SummaryWriting
Sociologists have long recognized that organization of less than 200individuals can operate through the free flow of information among the members.Once their size goes beyond this figure, the organizations are getting lessflexible. So it seems necessary to prevent total disorder resulting fromfailures of communication.
One solution to this problem would, of course, be tostructure large organizations into smaller units of a size that can act as agroup. By allowing these groups to build reliance on each other, largerorganizations can be built up. However, merely having groups of, say, 150 willnever of itself be a complete solution to the problems of the organization.Something else is needed: the people involved must be able to build directpersonal relationships. To allow free flow of information, they have to be ableto communicate with each other in a casual way. Maintaining too formal astructure of relationships inevitably prevents the way a system works.
The importance of this was drawn to my attention twoyears ago by the case of a TV station. Whether by chance or by design, it sohappened that there were almost exactly 150 people in the station. The wholeprocess worked very smoothly as an organization for many years until they weremoved into purpose-built accommodation. Then, for no apparent reason, the workseemed to be more difficult to do, not to say less satisfying.
It was some time before they work out what the problemwas. It turn out that, when the architects were designing the new building,they decided that the coffee room where everyone ate their sandwiches at lunchtimes was an unnecessary luxury and so did away with it. And with that, theyaccidentally destroyed the close social networks that strengthened the wholeorganization. What had apparently been happening was that, as people gatheredinformally over their sandwiches in the coffee room, useful information wascasually being exchanged.
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Various studies have shown that increased spending on education has notled to measurable improvements in learning. Between 1980 and 2008, staff andteachers at U.S. public schools grew roughly twice as fast as students.1.
Universities show similar trends ofincreased administration personnel and costs without greater learning, asdocumented in Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa's recent book Academically Adrift:Limited Learning on College Campuses.
A survey shows that 63% ofemployers say that recent college graduates don't have the skills they need tosucceed and 25% of employers say that entry-level writing skills are lacking.
Some simplistically attribute thedecline in our public education system to the drain of skilled students byprivate schools, but far more significant events were at work.
Public schools worked well untilabout the 1970s.2. It was the underperforming students who werethrown out of public schools and went to private ones.
A prominent reason public schoolsdid well was that many highly qualified women had few options for workingoutside the house other than being teachers or nurses. 3.
Having such a large supply oftalented women teachers meant that society could pay less for their services.Women’s liberation opened up new professional opportunities for women, and,over time, some of the best left teaching as a career option, bringing about agradual decline in the quality of schooling.
4.Large educationbureaucracies and unions came to dominate the landscape, confusing activitywith achievement. Bureaucrats regularly rewrite curriculums, talk nonsenseabout theories of education, and require ever more administrators. The endresult has been that, after all the spending, students have worse math andreading skills than both their foreign peers and earlier generations spendingfar less on education ---- as all the accumulating evidence has now documented.
A.They accepted relatively low pay, difficult working conditions, and gave their very best.
B.In fact, until that time, public schools provided far better education than private ones.
C. Achievement tests have failed to truly reflect the quality of teaching.
D. The heavy teaching loads left them little time and energy for family life.
E.Also around that time, regulations, government, and unions came to dictate pay, prevent adjustments.
F.Yet students showed no additional learning in achievement tests.
If you could be anybody in the world, who would it be? Your neighbouror a super star? A few people have experienced what it might be like to stepinto the skin of another person, thanks to an unusual virtual reality device.Rikke Wahl, an actress, model and artist, was one of the participants in a bodyswapping experiment at the Be Another lab, a project developed by a group ofartists based in Barcelona. She swapped with her partner, an actor, using amachine called The Machine to Be Another and temporarily became a man. "AsI looked down, I saw my whole body as a man, dressed in my partner'spants," she said. "That's the picture I remember best."
The set-up is relatively simple.Both users wear a virtual reality headset with a camera on the top. The videofrom each camera is sent to the other person, so what you see is the exact viewof your partner. If she moves her arm, you see it. If you move your arm, shesees it.
To get used to seeing anotherperson's body without actually having control of it, participants start byraising their arms and legs very slowly, so that the other can follow along.Eventually, this kind of slow synchronised（同步的）movement becomes comfortable, and participants reallystart to feel as though they are living in another person's body.
Using such technology promises toalter people's behaviour afterwards-potentially for the better. Studies haveshown that virtual reality can be effective in fighting racism-the bias thathumans have against those who don't look or sound like them. Researchers at theUniversity of Barcelona gave people a questionnaire called the ImplicitAssociation Test, which measures the strength of people's associations between,for instance, black people and adjectives such as good, bad, athletic orawkward. Then they asked them to control the body of a dark skinned digitalcharacter using virtual reality glasses, before taking the test again. Thistime, the participants' bias scores were lower. The idea is that once you've"put yourself in another’s shoes" you're less likely to think ill ofthem, because your brain has internalised the feeling of being that person.
The creators of The Machine to BeAnother hope to achieve a similar result. "At the end of body swapping,people feel like holding each other in their arms," says Arthur Pointeau,a programmer with the project. "It's a really nice way to have this kindof experience. I would really, really recommend it to everyone."
1.The word "swapping" (paragraph 1) is closest in meaning to______.
A. building
B. exchanging
C. controlling
D. transplanting
2.We can infer from the experimentat the Be Another lab that______.
A. our feelings are related to our bodily experience
B. we can learn to take control of other people's bodies
C. participants will live more passionately after the experiment
D. The Machine to Be Another can help people change their sexes
3.In the Implicit Association Test,before the participants used virtual reality glasses to control a dark skinneddigital character, ______.
A. they fought strongly against racism
B. they scored lower on the test for racism
C. they changed their behaviour dramatically
D. they were more biased against those unlike them
4.It can be concluded from the passage that______.
A. technology helps people realize their dreams
B. our biases could be eliminated through experiments
C. virtual reality helps promote understanding among people
D. our points of view about others need changing constantly
Humpback Whales
Humpback whales are sometimes calledperformers of the ocean.This is because they can make impressive movements whenthey dive.The name“humpback”, which isthe common name for this whale, refers to the typical curve shape the whale'sback forms as it dives.
Sometimes the humpback will dive with a fantasticmovement known as a breach.During breaching the whale uses its powerful tailflukes to lift nearly two-thirds of its body out of the water in a giant leap.A breach might also include a sideways twist with fins stretched out likewings, as the whale reaches the height of the breach.
A humpback whale breathes air at the surface of thewater through two blowholes which are located near the top of the head.It blowsa double stream of water that can rise up to 4 metres above the water.
The humpback has a small dorsal fin located towardsthe tail flukes about two-thirds of the way down its back.Other distinguishingfeatures include large pectoral fins, which may be up to a third of the bodylength, and unique black and white spots on the underside of the tailflukes.These markings are like finger prints: no two are the same.
Humpback whales live in large groups.They communicatewith each other through complex “songs”.
Quick Facts | |
Size: | 14m-18m in length; 30-50 tons in weight |
Living | Open ocean and shallow coastline waters |
Environment | From warm tropical waters, where they breed, to cold polar waters, where they eat |
Diet: | Shellfish, plants and fish of small size |
Hunting: | Sometimes in groups, in which several whales form a circle under the water, blowing bubbles that form a “net” around a school of fish.The fish are then forced up to the surface in a concentrated mass. |
Current state: | Endangered: it is estimated that there are about 5000-7500 humpback whales worldwide |
1.According to Quick Facts, ahumpback whale _____.
A. cannot survive in waters near the shore
B. doesn't live in the same waters all the time
C. lives mainly on underwater plants
D. prefers to work alone when hunting food
2.To make a breach, a humpback whale must _____.
A. use its tail flukes to leap out of the water
B. twist its body sideways to jump high
C. blow two streams of water
D. communicate with a group of humpbacks
3.From the passage we can learn that a humpback whale _____.
A. has its unique markings on its tail flukes
B. has black and white fingerprints
C. gets its name from the way it hunts
D. is a great performer due to its songs
The teacherwho did the most to encourage me was, as it happens, my aunt.She was Myrtle C.
Manigault, the wife of my mother's brother Bill. She taught me in second gradeat all-black Summer School in Camden, New Jersey.
During my childhood and youth, Aunt Myrtle encouragedme to develop every aspect of my potential, without regard for what wasconsidered practical or possible for black females.I liked to sing; shelistened to my voice and pronounced it good.I couldn't dance; she taught me thebasic dancing steps.She took me to the theatre-not just children's theatre butadult comedies and dramas-and her faiththat I could appreciate adult plays was not disappointed.
My aunt also took down books from her extensivelibrary and shared them with me.I had books at home, but they were all serious classics.Even as a child I had a strongliking for humour, and I'll never forget the joy of discovering Don Marquis's Archy & Mehitabel throughher.
Most important, perhaps, Aunt Myrtle provided myfirst opportunity to write for publication.A writer herself for one of the black newspapers, she suggested my name to theeditor as a "youth columnist". My column, begun when I was fourteen,was supposed to cover teenage social activities-and it did-but it also gave methe freedom to write on many other subjects as well as the habit of gatheringmaterial, the discipline of meeting deadlines, and, after graduation fromcollege six years later, a solid collection of published material that carriedmy name and was my passport to a series of writing jobs.
Today Aunt Myrtle is still an enthusiastic supporter of her "favouriteniece". Like a diamond, she has reflected a bright, multifaceted (多面的) image of possibilities to every pupilwho has crossed her path.
1.Which of the following did Aunt Myrtle do to the author during her childhoodand youth?
A. She lent her some serious classics.
B. She cultivated her taste for music.
C. She discovered her talent for dancing.
D. She introduced her to adult plays.
2.What does Archy & Mehitabel in Paragraph 3 probably refer to?
A. A book of great fun.
B. A writer of high fame.
C. A serious masterpiece.
D. A heartbreaking play.
3.Aunt Myrtle recommended the author to a newspaper editor mainly to ________.
A. develop her capabilities for writing
B. give her a chance to collect material
C. involve her in teenage social activities
D. offer her a series of writing jobs
4.We can conclude from the passage that Aunt Myrtle was a teacher who________.
A. trained pupils to be diligent and well-disciplined
B. gave pupils confidence in exploiting their potential
C. emphasized what was practical or possible for pupils
D. helped pupils overcome difficulties in learning
Directions: Foreach blank in the following passage are four words or phrases marked A. B. Cand D. Fill in each blank with the word or phrase that best fits the context.
Research hasshown that two-thirds of human conversation is taken up not with discussion ofthe cultural or political problems of the day, not heated debates about filmswe've just watched or books we've just finished reading, but plain and simple_____.
Language isour greatest treasure as a species, and what do we ______ do with it? Wegossip. About others' behaviour and private lives, such as who's doing whatwith whom, who's in and who's out——and why; how to deal with difficult______ situations involving children, lovers, and colleagues.
So why are wekeen on gossiping? Are we just natural ______, of both time and words? Or do wetalk a lot about nothing in particular simply to avoid facing up to the reallyimportant issues of life? It's not the case according to Professor RobinDunbar. In fact, in his latest book, Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution ofLanguage, the psychologist says gossip is one of these really______issues.
Dunbar ______the traditional view that language was developed by the men at the early stageof social development in order to organize their manly hunting activities moreeffectively, or even to promote the exchange of poetic stories about theirorigins and the supernatural. Instead he suggests that language evolved amongwomen. We don't spend two-thirds of our time gossiping just because we cantalk, argues Dunbar —______, he goes on to say, languageevolved specifically to allow us to gossip.
Dunbararrived at his cheery theory by studying the ______ of the higher primates likemonkeys. By means of grooming——cleaning the fur by brushing it,monkeys form groups with other individuals on whom they can rely for support inthe event of some kind of conflict within the group or______ from outside it.
As we humanbeings evolve from a particular branch of the primate family, Dunbar ______that at one time in our history we did much the same. Grouping together madesense because the bigger the group, the greater the ______ it provided; on theother hand, the bigger the group, the greater the stresses of living close toothers. Grooming helped to ______ the pressure and calm everybody down.
But as thegroups got bigger and bigger, the amount of time spent in grooming activitiesalso had to be ______ to maintain its effectiveness. Clearly, a more ______kind of grooming was needed, and thus language evolved as a kind of vocalgrooming which allowed humans to develop relationship with ever-larger groupsby exchanging information over a wider network of individuals than would bepossible by one-to-one ______ contact.
1.A. claim B. description C. gossip D. language
2.A. occasionally B. habitually C. independently D. originally
3.A. social B. political C. historical D. cultural
4.A. admirers B. masters C. users D. wasters
5.A. vital B. sensitive C. ideal D. difficult
6.A. confirms B. rejects C. outlines D. broadens
7.A. for instance B. in addition C. on the contrary D. as a result
8.A. motivation B. appearance C. emotion D. behavior
9.A. attack B. contact C. inspection D. assistance
10.A. recalls B. denies C. concludes D. confesses
11.A. prospect B. responsibility C. leadership D. protection
12.A. measure B. show C. maintain D. ease
13.A. saved B. extended C. consumed D. gained
14.A. common B. efficient C. scientific D. thoughtful
15.A. indirect B. daily C. physical D. secret
