胡敏考研英語考前10天模擬試題(二)及答案

Few things say “forget I’m here” quite so eloquently as the pose of the shy—the averted gaze, the hunched shoulders, the body pivoted away from the crowd. Shyness is a state that can be painful to watch, worse to experience and, in survival terms at least, awfully hard to explain. In a species as hungry for social interaction as ours, a trait that causes some individuals to shrink from the group ought to have been snuffed out pretty early on. Yet shyness is commonplace. “I think of shyness as one end of the normal range of human temperament,” says professor of pediatrics William Gardner of Ohio State University.

But normal for the scientist feels decidedly less so for the painfully shy struggling merely to get by, and that’s got a lot of researchers looking into the phenomenon. What determines who’s going to be shy and who’s not? What can be done to treat the problem? Just as important, is it a problem at all? Are there canny advantages to being socially averse that the extroverts among us never see? With the help of behavioral studies, brain scans and even genetic tests, researchers are at last answering some of those questions, coming to understand what a complex, and in some ways favorable, state shyness can be.

For all the things shyness is, there are a number of things it’s not. For one, it’s not simple introversion. If you stay home on a Friday night just because you prefer a good book to a loud party, you’re not necessarily shy—not unless the prospect of the party makes you so anxious that what you’re really doing is avoiding it. “Shyness is a greater than normal tension or uncertainty when we’re with strangers,” says psychologist Jerome Kagan of Harvard University. “Shy people are more likely to be introverts, but introverts are not all shy.”

Still, even by that definition, there are plenty of shy people to go around. More than 30% of us may qualify as shy, says Kagan, a remarkably high number for a condition many folks don’t even admit to. There are a lot of reasons we may be so keyed up. One of them, new research suggests, is that we may simply be confused.

In a study published early this year, Dr. Marco Battaglia of San Raffaele University in Milan, Italy, recruited 49 third-and fourth-grade children and administered questionnaires to rank them along a commonly accepted shyness scale. He showed each child a series of pictures of faces exhibiting joy, anger or no emotion at all and asked them to identify the expressions. The children who scored high on the shyness meter, it turned out, had a consistently hard time deciphering the neutral and the angry faces.

36. In paragraph 2, the writer intends to _______________

[A] introduce paragraph 3.

[B] illustrate the questions scientists are asking and how they can find answers to them.

[C] contrast the ideas raised in paragraph 1.

[D] show us the writer's field of interest and expertise.

37. Why is it considered strange that there are so many shy people?

[A] Because it is considered by psychologists to be an undesirable trait.

[B] Because it is not a trait associated with social animals.

[C] Because our ancestors were not shy, so we should be like them.

[D] Because shy people could not have survived in early human society.

38. Which of the following people would psychologists certainly consider to be shy?

[A] A person who prefers to study alone rather than spend time with friends.

[B] A person who is afraid to talk to an attractive person of the opposite sex.

[C] A person who isn’t good at introducing themselves to new people.

[D] A person who feels exceptionally nervous when around unfamiliar people.

39. It is suggested that shy people might be confused because ________________

[A] they misinterpret other people’s facial expressions.

[B] they have problems recognising certain facial expressions.

[C] they are extremely introverted.

[D] they are unable to admit to being shy.

40. Which of the following would best replace the word “canny” used in paragraph 2?

[A] clever. [B] distinct.

[C] unknown. [D] surprising. 
    Part B

Directions:

The following paragraphs are given in the wrong order. For Questions 41-45, you are required to reorganize these paragraphs into a coherent article by choosing from the list A-G to fill in each numbered box. The third and fifth paragraphs have been placed for you in boxes. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1 (10 points).

［A］Kids who watched the least TV—especially between the ages of 5 and 11—had the highest probability of graduating from university by the age of 26, regardless of IQ or socioeconomic status. While those who watched the most TV, more than 3 hours per day, had the highest chance of dropping out of school without qualifications. Furthermore, the effects seemed to be strongest for those who had a median IQ level, probably because the outcomes for the children at either IQ extreme are less likely to be affected by TV watching.

［B］Frederick Zimmerman and Dimitri Christakis at the University of Washington in Seattle, found that kids who watched the most TV before the age of 3 performed poorest on reading and mathematics tests at ages 6 and 7. But there did seem to be some benefit for TV watching in 3 to 5 year olds, possibly because of the large number of educational programs targeted at this age category, such as Sesame Street. For the duration of this study—1990 to 1996—very little educational programming for under-threes was available in the US.

［C］In an accompanying editorial, Ariel Chernin and Deborah Linebarger at the University of Pennsylvania, U.S., points out that all three studies do not separate the effects of educational versus entertainment programming. One proposed mechanism of how TV harms educational achievement is that TV takes time away from creative play, reading or doing homework. But, the editorial notes, research specifically examining this suggests “it is not the amount of viewing that matters but the content of what is viewed”.

［D］But results from studies on cognitive abilities and TV watching have been mixed. Some researchers have found that high quality, educational TV programmes are a boon for learning. Others have shown that the negative effects of hours in front of the TV disappear when confounding factors—such as IQ or socioeconomic status—are included. So Robert Hancox at the University of Otago in New Zealand and colleagues studied nearly 1000 children born in Dunedin, NZ, in 1972 and 1973. The researchers gathered data from both parents and children on how many hours a day were each spent watching TV at age 5, 7, 9, 11, 13 and 15. The team then re-evaluated participants at the age of 26.

［E］They suggest that parents should encourage kids to watch quality, educational programming. But Barry Milne, a co-author on the New Zeland study and now at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, UK, points out this may be simpler said than done: “Content could well be a confounding factor. But what we did find is that the type of TV kids actually do watch is not good for them.”

［F］Two other studies, also published in the July issue of Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine found similar results. Dina Borzekowski at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and colleagues found that Northern Californian third-graders—aged about 8—with a TV in their bedroom watched more TV and performed worse on standardised tests than classmates without a bedroom TV.

［G］Too much time in front of the TV reduces children’s learning abilities, academic achievement, and even the likelihood of their graduating from university, suggest three new studies. But it may be the quality, not quantity, of the programmes that really matters. Decades of studies have linked childhood hours in front of the TV with aggressive behaviour, earlier sexual activity, smoking, obesity, and poor school performance. The research has led the American Academy of Pediatrics to suggest children watch no more than 2 hours of TV per day and that children under 2 years old watch none at all.

Order:

41→42→A→43→B→44→45