Are we getting more stupid? According to Gerald Crabtree, a scientist at Stanford University in the US, we are. You may not want to hear this, but Crabtree believes that human intelligence reached its peak more than 2,000 years ago and ever since then has been going downhill. “If an average Greek from 1,000 BC were transported to modern times, he or she would be one of the brightest among us,” Crabtree told The Guardian.
At the heart of Crabtree’s thinking is a simple idea. In the past, intelligence was critical for survival when our ancestors had to avoid dangerous animals and hunt for food. The difference of being smart or stupid is often life or death. However, after the spread of agriculture, when our ancestors began to live in dense farming communities, the need to keep their intelligence in peak condition gradually reduced.
This is not hard to understand. Most of the time, pressure is what keeps us going – you need the pressure from your teachers to finish your homework; the pressure of looking pretty prompts(促使) you to lose weight when summer comes. And the same is also true of our intelligence – if we think less, we become less smart.
These mutations(变异) are harmful to our intelligence and they were all developed in the past 3,000 years. The other evidence that Crabtree holds is in our genes. He found that among the 2,000 to 5,000 genes that we have that determine human intelligence , there are two or more mutations in each of us.
However, Crabtree’s theory has been criticized by some who say that early humans may have better hunting and surviving abilities, but people today have developed a more diverse intelligence. For example, spearing a tiger doesn’t necessarily require more brainpower than playing chess or writing a poem. Moreover, the power of modern education means a lot more people have the opportunity to learn nowadays.
“You wouldn’t get Stephen Hawking 2,000 years ago. He just wouldn’t exist,” Thomas Hills of the University of Warwick, UK, told Live Science. “But now we have people of his intellectual capacity doing things and making insights(洞察力) that we would never have achieved in our environment of evolutionary adaptation.”
1.What is Crabtree’s recent finding according to the article?
A. The Greeks from 1,000 BC could have been the smartest in human history.
B. Our ancient ancestors had no better surviving abilities than we do nowadays.
C. Humans have been getting steadily more intelligent since the invention of farming.
D. Mutations in genes that decide human intelligence have affected the development of intelligence.
2.According to Crabtree, ancient humans _______.
A. had much more genes that determine human intelligence
B. were forced to be smart due to natural selection pressures
C. relied more on group intelligence than individual intelligence
D. developed a diverse intelligence to adapt to the hard realities
3.Some argue that Crabtree’s theory is false because they think _______.
A. people today are under much more pressure than early humans
B. it’s ridiculous to compare a hunter’s and a poet’s intelligence
C. modern education is far more advanced than ancient education
D. human intelligence nowadays is different from that of the distant past
4.What is Thomas Hills’ attitude toward Crabtree’s theory?
A. Supportive B. Unfavorable
C. Worried D. Confused
高二英语阅读理解中等难度题
Are we getting more stupid? According to Gerald Crabtree, a scientist at Stanford University in the US, we are.
You may not want to hear this, but Crabtree believes that human intelligence reached its peak more than 2,000 years ago and ever since then has been going downhill. “If an average Greek from 1,000 BC were transported to modern times, he or she would be one of the brightest among us,” Crabtree told The Guardian.
At the heart of Crabtree’s thinking is a simple idea. In the past, intelligence was critical for survival when our ancestors had to avoid dangerous animals and hunt for food. The difference of being smart or stupid is often life or death. However, after the spread of agriculture, when our ancestors began to live in dense farming communities, the need to keep their intelligence in peak condition gradually reduced.
This is not hard to understand. Most of the time, pressure is what keeps us going – you need the pressure from your teachers to finish your homework; the pressure of looking pretty prompts(促使) you to lose weight when summer comes. And the same is also true of our intelligence – if we think less, we become less smart.
These mutations(变异) are harmful to our intelligence and they were all developed in the past 3,000 years. The other evidence that Crabtree holds is in our genes. He found that among the 2,000 to 5,000 genes that we have that determine human intelligence , there are two or more mutations in each of us.
However, Crabtree’s theory has been criticized by some who say that early humans may have better hunting and surviving abilities, but people today have developed a more diverse intelligence. For example, spearing a tiger doesn’t necessarily require more brainpower than playing chess or writing a poem. Moreover, the power of modern education means a lot more people have the opportunity to learn nowadays.
“You wouldn’t get Stephen Hawking 2,000 years ago. He just wouldn’t exist,” Thomas Hills of the University of Warwick, UK, told Live Science. “But now we have people of his intellectual capacity doing things and making insights(洞察力) that we would never have achieved in our environment of evolutionary adaptation.”
1.What is Crabtree’s recent finding according to the article?
A．The Greeks from 1,000 BC could have been the smartest in human history.
B．Our ancient ancestors had no better surviving abilities than we do nowadays.
C．Humans have been getting steadily more intelligent since the invention of farming.
D．Mutations in genes that decide human intelligence have affected the development of intelligence.
2.According to Crabtree, ancient humans _______.
A．had much more genes that determine human intelligence
B．were forced to be smart due to natural selection pressures
C．relied more on group intelligence than individual intelligence
D．developed a diverse intelligence to adapt to the hard realities
3.Some argue that Crabtree’s theory is false because they think _______.
A．people today are under much more pressure than early humans
B．it’s ridiculous to compare a hunter’s and a poet’s intelligence
C．modern education is far more advanced than ancient education
D．human intelligence nowadays is different from that of the distant past
4.What is Thomas Hills’ attitude toward Crabtree’s theory?
A．Supportive B．Unfavorable C．Worried D．Confused
高二英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
Are we getting more stupid? According to Gerald Crabtree, a scientist at Stanford University in the US, we are. You may not want to hear this, but Crabtree believes that human intelligence reached its peak more than 2,000 years ago and ever since then has been going downhill. “If an average Greek from 1,000 BC were transported to modern times, he or she would be one of the brightest among us,” Crabtree told The Guardian.
At the heart of Crabtree’s thinking is a simple idea. In the past, intelligence was critical for survival when our ancestors had to avoid dangerous animals and hunt for food. The difference of being smart or stupid is often life or death. However, after the spread of agriculture, when our ancestors began to live in dense ( 稠密的）farming communities, the need to keep their intelligence in peak condition gradually reduced. This is not hard to understand. Most of the time,pressure is what keeps us going – you need the pressure from your teachers to finish your homework; the pressure of looking pretty prompts(促使) you to lose weight when summer comes. And the same is also true of our intelligence – if we think less, we become less smart.
These mutations(变) are harmful to our intelligence and they were all developed in the past 3,000 years. The other evidence that Crabtree holds is in our genes. He found that among the 2,000 to 5,000 genes that we have that determine human intelligence , there are two or more mutations in each of us. However, Crabtree’s theory has been criticized by some who say that early humans may have better hunting and surviving abilities, but people today have developed a more diverse intelligence. For example, spearing a tiger doesn’t necessarily require more brainpower than playing chess or writing a poem. Moreover, the power of modern education means a lot more people have the opportunity to learn nowadays. “You wouldn’t get Stephen Hawking 2,000 years ago. He just wouldn’t exist,” Thomas Hills of the University of Warwick, UK, told Live Science. “But now we have people of his intellectual capacity doing things and making insights(洞察力) that we would never have achieved in our environment of evolutionary adaptation.”
1.What is Crabtree’s recent finding according to the article?
A. The Greeks from 1,000 BC could have been the smartest in human history.
B. Our ancient ancestors had no better surviving abilities than we do nowadays.
C. Humans have been getting steadily more intelligent since the invention of farming.
D. Mutations in genes that decide human intelligence have affected the development of intelligence.
2.According to Crabtree, ancient humans _______.
A. had many more genes that determine human intelligence
B. were forced to be smart due to natural selection pressures
C. relied more on group intelligence than individual intelligence
D. developed a diverse intelligence to adapt to the hard realities
3.Some argue that Crabtree’s theory is false because they think _______.
A. people today are under much more pressure than early humans
B. it’s ridiculous to compare a hunter’s and a poet’s intelligence
C. modern education is far more advanced than ancient education
D. human intelligence nowadays is different from that of the distant past
4.What is Thomas Hills’ attitude toward Crabtree’s theory?
A. Supportive B. Unfavorable
C. Worried D. Confused
高二英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
Are we getting more stupid? According to Gerald Crabtree, a scientist at Stanford University in the US, we are. You may not want to hear this, but Crabtree believes that human intelligence reached its peak more than 2,000 years ago and ever since then has been going downhill. “If an average Greek from 1,000 BC were transported to modern times, he or she would be one of the brightest among us,” Crabtree told The Guardian.
At the heart of Crabtree’s thinking is a simple idea. In the past, intelligence was critical for survival when our ancestors had to avoid dangerous animals and hunt for food. The difference of being smart or stupid is often life or death. However, after the spread of agriculture, when our ancestors began to live in dense farming communities, the need to keep their intelligence in peak condition gradually reduced.
This is not hard to understand. Most of the time, pressure is what keeps us going – you need the pressure from your teachers to finish your homework; the pressure of looking pretty prompts(促使) you to lose weight when summer comes. And the same is also true of our intelligence – if we think less, we become less smart.
These mutations(变异) are harmful to our intelligence and they were all developed in the past 3,000 years. The other evidence that Crabtree holds is in our genes. He found that among the 2,000 to 5,000 genes that we have that determine human intelligence , there are two or more mutations in each of us.
However, Crabtree’s theory has been criticized by some who say that early humans may have better hunting and surviving abilities, but people today have developed a more diverse intelligence. For example, spearing a tiger doesn’t necessarily require more brainpower than playing chess or writing a poem. Moreover, the power of modern education means a lot more people have the opportunity to learn nowadays.
“You wouldn’t get Stephen Hawking 2,000 years ago. He just wouldn’t exist,” Thomas Hills of the University of Warwick, UK, told Live Science. “But now we have people of his intellectual capacity doing things and making insights(洞察力) that we would never have achieved in our environment of evolutionary adaptation.”
1.What is Crabtree’s recent finding according to the article?
A. The Greeks from 1,000 BC could have been the smartest in human history.
B. Our ancient ancestors had no better surviving abilities than we do nowadays.
C. Humans have been getting steadily more intelligent since the invention of farming.
D. Mutations in genes that decide human intelligence have affected the development of intelligence.
2.According to Crabtree, ancient humans _______.
A. had much more genes that determine human intelligence
B. were forced to be smart due to natural selection pressures
C. relied more on group intelligence than individual intelligence
D. developed a diverse intelligence to adapt to the hard realities
3.Some argue that Crabtree’s theory is false because they think _______.
A. people today are under much more pressure than early humans
B. it’s ridiculous to compare a hunter’s and a poet’s intelligence
C. modern education is far more advanced than ancient education
D. human intelligence nowadays is different from that of the distant past
4.What is Thomas Hills’ attitude toward Crabtree’s theory?
A. Supportive B. Unfavorable
C. Worried D. Confused
高二英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
The world’s most popular animals are in more danger than we realize, according to a new study. A survey of the Public’s Knowledge suggests many people are unaware that the animals they consider “inviting” are under threat in the wild. These include lions, elephants, tigers and other animals which frequently appear in branding and advertising.
The idea of “inviting” species has come up recently in Conservation Biology, explains Dr. Franck Courchamp, the study’s lead author. “There is a regular claim that the most ‘inviting’ species are attracting most of the time and resources. I started wondering whether this was true and followed by better results in conservation,” he told BBC News.
Using an online survey available in four languages, researchers asked the public to name the wild species they considered most attracting. They also looked at how frequently animals were represented on zoo websites, and on the covers of Disney and Pixar films. Additionally, the team had volunteers in France catalogue their meeting with virtual (虚拟的) populations of the 10 most “inviting” animals over the period of a week. They saw an average of 4.4 lions in cartoons, magazines and other sources each day, suggesting that people are likely to see two to three times as many “virtual” lions in a year as there are lions in West Africa. “Mostly I think because people see giraffes and lions every day of their life, they unconsciously think they are in abundance,” Dr. Courchamp said.
Despite their abundant media representation, nine of the animals on the list are classed as vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. When researchers asked survey participants whether they thought these animals were endangered, almost half of the participants thought that critically endangered gorillas (大猩猩) were not under threat.
As for this, Dr. Courchamp proposes a solution. Companies would donate money to Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in return for using the animals in their branding or advertising. “I think it’s not so unrealistic,” says Dr. Courchamp. “There are already some companies that do that. Jaguar is in partnership with Panthera, an organization protecting wild cat species. Lacoste also made a campaign recently where they replaced their logo with images of endangered species.”
1.What is the text mainly about?
A.The ten most attracting animals.
B.The importance of saving wild animals.
C.Animals’ images needing more attention.
D.Animals’ attraction harming their conservation.
2.According to Dr. Courchamp, survey participants’ views are unconsciously affected by _____.
A.the media B.their preferences
C.the IUCN Red List D.other participants’ opinions
3.How might the researchers feel about survey participants’ answers?
A.Relieved. B.Surprised.
C.Frightened. D.Excited.
4.What is Dr. Courchamp’s solution?
A.Raising people’s environmental awareness.
B.Asking big companies to organize campaigns.
C.Funding conservation by trading animals’ images.
D.Appealing for cooperation in NGOs for animal protection.
高二英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
People born in winter are more likely to suffer mental health disorders, according to a recent study carried out by researchers at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee.
Researchers raised baby mice from birth to weaning (断奶) in either “summer” light cycles of 16 hours of light and 8 hours of dark or “winter” cycles of 8 hours of light and 16 hours of dark. A third group experienced 12 hours of light and 12 hours of dark a day.
Then half the winter mice stayed in a winter cycle, while half switched to a summer schedule. The summer mice were similarly split. The mice raised in equal periods of light and dark were split into three groups, one of which stayed on the 12hour schedule, one of which joined the winter group, and one of which joined the summer group.
After 28 days, it turns out the summerborn mice behaved the same whether they stayed on the summer cycle or switched to winter. But among the winterborn mice, those stayed in winter kept their previous schedule, while those that switched to summer stayed active for an extra hour and a half, which indicates that mice born and weaned in a winter light cycle showed dramatic disruptions in their biological clocks.
The finding is the first of its kind in mammals, and it could explain why people born in winter are at higher risk for mental health disorders including bipolar depression, schizophrenia and seasonal affective disorder.
“We know that the biological clock regulates mood in humans，”said study researcher McMahon. “If the mechanism (机制) similar to the one that we found in mice operates in humans, then it could not only have an effect on a number of behavioral disorders, but also have a more general effect on personality.”
1.How many groups of mice are there finally in all in the experiment?
A. Four. B. Five. C. Six. D. Seven.
2.What's the main idea of the text?
A. The biological clock regulates mood in humans.
B. People born in winter are at higher risk for physical health disorders.
C. Being born in winter has a negative effect on people's mental health.
D. The length of light will influence the behavior of the mice.
3.The underlined word “split”(Paragraph 3) can be replaced by ________.
A. ended B. torn C. hit D. divided
4.Who is the appropriate reader of the passage?
A. A jobhunter. B. A student in the university.
C. A newlymarried couple. D. An experienced dentist.
高二英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
People born in winter are more likely to suffer mental health disorders, according to a recent study carried out by researchers at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee.
Researchers raised baby mice from birth to weaning (断奶) in either “summer” light cycles of 16 hours of light and 8 hours of dark or “winter” cycles of 8 hours of light and 16 hours of dark. A third group experienced 12 hours of light and 12 hours of dark a day.
Then half the winter mice stayed in a winter cycle, while half switched to a summer schedule. The summer mice were similarly split. The mice raised in equal periods of light and dark were split into three groups, one of which stayed on the 12hour schedule, one of which joined the winter group, and one of which joined the summer group.
After 28 days, it turns out the summerborn mice behaved the same whether they stayed on the summer cycle or switched to winter. But among the winterborn mice, those stayed in winter kept their previous schedule, while those that switched to summer stayed active for an extra hour and a half, which indicates that mice born and weaned in a winter light cycle showed dramatic disruptions（破坏） in their biological clocks.
The finding is the first of its kind in mammals, and it could explain why people born in winter are at higher risk for mental health disorders.
“We know that the biological clock regulates(管理) mood in humans,” said study researcher McMahon. “If the mechanism (机制) similar to the one that we found in mice operates in humans, then it could not only have an effect on a number of behavioral disorders, but also have a more general effect on personality.”
1. How many groups of mice are there finally in all in the experiment?
A．Four. B．Five. C．Six. D．Seven.
2.What's the main idea of the text?
A．The biological clock regulates mood in humans.
B．People born in winter are at higher risk for physical health disorders.
C．Being born in winter has a negative effect on people's mental health.
D．The length of light will influence the behavior of the mice.
3. The underlined word “split”(Paragraph 3) can be replaced by ________.
A．divided B．torn C．hit D．ended
4.Who is probably the reader of the passage?
A．A jobhunter.
B．A student in the university.
C．A newlymarried couple.
D．An experienced dentist.
高二英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
According to the statistics, young drivers are more ____ to have accidents than older drivers.
A. possible B. perhaps C. probable D. likely
高二英语单项填空简单题查看答案及解析
. According to the statistics, young drivers are more ____ to have accidents than older drivers.
A. possible B. perhaps C. probable D. likely
高二英语单项填空简单题查看答案及解析
According to the statistics，young drivers are more ________to have accidents than older drivers.
A．likely B．curious C．probable D．possible
高二英语单项填空中等难度题查看答案及解析
Many facts suggest that children are overweight and the situation is getting worse, according to the doctors. 1..
Some people blame the fact that we are surrounded by shops selling unhealthy, fatty foods, such as fried chicken and ice cream at low prices. 2., then probably children would buy less take-away food.
3.. I agree with this, because good eating habits begin early in life, long before children start to visit fast food shops. If parents often give their children fried chicken and chocolate rather than healthy food, they will go for sweet and salty foods, and children will find it hard to get rid of the habit.
There is a third reason for this situation. Children these days take very little exercise. They do not walk to school. When they get home, they sit in front of the television or their computers and play computer games. 4.. What they need is to go outside and play active games or sports.
The above are the main reasons for this problem. 5., as well as forcing them away from fast food shops and bad eating habits.
A. There is another argument that blames parents for allowing their children to become overweight
B. Adults are becoming fatter and unhealthier too
C. If there were fewer of these restaurants
D. So we have to encourage young people to be more active
E. Not only is this an unhealthy pastime (消遣), it also gives them time to eat more unhealthy food
F. I feel there are a number of reasons for this
G. It’s a good idea to allow children to eat what they choose
高二英语七选五困难题查看答案及解析