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Scientists at Harvard University and Bates College find female chimpanzees (黑猩猩) appear to treat sticks as dolls, carrying them around until they have children of their own. Young males engage in such behavior much less frequently.

The new work by Sonya M. Kahlenberg and Richard W. Wrangham, described this week in the journal Current Biology, provides the first evidence of a wild non­human species playing with dolls, as well as the first known sex difference in a wild animal’s choice of playthings.

The two researchers say their work adds to a growing body of evidence that human children are probably born with their own ideas of how they want to behave, rather than simply mirroring other girls who play with dolls and boys who play with trucks. Doll play among humans could have its origins in object—carrying by earlier apes (猿类), they say, suggesting that toy selection is probably not due entirely to socialization.

“In humans, there are obvious sex differences in children’s toy play, and these are remarkably similar across cultures,” says Kahlenberg. “While socialization by elders and peers has been the primary explanation, our work suggests that biology may also have an important role to play in activity preferences.”

In 14 years of data on chimpanzee behavior at the Kibale National Park in Uganda, Kahlenberg and Wrangham counted more than 100 examples of stick­carrying. Some young chimpanzees carried sticks into the nest to sleep with them and on one occasion built a separate nest for the stick. “We have seen juveniles occasionally carrying sticks for many years, and because they sometimes treated them rather like dolls, we wanted to know if in general this behavior tended to represent something like playing with dolls,” says Wrangham, a Professor at Harvard. “If the doll hypothesis (假设) was right, we thought that females should carry sticks more than males do, and that the chimpanzees should stop carrying sticks when they had their first child. We have now watched enough young chimpanzees to prove both points.”

1.What does a female chimpanzee do with sticks?

2. What causes the different toy selection of chimpanzees, according to the passage?

3.We can infer from the fourth paragraph that ________.

4.It can be concluded from the passage that ________.

I credit my typing skill to so many hours of chatting online. Unfortunately, as my typing speed increased on the Internet, all grammatical rules went out of the window. You see instant messages have their own shorthand language and grammar isn’t important, of which even a newbie (新手) is aware. They can leave out articles, subjects (主语), pronouns, etc. They can misspell or “respell” almost any word. They often ask “A/S/L” when they first chat. Abbreviations (缩写) and capitalizations (大写) are particularly important. English-speaking instant messengers also refuse to burden themselves with punctuation and capitalization.

After I came back China, I discovered not one but two instant messaging crazes. The first, which brought back memories of my previous addiction to the computer, was QQ. I can see evidence that the Chinese have the same kind of separate instant messaging language, even when they chat in English. My first word in this language, for example, was “ft”. This abbreviation for “faint” is used whenever there is a need to express surprise. I also discovered that Chinese use the same kind of abbreviation for a laugh. And there is an extraordinary number of smileys (表情符) to the “vomit” and “army soldier” smileys. There is even a SARA smiley.

After QQ, there is another, perhaps more widespread messaging trend. You guessed it --- cell phone text messaging. I now understand how useful text messaging is and why it is so common. I admit that I have been guilty of sending text messages while walking outside or sitting on the subway. Who hasn’t ? No matter where I go, I see people on their cell phones, messaging. In fact, it’s rare to see someone actually talking on their phone!

So it looks as if there is no escape from the instant messaging crazes, no matter where in the world I go. And that’s plainly not going to change. In the end, though, I can’t complain: instant messaging is quick, it’s cheap, it’s easy and it’s extremely fun too. And after all, everyone’s doing it.

1.The underlined phrase “went out of the window” in Paragraph 1 probably means        .

2.Which of the following is true according to the passage?

3.The writer believes that instant messaging is          .

4.Which might be the main idea of the passage?

Memory is the ability to keep track of things that have happened in the past. Memory really is learning. One needs memory to ride a bicycle. A dog needs to remember if it is to come when called.

Memory is said to be stored in the brain as a “memory trace（记忆痕）.” What makes up this trace is not known. Some scientists believe that certain chemical substances may carry certain memories. For example, one substance, when given to rats, causes them to fear the dark.

Other research into memory has to do with how the brain works. Psychologists use three means to find out how a person remembers. For example, give a person a grocery list. Let the person memorize the list, then put it away. The most natural way to find out how much a person remembers of the grocery list is to ask what he or she remembers. This is called the method of recall. Another method is called recognition. Give the person another grocery list. Ask him or her to choose items on the first list from the items that are on only the second list. Often a person will be able to recognize things that he or she cannot recall. A third method of finding how much a person remembers is called relearning. Here the person is asked to read over the first list. The person will probably learn the list the second time faster than he did the first time. The difference in the time it takes to relearn the list is thought of as a measure of how much a person has remembered.

One way of remembering something is to repeat it many times. Interest is very important. Boring lists of facts are much more difficult to remember than something that we understand and are interested in. Motivation, or wanting to do something, is also important. Motivation is linked with reward. For example, a hungry animal quickly learns how to do something if that action gets the animal food. In humans, wanting to learn is often motivation. The praise of a teacher or the knowledge that an answer is correct is rewarding.

1.We can learn from the 2nd paragraph that ___________       .

2.The way to pick out the items on the first list from the second is known as ________ .

3.What is considered as a measure of how much one has remembered?

4.A good way to train an animal to do something quickly is to ________.

What’s On Stage

An acrobatic show: To celebrate its 50th anniversary, the China Acrobatic Troupe (剧团) will present “The Soul of China”, where the seemingly impossible is made real. Chills will run down your spine(脊柱) as you watch breathlessly as performers take their art and their bodies to the edge.

Time: 7:30 p.m., September 13-19

Place: Capital Theatre, 22 Wangfujing Dajie, Dongcheng District

Exhibitions

Joint Show: A group ink painting exhibition is running at the Huangshicheng Art Gallery in Beijing. About 50 works by 25 young artists including Ge Yun and Yu Yang are on display.

Time: 9:00 a. m.-5:00 p.m. until September 10

Place: Huangshicheng Art Gallery, 136 Nanchizi Dajie, Dongcheng District

Oil paintings: The Wanfung Art Gallery will host a joint show of oil painting by 10 young and middle-aged artists. On display are more than 30 of their latest works, which capture the wondrous variety of life in unique styles.

Time: 9:00 a.m. -4:00 p.m. until September 15

Place: 136 Nanchizi Street, Dongcheng District

Literature museum: The National Museum of Modern Chinese Literature offers an in-depth study of the evolution of Chinese contemporary literature from 1919 to 1949.

Time: 9:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m., daily

Place: 45 Anyuan Donglu, Chaoyang District (Shaoyaoju area)

Concerts

Beijing rocks: “The Fashion Night of Chinese Rock” is set to bring rock fans out by the thousands next month. Nine Chinese rock bands will perform at the concert, including older generation bands, middle generation and some recent arrivals. The audience will be given a chance to decide what songs they want to hear, which is sure to bring a storm.

Time: September 16

Place: The Olympic Center

Belgium orchestra：La Petite Bande, the Baroque Orehestra of Belgium, will perform in Beijing at the Grand Theatre of the Cultural Palace of Nationalities as part of activities across the world in memory of the 250th anniversary of Bach’s death.

Time: 7:30 p.m. September 11-14

Place: Grand Theatre of the Cultural Palace of Nationalities

1.What do you think of the acrobatic show mentioned above?

2.The most characteristic thing about the Fashion Night of Chinese Rock is that ______.

3.Suppose it is September 14 today, how many activities can people choose to attend?

4.On the whole, we can conclude ______.

Fat and shy, Ben Saunders was the last kid in his class picked for any sports team " Football, tennis, cricket - anything with a round ball．I was useless," he says now with a laugh．But back then he was the one always made fun of in school gym classes in Devonshire, England．

It was a mountain bike he received for his 15th birthday that changed him．At first he went biking alone in a nearby forest．Then he began to ride the bike along with a runner friend． Gradually, Saunders set his mind on building up his body, increasing his speed and strength．At the age of 18, he ran his first marathon．

The following year, he met John Ridgway and was hired as an instructor at Ridgway's School of Adventure in Scotland, where he learnt about Ridgway's cold - water exploits．Greatly interested, Saunders read all he could about North Pole explorers and adventures, then decided that this would be his future．

In 2001, after becoming a skillful skier, Saunders started his first long - distance expedition towards the North Pole．It took unbelievable energy．He suffered frostbite （冻疮） ,ran into a polar bear and pushed his body to the limit, pulling his supply -loaded sled （雪橇） up and over rocky ice． Next October, Saunders, 27, heads south from the coast of Antarctica to the South Pole and back, a 2900 - kilometer journey that has never been completed on skis．

1.What change happened to Saunders after he was 15 yeas old?

2.The underlined word "exploits" （Paragraph 3） is closest in meaning to______．

3.Which of the following is the correct order of the events that happened to Saunders?

a．He ran his first marathon．         b．He skied alone in the North Pole．

c．He rode his bike in a forest,        d．He planned an adventure to the South Pole．

4.What does the story mainly tell us about Saunders?