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Many of us listen to music while we work, thinking that it will help us to concentrate on the task at hand. And in fact, recent research has found that music can have beneficial effects on creativity. When it comes to other areas of performance, however, the impact of background music is more complicated.
The idea that listening to music when working is beneficial to output probably has its roots in the so-called “Mozart effect”. Put simply, this is the finding that spatial rotation performance(空间旋转能力) is increased immediately after listening to the music of Mozart, compared to no sound at all.
How sound affects performance has been the topic of research for over 40 years, and is observed through a phenomenon called the irrelevant sound effect. To study irrelevant sound effect, participants in the research are asked to complete a simple task which requires them to recall a series of numbers or letters in the exact order in which they saw them. The tricky thing is being able to do this while ignoring any background noise.
Two key characteristics of the irrelevant sound effect are required for its observation. First, the task must require the person to use their rehearsal abilities(复述能力), and second, the sound must contain acoustical variation(声学变化). Where the sound does not vary much acoustically, the performance of the task is much closer to that observed in quiet conditions.
The irrelevant sound effect itself comes from attempting to process two sources of ordered information at the same time—one from the task and one from the sound. Unfortunately, only the former is required to successfully perform the recall task, and the effort in ensuring that irrelevant order information from the sound is not processed actually hinders(阻碍) this ability.
A similar conflict is also seen when reading while in the presence of lyrical music. In this situation, the two sources of words—from the task and the sound—are in conflict. The cost is poorer performance of the task in the presence of music with lyrics.
What this all means is that whether having music playing in the background helps or hinders performance depends on the task and on the type of music, and only understanding this relationship will help people maximize their productivity levels.
1.“Mozart effect” is mentioned to ________.
A. explain how music can relax people
B. show music can improve performance
C. advise people to listen to Mozart music
D. stress Mozart music gains wide attention
2.It can be inferred that participants in the research ________.
A. have improved their rehearsal ability
B. perform better in the quiet conditions
C. ignore the background noise successfully
D. prefer the music with great sound variation
3.Paragraph 6 is written to ________.
A. support an idea B. make a contrast
C. introduce a topic D. describe a fact
4.What is the best title for the passage?
A. Music shapes your life
B. Music develops your creativity
C. Choose quiet music for your work
D. Does music make you concentrate?
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
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My first trip to Greece took place in the 1960s. There I accepted a challenge to hitchhike(搭便车)with a group of English friends from my university in Birmingham to Athens with little money.For me, a 20-year-old girl, I had not done anything like this before. It was so hard on the road.We slept in the open air, ate little more than bread and cheese, and depended heavily on the help of strangers. But it helped me learn about European society.
One day, my Greek friend came to see me at the youth hostel and asked me to step outside.He was angry with me. He reminded me of my social background and asked what my parents would say if they saw me living in these conditions like these “dirty” English. After several weeks on the road, we did look tired; but his choice of the word “dirty” interested me. He was showing a historic dislike of the English that some Europeans had. In that part of Europe,both the Turks and the Greeks, who dislike each other to this day, blamed(责怪) the English for their national disasters. He ignored my explanations of having accepted the challenge of hitchhiking.He took me home and his family, especially his mother and sisters, showed me Greek hospitality(好客) at its best.
My experience in Greece could not have differed more from the situation facing Pakistanis—and others seeking shelter —in Greece today.On recent visits to Greece in connection with my study on Islam in Europe, I saw the trouble of the refugees(难民). Some said that they had been physically beaten. However, there are good stories of ordinary Greeks giving shelter to some hopeless refugees. The sense of Greek hospitality that I experienced as a student does exist.
1.What was the author's purpose of taking a trip to Greece in the 1960s?
A.To visit a friend in Greece.
B.To complete a challenge bravely.
C.To learn how to hitchhike to other countries.
D.To increase her knowledge about European society.
2.What did the author find during her recent visits to Greece?
A.Many Greeks lived a very bad life.
B.The country hadn’t changed much.
C.Some refugees were badly treated.
D.Many people were leaving the country.
3.What does the author want to show by giving the example in the last paragraph?
A.Many Greek people still love helping others.
B.Many people in Greece need help.
C.Greece is a safe country for refugees.
D.Helping others is very important.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
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At a bright new building in Landover, Maryland, students are getting a crash course(速成课), in which they are learning how to spend，save and look after their money responsibly.
Tuesday marked the grand opening of the newest Junior Achievement Finance Park， where eighth-graders from Prince George’s County schools will use tablet computers to practice personal finance skills they have learned in class. An international study last year clearly showed that more than 1 in 6 U. S. teens is unable to make simple choices about how to spend their money.
The center, a mini city of stores, was created by Prince George’s County schools, Capital One Bank and Junior Achievement of Greater Washington. In fact the first Washington-area Finance Park opened in Fairfax County, Virginia, five years ago. Altogether there are 17 finance parks nationwide, and one is planned to open in Montgomery County, Maryland.
Before coming to a finance park, students have lessons on how to save and invest, how to read a bank statement and how to make sense of debit (借记）and credit cards. They put their skills to the test when they walk inside. Students are given a career, salary, debt and family situation, and then they are required to have to put together a monthly budget (预算）.
Budgeting can be tricky. Students need to figure out how much to spend on groceries, rent, transportation and even entertainment. They shop with virtual (虚拟的）money，making a change in their budgets according to different situations they may go into.
When asked about the practice，LaChelle King，a teacher at Benjamin Tasker Middle School in Bowie, said the center was exciting and surprising for her students. One of the kids said, " Now I know why my mom gets mad at me when I ask her to buy me things!"
1.In the crash course，students learn to ___________.
A.make money B.spend money
C.develop finance knowledge D.make a monthly budget
2.The finance park is________________________.
A.a center where students practice finance skills
B.a park where people can buy what they need
C.a bank where people can borrow or save money
D.a classroom where students learn finance skills
3.The underlined phrase“make sense of”in the fourth paragraph means "___________ ’’ .
A.stand up for B.keep away from
C.get ready for D.have an understanding of
4.The last paragraph tries to tell us___________ .
A.U.S. teens need a lot of things in daily life
B.U. S. mothers don’t know how to spend money
C.teachers also learn a lot from the crash courses
D.the crash courses have a good effect on students
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
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Seeds on Ice
Close to the North Pole，remote and rocky Plateau Mountain in the Norwegian archipelago of
Svalbard seems an unlikely spot for any global effort to safeguard agriculture. In this cold and deserted environment，no grains，no gardens，no trees can grow. Yet at the end of a 130-meter-long tunnel cut out of solid stone is a room filled with humanity’s most precious treasure, the largest and most diverse seed collection—more than a half-billion seeds.
A quiet rescue mission is under way. With growing evidence that unchecked climate change-will seriously affect food production and threaten the diversity （多样性） of crops around the world，the Svalbard Global Seed Vault （地窖） represents a major step towards ensuring the preservation （贮藏） of hundreds of thousands of crop varieties. This is a seed collection, but more importantly, it is a collection of the traits found within the seeds：the genes that give one variety resistance to a particular pest and another variety tolerance for hot，dry weather.
Few people will ever see or come into contact with the contents of this vault. In sealed boxes，behind multiple locked doors，monitored by electronic security systems, enveloped in below—zero temperatures, and surrounded by tons of rock, hundreds of millions of seeds are protected in their mountain fortress. Frozen in such conditions inside the mountain, seeds of most major crops will remain viable for hundreds of years, or longer. Seeds of some are capable of retaining （保留） their ability to grow for thousands of years.
Everyone can look back now and say that the Seed Vault was a good and obvious idea, and that of course the Norwegian government should have approved and funded it. But back in 2004, when the Seed Vault was proposed, it was viewed as a crazy，impractical, and expensive idea.
We knew that nothing would provide a definite guarantee. But we were tired，fed up，and frankly scared of the steady, greater losses of crop diversity. The Seed Vault was built by optimists who wanted to do something to preserve options so that humanity and its crops might be better prepared for change. If it simply resupplied seed gene banks with samples those gene banks had lost, this would repay our efforts.
The Seed Vault is about hope and commitrnent - about what can be done if countries come together and work cooperatively to accomplish something significant，long-lasting，and worthy of who we are and wish to be.
1.According to the passage, the Seed Vault is ___________.
A.a tunnel where the collected seeds are displayed
B.a stone room that contains the seeds of endangered crops
C.a seed gene bank that stores diverse seeds for future agriculture
D.a lab where researchers study how to maintain the diversity of crops
2.The underlined word“viable”in Paragraph 3 probably means ________.
A.mature B.clean
C.alive D.valuable
3.Paragraph 3 mainly tells us __________.
A.how the seeds are preserved B.where people keep the seeds
C.why the seeds are protected D.what people do to study the seeds
4.We can know from the passage that _________.
A.the Seed Vault offers a solution to climate change
B.most countries took part in rescuing the seed varieties
C.the Seed Vault guarantees to prevent the loss of crop diversity
D.many people originally considered building the Seed Vault unwise
难度: 困难查看答案及解析