Typically, a pack of the Yellowstone wolves kills a big deer very few days. But over the remains the wolves abandon, a wonderful new diversity has emerged. Since their arrival, wolves have killed many of the park's coyotes, a smaller kind of wolf. The reduction in coyotes has caused an increase in rodents such as mice, rabbits and squirrels, which also benefits a wide range of predators. Even the coyotes that live at the margins of wolf country have prospered,
thanks to the leftovers the wolves leave behind. So do grizzly bears, which feed on wolf-kilted deer before beginning hibernation or winter sleep.
What has interested scientists is the swiftness, the dynamism, of this shift in diversity. There has been, however, no matching dynamism in the opinion of humans who oppose the wolf reintroduction. That was made plain by a Federal district judge's recent order to remove the wolves, the result ora legal process that is the offspring of inflexibility. Several livestock groups, including the Wyoming Farm Bureau, had filed a suit that urged, in slightly cleverer terms, the old proposition, no wolves, no problems. Several environmental groups had flied a separate lawsuit--unconnected to the Yellowstone wolves--protesting the dropping of legal protection for wolves that were recolonizing Idaho. The two suits were unfortunately merged.
Though Judge William Downes stayed his own decision, pending appeal, his judgment is a sad encouragement to the mistaken defensiveness of most ranchers or cattle farmers. It is also a misunderstanding of the purpose of the environmentalists' suit. His decision needs to be swiftly
and decisively overturned on appeal. It is no exaggeration to say that since the return of the wolves, Yellowstone has witnessed an economy of diversity from which human culture--including the culture of ranching---can directly profit, if only it chooses to do so.
1. Since the arrival of 33 wolves in the Yellowstone National Park,
[A]. a dynamic biological chain has started to function
[B]. animals kept in the park have had enough food
[C]. some animals that are not wanted have been vanishing
[D]. the attraction of the park is greatly increased
2. The author thinks it unfortunate that the judge should
[A]. make efforts to accept suits with regard to old issues.
[B]. make use of legal means to protect his own interests.
[C], mix up two irrelevant suits and make wolves the victims.
[D]. support the protest against canceling legal protections for wolves.
3. The author believes that Judge William Downes was obviously on the side of
[A]. the Yellowstone Park
[B]. livestock groups
[C]. environmental groups
[D]. federal laws
4. Commenting on the Yellowstone Park wolf program, the author
[A]. urges the district judge to reverse his recent order.
[B]. criticizes the attitude of environmental groups.
[C]. calls on the people to protect wolves everywhere
[D]. speaks for the interests of most cattle farmers.
5. According to the author, the protection of wolves will
[A]. bring about an economic boom to the surrounding farms and ranches
[B]. cause bigger losses of livestock to the Park's neighboring farms
[C]. lead to a number of controversies in the society
[D]. prove to be beneficial to all parties concerned
Text 3
Vinton Cerf, known as the father of the Intemet, said on Wednesday that the Web was outgrowing the planet Earth and the time had come to take the information superhighway to outer space.
The Intemet is growing quickly, and we still have a lot of work to do to cover the planet, Cerf told the first day of the annual conference of the Intemet Society in Geneva where more
than 1,500 cyberspace fans have gathered to seek answers to questions about the tangled web of the Intemet.
Cerf believed that it would soon be possible to send real-time science data on the Intemet from a space mission orbiting another planet such as Mars. There is now an effort under way to
design and build an interplanetary Intemet. The space research community is coming closer and closer and merging. We think that we will see interplanetary Intemet networks that look very much like the ones we use today. We will need interplanetary gateways and there will be protocols to transmit data between these gateways, Cerf said.
Francois Fluckiger, a scientist attending the conference from the European Particle Physics Laboratory near Geneva, was not entirely convinced, saying We need dreams like this. But I don't know any Martian whom I'd like to communicate with through the Intemet.
Cerf has been working with NASA's Pasadena Jet Propulsion Laboratory--the people behind the recent Mars expedition--to design what he calls an interplanetary Intemet protocol. He believes that astronauts will want to use the Intemet, although special problems remain with interference and delay.
This is quite real. The effort is becoming extraordinarily concrete over the next few months because the next Mars mission is in planning stages now, Cerf told the conference.
If we use domain names like Earth or Mars...jet propulsion laboratory people would be coming together with people from the Intemet community. He added.
The idea is to take the interplanetary Intemet design and make it a part of the infrastructure of the Mars mission.
He later told anews conference that designing this system now would prepare mankind for future technological advances.
The whole idea is to create an architecture so the design woks anywhere. I don't know where we're going to have to put it but my guess is that we'll be going out there some time, Cerf said.
If you think 100 years from now, it is entirely possible that what will be purely research 50 years from now will become commercial 100 years from now. The Internet was the same-----it started as pure research but now it is commercialized.
1. Which of the following is the main point of the text
[A] The development of the intemet.
[B] The possibility of space research.
[C] Universal information superhighway.
[D] The technological advances of Mars mission.
2. From the text, we learn that Vinton Cerfis
[A] seeking answers to questions about the intemet web.
[B] working on interplanetary intemet with collaborations of NASA.
[C] trying to commercialize the interplanetary intemet.
[D] exploring the possibility of establishing intemet network on Mars.
3. We know from the text that Mars mission is
[A] one of NASA's intemet projects
[B] an expedition to Mars.
[C] the infrastructure of the interplanetary intemet.
[D] to create an architecture on Mars..
4. According to Cerf, the purpose to design interplanetary intemet is to
[A] send real-time science data.
[B] communicate with astronauts.
[C] lay foundation for future technological advances.
[D] commercialize it.
5. It can be inferred from the last paragraph that
[A] the dream to build interplanetary intemet can be fulfilled in the future.
[B] interplanetary intemet will commercialized in 100 years.
[C] the research of intemet took 50 years.
[D] it will take a long time to build interplanetary intemet.
Text 4
Material culture refers to the touchable, material things--Physical objects that can be seen, held, felt, used--that a culture produces. Examining a culture's tools and technology can tell us about the group's history and way of life. Similarly, research into the material culture of music can help us to understand the music-culture. The most vivid body of thing in it, of course, are musical instruments. We cannot hear for ourselves the actual sound of any musical performance before the 1870s when the phonograph was invented, so we rely on instruments for important information about music-cultures in the remote past and their development. Here we have two kinds of evidence instruments well preserved and instruments pictured in art. Through the study of instruments, as well as paintings, written documents, and so on, we can explore the movement of music from the Near East to China over a thousand years ago, or we can outline the spread of Near Eastern influence to Europe that resulted in the development of most of the instruments on the symphony orchestra.
Sheet music or printed music, too, is material culture. Scholars once defined folk music-cultures as those in which people learn and sing music by ear rather than from print, but research shows mutual influence among oral and written sources during the past few centuries in Europe, Britain and America. Printed versions limit variety because they tend to standardize any
song, yet they stimulate people to create new and different songs. Besides, the ability to read music notation has a far-reaching effect on musicians and, when it becomes widespread, on the music-culture as a whole.
Music is deep-rooted in the cultural background that fosters it. We now pay more and more attention to traditional or ethnic features in folk music and are willing to preserve the fold music as we do with many traditional cultural heritage. Musicians all over the world are busy with recording classic music in their country for the sake of their unique culture. As always, people's
aspiration will always focus on their individuality rather than universal features that are shared by all cultures alike.
One more important part of music's material culture should be singled out the influence of the electronic media--radio, record player, tape recorder, and television, with the future promising talking and singing computers and other developments. This is all part of the information-revolution, a twentieth-centm'y phenomenon as important as the industrial revolution in the nineteenth. These electronic media are not just limited to modem nations; they have affected music cultures all over the globe.
1. Which of the following does not belong to material culture
[A] Instruments.
[B] Music.
[C] Paintings.
[D] Sheet music.
2. The word phonograph (line 7, Paragraph 1) most probably means
[A] record player.
[BI radio.
[C] musical technique.
[D] music culture.
3. The main idea of the first paragraph is
[A] the importance of cultural tools and technology.
[B] the cultural influence of the development of civilization.
[C] the focus of the study of the material culture of music.
[D] the significance of the research into the musical instruments.
4. Which of the following is not an advantage of printed music
[A] Reading of music notation has a great impact on musicians.
[B] People may draw inspiration from it.
[C] the music culture will be influenced by it in the end.
[D] Songs tend to be standardized by it.
5. From the third paragraph, we may infer that
[A] traditional cultural heritage is worthy of preservation.
[B] the universal features shared by all cultures aren't worthy of notice.
[C] musicians pay more attention to the preservation of traditional music
[D] the more developed a culture, the more valuable the music it has fostered.
Unit 8
Directions
Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1. (40 points)
Text 1
When Patricia Weathers's son Michael had problems in his first-grade class, a school psychologist told the mother he had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADH]), and needed to be medicated with stimulants. If not, he would be sent to a special education facility near his school.
Confused and frightened, Weathers says she consented to put Michael on Ritalin, a commonly used stimulant that doctors prescribe to decrease the symptoms of ADHD--restlessness, disorganization, hyperactivity.
But Michael exhibited negative effects from the drug, such as social withdrawal. Instead of spotting the side effects, Weathers says, school officials again pressured her back to the psychiatrist's office, where Michael's diagnosis was changed to social anxiety disorder and an antidepressant prescribed.
Finally, says Weathers, I saw that the medicines were making Michael psychotic, so I stopped giving them to him. When she stopped the medicine, the school reported her to state
child protective services for child abuse.
Though charges were dropped, the Weathers case has become a symbol of the boiling controversy surrounding ADHD, treatment for it, and the subjective diagnostic tests that some critics say have led to an overuse of stimulants in schools.
According to testimony given before Congress in 2000, ADHD diagnosis in children grew from 150,000 in 1970 to 6 million in 2000, representing 12 to 13 percent of US schoolchildren.
On the one hand, a recent study by National Institute of Mental Health, published in April, confirmed long-held assumptions that consistent use of stimulants mildly suppresses children's growth--at an average rate of about an inch over the course of two years, in addition to weight loss in some children.
At the same time, another part of the same study gave the use of medication a boost when it comes to the treatment of ADHD. The study showed that strict behavioral rules, used without drugs, were not as successful as treatments involving stimulants. They suppressed ADHD symptoms in 34 percent of the children tracked over a two-year period, while medication worked in 56 percent of cases.
Yet ifthe study was reassuring to some who work with children, it was alarming to others.
The study helps prove that the country is only hearing half the story about ADHD, says William Frankenberger, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, who has been studying ADHD for almost two decades. If these medicines suppress growth, you have to ask what else they are doing that we can't measure.
1. It can be inferred from the text that kids with ADHD are often
[A] allergic to medicines.
[B] absent-minded in class.
[C] afraid of meeting strangers.
[D] anxious about seeing the doctor.
2. Weathers stopped giving the medicine to her son because
[A] she sensed the side effects of the medicine.
[B] the doctor prescribed another new treatment.
[C] the school psychologist advised against using it.
[D] she was charged with abusing her son physically.
3. The figures in Paragraph 6 indicate
