accused of wasting money on art and decoration as it suggests a pleasant environment helps patients
ease discomfort and pain.
A team headed by Professor Marina de Tommaso at the Neurophysiopathology Pain Unit asked
a group of men and women to pick the 20 paintings they considered most ugly and most beautiful
from a selection of 300 works by artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Sandro Botticelli. They
were then asked to look at either the beautiful paintings, or the ugly painting, or a blank panel(板)
while the team put a short laser pulse at their hand, creating a sensation as if they had been stuck
by a pin. The subjects rated the pain as being a third less intense(剧烈的) while they were viewing
the beautiful paintings, compared with when looking at the ugly paintings or the blank panel.
Electrodes(电极) measuring the brain"s electrical activity also confirmed a reduced response to the
pain when the subject looked at beautiful paintings.
While distractions, such as music, are known to reduce pain in hospital patients, Prof de Tommaso
says this is the first result to show that beauty plays a part.
The findings, reported in New Scientist, also go a long way to show that beautiful surroundings could
aid the healing process.
"Hospitals have been designed to be functional, but we think that their artistic aspects should be
taken into account too," said the neurologist. "Beauty obviously offers a distraction that ugly paintings
do not. But at least there is no suggestion that ugly surroundings make the pain worse. I think these
results show that more research is needed into the field how a beautiful environment can alleviate
suffering."
Pictures they liked included Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh and Botticellis Birth of Venus.
Pictures they found ugly included works by Pablo Picasso, the Italian 20th century artist Anonio
Bueno and Columbian Fernando Botero. "These people were not art experts so some of the
pictures they found ugly would be considered masterpieces by the art world," said Prof de Tommaso.
B. relieve
C. improve
D. kill
B. Hospitals must take their artistic aspects into consideration first.
C. Ugly surroundings will surely make the pain worse.
D. Both music and beauty can reduce pain in hospital patients.
B. only art experts could judge they were masterpieces or not, though ugly
C. the artists mentioned above were not really art masters.
D. some of them were art masters, while others were not.
B. Ugly paintings could be masterpieces.
C. More research should be done in the field.
D. Latest environmental research.
As we all know, games play a very important role in the growth of children. Children should grow
along with playing games, for, _1 playing games, they can not only acquire knowledge, but also
cultivate their abilities to get along with others.
However, most children _ 2 (face) with a completely different situation. Most parents fear that
games will prevent children from increasing new knowledge and 3_ the children will fail in the future
examinations. So, instead of _4_ ( let ) the children 5 find and learn naturally from their surroundings,
they force their children to take part in various kinds of classes, learning English, playing 6 piano or
practicing drawing, etc. What"s more, some parents put 7 the children"s toys which are very useful
in developing children"s imagination and practical abilities.
8 is a piece of good advice to those parents: 9 you want to expect your child to be able to
accomplish something, you must first of all develop his ability to adapt to the new surroundings. That
cram education can lead to nothing _10 a failure in the children"s growth.
Using microwaves to directly heat owners of a room would save much of the energy wasted by
heating walls and furniture. And despite popular ideas about microwaves, this technique would be
safe, according to Charles R. Burlier of the Microwave Research Center in Marlborough, New
Hampshire. Low-power microwaves only penetrate (贯穿) the skin (low-power microwave
penetration in a ham is about 0.2 inches, for example) and with no negative effects.
To test this idea, Buffler subjected himself to microwaves in a special room using a standard
500-watt, 2459 MHz magnetron (磁控管). He found that a person will start to feel warmth at
about 20 milliwatts per square centimeter (mw. / sq. cm. ) ; a satisfactory feeling of warmth occurs
between 35 and 50mw. / sq. cm. By comparison, a person standing in noonday summer sun feels
the amount of 85 mw. / sq. cm. And a frozen meat pie in your microwave oven receives about 1000
mw. / sq. cm.
In houses of the future, each room could be provided with its own magnetron, says Buffler. When
you stepped into the living room, for example, a motion detector (运动感应器)would turn on the
magnetron, filling the room with low-power microwaves. In the same way that a microwave oven
heats up a hamburger, but not the plate it"s on, you would feel warmth from the microwaves without
changing the temperature of your coffee table. (You could, however, make your favorite easy chair
even more comfortable by treating it with a radiation-absorbing chemical.)
While it might be some time before homeowners are comfortable enough with the idea to set up
whole-body microwave heaters in houses, Buffler says microwaves may attract livestock(家畜)
farmers. Lambs that are born outdoors in winter, for example, are frequently lost to cold. Microwaves
could warm the lambs safely and quickly.
B. A new microwave oven.
C. A popular technique.
D. The magnetron.
a microwave heater?
B. It heats walls and furniture in a room.
C. It is safe.
D. It saves energy.
he receives about __________.
B. 40 mw. / sq. cm.
C. 60 mw. / sq. cm.
D. 85 mw. / sq. cm.
B. The motion detector.
C. The microwave oven.
D. The radiation-absorbing chemical.
B. Microwave heaters sometimes make people feel uncomfortable.
C. Perhaps microwave heaters will be first used by livestock farmers, who wish to
protect their lambs in winter.
D. Microwave heaters cannot be accepted by the public because they are somewhat unsafe.
(等级) for 18,000 teachers, many parents said they were giving the reports serious thought. Yet there
was an equal measure of skepticism among parents that test scores have any relationship with teachers"
competence.
Some said they already knew how good a teacher was by walking into the classroom or by
monitoring their children"s progress. "I"m the kind of person who likes to see for themselves," a father in
Queens said.
Others worried about how their fellow parents, perhaps ones with sharper elbows, might respond. Will
they demand a new teacher? Move their children to a new school?
Elizabeth Sane, the mother of a fourth grader at the Ella Baker School, a kindergarten-through-eighth-
grade school on the Upper East Side, said that her daughter was switched to a different teacher"s class
over the summer, and that it was "like adding salt to the wound" when she saw the high ratings for her
daughter"s previous teacher. Her daughter"s teacher this year did not receive a rating because he
previously taught high school.
Ms. Sane said that the rating was not the only factor that influenced how she assessed a teacher"s
performance, but that the data used for teacher evaluations mattered.
But other parents dropping their children off at the Ella Baker School said they did not trust teacher
ratings based on test scores any more than they wanted their children"s learning measured only by the
state exams.
"Some people take it as the final word, but it doesn"t change who they are as teachers. The ratings
aren"t accurate, and the whole student testing thing needs to be thrown out," said Lydia Delgado, whose
child is in the second grade.
B. All the teachers will receive a rating at the end of each semester,
C. Most parents took the teachers" ratings seriously.
D. About half of the parents doubted the ratings to be reliable.
B. With a good relationship with the school.
C. With a stong will to succeed.
D. With strong elbows physically.
B. regretted having sent her daughter to another class.
C. didn"t think her daughter"s previous teacher was better.
D. wanted her daughter to return to her previous class.
B. Ms. Sane evaluated a teacher"s performance only by the rating.
C. Lydia Delgado didn"t think the students" scores should be kept.
D. To give ratings to teachers will come to an end in the near future.
B. critical
C. indifferent
D. objective
One reaction to all the concern about tropical deforestation is a blank stare that asks the question,
"Since I don"t live there, what does it have to do with me?"
The answer is that your way of life, wherever you live in the world, is tied to the tropics in many
ways. If you live in a house, wash your hair, eat fruits and vegetables, drink soda, or drive a car, you
can be certain that you are affected by the loss of tropical forests.
Biologically, we are losing the richest regions on earth when, each minute, a piece of tropical forest,
the size of ten city blocks, disappears. As many as five million species of plants, animals, and insects
(40 to 50 percent of all living things) live there, and are being lost faster than they can be found and
described. Their loss is immeasurable.
Take rubber for example. For many uses, only natural rubber from trees will do. Synthetics are not
good enough. Today over half the world"s commercial rubber is produced in Malaysia and Indonesia,
while the Amazon"s rubber industry produces much of the world"s four million tons. And rubber is an
important material in making gloves, balloons, footwear and many sporting goods. Thousands of other
tropical plants are valuable for their industrial use.
Many scientists strongly believe that deforestation contributes to the greenhouse effect -or heating
of the earth from increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. As we destroy forests, we lose their
ability to change carbon dioxide into oxygen.
Carbon dioxide levels could double within the next half-century, warming the earth by as much as
4.5 degrees. The result? A partial melt-down of polar ice caps, raising sea levels as much as 24 feet;
even 15 feet could threaten anyone living within 35 miles of the coast. Unbelievable? Maybe. But
scientists warn that by the time we realise the severe effects of tropical deforestation, it will be 20
years too late.
Can tropical deforestation affect our everyday lives? Now, you should have got the answer.
B. tropical materials
C. man-made material
D. commercial rubber
B. persuade people to buy something synthetic
C. show us how important it is to protect the tropical forests
D. let people realise the effect of tropical deforestation
B. Many of our daily uses are related to the tropical forests.
C. Tropical plants can be used to make industrial products.
D. High carbon dioxide levels will make the earth warmer.
B. cold
C. supporting
D. opposed
B. the value of Tropical Forests
C. Tropical Forests and Our Life
D. The Greenhouse Effects W
Professor Wiseman expects thousands of people to take part in an experiment in controlling dreams.
Participants will download a specially designed iphone app that turns their phone into a dream factory.
Placed on the bed ,the phone can monitor when a sleeper is not moving, which suggests the onset of
dreaming. It then plays a carefully crafted (精心制作的)"soundscape"designed to produce pleasant
scenes such as walking in the woods, or lying on a beach. The idea is that this will influence dreaming,
causing dreamers to form fantasyland inspired by the sounds they are hearing. At the end of the dream
the app sounds a gentle alarm to wake the dreamer, who submits a brief description of the dream to a
"dream catcher"database(数据库).
Prof Wiseman, from the University of Hertfordshire, who is best known for his research on sleeps,
said,"Getting a good night"s sleep and having pleasant dreams promotes people"s productivity, and is
necessary for their mental and physical well being. Despite this we know very little about how to
influence dreams. This experiment aims to change that. "
As many as 10,000 people are expected to take part in the study, declared at the Edinburgh
International Science Festival. Prof Wiseman teamed up with app developers YUZA, which created
the" Dream:ON" software. Participants will be encouraged to share their dreams via Facebook and
Twitter.
A national survey conducted for the experiment found that 21% of people had trouble sleeping
and 15%suffered from unpleasant dreams. Prof Wiseman said people feeling low dreamed far more
than others, and often had negative dreams. "Perhaps improving their dreams might help them,"he
added.
The "Dream:ON" app can be downloaded for free from iTunes or via the project site, http:∥
dreamonapp.com.
B. Sweetening dreams.
C. Stopping unpleasant dreams.
D. Waking up dreamers.
B. To analyse mental effect on dreamers.
C. To set up a worldwide dream database.
D. To know about how to affect dreams.
B. lie on a beach with your smartphone on
C. present your dreams via Facebook and Twitter
D. design a pleasant situation according to the sound
B. background
C. starting
D. ending
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