大学英语六级讲义与笔记:阅读部分(三)

　　We sometimes think humans are uniquely vulnerable to anxiety, but stress seems to affect the immune defenses of lower animals too. In one experiment, for example, behavioral immunologist Mark Laudenslger, at the University of Denver, gave mild electric shocks to 24 rats. Half the animals could switch off the current by turning a wheel in their enclosure, while the other half could mot. The rats in the two groups were paired so that each time one rat turned the wheel it protected both itself and its helpless partner from the shock. Laudenslager found that the immune response was depressed below normal in the helpless rats but not in those that could turn off the electricity. What he has demonstrated, he believes, is that lack of control over an event, not the experience itself, is what weakens the immune system.

　　注：1. vulnerable易受伤害的

　　2. immune defense 免疫系统

　　3. found之后是试验告诉我们的观点

　　4. depress压抑，de往下

　　Other researchers agree. Jay Weiss, a psychologist at Duke University School of Medicine, has shown that animals who are allowed to control unpleasant stimuli dont develop sleep disturbances or changes in brain chemistry typical of stressed rats. But if the animals are confronted with situations they have no control over, they later behave passively when faced with experiences they can control. Such findings reinforce psychologists suspicions that the experience or perception of helplessness is one of the most harmful factors in depression.

　　注：1. 看第一句三个单词就知道本段内容和上一段相同。

　　2. passive被动的

　　21. Laudenslagers experiment showed that the immune system of those rats who could turn off the electricity ______.

　　A) was strengthened

　　B) was not affected

　　C) was altered

　　D) was weakened

　　注：定位文章第一段found之后

　　22. According to the passage, the experience of helplessness causes rats to ______.

　　A) try to control unpleasant stimuli

　　B) turn off the electricity

　　C) become abnormally suspicious

　　D) behave passively in controllable situations

　　注：定位第二段But之后那句话

　　23. The reason why the mice in Aders experiment avoided saccharin was that ______ .

　　A) they disliked its taste

　　B) it affected their immune systems

　　C) it led to stomach pains

　　D) they associated it with stomachaches

　　22. The first paragraph is mainly about _____.

　　the teenagers criticism of their parents

　　misunderstandings between teenagers and their parents

　　the dominance of the parents over their children

　　the teenagers ability to deal with crises

　　注：段落主旨，B和C只说了一部分。

　　It is natural for young people to be critical of their parents at times and to blame them for most of the misunderstandings between them. They have always complained, more or less justly, that their parents are out of touch with modern ways; that they are possessive and dominant that they do not trust their children to deal with crises; that they talk too much about certain problems and that they have no sense of humour, at least in parent-child relationships. I think it is true that parents often underestimate their teenage children and also forget how they themselves felt when young. Young people often irritate their parents with their choices in clothes and hairstyles, in entertainers and music. This is not their motive. They feel cut off from the adult world into which they have not yet been accepted. So they create a culture and society of their own. Then, if it turns out that their music or entertainers or vocabulary or clothes or hairstyles irritate their parents, this gives them additional enjoyment. They feel they are superior, at least in a small way, and that they are leaders in style and taste.

　　注：1. critical吹毛求疵的，很重要的

　　40. The main idea of this passage is that _____.

　　attention must be directed to the improvement of recreative possibilities

　　better use of greenspace facilities should be made so as to improve the quality of our life

　　the urban environment is providing more recreation activities than it did many years ago

　　priority must be given to the development of obligatory activities

　　Greenspace facilities are contributing to an important extent to the quality of the urban environment. Fortunately it is no longer necessary that every lecture or every book about this subject has to start with the proof of this idea. At present, it is generally accepted, although more as a self-evident statement than on the base of a closely-reasoned scientific proof. The recognition of the importance of greenspaces in the urban environment is a first step on the right way, this does not mean, however, that sufficient details are known about the functions of greenspace in towns and about the way in which the inhabitants are using these spaces. As to this rather complex subject I shall, within the scope of this lecture, enter into one aspect only, namely the recreative function of greenspace facilities.

　　注：GF对城乡环境有重要的贡献。

　　The theoretical separation of living, working, traffic and recreation which for many years has been used in town-and-country planning, has in my opinion resulted in disproportionate attention for forms of recreation far from home, whereas there was relatively little attention for improvement of recreative possibilities in the direct neighbourhood of the home. We have come to the conclusion that this is not right, because an important part of the time which we do not pass in sleeping or working, is used for activities at and around home. So it is obvious that recreation in the open air has to begin at the street-door of the house. The urban environment has to offer as many recreation activities as possible, and the design of these has to be such that more obligatory activities can also have a recreative aspect.

　　The very best standard of living is nothing if it is not possible to take a pleasant walk in the district, if the children cannot be allowed to play in the streets, because the risks of traffic are too great, if during shopping you can nowhere find a spot for enjoying for a moment the nice weather, in short, if you only feel yourself at home after the street-door of your house is closed after you.

　　23. The passage mainly deals with ______.

　　the life span of the Mojave shrimps

　　the survival of desert shrimps

　　the importance of water to life

　　life in the Mojave Desert

　　注：三段出现shrimp，说明本文主要讲shrimp，排除C和D，A选项life span没出现过。

　　There are desert plants which survive the dry season in the form of inactive seeds. There are also desert insects which survive as inactive larvae . In addition, difficult as it is to believe, there are desert fish which can survive through years of drought in the form of inactive eggs. These are the shrimps that live in the Mojave Desert, an intensely dry region in the south-west of the United States where shade temperatures of over 50C are often recorded.

　　The eggs of the Mojave shrimps are the size and have the appearance of grains of sand. When sufficient spring rain falls to form a lake, once every two to five years, these eggs hatch . Then the water is soon filled with millions of tiny shrimps about a millimetre long which feed on tiny plant and animal organisms which also grow in the temporary desert lake. Within a week, the shrimps grow from their original 1 millimetre to a length of about 1.5 centimetres.

　　Throughout the time that the shrimps are rapidly maturing, the water in the lake equally rapidly evaporates. Therefore, for the shrimps it is a race against time. By the twelfth day, however, when they are about 3 centimetre long, hundreds of tiny eggs form on the underbodies of the females. Usually by this time, all that remains of the lake is a large, muddy patch of wet soil. On the thirteenth day and the next, during the final hours of their brief lives, the shrimps lay their eggs in the mud. Then, having ensured that their species will survive, the shrimps die as the last of the water evaporates.

　　If sufficient rain falls the next year to form another lake, the eggs hatch, and once again the shrimps pass rapidly through their cycle of growth, adulthood, egg-laying, and death. Some years there is insufficient rain to form a lake: in this case, the eggs will remain dormant for another years, or even longer if necessary. Very, very occasionally, perhaps twice in a hundred years, sufficient rain falls to form a deep lake that lasts a month or more. In this case, the species passes through two cycles of growth, egg-laying, and death. Thus, on such occasions, the species multiplies considerably, which further ensures its survival.

　　40. The most appropriate title for the passage would be _____.

　　The well-being of Career Women

　　Sources of Mastery and Pleasure

　　Two Aspects of Womens Well-Being

　　Freedom Roles Women in Society

　　注：A选项career缩小了范围，B选项没出现woman，扩大了选项