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Every year 2.2 million tons of oil are spilled ( 散落，溅出 ) into the ocean. Actually, this only amounts to a small percentage of the total 1.6 billion tons of oil shipped around the world each year.However, this spilled oil has terrible effects on ocean life, including the coastlines where the off washes up onto shore. Some of the largest spills in history were caused by oil tankers running into each other or by an oil tanker sailing into shallow water and hitting the bottom of the ocean. After these spills, officials try to discover who or what was at fault to help prevent similar accidents in the future. One of the worst oil spills in history occurred along the Alaskan coastline in 1989. In this accident, 42,000 tons of oil spilled from a tanker which resulted in terrible damage to this sensitive natural area. In this spill, the tanker's captain, who was tired from overwork and drinking alcohol, had gone to take a rest. He gave control of the ship to the third mate. The third mate was unfamiliar with the path the ship took, and he ran the ship onto Blighe Reef. Blighe Reef is a natural underwater rock wall near the Alaskan coast. Damaged by the reef, the ship leaked oil out into the ocean. More than 1,600 kilometers of coastline were affected by the oil spill. Some scientists who studied nature in the area guessed that 580,000 birds and 5,500 otters died when the oil from the spill covered their skin. As well, smaller shellfish and other sea creatures were later eaten by seals, whales, and other animals. The most oil ever spilled was actually dumped on purpose as an act of ecological warfare. The term ecological warfare means to fight by doing harm to nature in the area under attack. In 1990, Iraq sent soldiers into Kuwait and set off the Persian Gulf War. As part of the Iraq war plan,900,000 tons of oil were let out into the Persian Gulf Way Iraq. This oil covered 1,500 square kilometers of water in the Persian Gulf. The oil also damaged 650 kilometers of the coastline of both Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. In some places, oil floating on the water was measured to be 43 centimeters thick. Water birds, water plants, and baby fish were all seriously affected by the oil. The long-term effects of this act on the food chain in the area are bound to cause problems tar into the future. A. Dumping B. War C.Accidents D.Throwing about carelessly 2.The creatures affected by the oil spill near Alaska were_________. A. birds and otters B. shellfish C. seals and whales D. all of the above 3.The third mate ran the thanker agound (触礁) in this accident because_______. A. he was tired B. he was drunk C.he was talking on the phone D.he did not know the sea 4.________ was responsible for dumping oil into the Persian Gulf. A.The United States B. Kuwait C .Saudi Arabia D. Iraq
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| 2. 难度：中等 | |
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People from East Asia tend to have more difficulty than those from Europe in distinguishing facial expressions — and a new report published online in Current Biology explains why. Rachael Jack, University of Glasgow researcher, said that rather than scanning evenly(均匀的) across a face as Westerners do, Easterners fix their attention on the eyes. "We show that Easterners and Westerners look at different face features to read facial expressions," Jack said. "Westerners look at the eyes and the mouth in equal measure, whereas Easterners favor the eyes and neglect (忽略) the mouth." According to Jack and her colleagues, the discovery shows that human communication of emotion is more complex than previously believed. As a result, facial expressions that had been considered universally recognizable cannot be used to reliably convey emotion in cross-cultural situations. The researchers studied cultural differences in the recognition of facial expressions by recording the eye movements of 13 Western Caucasian and 13 East Asian people while they observed pictures of. expressive faces and put them into categories: happy, sad, surprised, fearful, disgusted, angry, or neutral. They compared how accurately participants read those facial expressions using their particular eye movement strategies. It turned out that Easterners focused much greater attention on the eyes and made significantly more errors than did Westerners. "The cultural difference in eye movements that they show is probably a reflection of cultural difference in facial expressions," Jack said. "Our data suggest that whereas Westerners use the whole face to convey emotion, Easterners use the eyes more and mouth less." In short, the data show that facial expressions are not universal signals of human emotion. From here on, examining how cultural factors have diversified these basic social skills will help our understanding of human emotion. Otherwise, when it comes to communicating emotions across cultures, Easterners and Westerners will find themselves lost in translation. 1. The discovery shows that Westerners . A. pay equal attention to the eyes and the mouth B. consider facial expressions universally reliable C. observe the eyes and the mouth in different ways D. have more difficulty in recognizing facial expressions 2. What were the people asked to do in the study? A. To make a face at each other. B. To get their faces impressive. C. To classify some face pictures. D. To observe the researchers' faces. 3. What does the underlined word "they" in Paragraph 6 refer to? A. The participants in the study. B. The researchers of the study. C. The errors made during the study. D. The data collected from the study. 4. In comparison with Westerners, Easterners are likely to . A. do translation more successfully B. study the mouth more frequently C. examine the eyes more attentively D. read facial expressions more correctly 5. What can be the best title for the passage? A. The Eye as the Window to the Soul B. Cultural Differences in Reading Emotions C. Effective Methods to Develop Social Skills D. How to Increase Cross-cultural Understanding
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