E Rosenthal said that the number of students, professionals and retirees signing up for his trips has consistently doubled over the past five years. Many people agree that this seems to indicate a rising tide of disillusionment among Americans with their materialistic way of life. Once he explains that most of program fee funds community-based organizations in the host countries, the volunteers are quite happy to pay for a working holiday. "I'd rather be paying my vacation money to a non-profit company which is helping poor people than to a hotel corporation," said Ron Cooke, who is a veteran volunteer vacationer. He and his wife have counted birds in Costa Rica and trapped ocelots in Mexico. Cooke's last trip was an eight-day vacation helping the environmental group Earthwatch in the Caribbean. "We spent part of each day snorkeling and counting shellfish". They also interviewed fishermen and made a survey of seashells, while camping on a Dominican Republic beach.
F Not all the vacationers consider the vacations work; some of the programs are designed for hobbyists, or for people who want to learn a new skill. For example, each summer railway enthusiasts join in the ongoing restoration of a historic narrow-gauge railway in the southwest US. A special group of volunteer vacationers work on organic farms. In return, they learn about organic farming and get to eat a lot of healthy food.
Questions 28 - 32
Reading Passage 3 has six paragraphs (A - F). Choose the most suitable heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below. Write the appropriate numbers (i - ix) in boxes 28 - 32 on your answer sheet. Paragraph D has been done for you as an example.
NB There are more headings than paragraphs so you will not use all of them. You may use any heading more than once.
List of Headings
i. The psychology of volunteer vacationers.
ii. Paying to work
iii. Benefits for volunteers
iv. Helping poor countries
v. Environmental tourism
vi. Vacations to learn
vii. The cost of volunteering
viii. The attraction of non-profit bodies
ix. Holidays with a difference
28. Paragraph A
29. Paragraph B
30. Paragraph C
Example Answer
Paragraph D iv
31. Paragraph E
32. Paragraph F
Questions 33 - 37
Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 3? In boxes 33-37 write
YES if the statement agrees with the writer
NO if the statement contradicts the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
Example Answer
Many professional people are attracted to volunteer vacations. YES
33. All volunteers enjoy their vacations.
34. There is a trend to keep volunteer vacations short.
35. People do not save money by volunteering.
36. The only attraction of volunteering is the chance to help others.
37. Non-profit associations are undermining regular tourism companies.
Questions 38 - 41
Choose one phrase (A - H) from the list of phrases to complete each key point below. Write the appropriate letters (A - H) in boxes 38 - 41 on your answer sheet. The information in the completed sentences should be an accurate summary of points made by the writer.
NB There are more phrases A - H than sentences so you will not use them all. You may use any phrase more than once.
38. Spending one's vacation helping others ...
39. Volunteers do not expect ...
40. Volunteers are looking for ...
41. Volunteer vacations are a sign of ...
List of Phrases
A. doesn't come cheap
B. to eat a lot of healthy food
C. luxury conditions
D. growing awareness of the importance of the environment
E. to learn new skills
F. growing disillusion with America's material culture
G. to restore old railways
H. short but meaningful vacations
第九课时
练习二
When was the last time you saw a frog? Chances are, if you live in a city, you have not seen one for some time. Even in wet areas once teeming with frogs and toads, it is becoming less and less easy to find those slimy, hopping and sometimes poisonous members of the animal kingdom. All over the world, and even in remote parts of Australia, frogs are losing the ecological battle for survival, and biologists are at a loss to explain their demise. Are amphibians simply over-sensitive to changes in the ecosystem? Could it be that their rapid decline in numbers is signalling some coming environmental disaster for us all?
This frightening scenario is in part the consequence of a dramatic increase over the last quarter century in the development of once natural areas of wet marshland; home not only to frogs but to all manner of wildlife. However, as yet, there are no obvious reasons why certain frog species are disappearing from rainforests in Australia that have barely been touched by human hand. The mystery is unsettling to say the least, for it is known that amphibian species are extremely sensitive to environmental variations in temperature and moisture levels. The danger is that planet Earth might not only lose a vital link in the ecological food chain (frogs keep populations of otherwise pestilent insects at manageable levels), but we might be increasing our output of air pollutants to levels that may have already become irrversible. Frogs could be inadvertently warning us of a catastrophe.
An example of a species of frog that, as far as is known, has become extinct, is the platypus frog. Like the well-known Australian mammal it was named after, it exhibited some very strange behaviour; instead of giving birth to tadpoles in the water, it raised its young within its stomach. The baby frogs were actually born from out of their mother's mouth. Discovered in 1981, less than ten years later the frog had completely vanished from the crystal clear waters of Booloumba Creek near Queensland's Sunshine Coast. Unfortunately, this freak of nature is not the only frog species to have been lost in Australia. Since the 1970s, no less than eight others have suffered the same fate.
One theory that seems to fit the facts concerns the depletion of the ozone layer, a well-documented phenomenon which has led to a sharp increase in ultraviolet radiation levels. The ozone layer is meant to shield the Earth from UV rays, but increased radiation may be having a greater effect upon frog populations than previously believed. Another theory is that worldwide temperature increases are upsetting the breeding cycles of frogs.
TRUE/FALSE/NOT GIVEN
a. Frogs are disappearing only from city areas. T F NG
b. Frogs and toads are usually poisonous. T F NG
c. Biologists are unable to explain why frogs are dying. T F NG
d. The frogs' natural habitat is becoming more and more developed. T F NG
e. Attempts are being made to halt the development of wet marshland. T F NG
f. Frogs are important in the ecosystem because they control pests. T F NG
g. The platypus frog became extinct by 1991. T F NG
h. Frogs usually give birth to their young in an underwater nest. T F NG
i. Eight frog species have become extinct so far in Australia. T F NG
j. There is convincing evidence that the ozone layer is being depleted. T F NG
k. It is a fact that frogs' breeding cycles are upset by worldwide T F NG
increases in temperature.
READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1 - 13 which are based on Reading Passage 1.
Hypnosis: Medical Tool or Illusion?
A The image most people have of the mysterious art of hypnotism is of a stage trick. But hypnotists are much more likely nowadays to be scientists seeking ways to probe the subconscious mind, or find a new way to relieve pain. But is hypnosis a real phenomenon? If so, what is it useful for? Over the past few years, researchers have found that hypnotized individuals actively respond to suggestions even though they sometimes perceive the dramatic changes in thought and behavior they experience as happening "by themselves." During hypnosis, it is as though the brain temporarily suspends its attempts to authenticate incoming sensory information. Some people are more hypnotizable than others, although scientists still don't know why. To study any phenomenon properly, researchers must first have a way to measure it. In the case of hypnosis, that yardstick is the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scales. The Stanford scales, as they are often called, were devised in the late 1950s by Stanford University psychologists. One version of the Stanford scales consists of a series of 12 activities—such as holding one's arm outstretched or sniffing the contents of a bottle—that test the depth of the hypnotic state. In the first instance, individuals are told that they are holding a very heavy ball, and they are scored as "passing" that suggestion if their arm sags under the imagined weight. In the second case, subjects are told that they have no sense of smell, and then a vial of ammonia is waved under their nose. If they have no reaction, they are deemed very responsive to hypnosis; if they grimace and recoil, they are not.
B Researchers with very different theoretical perspectives now agree on several fundamental principles of hypnosis. The first is that a person's ability to respond to hypnosis is remarkably stable during adulthood. In addition, a person's responsiveness to hypnosis also remains fairly consistent regardless of the characteristics of the hypnotist: the practitioner's gender, age and experience have little or no effect on a subject's ability to be hypnotized. Similarly, the success of hypnosis does not depend on whether a subject is highly motivated or especially willing. A very responsive subject will become hypnotized under a variety of experimental conditions and therapeutic settings, whereas a less susceptible person will not, despite his or her sincere efforts. (Negative attitudes and expectations can, however, interfere with hypnosis.)
C Under hypnosis, subjects do not behave as passive automatons but instead are active problem solvers who incorporate their moral and cultural ideas into their behavior while remaining exquisitely responsive to the expectations expressed by the experimenter. Nevertheless, the subject does not experience hypnotically suggested behavior as something that is actively achieved. To the contrary, it is typically deemed as effortless—as something that just happens. People who have been hypnotized often say things like "My hand became heavy and moved down by itself" or "Suddenly I found myself feeling no pain." Many researchers now believe that these types of disconnections are at the heart of hypnosis. In response to suggestion, subjects make movements without conscious intent, fail to detect exceedingly painful stimulation or temporarily forget a familiar fact. Of course, these kinds of things also happen outside hypnosis—occasionally in day-to-day life and more dramatically in certain psychiatric and neurological disorders.
D Scientists think that hypnosis may relieve pain by decreasing the activity of brain areas involved in the experience of suffering. Positron emission tomography (PET) scans of horizontal and vertical brain sections were taken while the hands of hypnotized volunteers were dunked into painfully hot water. The activity of the somatosensory cortex, which processes physical stimuli, did not differ whether a subject was given the hypnotic suggestion that the sensation would be painfully hot or that it would be minimally unpleasant. In contrast, a part of the brain known to be involved in the suffering aspect of pain, the anterior cingulate cortex, was much less active when subjects were told that the pain would be minimally unpleasant.
E Perhaps nowhere has hypnosis engendered more controversy than over the issue of "recovered" memory. Cognitive science has established that people are fairly adept at discerning whether an event actually occurred or whether they only imagined it. But under some circumstances, we falter. We can come to believe (or can be led to believe) that something happened to us when, in fact, it did not. One of the key cues humans appear to use in making the distinction between reality and imagination is the experience of effort. Apparently, at the time of encoding a memory, a "tag" cues us as to the amount of effort we expended: if the event is tagged as having involved a good deal of mental effort on our part, we tend to interpret it as something we imagined. If it is tagged as having involved relatively little mental effort, we tend to interpret it as something that actually happened to us. Given that the calling card of hypnosis is precisely the feeling of effortlessness, we can see why hypnotized people can so easily mistake an imagined past event for something that happened long ago. Hence, something that is merely imagined can become ingrained as an episode in our life story.
F So what are the medical benefits of hypnosis? A 1996 National Institutes of Health technology assessment panel judged hypnosis to be an effective intervention for alleviating pain from cancer and other chronic conditions. Voluminous clinical studies also indicate that hypnosis can reduce the acute pain experienced by patients undergoing burn-wound debridement, children enduring bone marrow aspirations and women in labor. The pain-relieving effect of hypnosis is often substantial, and in a few cases the degree of relief matches or exceeds that provided by morphine. Hypnosis can boost the effectiveness of psychotherapy for disorders such as obesity, insomnia, anxiety and hypertension.
Questions 1 - 5
Reading passage 1 has six paragraphs (A - F). Choose the most suitable heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below. Write the appropriate numbers (i - x) in boxes 1 - 5 on your answer sheet. Paragraph A has been done for you as an example.
NB There are more headings than paragraphs so you will not use all of them. You may use any heading more than once.
Example Answer
Paragraph A v
List of Headings
i. Effect on the Brain
ii. What Hypnosis can't do
iii. Hypnotism for All
iv. Potential for Healing
v. Scientists' Findings
vi. Experiments with Hypnosis
vii. Response of a Hypnotized Person
viii. The Dangers of Hypnotism
ix. Hypnosis and Memory
