People have wondered for a long time how their personalities and behavior are formed. It is not easy to explain why one person is intelligent and another is not, or why one is cooperative and another is competitive.
Social scientists are of course extremely interested in these types of questions. They want to explain why we possess certain characteristics and exhibit certain behavior. There are no clear answers yet, but two distinct schools of thought on the matter have developed. As one might expect, the two approaches are very different from each other, and there is a great deal of debate between proponents of each theory. The controversy is often conveniently referred to as “nature and nurture”.
Those who support the “nature” side of the conflict believe that our personalities and behavior patterns are largely determined by biological factors. That our environment has little, if anything, to do with our abilities, characteristics and behavior is central to this theory. Taken to an extreme,this theory states that our behavior is predetermined to such a great degree that we are almost completely governed by our instincts(本能).
Proponents of the “nurture” theory, or, as they are often called, behaviorists, claim that our environment is more important than our biologically based instincts in determining how we will act. A behaviorist, B. F. Skinner, sees humans as beings whose behavior is almost completely shaped by their surroundings. The behaviorists' view of the human being is quite mechanistic. They state that, like machines, humans respond to environmental stimuli (刺激) as the basis of their behavior.
Socially and politically, the consequences of these two theories are far-reaching. In the US,for example, blacks often score below whites on standardized intelligence tests. This leads some “nature” proponents to conclude that blacks are genetically lower in status than whites. Behaviorists, on the contrary, say that the differences in scores are due to the fact that blacks are often robbed of many of the educational and other environmental advantages that whites enjoy, and that, as a result, they do not develop the same responses that whites do.
Neither of these theories can yet fully explain human behavior. In fact, it is quite likely that the key to our behavior lies somewhere between these two extremes and that the controversy will continue for a long time is certain.
1.This passage is mainly concerned with ________.
A. relation between personality and behavior
B. relation between behavior and environment
C. different accounts of patterns of human behavior
D. different theories of the formation of human behavior
2.The underlined word “proponents” in Paragraph 2 means ________.
A. creators B. advisors
C. advocates D. judges
3.In Paragraph 5, the author mainly writes about ________.
A. the considerable influence of the two theories
B. differences between the blacks and whites
C. racial discrimination in the United States
D. different responds to intelligence tests
4.What's the author's purpose in writing the passage?
A. To call our attention to the changes of human behavior.
B. To urge scientists to do more research in social science.
C. To give us a detailed explanation of human behavior.
D. To present an argument in the field of social science.
When my husband and I got married, he worked as a mechanic (机修工) from midnight to 8 a.m. However, I worked during the __ . So as he came home from work each morning, I was getting ready to _ _.
We had very little __ then, so when Valentine's Day came around that first year, I knew we couldn't ___ _ anything for each other. After he left to go to work the night before Valentine's Day, I decided to ___ _ and make a Valentine's Day card for him. I ___ wrote a poem on the front of the card. When he came home the next __ _, I felt foolish as I handed him the card, ___ _ that he wouldn't laugh at it. When he had finished ___ _ it, he slowly raised his head and looked at me. Then he reached down into his pocket. When he pulled his ___ _ out, he was holding __ .
He told me that he had _32_ it for me during his lunch hour, but he had been ___ _ to give it to me because he thought I might think it was ___ _, and that I might laugh at it.
It was a small heart made out of aluminum (铝). ___ _ I had stayed up all night making him a valentine card, he had been cutting out a __ _ for me. I still have the aluminum heart, and I ___ it in my desk. Every time I see it, all those ___ _ come flooding back to me. Over the years, we've been able to buy each other very nice, __ presents for Valentine's Day. But none has ever been as dear or ___ _ as much as those handmade gifts made from our hearts the first year that we were married.
1.A. day B. night C. weekend D. holiday
2.A. cook B. leave C. rest D. help
3.A. time B. chance C. money D. energy
4.A. buy B. choose C. find D. borrow
5.A. look out B. call back C. slow down D. stay up
6.A. still B. only C. even D. again
7.A. morning B. noon C. afternoon D. evening
8.A. imagining B. hoping C. guessing D. noticing
9.A. studying B. reading C. examining D. playing
10.A. hand B. foot C. arm D. leg
11.A. everything B. anything C. nothing D. something
12.A. written B. drawn C. made D. invented
13.A. surprised B. happy C. angry D. afraid
14.A. wrong B. difficult C. dangerous D. silly
15.A. Before B. Though C. While D. If
16.A. heart B. card C. toy D. book
17.A. change B. keep C. cut D. divide
18.A. problems B. pains C. memories D. choices
19.A. strange B. special C. expensive D. satisfying
20.A. meant B. proved C. influenced D. explained
_____ time, the teacher had us do half of the exercises in class and complete the other half for our homework.
A. To saveB. Save
C. SavingD. Having saved
Anyone ______ trying to take knives on board flights would be caught by the police.
A. findsB. being found
C. foundD. will find
While watching television, __________.
A. the doorbell rang
B. the doorbell rings
C. they heard the doorbell rings
D. they heard the doorbell ring
It’s reported that global warming is heating the planet twice as quickly as _____ feared.
A. extremely B. previously
C. preciously D. eventually