Part III 阅读理解

Passage One

Who says your job leaves you no time to hit the gym? A detailed new study of U.S physical activity patterns shows that men who work full-time---whether their jobs are active or sedentary---end up getting more exercise than healthy working-age men withoutajob. The new study comes from researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

As part of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, some l,800 working-aged adults were askedabattery of questions about their lifestyle and work habits, and, crucially, they then agreed to wear an accelerometer---a device to measure their physical activity---over the course of several days.

Those data from accelerometers providearare opportunity to nail down how much activity the typical American actually does. They show that men or women who work in active jobs do more physical activity on weekdays than men or women working in sedentary jobs. That's perhaps not surprising, but the NIH researchers suggest that it still matters because of an ongoing shift in the economy toward sedentary work.

The more surprising finding is the one that compares full-time workers to people who don't work. The study shows that men with full-time jobs do more physical activity than healthy men without jobs. ("Healthy men", in this case, were those men who said their primary reason for being out of work was something other than health or disability.) In fact, even sedentary full-time workers performed more weekday physical activity overall than the healthy non-workers.

The results looked very different for women.Women in sedentary jobs did less physical activity on weekdays than their healthy non-working peers. So what drives the gender difference? The study looks at the patterns, and can't unfortunately provide too much detail about their causes.

There could be many possible answers, including, perhaps, different abilities to pay for leisure time activities, or different norms and attitudes about work and physical activity. It could also be that more non-working women than men are choosing to be at home running around full-time after the kids.

But the NIH researchers do find evidence to suggest that, whatever causes the difference, healthy non-working women "are replacing work with active pursuits whereas---for some reason---(non-working) men generally are not."

21. The word "sedentary"(Para. l) probably means

    A being out of jobB working part-timeC sitting foralong timeD being passive in life

22. What is the function of the accelerometers in the study?

    A They record the amount of activity.B They provide people with more energy.C They indicate gender differences.D They push people to be more active.

23. Who do the most physical activity according to the study?

    A People with sedentary jobs.B People with active jobs.C Healthy women with no jobs.D Healthy men with full-time jobs.

24. What is the significance of the study?

    A It indicates the ongoing economic trend.B It provides evidence for gender differences.C It reveals the typical American activity pattern.D It explains the relation between work and activity.

25. Which of the following is true about non-working women?

    A They are busy with their kids all the time.B They are generally from wealthy families.C They engage themselves in other activities.D They rely on their husbands foraliving.

Passage Two

Popular fireworks should be replaced with cleaner drone (无人机) and laser light shows to avoid the "highly damaging" impact on wildlife, domestic pets and the broader environment, new Curtin-led research has found. The new research, published in Pacific Conservation Biology, examined the environmental cost of firework displays by reviewing the ecological effects of Diwali festival activities in India, Fourth of July celebrations across the United States, and other events in New Zealand and parts of Europe.

Examples included fireworks in Spanish festivals impacting the breeding success of House Sparrows, July firework displays being implicated in the decline of Brandt's Cormorant (鸬鹚)colonies in California, and South American sea lions changing their behavior during breeding season asaresult of New Year's fireworks in Chile.

Lead author Associate Professor Bill Bateman, from Curtin's School of Molecular and Life Sciences, said that fireworks create short-term noise and light disturbances that cause distress in domestic animals that may be managed before or afterafirework event, but the impacts to wildlife can be onamuch larger scale.

The annual timing of some large-scale firework events coincides with the migratory or reproductive movements of wildlife, and may therefore have adverse long-term population effects on them. Fireworks also produce significant pulses of highly pollutant materials that also contribute significantly to the chemical pollution of soil, water, and air, which has implications for human as well as animal health.

Bateman said firework bans at sensitive periods for wildlife migration or mating periods could limit the impact. Drone or other light-based shows could as well. "Other than horses, for which there is some evidence that they can be gradually familiarized with flashes of light, there is very little that can be done to address the disturbing impact of noise from fireworks on animals and wildlife," Bateman said.

The future of firework displays may be in the use of safer and greener alternatives such as drones, eco-friendly fireworks or visible-wavelength lasers for light shows. There is growing evidence that these community events can be managed inasustainable way and it's clear that outdated firework displays need to be replaced by cleaner options that are not harmful to wildlife and the environment.

26. The research team examined the impact of fireworks by .

    A doing experiments on animalsB conductingalarge-scale surveyC interviewing environmentalistsD carrying out an ecological review

27. Big firework events held at certain periods each year .

    A cause animals to lose their sight and hearingB reduce the breeding rate of domestic animalsC pose threats to the migration of wild animalsD are gradually familiarized by wildlife

28. According to the research, what animals can partially adapt to fireworks?

    A Sparrows.B Sea lions.C Cormorants.D Horses.

29. Bateman suggests thatagreen alternative to fireworks could be .

    A DronesB paradesC travelsD circus shows

30. Which of the following can best summarize the main idea of the passage?

    A Popular fireworks constituteaprimary source of pollution.B Fireworks have short- and long-term impact on environment.C Ecological effects of fireworks should not be overstatedD Fireworks are outdated and should be banned.

Passage Three

The past two years have shown that employees desire greater flexibility---and they're willing to change jobs to get it. Flexibility has tremendous benefits for employees, including reduced burnout and greater job satisfaction. However, it can also result in rising coordination costs for managers, large amounts of wasted effort, and the inability to respond quickly to client requests.

The brief meetings that once allowed teams to promptly brainstorm solutions and coordinate efforts are now harder to pull together. It can take days to get most members in the same virtual place at the same time (including one person who's half-listening from the dentist's chair).

To increase employee flexibility on their teams, managers need guidance and support. Otherwise, they could burn out on the job or check out to findanew one. Here are some ways managers can offer their teams flexibility without breaking under the coordination costs or significantly halting progress.

First, rethink when employees work together. For complex tasks that require teamwork, it's not feasible to provide employees with complete flexibility (i.e., the ability to work for any duration at any time). However, returning to the standard in-office work week won't work either.

Thus, managers will need to think differently and deeply about project requirements and schedule accordingly. For project-based workflows, managers should carefully map out the project tasks and timetable and issue an advance request for employees to blockaspecific set of days for overlapping work during key project phases (e.g., kickoff, mid-point, finalization).

For less predictable workflows, match scheduling bursts with calendar time. For example, during the second week of the month, employees are expected to be working from 10 a.m.to5p.m., then they're allowed to choose which 40 hours (+/- 10) they work weekly during the rest of the month.

Second, rethink who works together. To provide greater flexibility, managers may need to reorganize their larger teams into multi-team systems of smaller, authorized, and interconnected groups. For example, converting your team of nine into three teams of three enables them to make decisions and makes it easier for employees to help coordinate their work.

Besides, managers must also think more deeply than ever about the structure of their employees' tasks and priorities. Understanding the connections between different tasks is especially crucial for setting priorities to avoid bottlenecks. If everything isapriority, nothing isapriority.

31. Employees desire greater flexibility because it means .

    A higher efficiencyB longer vacationsC less exhaustionD lighter workloads

32. The main idea of Paragraphlis that greater employee flexibility may .

    A bring huge benefits to employeesB increase productivity ofacompanyC affect response to client requestsD pose great challenges to managers

33. For managers, increasing employee flexibility

    A is necessary and possibleB depends on their personal willC is difficult but economicalD improves team coordination

34. The word "block" (Para. 4) is closest in meaning to .

    A proposeB put offC set asideD restrict

35. The following suggestions are given to managers EXCEPT .

    A adjusting project schedulesB providing better work conditionsC establishing multi-team systemsD setting clear tasks and priorities

Passage Four

Conversation goes far beyond talking. It also involves eyes, smiles, and the silences between the words. When those elements hum along together, conversational partners feel most deeply engaged and connected. Like good conversationalists, Dartmouth College scientists have taken that idea and carried it to new places.

They report some surprising findings on the interplay between eye contact and how two people synchronize (同步) nerve activity while talking The researchers suggest, inapaper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, that being in tune withaconversational partner is good---but that occasionally falling out of sync might be even better.

Maintaining eye contact has long been thought to act as the glue that connects two people in conversation. Its absence can signal failure of social function. Similarly, the growing study along this line has largely focused on the way synchrony in individuals' brain activity benefits the social connection between them.

Earlier research by the Dartmouth lab had showed that synchronized pupil expansion serves asareliable indicator of shared attention, which in turn marks greater nerve synchrony. In the new study, which measured pupil expansion during unstructured 10-minute conversations, the researchers found that the initial moment of eye contact---rather than a sustained period of locked gazes marksapeak in shared attention.

Synchrony, in fact, drops sharply just after you look into your conversation partner's eyes and begins to recover only when you and that person look away from each other. "Eye contact is not eliciting synchrony; it's disrupting it," says Thalia Wheatley, the paper's senior author.

Why would this happen? Wheatley contends that making and breaking eye contact ultimately propels the conversation forward. "Perhaps what this is doing is allowing us to break synchrony and move back into our own heads so that we can bring forth new and individual contributions to keep the conversation going," Wheatley says.

Connections between gaze and synchrony might be relevant to research in autism(自闭 症) and other mental disorders that involve non-typical interaction. The findings also help explain frustrations over videoconferencing platforms, on which real eye contact is nearly impossible to make ---or break---because of the positioning of cameras and windows on screens.

36. It can be learned that Dartmouth College scientists .

    A discovered that conversation is more than talkingB doubted the designs of conversational researchC explained the findings of conversationalistsD found interpersonal synchrony not always desirable

37. Previous research on eye contact focused on .

    A its role in keeping people connectedB its patterns in social interactionC the sources of poor social relationsD the flow of brain activity in conversations

38. What is the finding in Wheatley's new study?

    A Pupil expansion indicates shared attention.B Synchrony is key to success of communication.C Shared attention is the highest at initial eye contact.D Synchrony keeps pace with eye contact.

39. How did Wheatley account for the role of eye contact changes?

    A To createaproper setting foraconversation.B To make people feel respected by others.C To encourage people's independent insights.D To work together with participants' words.

40. What is the implication of Wheatley's research findings?

    A Improvement of conversational research design.B Understanding of deficits in communication.C Creativity on patterns of typical interactions.D Reduction of stress over video conferences.

Blog and Comments

blog and comments are followed by questions or unfinished statements, each with four choices A, B, C and D. Choose the best answer and mark your answer on the Answer Sheet. Talking about worry, I think of the most anxiety-provoking time of my life. It was 2008, and Iwas pregnant with my first child.

At my ultrasound checkup, my husband and Ilearned that our son would be born withacongenital (先天的) heart condition. This condition is fatal if not corrected through open-heart surgery within months of birth. For the remainder of my pregnancy, I was almost never completely free of worry: How can we get him the best care?

How will this affect his life? Doesn't this mean that Ishould prevent worry as soon as possible? Yet, that is exactly the wrong thing to do. Suppressing thoughts and feelings never works---and paradoxically increases anxiety while reinforcing the belief that worries are uncontrollable.

I discovered this for myself with my son's heart condition. My worries were constant and exhausting, but putting them aside didn't work. So Itried the opposite. I used my worries. Every time Iworried, I went into action mode: I read every paper published on the condition, I asked our nurses and doctorsamillion questions, and Iimagined best and worst-case scenarios so Icould plan each detail of my son's care.

Gradually Ilearn to worry smart and eventually worry less. Our son is now 14 years old. He loves playing the piano, writing, and wrestling. As his doctors told us after his surgery, there are no restrictions on what he can do.

41. What does the author think of the effort to prevent worry?

    A It only works at the beginning.B It should start as soon as possible.C It makes the problem even worse.D It isasimple and effective solution.

42. The author's action mode involves the following activities EXCEPT .

    A reading scientific literatureB taking some medical coursesC makingathorough action planD consulting medical professionals

43. Comment3indicates that the author's suggestions .

    A lack support from scientific researchB can be applied toawider populationC look at worry fromanew perspectiveD may lead to considerable confusion

44. Which comment questions the feasibility of the author's suggestions?

    A Comment 1.B Comment 2C Comment 4.D Comment 5.

45. Which comments offer ways of relieving worries?

    A Commentsland 3.B Comments3and 4.C Comments2and 4.D Comments2and 5.