reading, and re-reading. They ask us to switch off our puters every so often and rediscover both the joy of personal engagement with printed texts, and the ability to process them fully. What’s to be done then? Most slow readers realize that total rejection of the web is extremely unrealistic. They feel that getaway from technology for a while is the answer. ___4___
Personally, I’m not sure whether I could ever go offline for long. Even while writing this article, I am switching constantly between sites, skimming too often, absorbing too little. Internet reading has bee too rooted in my daily life for me to change. I read essays and articles not in hard copy but as PDFs. I suspect that many readers are in a similar position.___5___ You can download a puter application called Freedom, which allows you to read in peace by cutting off your Internet connection. Or if you want to avoid being disturbed by the Internet, you could always download offline reader Instapaper for your iPhone. If you’re still reading my article, that is slow reading.