Reading Comprehension

       For the past several years, the Sunday newspaper supplement Parade has featured a column called “Ask Marilyn.” People are invited to query Marilyn vos Savant, who at age 10 had tested at a mental level of someone about 23 years old; that gave her an IQ of 228 – the highest score ever recorded. IQ tests ask you to complete verbal and visual analogies, to envision paper after it has been folded and cut, and to deduce numerical sequences, among other similar tasks. So it is a bit confusing when vos Savant fields such queries from the average Joe （whose IQ is 100）as, What’s the difference between love and fondness? Or what is the nature of luck and coincidence? It’s not obvious how the capacity to visualize objects and to figure out numerical patterns suits one to answer questions that have eluded some of the best poets and philosophers.
　　Clearly, intelligence encompasses more than a score on a test. Just what does it mean to be smart? How much of intelligence can be specified, and how much can we learn about it from neurology, genetics, computer science and other fields?
　　The defining term of intelligence in humans still seems to be the IQ score, even though IQ tests are not given as often as they used to be. The test comes primarily in two forms: the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale and the Wechsler Intelligence Scales （both come in adult and children’s version）. Generally costing several hundred dollars, they are usually given only by psychologists, although variations of them populate bookstores and the World Wide Web. Superhigh scores like vos Savant’s are no longer possible, because scoring is now based on a statistical population distribution among age peers, rather than simply dividing the mental age by the chronological age and multiplying by 100. Other standardized tests, such as the Scholastic Assessment Test （SAT）and the Graduate Record Exam （GRE）, capture the main aspects of IQ tests.
　　Such standardized tests may not assess all the important elements necessary to succeed in school and in life, argues Robert J. Sternberg. In his article “How Intelligent Is Intelligence Testing?”, Sternberg notes that traditional test best assess analytical and verbal skills but fail to measure creativity and practical knowledge, components also critical to problem solving and life success. Moreover, IQ test do not necessarily predict so well once populations or situations change. Research has found that IQ predicted leadership skills when the tests were given under low-stress conditions, but under high-stress conditions, IQ was negatively correlated with leadership – that is, it predicted the opposite. Anyone who has toiled through SAT will testify that test-taking skill also matters, whether it’s knowing when to guess or what questions to skip.

Reading Comprehension​

       Chokwe Selassie is on a mission to help drivers avoid potholes( 路面坑洼). The eighth-grader was inspired to kick off his mission on a recent morning, when his mother was driving him to school. Their car was damaged as it went over a huge pothole in the middle of the street in their hometown of Jackson, Mississippi. "I decided I was going to do something about the pothole prob-lem in my city," Chokwe says. His solution: an app(手机应用) that warns drivers when there is a pothole ahead.
　　Chokwe developed the app with his friends Rodriguez Ratliff and Emmanuel Brooks. "When the app detects a potheole, it is highlighted(突出显示) in red," Chokwe says. "And if you get close to the pothole, your phone will warn you. " Drivers can also use the app to report any pot-holes" they encounter, and to look for other routes they can take to avoid roads that have them.
　　The app relies on Current available information about the streets of Jackson. "It works by u-sing the city' s 311 call system, so it uses information already stored in a database," Chokwe says.
　　Through the call system, citizens dial 3-1-1 to report non-emergency problems--whiCh in-clude potholes. Chokwe and his friends determined that focusing on the 10 busiest streets in Jack-son would give them a large enough sample size to test the prototype(原型).
　　Although the app isn' t yet available for sale, Chokwe is already looking for ways to im-prove it. The prototype remains limited'to 10 streets in Jackson, but he hopes to add more, so that it includes every street in the city. And then he wants to go even farther. "I want to keep working on the app until it' s nationwide," Chokwe says.

Reading Comprehension​

       Dr. James Barry was the first woman in England to go to medical school. When she was grow-ing up, women could not go to medical school. So how did she become a doctor? She simply pretended that she was a man.
　　No one knows Dr. Barry' s real name, her birth date, of her family' s background. Some re-cords show that she was born in 1795 in London. Some people say she was the daughter of a rich man or a royal prince. One fact we know is that in 1810, James Barry became a medical student at the University of Edinburgh.
　　James Barry' s classmates made fun of her because she didn' t have a beard and she was only five feet tall. But no one thought she was a girl. At the age of 20, James Barry graduated from the University of Edinburgh as a Doctor of Medicine. She was one of the youngest students to complete her studies. Dr. Barry then went to work in a London hospital and studied surgery. A year later,she entered the army and became a hospital assistant. We will never know how she avoided the ar-my physical examination.
　　For the next 45 years, Dr. James Barry was a British officer and a successful surgeon. Every-one admired her. She began to do a lot of important work for the army. At that time, Eng-land had many colonies around the world. Dr. Barry spent a lot of time in foreign countries. She travelled to India, Corfu, Malta, and Jamaica. In 1856 she went to South Africa, and she was sooL known as the best doctor and surgeon in the colony. She saved the life of the governor' s daughter, and later she became the governor' s personal doctor. People admired Dr. Barry, but she also had a reputation as a troublemaker. If people talked about her high voice or tiny figure, she became very angry. She was an excellent swordsman, and she started fights often.

Reading Comprehension

     Spending 50 minutes with a cell phone close to your ear is enough to change brain cell activity in the part of the brain closest to the antenna. But whether that causes any harm is not clear, scientists at the National Institute of Health said at a conference last month, adding that the study will not likely settle concerns of a link between cell phones and brain cancer. "What we showed is glucose(葡萄糖metabolism (a sign of brain activity) increases in the brain in people who were exposed to a cell phone in the area closest to the antenna," said Dr. Nora Volkow of the NIH, whose study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study was meant to examine how the brain reacts to electromagnetic fields caused by wireless phone signals.
     Volkow said she was surprised that the weak electromagnetic radiation from cellphones could affect brain activity, but she said the findings do not shed any light on whether cellphones cause cancer. "This study does not in any way indicate that. What the study does is to show the human brain is sensitive to electromagnetic radiation from cell phone exposures. " Use of the devices has increased dramatically since they were introduced in the early 1955s, with about 5billion cell phones now in use worldwide.
     Some studies have linked cell phone exposure to an increased risk of brain cancers, but a large study by the World Health Organization did not offer a clear answer to this. Volkow’s team studied 47 people who had their brain examined while a cell phone was turned on for 50 minutes and another while the phone was turned off. While there was no complete change in brain metabolism, they found a 7 percent increase in brain metabolism in the region closest to the cell phone antenna when the phone was on.
     Experts said the results were interesting, but urged that they be understood with great care. " Although the biological significance, if any, of increased glucose metabolism from too much cell phone exposure is unknown, the results require further investigation," Henry Lai of the University of Washington in the U. S. and Dr. Lennart Hardell of University Hospital in Sweden, wrote in an article in JAMA. "Much has to be done to further investigate and understand these effects." They wrote.

Reading Comprehension

     Over the years, college students have stood together for what they believe in, from civil rights to anti-war policies to the more recent protests against the unequal distribution of wealth. But nowhere in history have students banned bottled water. Until now.
     The bottled water ban, which Parted on just a few campuses, has now spread nationwide to more than 20 universities. The colleges have cither completely banned the use of plastic bottles altogether, or some have taken a more limited approach with partial bans.
     Many people believe that producing and bottled water wastes money and harms the environment. They say that bottled water is unnecessary because public water supplies in the U.S. arc among the best in the world. Water fountains and reusable bottles with easy access to filling stations are a better choice.
     An organization called Ban the Bottle raises awareness about the economic and environmental costs of using plastic bottles. The group claims that eight glasses of water a day costs each person 49 cents annually, while drinking from plastic containers costs $I,400 per year. Plastic bottles contain antimony—a chemical that in low doses causes depression, but in large doses can even lead to death.
     The controversy over bottled or tap is not limited to the students and college administrations. The makers of bottled water see the movement as a threat. They argue that plastic bottles make UP a small portion of the nation’s total waste. It's unfair to single out （单独挑出） their product when so many other items are packaged in plastic containers. Plus, water is a healthy choice compared to some sodas and juices that arc also sold at school.

Reading Comprehension

　　Toronto' s third City Hall, now known as Old City Hall, was designed by Edward James Len-nox and declared open on Sept.18,1899.
　　Created to provide more space for city officials, it turned out to be the largest building in the city and the largest city building in North America at the time.
　　Lennox took three years to design the City Hall and it took 11 years to build it. Contemporaries believe that the odd carvings (雕刻) above the Queen Street entrance were actually caricatures(漫画) of councilors at the time.
　　Lennox even included himself in the caricatures, on the west side of the central arch ( 拱门 ),and left a strange signature in the stonework of the link portions of the building.
　　The third City Hall was originally used as councilors' offices and legal offices, but it is used only as a courthouse today.
　　When the fourth City Hall (the one we know today) was declared open in 1965, Old City Hall was threatened to be pulled down. It was saved by a group of people called the "Friends of Old City Hall. "
　　The clock tower stands parallel with the middle of Bay Street, rather than with the center of the building. The bells in the tower were not installed until the building opened. Old City Hall was declared a historical site in 1989.
　　The entire structure cost more than $ 2.5 million to build at the time. This is equal to $ 53 million today.

Reading Comprehension

       If the Dakota Access Pipeline(输油管道) is completed, it will carry nearly half a million bar-rels of oil across four states every day. Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), a Texas-based company behind the $ 3.8 billion project, hopes to finish construction this year. But the Standing Rock Sioux, an American Indian tribe( 部落), is determined to stop the 1,172-mile pipeline from being built. (76)Both sides show no signs of backing down.
　　The Dakota Access Pipeline was announced in 2014. A section of it will run near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. A reservation is an area of land set aside for American Indians. The tribe says the construction threatens to destroy historical areas and ancient burial sites. They also say the pipeline could pollute their main water source, the Missouri River. In April, the Standing Rock Sioux began a protest against the project. They camped at the construction site. Since then, thou-sands of people, including people from American Indian tribes, have traveled to the site to join the protest.
　　ETP says that the pipeline will have built-in safety measures to protect against oil leaks. Work-ers will also monitor it remotely, and will be able to close valves (阀) within three minutes if leaks are detected.
　　American Indians have been staging a nonviolent protest for months. The protest took a turn last week when police were called to keep the peace between protesters and armed security guards hired by the company.
　　Twenty-eight people have been arrested since then and charged with interfering with the pipeline construction.

Reading Comprehension     

     It seems like every day there's some new research about whether our favorite drinks are good for us. (76) One day, science says a glass of red wine a day will help us live longer. The next day, maybe not. It seems journalists are pretty interested in wine research and the same might be said for coffee. Now, there's been a lot of research into whether coffee's good for our health. "The results have really been mixed, "admits Neal Freedman who led the coffee study and published his findings in medical journal recently. "There's been some evidence that coffee might increase the risk of certain diseases and there's also been maybe more recent evidence that coffee may protect against other diseases as well."
     Freedman and his colleagues undertook the biggest study yet to look at the relationship between coffee and health. They analyzed data collected from more than 400,000 Americans ages 50 to 71 participating in the study. "We found that the coffee drinkers had a modestly lower risk of death than then on-drinkers," he said. Here's what he means by "modestly": those who drank at least two or three cups a day were about 10 percent or 15 percent less likely to die for any reason during the 13 years of the study. When the researchers looked at specific causes of death, coffee drinking appeared to cut the risk of dying from heart disease, lung disease, injuries, accidents and infections.
     Now, Freedman stressed that the study doesn't prove coffee can make people live longer. A study like this can never prove a cause-and-effect relationship. (77) All it can really do is to point researchers in the right direction for further investigation. And even if it turns out that coffeeis really good for you, scientists have no idea why.

Reading Comprehension

     Looking back on my childhood. I am convinced that naturalists are born and not made. Although we were brought up in the same way, my brothers and sisters soon abandoned their pressed flowers and insects. Unlike them, I had no ear for music and languages. I was not an early reader and I could not do mental arithmetic.
     Before Word War I we spent our summer holidays in Hungary. I have only the dim memory of the house we lived in, of my room and my toys. Nor do I recall clearly the large family of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins who gathered next door. But I do have a crystal clear memory of dogs, the farm animals, the local birds and above all, the insects.
     I am a naturalist, not a scientist. I have a strong love of the natural world, and my enthusiasm has led me into varied investigations. I love discussing my favorite topics and enjoy burning the midnight oil reading about other people’s observations and discoveries. Then something happens that brings these observations together in my conscious mind. Suddenly you fancy you see the answer to the riddle. Because it all seems to fit together .This has resulted in my publishing 300 papers and books. Which some may light honor, with the title of scientific research.
     But curiosity a keen eye, a good memory and enjoyment of the animal and plant world do not make a scientist? One of the outstanding and essential qualities required is self-discipline, a quality I lack. A scientist can be made a naturalist. If you can combine the two, you get the best of both worlds. 

Reading Comprehension

　　As the National Park Service celebrates its 100th anniversary(周年纪念), President Barack Obama has announced the establishment of one new national monument, and the expansion of another. In Maine, more than 87,500 acres of forest will become government-protected parkland for the first time. In Hawaii, a national monument created by President George W. Bush in 2006 will expand to about 582,578 square miles, four times its current size.
　　Obama has now created or enlarged 26 national monuments during his presidency. As a result,his administration says, Obama has protected more of the nation' s land than any other president has. But some residents and officials, in both Maine and Hawaii, object to the plans. They say their local economies depend on the use of these areas.
　　In establishing this monument, Obama took the side of conservationists ( 自然资源保护者)who want laws to protect wild lands. Creating a national park usually requires the approval of Con-gress. But a 1906 federal law allows the president to establish national monuments on his own.
　　The land' s new status as a monument means that mining and drilling operations are forbidden there. It may also severely limit activities such as logging, road-building, and hunting. Some of Maine' s politicians who want to protect the state' s logging industries say Obama should not have acted alone. They say Washington should not tell the states how to use their land, especially when people' s jobs are at stake. Maine politician Susan Collins said the president should have listened to Maine lawmakers and residents, as well as to the U. S. Congress before making his decision.
　　However, those who support the president' s decision say the establishment of the new monu-ment will lead to new jobs through tourism.

Reading Comprehension

     The California lawmakers voted Thursday to raise the legal age to buy tobacco products from 18 to 21. The measure is part of a larger package of laws aimed at reducing tobacco use. If Governor JerryBrown signs the bill, Calfornia will become the second state. after Hawail, to raise the age limit forbuying cigarettes and other tobacco products. More than 100 cities in the U. S.,including New Yorkand Boston, have already raised the age limit.
     A week ago, the California Assembly approved the measure, which—in addition to raising theage limit—treats electronic cigarettes the same as tobacco products, expands smoke-free areas, increases smoking bans and allows counties to collect higher taxes on cigarettes than the 87-cent perpack state tax. The Assemblys vote came a few days after the city of San Francisco increased the ageto buy tobacco products to 21.
     California lawmakers passed the bill despite lobbying （游说）from tobacco interests. The meas.ure also faced opposition from many Republicans, who said the state should not be involved in policing people's personal choices. "I don't smoke. I don 't encourage my chidren to, said Republican Assemblyman Donald Wagner. "But they're adults, and it 's our job to treat our citizens as adults."
     But supporters of the bill say raising the age to 21 moves legally purchased tobacco that much far.ther from younger kids. "This will save the medical system millions of dollars, " said Democratic Assemblvman Jim Wood. "It will save thousands of lives." A 2015 study by the Institute of Medicine "found that if the minimum legal age to buy tobacco were raised to 21 nationwide, tobacco use would drop by 12 percent by the time today's teens reached adulthood. In addition, there would be223,000 fewer premature (过早的) deaths and 50,000 fewer deaths from lung cancer.”

Reading Comprehension

     Scientists said they have found evidence of a giant planet far out in our solar system.In a statement, the California Institute of Technology—Caltech—said this planet travels a very strange “longandthin orbit in the distant solar system.”The discovery was made by two researchers at Caltech: Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown. They used mathematical modeling and computer simulations (模拟) to find the planet.So far, there have not been any direct observations of the planet. 

     “My jaw hit the floor, ” said astronomer Mike Brown, the moment he realized there might be a ninth planet.
     The scientists said it would take this planet 10,000 to 20, 000 years just to make one full orbit around the sun. The new planet, called “Planet Nine ” , has a mass about 10 times the size of Earth.If they are right, the newly found planet would be the ninth planet in our solar system. Pluto (冥王星) had been called the ninth planet until 2006, when it was renamed a “dwarf planet.”
     Actual confirmation of a ninth planet would be very big news. “This would be a real ninth planet,” Brown said in the statement. “There have only been two true planets discovered since ancient times, and this would be a third. It's a pretty substantial chunk of our solar system that's still out there to be found, which is pretty exciting.”
     While they did not get a picture of “Planet Nine ” yet, the scientists say they are using the biggest—and best—telescopes on Earth to try to find “Planet Nine. ” They are also working on improving their computer simulations. They want to find out more about “Planet Nine’s” orbit, and its impact on the outer part of our solar system.

Reading Comprehension

     Traditionally,universities have carried out two main activities: research and teaching. Many expertswould argue that both these activities play a critical role in serving thecommunity. The fundamental question, however, is how does the community want orneed to be served？
     In recent years universities have been coming under increasing pressure from both the governments and the public to ensure that they do not remain "ivory towers(象牙塔)"of study separated from the realities of everyday life. University teachershave been encouraged, and in some casesconstrained, to provide more cofrses which produce graduates with the technical skills requiredfor the commercial use. If Aristotle wanted to work in a university in the UKtoday, he would have a good chance of teaching computer science but would notbe so readily employable asa philosopher.
     A post-industrialsociety requires large numbers of computer programmers, engineers, managers andtechnicians to maintain and develop its economic growth but "man", asthe Bible says, "does not live by bread alone. " Apart from requiring medical and social services, which do not directly contribute to economic growth, the society should also value and enjoy literature, music and the arts.Because they can also promote economic growth. A successful musical play, forinstance, can contribute as much to the Gross National Product through touristdollars as any other things.

Reading Comprehension

     “Helicopter parenting”describes a style. of raising children where parents are over-protective and do too much. The term was used for the first time in the late 1960s. It describesparents who hover (悬停) over their kids like a helicopter.Today,modern technology allows these helicopter parents to hover from even far away. They can give their children directions at any moment from anywhere.
     Author Julie Lythcott-Haims wrote a book titled How to Raise an Adull. In her book, she gives readers a closer look at this parenting style.
     “Over-parenting”, she says,“comes in three types: the first is the over-protective parents who think the world is scary and unsafe and unpredictable.And therefore,I must protect and prevent.The second type is the over-directive type—the parent who says, I know best what leads to success and you will do as I say. You’ll study these topics, do these activies and you will be highly achieving at all of it. The third type is the concierge (看门人) —the parent who just wants to make life smoother—from waking their kid up,to keeping track of their deadlines, to making sure they haven&39;t forgotten anything, to even doing the homework for the kid. ”
      Julie Lythcott-Haims says she experienced the effects of helicopter parenting firsthand when she worked as dean of first-year students at Stanford University.The incoming students were very smart and accomplished on paper. But many were unable to take care of themselves.
      “They were turning to parents constantly for guidance, for problem solving,to have them make the choice about something. ” Often times,Lythcott-Haims had toremind those parents that their kids were old enough to take care of themselves.