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英语证书考试
大学英语考试
全国英语等级考试(PETS)
英语证书考试
英语翻译资格考试
全国职称英语等级考试
青少年及成人英语考试
小语种考试
汉语考试
美国托福英语考试(TOEFL)
全国出国培训备选人员外语考试(BFT)
美国托业英语考试(TOEIC)
美国托福英语考试(TOEFL)
雅思考试(IELTS)
剑桥商务英语(BEC)
美国研究生入学考试(GRE)
美国经企管理研究生入学考试(GMT)
剑桥职业外语考试(博思BULATS)
美国经企管理研究生入学考试(GMAT)
Listentopartofalectureinalawclass.Nowgetreadytoanswerthequestions.Youmayuseyournotestohelpyouanswer.
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Narrator Listen to a talk between two students. Now get ready to answer the questions. You may use your notes to help you answer.
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Listening7"Bookstore"
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THE ATLANTIC COD FISHERY 1 Off the northeastern shore of North America, from the island of Newfoundland in Canada south to New England in the United States, there is a series of shallow areas called banks. Several large banks off Newfoundland are together called the Grand Banks, huge {{U}}shoals{{/U}} on the edge of the North American continental shelf, where the warm waters of the Gulf Stream meet the cold waters of the Labrador Current. As the currents brush each other, they stir up minerals from the ocean floor, providing nutrients for plankton and tiny shrimp-like creatures called krill, which feed on the plankton. Herring and other small fish rise to the surface to eat the krill. Groundfish, such as the Atlantic cod, live in the ocean's bottom layer, congregating in the shallow waters where they prey on krill and small fish. {{U}}This rich environment has produced cod by the millions and once had a greater density of cod than anywhere else on Earth.{{/U}} 2 Beginning in the eleventh century, boats from the ports of northwestern Europe arrived to fish the Grand Banks. For the next eight centuries, the entire Newfoundland economy was based on Europeans arriving, catching fish for a few months in the summer, and then taking fish back to European markets. Cod laid out to dry on wooden "flakes" was a {{U}}common{{/U}} sight in the fishing villages dotting the coast. Settlers in the region used to think the only sea creature worth talking about was cod, and in the local speech the word "fish" became synonymous with cod. {{U}}Newfoundland's national dish{{/U}} was a pudding whose main ingredient was cod. 3 By the nineteenth century, the Newfoundland fishery was largely controlled by merchants based in the capital at St. John's. They marketed the catch supplied by the fishers working out of more than 600 villages around the long coastline. In return, the merchants provided fishing equipment, clothing, and all the food that could not be grown in the island's thin, rocky soil. This system kept the fishers in a continuous state of debt and dependence on the merchants. 4 Until the twentieth century, fishers believed in the cod's ability to {{U}}replenish{{/U}} itself and thought that overfishing was impossible. However, Newfoundland's cod fishery began to show signs of trouble during the 1930s, when cod failed to support the fishers and thousands were unemployed. The slump lasted for the next few decades. Then, when an international agreement in 1977 established the 200-mile offshore fishing limit, the Canadian government decided to build up the modern Grand Banks fleet and make fishing a viable economic base for Newfoundland again. All of Newfoundland's seafood companies were merged into one conglomerate. By the 1980s, the conglomerate was prospering, and cod were {{U}}commanding{{/U}} excellent prices in the market. Consequently, there was a significant increase in the number of fishers and fish-processing plant workers. 5 However, while the offshore fishery was prospering, the inshore fishermen found their catches dropping off. In 1992 the Canadian government responded by closing the Grand Banks to groundfishing. Newfoundland's cod fishing and processing industries were shut down in a bid to let the vanishing stocks recover. The moratorium was extended in 1994, when all of the Atlantic cod fisheries in Canada were closed, except for one in Nova Scotia, and strict quotas were placed on other species of groundfish. Canada's cod fishing industry collapsed, and around 40,000 fishers and other industry workers were put out of work. 6 Atlantic cod stocks had once been so plentiful that early explorers joked about walking on the backs of the {{U}}teeming{{/U}} fish. By 2008, cod stocks were still at historically low levels and showed no signs of imminent recovery, even after drastic conservation measures and severely limited fishing. Some fishermen blamed the diminished stocks on seals, which prey on cod and other species, but scientists believe that decades of overfishing are to blame. There have been occasional signs of hope. For example, studies on fish populations show that cod disappeared from Newfoundland at the same time that stocks started rebuilding in Norway, raising the possibility that the cod had simply migrated to a different region. Still, in the early twenty-first century, it remains uncertain whether or when the cod will return to the Grand Banks or the moratorium will end.
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{{B}}Narrator{{/B}} Listen to a part of a lecture from the Sports Studies department.
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LANGSTON HUGHES 1 Among the many talented African American writers connected with the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s, Langston Hughes was the most popular in his time. His two most important achievements were the incorporation of the rhythms of black music into his poetry and the creation of an authentic black folk speaker in the character of Jesse B. Semple. Through both poetry and storytelling, Hughes captured in written form the dominant oral and improvisatory traditions of black culture. 2 Langston Hughes was born in Missouri in 1902. He began to write poetry in high school and later attended Columbia University in New York. After one year at university, Hughes commenced a nomadic life in the United States and Europe. He shipped out as a merchant marine and worked in a Paris nightclub, all the while writing and publishing poetry. His prolific literary career was launched in 1926 with the publication of his first book, The Weary Blues, a collection of poems on African American themes set to rhythms from jazz and blues. His first novel appeared in 1930, and from that point on Hughes was known as "the bard of Harlem." 3 In the activist 1930s, Hughes was a public figure. He worked as a journalist, published works in several media, and founded African American theaters in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Hughes's concern with race, mainly in an urban setting, is evident in his poetry, plays, screenplays, novels, and short stories. His poetry includes lyrics about black life and black pride as well as poems of racial protest. His major prose writings are those concerned with the character Jesse B. Semple, a shrewd but supposedly ignorant Harlem resident nicknamed Simple. Simple was a wise fool, an honest man who saw through sham and spoke plainly. The Simple stories were originally published as newspaper sketches and later collected in five book volumes. 4 By the 1960s, readers preferred themes that reflected the struggles of the times, and Hughes's writings were overshadowed by those of a younger generation of black poets. However, in more recent decades, scholars and readers have rediscovered Hughes and regard him as a major literary and social influence. His poetry and stories remain an enduring legacy of the Harlem Renaissance, and for this reason his position in the American canon is secure.
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LIFE SUCCESS AND SATISFACTION 1 Life satisfaction, which can be defined as general happiness or well being, is related to several demographic and personal qualities. The factor of age is important because the elements that make up life satisfaction may differ from one age to the next. Income is more likely to predict life satisfaction among middle aged and older adults than among young adults. Health is a more significant predictor of happiness among older adults than among the young or the middle aged. However, average levels of life satisfaction do not change significantly with age. Generally speaking, older adults are as satisfied with their lives as are younger or middle-aged adults. 2 There is no single element that guarantees high life satisfaction for everyone who possesses it. Happiness seems to consist of many things that each person weighs differently, such as income, education, work, and relationships. However, certain factors are reliable predictors of life satisfaction. One such predictor is health, especially one's perception of one's own health rather than a doctor's objective health assessment. Another predictor of life satisfaction is a feeling of being in charge of one's own life and a sense of authority over one's own decisions. Adults who feel that they have some choices and options are generally happier than those who feel that their lives are controlled by others or by fate or chance. For example, older adults who experience financial strain feel less life satisfaction mainly because the problem signals a loss of control over their lives. 3 The largest predictor of life satisfaction appears to be the adequacy of social relationships, especially marriage and family relationships. The perceived quality rather than the quantity of social interactions is most strongly related to happiness. Satisfaction with one's close personal relationships is more closely linked to overall life satisfaction than either demographic factors or satisfaction with other key aspects of adult life such as occupation. This is true even among highly educated men, who typically have a very high commitment to their work. The quality of social support available in one's key relationships affects the ability to handle stress and life changes as well as one's ongoing level of life satisfaction. 4 Studies suggest that family background and early-adulthood resources are predictors of psychological health or success at midlife. People who age well are those who start out well. One study showed that the happiest and most successful middle-aged adults had grown up in warm, supportive, intellectually stimulating families. Well-adjusted or successful middle-aged adults began adulthood with more personal resources, including better psychological and physical health at college age. They also had been practical and well organized in college and had shown greater intellectual competence. 5 However, no measure of early family environment or early-adult competence remained a significant predictor of psychological well being at the end of middle age. One study of men revealed that at the age of 65, there were no childhood or early-adulthood characteristics that distinguished between men who had turned out well and those who had not. However, what did predict success and well being at age 65 was the men's health and adjustment at midlife. These results suggest that a successful adult life is not something preordained from childhood or early adulthood but rather something created out of the opportunities available over the course of one's life. Late-life success is related more directly to midlife qualities or experiences. People who start out with certain advantages have a greater chance of experiencing further advantages; however, it is what one does with the experiences-both positive and negative-that determines long-term life satisfaction. The choices that people make in early adulthood help shape who they are at midlife, and those midlife qualities in turn influence who they become later in life. Glossary: demographic: relating to demography, the study of human populations
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Directions : Read the passage. Then answer the questions. Give yourself 20 minutes to complete this practice set. REFLECTION IN TEACHING Teachers, it is thought, benefit from the practice of reflection, the conscious act of thinking deeply about and carefully examining the interactions and events within their own classrooms. Educators T. Wildman and J. Niles (1987) describe a scheme for developing reflective practice in experienced teachers. This was justified by the view that reflective practice could help teachers to feel more intellectually involved in their role and work in teaching and enable them to cope with the paucity of scientific fact and the uncertainty of knowledge in the discipline of teaching. Wildman and Niles were particularly interested in investigating the conditions under which reflection might flourish—a subject on which there is little guidance in the literature. They designed an experimental strategy for a group of teachers in Virginia and worked with 40 practicing teachers over several years. They were concerned that many would be "drawn to these new, refreshing conceptions of teaching only to find that the void between the abstractions and the realities of teacher reflection is too great to bridge. Reflection on a complex task such as teaching is not easy." The teachers were taken through a program of talking about teaching events, moving on to reflecting about specific issues in a supported, and later an independent, manner. Wildman and Niles observed that systematic reflection on teaching required a sound ability to understand classroom events in an objective manner. They describe the initial understanding in the teachers with whom they were working as being "utilitarian...and not rich or detailed enough to drive systematic reflection." Teachers rarely have the time or opportunities to view their own or the teaching of others in an objective manner. Further observation revealed the tendency of teachers to evaluate events rather than review the contributory factors in a considered manner by, in effect, standing outside the situation. Helping this group of teachers to revise their thinking about classroom events became central. This process took time and patience and effective trainers. The researchers estimate that the initial training of the teachers to view events objectively took between 20 and 30 hours, with the same number of hours again being required to practice the skills of reflection. Wildman and Niles identify three principles that facilitate reflective practice in a teaching situation. The first is support from administrators in an education system, enabling teachers to understand the requirements of reflective practice and how it relates to teaching students. The second is the availability of sufficient time and space. The teachers in the program described how they found it difficult to put aside the immediate demands of others in order to give themselves the time they needed to develop their reflective skills. The third is the development of a collaborative environment with support from other teachers. Support and encouragement were also required to help teachers in the program cope with aspects of their professional life with which they were not comfortable. Wildman and Niles make a summary comment: "Perhaps the most important thing we learned is the idea of the teacher-as-reflective-practitioner will not happen simply because it is a good or even compelling idea." The work of Wildman and Niles suggests the importance of recognizing some of the difficulties of instituting reflective practice. Others have noted this, making a similar point about the teaching profession"s cultural inhibitions about reflective practice. Zeichner and Liston (1987) point out the inconsistency between the role of the teacher as a (reflective) professional decision maker and the more usual role of the teacher as a technician, putting into practice the ideas of others. More basic than the cultural issues is the matter of motivation. Becoming a reflective practitioner requires extra work (Jaworski, 1993) and has only vaguely defined goals with, perhaps, little initially perceivable reward and the threat of vulnerability. Few have directly questioned what might lead a teacher to want to become reflective. Apparently, the most obvious reason for teachers to work toward reflective practice is that teacher educators think it is a good thing. There appear to be many unexplored matters about the motivation to reflect—for example, the value of externally motivated reflection as opposed to that of teachers who might reflect by habit.
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Directions : Read the passage. Then answer the questions. Give yourself 20 minutes to complete this practice set. WHICH HAND DID THEY USE? We all know that many more people today are right-handed than left-handed. Can one trace this same pattern far back in prehistory? Much of the evidence about right-hand versus left-hand dominance comes from stencils and prints found in rock shelters in Australia and elsewhere, and in many Ice Age caves in France, Spain, and Tasmania. When a left hand has been stenciled, this implies that the artist was right-handed, and vice versa. Even though the paint was often sprayed on by mouth, one can assume that the dominant hand assisted in the operation. One also has to make the assumption that hands were stenciled palm downward—a left hand stenciled palm upward might of course look as if it were a right hand. Of 158 stencils in the French cave of Gargas, 136 have been identified as left, and only 22 as right; right-handedness was therefore heavily predominant. Cave art furnishes other types of evidence of this phenomenon. Most engravings, for example, are best lit from the left, as befits the work of right-handed artists, who generally prefer to have the light source on the left so that the shadow of their hand does not fall on the tip of the engraving tool or brush. In the few cases where an Ice Age figure is depicted holding something, it is mostly, though not always, in the right hand. Clues to right-handedness can also be found by other methods. Right-handers tend to have longer, stronger, and more muscular bones on the right side, and Marcellin Boule as long ago as 1911 noted the La Chapelle-aux-Saints Neanderthal skeleton had a right upper arm bone that was noticeably stronger than the left. Similar observations have been made on other Neanderthal skeletons such as La Ferrassie I and Neanderthal itself. Fractures and other cut marks are another source of evidence. Right-handed soldiers tend to be wounded on the left. The skeleton of a 40- or 50-year-old Nabatean warrior, buried 2,000 years ago in the Negev Desert, Israel, had multiple healed fractures to the skull, the left arm, and the ribs. Tools themselves can be revealing. Long-handed Neolithic spoons of yew wood preserved in Alpine villages dating to 3000 B.C. have survived; the signs of rubbing on their left side indicate that their users were right-handed. The late Ice Age rope found in the French cave of Lascaux consists of fibers spiraling to the right, and was therefore tressed by a right-hander. Occasionally one can determine whether stone tools were used in the right hand or the left, and it is even possible to assess how far back this feature can be traced. In stone toolmaking experiments, Nick Toth, a right-hander, held the core (the stone that would become the tool) in his left hand and the hammer stone in his right. As the tool was made, the core was rotated clockwise, and the flakes, removed in sequence, had a little crescent of cortex (the core"s outer surface) on the side. Toth"s knapping produced 56 percent flakes with the cortex on the right, and 44 percent left-oriented flakes. A left-handed toolmaker would produce the opposite pattern. Toth has applied these criteria to the similarly made pebble tools from a number of early sites (before 1.5 million years) at Koobi Fora, Kenya, probably made by Homo habilis. At seven sites he found that 57 percent of the flakes were right-oriented, and 43 percent left, a pattern almost identical to that produced today. About 90 percent of modern humans are right-handed: we are the only mammal with a preferential use of one hand. The part of the brain responsible for fine control and movement is located in the left cerebral hemisphere, and the findings above suggest that the human brain was already asymmetrical in its structure and function not long after 2 million years ago. Among Neanderthalers of 70,000-35,000 years ago, Marcellin Boule noted that the La Chapelle-aux-Saints individual had a left hemisphere slightly bigger than the right, and the same was found for brains of specimens from Neanderthal, Gibraltar, and La Quina.
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Directions : Read the passage. Then answer the questions. Give yourself 20 minutes to complete this practice set. ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE In order to understand ancient Egyptian art, it is vital to know as much as possible of the elite Egyptians" view of the world and the functions and contexts of the formal art produced for them. Without this knowledge we can appreciate only the formal content of Egyptian art, and we will fail to understand why it was produced or the concepts that shaped it and caused it to adopt its distinctive forms. In fact, a lack of understanding concerning the purposes of Egyptian art has often led it to be compared unfavorably with the art of other cultures: Why did the Egyptians not develop sculpture in which the body turned and twisted through space like classical Greek statuary? Why do the artists seem to get left and right confused? And why did they not discover the geometric perspective as European artists did in the Renaissance? The answer to such questions has nothing to do with a lack of skill or imagination on the part of Egyptian artists and everything to do with the purposes for which they were producing their art. The majority of three-dimensional representations, whether standing, seated, or kneeling, exhibit what is called frontality: they face straight ahead, neither twisting nor turning. When such statues are viewed in isolation, out of their original context and without knowledge of their function, it is easy to criticize them for their rigid attitudes that remained unchanged for three thousand years. Frontality is, however, directly related to the functions of Egyptian statuary and the contexts in which the statues were set up. Statues were created not for their decorative effect but to play a primary role in the cults of the gods, the king, and the dead. They were designed to be put in places where these beings could manifest themselves in order to be the recipients of ritual actions. Thus it made sense to show the statue looking ahead at what was happening in front of it, so that the living performer of the ritual could interact with the divine or deceased recipient. Very often such statues were enclosed in rectangular shrines or wall niches whose only opening was at the front, making it natural for the statue to display frontality. Other statues were designed to be placed within an architectural setting, for instance, in front of the monumental entrance gateways to temples known as pylons, or in pillared courts, where they would be placed against or between pillars: their frontality worked perfectly within the architectural context. Statues were normally made of stone, wood, or metal. Stone statues were worked from single rectangular blocks of material and retained the compactness of the original shape. The stone between the arms and the body and between the legs in standing figures or the legs and the seat in seated ones was not normally cut away. From a practical aspect this protected the figures against breakage and psychologically gives the images a sense of strength and power, usually enhanced by a supporting back pillar. By contrast, wooden statues were carved from several pieces of wood that were pegged together to form the finished work, and metal statues were either made by wrapping sheet metal around a wooden core or cast by the lost wax process 1 . The arms could be held away from the body and carry separate items in their hands; there is no back pillar. The effect is altogether lighter and freer than that achieved in stone, but because both perform the same function, formal wooden and metal statues still display frontality. Apart from statues representing deities, kings, and named members of the elite that can be called formal, there is another group of three-dimensional representations that depicts generic figures, frequently servants, from the nonelite population. The function of these is quite different. Many are made to be put in the tombs of the elite in order to serve the tomb owners in the afterlife. Unlike formal statues that are limited to static poses of standing, sitting, and kneeling, these figures depict a wide range of actions, such as grinding grain, baking bread, producing pots, and making music, and they are shown in appropriate poses, bending and squatting as they carry out their tasks. lost wax process 1 : an ancient method of casting using a wax model and clay mold
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{{B}}Set 5 Economics{{/B}}
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Social Welfare: Post Cancer Employment Professor: People who are cancer survivors and still ______ are often still able to return to work after successfully undergoing treatment. It has been found that people who survive certain types of cancer that can be detected early, mainly ______ and melanomas, have the ______ of disease-related problems and of having to totally stop working. Meanwhile, patients ______ affecting the central nervous system, head and neck, blood or lymph system had the ______ and unemployment, in the four years following therapy. This suggests that some cancer patients require more assistance ______. According to Dr. Pamela Farley Short of Pennsylvania State University, a way to determine a ______ after treatment is by their ability to return to work. ______ social interactions and relationships and ______, work plays an important role. Many people identify themselves by the job they do. On the whole, this can be ______. However, it also ______ the fact that about 20% of cancer survivors continue to have problems that affect their work. This data is the result of interviews of 1,400 cancer survivors treated at four medical centers from 1997 to 1999. Of the patients who had jobs when they ______, 13% were unable to continue working for ______ within four years of being diagnosed. 40% of patients had to stop working ______. Of these patients, 84% were able to go back to work, often within the first year. In this study, 20% of patients experienced work disability ______, but 50% of the patients worked ______ that were a result of the treatment. Patients who were least likely to experience work disability or found it necessary to leave their job once treatment started were ______, prostate, thyroid, uterus and skin cancer. However, people who had other types of cancer had a more difficult time. Patients treated for tumors effecting the brain or ______, experienced the highest rates of work disability and had one of the highest ______. At a greater risk of work disability and unemployment were patients with ______ and head and neck cancers. The differences ______ returning to work and experiencing other types of disabilities are often related to the point at which tumors are diagnosed as well as the way certain types of cancer affects the body and the type of treatment. In the public health sector, the successful effort to have women have mammograms has resulted in more women being diagnosed earlier—a time when the treatment is ______. For doctors and other people working ______ and treatment, the challenge is to identify and help cancer survivors with work-related issues. Patients need to be informed of the legal protection, if there is, ______. There are several organizations like the American Cancer Society that have information on this. Doctors and ______ should help employers understand that people who survive cancer are going to continue on living for a long time and ______ other people are.
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Fighting in Nature In nature, fighting is such an ever-present process that its behavior mechanisms and weapons are highly developed. Almost every animal capable of self-defense from the smallest upwards fights furiously when it is cornered and has no means of escape. However, in another respect the fight between hunter and hunted is not a fight in the real sense of the word: the stroke of the paw with which a lion kills his prey may resemble the movements that he makes when he strikes his rival, but the inner motives of the hunter are basically different from those of the fighter. The buffalo which the lion fells provokes his aggression as little as the appetizing turkey which I have just seen hanging in the larder provokes mine. The difference in these inner drives can clearly be seen in the expression movements of the animal: a dog about to catch a hunted rabbit has the same kind of excited happy expression as he has when he greets his master or awaits some longed-for treat. Growling, laying the ears back, and other well-known expression movements of fighting behavior occur when predatory animals are afraid of a wildly resisting prey, and even then the expressions are only suggested. The opposite process, the counter-offensive, of the prey against the predator, is more nearly related to genuine aggression. Social animals in particular take every possible chance to attack the eating enemy that threatens their safety. This process is called "mobbing". The survival value of this attack on the hunter is self-evident. Even if the attacker is small and defenseless, he may do his enemy considerable harm. For example, if a sparrow hawk is pursued by a flock of warning wagtails, his hunting is spoiled for the time being. And many birds will mob an owl if they find one in the day-time, and drive it so far away that it will hunt somewhere else the next night. In some social animals such as jackdaws and many kinds of geese, the function of mobbing is particularly interesting. In jackdaws, its most important survival value is to teach the young inexperienced birds what a dangerous eating-enemy looks like, which they do not know instinctively. For just such educational reasons, geese and ducks may gather together in intense excitement to learn that a fox—anything furry, red-brown, long-shaped and slinking—is extremely dangerous. Besides this didactic function, mobbing of predators by jackdaws and geese still has the basic, original one of making the enemy's life a burden. Jackdaws actively attack their enemy, and geese apparently intimidate it with their cries, their thronging and their fearless advance. The great Canada Geese will even follow a fox overland in a close phalanx, and I have never known a fox in this situation try to catch one of his tormentors. With ears laid back and a disgusted expression on his face, he glances back over his shoulder at the trumpeting flock and trots slowly—so as not to lose face—away from them. Among the larger, more defense-minded grazing animals which en masse are a match for even the biggest predators, mobbing is particularly effective;A. [■] According to reliable reports, zebras will molest even a leopard if they catch him on plain where cover is sparse.B. [■] Once, when I was out with my dog, I was obliged to jump into a lake and swim for safety when a herd of young cattle half encircled us and advanced threateningly;C. [■] And when he was in Southern Hungary during the First World War, my brother spent a pleasant afternoon up a tree with his Scotch terrier under his arm, because a herd of half-wild Hungarian swine, disturbed while grazing in the wood, encircled him. D. [■] Fortunately, the swine dispersed after they confirmed that my brother and his dog were not offensive.
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Directions: Read the passage. Then answer the questions. Give yourself 20 minutes to complete this practice set. CETACEAN INTELLIGENCE We often hear that whales, dolphins, and porpoises are as intelligent as humans, maybe even more so. Are they really that smart? There is no question that cetaceans are among the most intelligent of animals. Dolphins, killer whales, and pilot whales in captivity quickly learn tricks. The military has trained bottlenose dolphins to find bombs and missile heads and to work as underwater spies. This type of learning, however, is called conditioning. The animal simply learns that when it performs a particular behavior, it gets a reward, usually a fish. Many animals, including rats, birds, and even invertebrates, can be conditioned to perform tricks. We certainly don't think of these animals as our mental rivals. Unlike most other animals, however, dolphins quickly learn by observations and may spontaneously imitate human activities. One tame dolphin watched a diver cleaning an underwater viewing window, seized a feather in its beak, and began imitating the diver—complete with sound effects! Dolphins have also been seen imitating seals, turtles, and even water-skiers. Given the seeming intelligence of cetaceans, people are always tempted to compare them with humans and other animals. Studies on discrimination and problem-solving skills in the bottlenose dolphin, for instance, have concluded that its intelligence lies "somewhere between that of a dog and a chimpanzee." Such comparisons are unfair. It is important to realize that intelligence is a very human concept and that we evaluate it in human terms. After all, not many people would consider themselves stupid because they couldn't locate and identify a fish by its echo. Why should we judge cetaceans by their ability to solve human problems? Both humans and cetaceans have large brains with an expanded and distinctively folded surface, the cortex. The cortex is the dominant association center of the brain, where abilities such as memory and sensory perception are centered. Cetaceans have larger brains than ours, but the ratio of brain to body weight is higher in humans. Again, direct comparisons are misleading. In cetaceans it is mainly the portions of the brain associated with hearing and the processing of sound information that are expanded. The enlarged portions of our brain deal largely with vision and hand-eye coordination. Cetaceans and humans almost certainly perceive the world in very different ways. Their world is largely one of sounds, ours one of sights. Contrary to what is depicted in movies and on television, the notion of "talking" to dolphins is also misleading. Although they produce a rich repertoire of complex sounds, they lack vocal cords and their brains probably process sound differently from ours. Bottlenose dolphins have been trained to make sounds through the blowhole that sound something like human sounds, but this is a far cry from human speech. By the same token, humans cannot make whale sounds. We will probably never be able to carry on an unaided conversation with cetaceans. As in chimpanzees, captive bottlenose dolphins have been taught American Sign Language. These dolphins have learned to communicate with trainers who use sign language to ask simple questions. Dolphins answer back by pushing a "yes" or "no" paddle. They have even been known to give spontaneous responses not taught by the trainers. Evidence also indicates that these dolphins can distinguish between commands that differ from each other only by their word order, a truly remarkable achievement. Nevertheless, dolphins do not seem to have a real language like ours. Unlike humans, dolphins probably cannot convey very complex messages. Observations of cetaceans in the wild have provided some insights on their learning abilities. Several bottlenose dolphins off western Australia, for instance, have been observed carrying large cone-shaped sponges over their beaks. They supposedly use the sponges for protection against stingrays and other hazards on the bottom as they search for fish to eat. This is the first record of the use of tools among wild cetaceans. Instead of "intelligence," some people prefer to speak of "awareness." In any case, cetaceans probably have a very different awareness and perception of their environment than do humans. Maybe one day we will come to understand cetaceans on their terms instead of ours, and perhaps we will discover a mental sophistication rivaling our own.
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OriginsofJazzMusicThemusicalphenomenonknownasjazzdevelopedintheyearsjustpriorto1900,mainlyinthecityofNewOrleansandtoalesserextentinotherlargeAmericancities.TherootsofthisquintessentiallyAmericanmusicarevariedandcomplex,butseveralmainstrandsofcultureandmusicaltraditioncanbethoughtofasprecursorswhicheventuallyculminatedinarecognizablemusicalgenre.ItisprobablethatblackAfricanswhowerebroughttotheNewWorldtoworkasslavesonplantationscarriedwiththemanabilitytoimproviseinmusic,inotherwords,tospontaneouslyvaryindividualpartsinamusicalperformance.Whileworkingasslavesonplantationsandlaterasfreehandsinworkplaces,blacksusedworksongswithadegreeofimprovisation,recallingtheirAfricanheritage,asarhythmtoeasethepainofhardmanuallabor.Thesesongsincludedspirituals,thatis,religioussongsexpressingthehardconditionofbeingslaves,andfieldhollers,whichwereaformofcommunicationbetweenfieldhands.Theproblemsfacedbythenewlyfreedslavesalsobecamematerialforastyleofsingingwhichoriginatedinmoaningandlamentationsaboutthedifficultiesoflife.Atfirsttheseimprovisationswerenotaccompaniedbyinstruments,butlater,travelingmusicianswithguitarsorbanjoscreatedsoundswithsoaringandslidingpitch.Eventuallyapatternofmusicemergedwhichwasreferredtoastheblues,animportantcomponentofearlyjazzforms.Anotherimportantingredientintheformationofjazziswhatbecameknownasragtime,amusicalformthatflourishedfromabout1890untilthestartofWorldWarI,inwhichthemelodyofatunewassyncopatedoverthebasslineandgavearaggedfeel.Ragtimeeventuallybecameformalizedandwritten,butthestyleoftheragtimetuneswasinfluentialinformingtheearlydirectionofjazzmusic.MusicologistshavepointedoutthatNewOrleansbecamethefocalpointofearlyjazzperformancebecausebrassinstrumentsusedbymilitiabandsduringtheCivilWarandbytownbandsforentertainmentbegantofindtheirwayintosecondhandstoresandpawnshopsinNewOrleans.Thisenabledpoorerpeopletoobtaininstrumentscheaply.Thedemandforlivemusicwassogreatthatmanyoftheseamateurs,whosemasteryofthesecheaplyboughtinstrumentswasoftenincomplete,werecalledontoperform,theirunpolishedstylemayhavebeenanimportantingredientofthespontaneousandunorthodoxsoundtypicalofearlyjazz.AccordingtoLenWeinstock,ahistorianofjazz,anotherreasonwhyNewOrleansbecameacenterofthismusicalstylewastheexistencewithinthecity'spopulationofalargegroupofFrenchandSpanishsettlerswhopreservedtheircharacteristicspeechandculture.ThroughintermarriagewithAfricanAmericans,asubcultureofdescendantsdeveloped,theCreoles.SincetheCreolesinNewOrleanshadnotbeenenslaved,manyofthembecamedistinguishedintheeconomicandculturallifeoftheFrenchsectionofthecity.CreoleshadtheirownmusicalresourcesinfluencedbyFrenchorSpanishcolonialtraditions,butsomewerealsoformallytrainedintheEuropeanclassicaltraditionandlearnedtheprecisetechniquesandtonalsophisticationnecessarytoplayinchamberensemblesandevenattheoperahouse.However,in1894,CreoleslivinginNewOrleanswereforcedbyaracialsegregationlawtomovetotheareaofthecityinhabitedbythepoor,largelyuneducatedblackpopulationwhosemusicaltraditionwastypicallycharacterizedbymemorizationandimprovisation,alegacyoftheirAfricanandslaveorigins.Thediversemusicaltraditionsofthesetwogroupseventuallyculminatedinasynthesis,themainfeatureofwhichwasasoloistplayinganinterpretedmelodywithotherbandmembersimprovisingharmonywithrhythmicembellishments.Thislooselystructuredmusicalstylebecameknownasjazzaroundtheturnofthecentury.Glossary:quintessentially:representingthemostperfectortypicalexampleofsomethingsyncopated:havingarhythminwhichstrongnotesarenotonthebeat
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