倒數(shù)第七周星期

　　A

　　Today, we know that the role of vitamins and minerals goes way beyond the prevention of deficiency diseases (維生素缺乏) to actually preventing cancer and heart disease, the most fearsome killers of our time. With this knowledge has come the widespread call for nutritional supplementation (營(yíng)養(yǎng)補(bǔ)充) — and a confusing group of vitamin, mineral, and supplements lining the supermarket shelves.

　　Far from contributing to better health, however, nutritional supplements threaten to turn a scientific breakthrough into a nutritional disaster.

　　Promoters of vitamins and minerals — especially vitamins A, C, and E — would have consumers believe that the little vitamin pill in the bottle is all they need for good health. Take your vitamins in the morning, and you’re covered. It’s okay to eat fast foods for the rest of the day or skip meals to achieve today’s fashionably skinny look. But vitamins and minerals are only one part of the nutritional puzzle. A diet rich in fiber (纖維) and balanced in carbohydrates and protein is essential for good health. You can’t get these things from a nutritional supplement. The focus on vitamin and mineral supplements may actually be robbing us of the full nutrition we seek.

　　And no supplement can compare to the quality of nutrition found in natural sources. For example, our bodies turn carotenes (胡蘿卜素) from plant foods into vitamin A. Many supplements contain a single carotene, but natural sources are rich in many different carotenes. Many supplements contain a form of vitamin E that is made from chemicals, when natural vitamin E is more readily absorbed and used by the body. And science is still discovering the wealth of nutrients in foods.

　　You’d be hard-pressed to find a supplement as nutritionally comprehensive and powerful as a balanced diet. Even if you could, you’d pay much more than if you got the same nutritional value from natural sources.

　　But perhaps the greatest danger presented by nutritional supplements comes from the very real risks presented by self-medication. Anyone can walk into the market and buy as many different supplements as desired. The reported benefits of high dosages of certain nutrients have led some people to believe that the more the better. Many take several vitamin and mineral supplements without regard to possible consequences.

　　Surprising new research suggests that vitamin C pills may speed up hardening of the arteries, the underlying cause of heart attacks. Researchers said their findings support the recommendations of health organizations, which urge people to avoid high doses of supplements and to get their nutrients from food instead.

　　As appealing as they’re made to sound, nutritional supplements are danger in disguise. If you’re looking for good health, don’t look on the supplement shelves of your supermarket. Look in the produce section instead.

　　41. What has given rise to the great need for nutritional supplements?

　　A. The knowledge of deficiency diseases.

　　B. The low prices of nutritional supplements.

　　C. The frighteningly high death rate from cancer and heart disease.

　　D. The information about the role of vitamins and minerals in health.

　　42. The “promoters” (Paragraph 3) most probably refers to ______.

　　A. businessmen

　　B. doctors

　　C. scientists

　　D. fast food lovers

　　43. According to the passage, nutritional supplements ______.

　　A. are made from chemicals

　　B. are ineffective in supplying fiber

　　C. provide too much vitamin C

　　D. contain a kind of dangerous carotene

　　44. One of the reasons why many people take large amounts of nutritional supplements is that ______.

　　A. their doctors advise them to do so

　　B. nutritional supplements are easily available

　　C. scientists have found the more nutrients the better

　　D. nutritional supplements are recommended by health organizations

　　45. By describing nutritional supplements as “danger in disguise” in the last paragraph, the writer means that they are ______.

　　A. of little help

　　B. of poor quality

　　C. potentially harmful D. extremely poisonous

　　B

　　Below is a page adapted from The Study Skills Handbook.

　　The starting place for most research is the library. Join your school library as soon as possible and make the most of it.

　　Library services

　　Find out about the range of services available. Typically, there will be:

　　◇ academic journals

　　◇ specialist collections

　　◇ photocopiers

　　◇ laminators

　　◇ binding facilities

　　◇ computers

　　◇ CDs, DVDs, films, tapes, slides, and video resources

　　◇ silent areas and study rooms

　　◇ specialist resources for students with disabilities

　　◇ facilities for making audiovisual aids for your presentations

　　◇ support on how to use library facilities.

　　Finding books in the library

　　◇ Fiction is arranged in alphabetical order (a-z) by author’s surnames.

　　◇ Reference books are arranged by subject. Each subject is given a number, which is shown on the spine of the book.

　　◇ All the books on a given subject are grouped together on the shelves.

　　◇ You can find a book’s reference number by looking it up in the library catalogue (目錄).

　　◇ Most catalogues are now electronic. For more about electronic searches, see pages 148-52.

　　It helps to find books if you already know:

　　◇ the author’s surname and initials

　　◇ the title of the book.

　　Journals or periodicals

　　Journals or periodicals usually contain the latest research for your subject, as well as book reviews. Most journal articles have a short “abstract” at the beginning which tells you what the articles are about. Browsing through the abstracts and reviews helps to keep you up to date with the subject. You will be expected to refer to articles in most assignments.

　　Journals are published at regular intervals during the year. They are collected into numbered volumes, usually one for each year. To find a journal article you need to know:

　　◇ the title of the journal, the year it was published and its volume number

　　◇ the name and initials of the article’s author

　　◇ the title of the article.

　　Indexes and abstracts

　　Indexes (索引) and abstracts are separate publications which give brief details of journal articles, including who wrote what and where to find it. Sometimes reading abstracts will be enough for your assignment; at other times you will need to read the original article too.

　　In the indexes, you can search by subject heading and by keywords for all the articles on a given subject. They are updated regularly and are well worth using.

　　Electronic information

　　An increasing amount of information is being published electronically. This includes anything from mail-order catalogues to academic journals. A lot of electronic information is located at publicly available sites on the World Wide Web (www), which is accessed via the internet. Your school may have its own intranet, with websites used only within the institution — you may be asked to write your own “page” on it.

　　To locate information on the internet, you type in the address at which it is stored. This will consist of short abbreviations. Spaces, dots, dashes, oblique strokes and letters must be typed in very precisely. This, for example, is the address of the website of Friends of the Earth: http://www.foe.co.uk

　　Having logged on to the internet, you would simply type this in on the computer screen in the space provided. (You can usually omit “http://”.)

　　On your reading list you may be given the names of useful web pages. Type in the address of one and browse the information that comes up on the screen. You can print it out and read or highlight it as printed text.

　　For more about searching online, see Chapter 7.

　　46. The main purpose of the passage is to tell students ______.

　　A. what to read for a research project

　　B. where to find books on a subject of research

　　C. how to improve study with the aid of a library

　　D. how to find information for research in a library

　　47. If you want to find a reference book in the school library, you’d better search by ______.

　　A. the index of the reference book

　　B. the number for the subject of study

　　C. the name of the publishing house

　　D. the research field of the author

　　48. Which is the quickest way to know the content of an article in a journal?

　　A. Reading the abstract of the article.

　　B. Scanning the first few pages of the journal.

　　C. Learning about the author of the article.

　　D. Looking through the contents of the journal.

　　49. According to the passage, the difference between internet and intranet lies in ______.

　　A. their business values

　　B. the way of organizing information

　　C. their target users

　　D. the variety of information available

　　C

　　There’s sweetness in the lies parents tell their kids, which is a very good thing, since they tell a lot of them. The lies — nearly all of them harmless — may differ depending on the family. But from culture to culture, there’s one tall tale nearly all parents tell, and they tell it repeatedly: “We do not have a favorite child.”

　　Mom and Dad will say it seriously. They’ll repeat it endlessly, and in many cases, they’ll be lying through their teeth. It’s one of the worst kept secrets of family life that all parents have a preferred son or daughter, and the rules for acknowledging it are the same everywhere: The favored kids recognize their status and keep quiet about it — the better to preserve the good thing they’ve got going and to keep their siblings（兄弟或姐妹） off their back. The unfavored kids howl (嚎叫) about it like wounded cats. And on pain of death, the parents deny it all.

　　The stonewalling is understandable. Most parents want to spare unfavored kids the hurt that the truth could cause. Moreover, the court of public opinion can respond pitilessly — even furiously — to moms or dads who speak the forbidden truth. Last March, a mother of two wrote a post on the website Babble.com under the headline I THINK I LOVE MY SON JUST A LITTLE BIT MORE. The mom went on at length describing the greater warmth she feels for her baby boy compared with her baby girl and even included a photo of herself and her unfavored daughter.

　　She was, predictably, severely criticized. “Please work on your issues lady!” said one typical response. “I feel absolutely horrible for your daughter!” read another. But then there was this: “I completely understand. I too feel this way.”

　　The hard truth is, most parents do. In one research, Catherine Conger, a professor at the University of California at Davis, studied a group of 384 sibling pairs and their parents and visited them three times over three years. She questioned them about their relationships and videotaped them as they worked through conflicts. Overall, she concluded that 65% of mothers and 70% of fathers exhibited a preference for one child, usually the older one. And the real numbers can be much bigger, since parents try especially hard to hide their preferences when a researcher is watching.

　　If the scientists don’t see through the trick, however, kids usually do — and act accordingly. From the moments they’re born, brothers and sisters constantly compete for the precious resource of parental attention, each fighting to establish an identity that will best catch Mom’s or Dad’s eye. I’m the smartest one! I’m the funny one!

　　It’s hard to predict the fallout from favoritism. Being the favorite may improve self-esteem and confidence. But studies show it can also leave kids with a sense of arrogance (傲慢) and privilege. Unfavored children may grow up wondering if they’re somehow unworthy of the love the parents gave generously to the golden child. But they may do better at forming relationships outside the family as a result of that. And there’s no telling how the differential treatment will play out among the kids.

　　“My mom didn’t like my older sister and did like me,” says Roseann Henry, an editor and the married mother of two girls. “Everyone assumed I had it great, except that my sister tortured (折磨) me pretty much all the time — and really, what affects daily life more for a kid, the approval of a parent or the day-to-day torture of an older sister?”

　　50. The sweetness in the lie “We do not have a favorite child” is that parents ______.

　　A. keep telling the same lie seriously

　　B. show pity for the unfavored kids

　　C. don’t want to hurt the unfavored kids

　　D. don’t tell the truth to the favored kids

　　51. The favored kids keep it a secret that they are the preferred ones probably because ______.

　　A. it’s a forbidden truth

　　B. they want to keep the benefits

　　C. they sometimes are not sure about their status

　　D. the unfavored kids already feel badly hurt by their parents

　　52. The writer uses the example stated in Paragraph 3 to show ______.

　　A. why parents deny the truth

　　B. most parents have the same feeling

　　C. how valuable the public opinion can be

　　D. mothers usually like their sons more than their daughters

　　53. Why didn’t the data from Catherine Conger’s study completely reflect the reality?

　　A. Her study didn’t last long enough.

　　B. The sibling pairs didn’t cooperate well.

　　C. She studied a very small group of families.

　　D. The parents tried not to show their preferences.

　　54. The word “fallout” (Paragraph 7) most probably means ______.

　　A. unpleasant effects

　　B. future developments

　　C. emotional responses

　　D. disappointing performances

　　55. It can be inferred from the last paragraph that ______.

　　A. favored kids are more likely to take good care of their siblings

　　B. unfavored kids are less well-behaved in schools than favored kids

　　C. favored kids may view their parents’ preferences as a bad thing

　　D. unfavored kids may regard the unfair treatment as helpful experiences

　　D

　　I recall a moment that I experienced with my dad when I was twenty-one. I was going to college and living with a couple of friends in Chicago.

　　When the car I was using died, my dad, realizing that I needed transportation to get to work and to school, was good enough to lend me the money for a used car. Shortly after I bought it, my parents drove down to San Diego for the winter. Before they left, my dad gave me some of his bank deposit slips (存款單) with clear and detailed instructions to put one hundred dollars of my earnings, every payday, into their savings account while they were gone.

　　At that time of my life, I was not yet clear about what were the most important problems that I had to attend to first. I dismissed our agreement as nothing important and continued to spend my money as fast as I was making it, in pubs, on dates, and so on. Instead of honoring our agreement, I made payments that were less than the agreed-upon amounts, and on more than one occasion I made no payment at all.

　　When my parents arrived home in late March, I got a call from my dad, who said, “Don’ t go anywhere. I’m coming over.” My dad was (and still is) a physical presence and had been a truck driver for thirty-five years. I felt ashamed and guilty, knowing that Dad had discovered that I hadn’t held up my end of our bargain.

　　After he came in, he told me to sit down because he had a few things to tell me. There was no shouting, no red face with a vein about to burst on his forehead, and no bad language at all. His first words were, “When your mother and I got back into town yesterday, I called the bank. I can’t say I was surprised to discover that you hadn’t made all the payments. My first thought was to come here and take the car from you, but I want to tell you some things while I’m here. Maybe you’ll understand, and maybe you won’t.”