1、专业八级-409 及答案解析(总分：100.00，做题时间：90 分钟)一、READING COMPREHENSIO(总题数：0，分数：0.00)二、Passage 1(总题数：1，分数：20.00)How do we recognize fear in another person? Scientists have long known that the amygdala, an almond-shaped part of the brain, is critical for the perception of fear. But exactly what role it plays in
2、recognizing facial expressions has remained a mystery. A new study shows that the amygdala actively seeks out potentially important information in the face of another person. In particular, it focuses our attention on a person“s eyes, the facial features most likely to register fear. “These findings
3、 provide a much more abstract and general account of what the amygdala does,“ Ralph Adolphs said. Adolphs is a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Caltech University in Pasadena, California, and the University of Iowa in Iowa City. Adolphs“s study focuses on a 38-year-old woman with an amygd
4、ala that is damaged from a rare genetic disease. As a result, she is unable to recognize fear in people“s facial expressions. However, the scientists have found that she is able to recognize fear if instructed to concentrate her attention on a person“s eyes. Adolphs says the research could help thos
5、e who suffer from other disorders such as autism, which can dull some people“s ability to discern important facial signals. The study is published in this week“s issue of the science journal Nature. Adolphs and his colleagues have studied the woman, known as SM, for more than a decade. She has a bra
6、in lesion in the amygdala. Not only can she not recognize fear, but she also fails to judge how trustworthy people look. To find out how a person perceives fear in other people, the scientists had study participants look at photographs of fearful and happy faces through holes that revealed only smal
7、l parts of the images. People with normal brains always looked immediately at the eye region of a faceeven more so when the face was fearful. SM, on the other hand, failed to spontaneously look at the eyes, instead staring straight ahead at the photographs. As a result, she judged that each face had
8、 a neutral expression. “She simply doesn“t know where to look in faces in order to seek out potentially useful information,“ Adolphs said. “That knowledge is something that other people do automatically.“ Although SM“s damaged amygdala is unable to direct the visual system to seek information, its c
9、apacity to process visual information is intact. Remarkably, the scientists found that SM was able to recognize fear in a person if told explicitly to look at the eyes of the other person. This solution, though, was short-lived, as SM needed to be reminded continuously to look at the eyes. “This rev
10、eals that the deficit caused by amygdala lesion is not causing a loss of the knowledge of what fear is or looks like, which is what people would have thought until now,“ Patrik Vuilleumier said. Vuilleumier, a neuroscientist at the University Medical Center of Geneva, Switzerland, wrote a commentary
11、 in Nature on the study. The results reinforce the idea that the amygdala can modulate perception and attention and is not responsible only for “knowing“ or “analyzing“ signals of fear, Vuilleumier said. In other words, in addition to analyzing other people“s eye signals, the amygdala “tells“ you to
12、 check others“ eyes in the first place. “The amygdala is able to guide the visual system to respond to faces, not only the converse that the visual system is feeding the amygdaia,“ he said. The scientists have also discovered that the amygdala is activated by other stimuli that don“t have anything t
13、o do with fear, such as erotic images. “The simple answer that the amygdala processes fear or the threat of danger is only a very small part of the story,“ Adolphs said. “What we“re looking for is a more comprehensive account of what the amygdala does that may begin to tie all these pieces together.
14、“ Adolphs says many parts of the brain work together and that more research will probably relate cognitive abilities to a network of brain structures. Meanwhile, the study could lead to therapies to help patients with defective emotional perception to lead more normal lives. People with autism, for
15、example, may have similar brain impairments to those of the woman in the study. Some autistics may be unable to make normal eye movements when looking at other people. They may therefore fail to make judgments about other people“s emotions. “To the extent that we could actually instruct people with
16、autism how to look at the world and other people“s faces, we might be in a position to improve their impaired social functions,“ Adolphs said.（分数：20.00）(1).“A brain lesion“ in Paragraph Four probably means（分数：4.00）A.a psychological damage of the brain.B.a physical damage of the brain.C.a cognitive d
17、isorder of the brain.D.a respondent loss of the brain.(2).According to the passage, people with their amygdala damaged can（分数：4.00）A.recognize fear with instruction.B.recognize fear spontaneously.C.distinguish facial expressions.D.seek important facial signals.(3).Which of the following is NOT inclu
18、ded in the findings of the new study?（分数：4.00）A.The amygdala can guide the visual system to look for information.B.The amygdala can affect one“s perceptive and attentive ability.C.The damaged amygdala can deprive one“s knowledge of fear.D.The damaged amygdala can still process visual information.(4)
19、.People with damaged amygdala resemble autistics in the following points EXCEPT that（分数：4.00）A.they both suffer from brain damage.B.they both have difficulty in socialization.C.they both have defective perceptive abilities.D.they both have the desire for communication.(5).The main point of the last
20、two paragraphs is（分数：4.00）A.the cognitive function of brain structure.B.the therapeutic value of study of amygdala.C.the future focus of research on amygdala.D.the significance of research on amygdala.三、Passage 2(总题数：1，分数：20.00)Of all the misfortunes a child can suffer, few provoke as much dread as
21、autism. The conditiona neurological disorder that impedes language and derails social and emotional developmenthas become ever more common in recent decades, thanks partly to better diagnosis. Experts now suspect that one person in 160 lives with some degree of autism; that“s three to four times the
22、 rate in the 1970s. But while the outward manifestations are well known, science is just beginning to illuminate the underlying biology. What goes wrong in the autistic brain? What defect or injury leaves it largely incapable of empathy? A growing body of evidence, capped by new findings from the Un
23、iversity of California, San Diego, raises a tantalizing possibility. The new study, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, links the condition to abnormally rapid brain growth during infancyand it raises new hopes for diagnosis and treatment. The key to last weeks finding was
24、not a million-dollar imaging device but a tape measure. Past studies have shown that autistic toddlers have abnormally large brains for their age. But because autism is rarely detected in kids younger than 2 or 3 years old, researchers have never known quite how that situation arises. Two years ago
25、the San Diego team realized that children“s old medical records might hold important clues. Led by neuroscientist Eric Courchesne, the researchers tracked down early-childhood head measurements for 48 autistic preschoolers, and compared them with national norms. As it turned out, the kids“ heads had
26、 been smaller than average at birth but had grown explosively during infancy, shooting from the 25th percentile to the 84th in roughly a year“s time. And faster growth predicted greater impairment. Mildly autistic subjects reached only the 59th percentile, but the severely afflicted kids reached the
27、 95th percentile. The implications are hard to miss. Autism, the new findings suggest, is not a sudden calamity that strikes children at the age of 2 or 3 but a developmental problem that can be traced back to in- fancy. That alone should help allay the suspicion that autism is caused by vaccines or
28、 pollutants that kids encounter later in childhood. But the new findings say less about the causes of autism than about its dynamics. The current study focuses on the first year of life, but the trouble isn“t confined to that period. Other recent studies suggest that the early growth spurt is follow
29、ed by several years of slower expansion, giving the autistic child an adult-size brain by the age of 4 or 5. During adolescence and adulthood, autistic brains are generally no larger than normal ones. Unfortunately, they exhibit a range of other anomalies, including dense clusters of underdeveloped
30、cells in the hippocampus and amygdala-structures that are critical for integrating emotional and sensory information. Does rapid growth actually cause all this damage? It“s still an open question. “The abnormal growth patterns give you a clue that something is amiss,“ says Dr. Margaret Bauman, a neu
31、rologist at Harvard Medical School and the LADDERS Autism Research Foundation, “but we can only guess at the underlying process.“ Courchesne believes it can be summed up in three words: “growth without guidance“. Normal brain development is not a monologue but a dialogue, in which the brain generate
32、s neural circuits and the child“s experiences determine which ones survive. The first year of life is a critical period for this “experience-guided growth“ and it“s not hard to see how a sudden shift into high gear might derail it. The brains circuitry would expand haphazardly as cell growth outpace
33、d experience, creating a chronic sensory overload. Courchesne hopes researchers will now confirm the dangers of unregulated brain growth by inducing it experimentally in animals. “Once we know what causes this growth defect,“ he says, “it may be possible to use biological treatments to counter it.“
34、The more immediate goal is simply to recognize autism at earlier stages, and to give affected kids the support they need to grow and learn and cope. Will the new findings advance that cause? Dr. Janet Lainhart, an autism expert at the University of Utah, is skeptical. The findings are most useful to
35、 researchers attempting to define the underlying developmental neuropathology of autism, she writes in a commentary on the San Diego study, rather than to physicians trying to identify young children with autism. That“s because, rapid head growth can signal other childhood maladies, including tumors
36、 and hydrocephalus, and often means “nothing at all“. Lainhart calculates that if doctors used head circumference as a screening test for autism, they would pick up 60 healthy children for every autistic one. Courchesne concedes the point, but he still believes it“s prudent for pediatricians to moni
37、tor head growth. The world“s oldest measurement tool still has the power to amaze, he says. It may not provide a definitive diagnosis, but it is inexpensive, non-invasive and objective and most of the concerns it raises can quickly be resolved. Where autism is concerned, that“s still as good a goal
38、as any.（分数：20.00）(1).The new findings in the study tell us（分数：4.00）A.the underlying biology of autism.B.the developmental problem during infancy.C.new methods for curing autism.D.the connection between brain growth and autism.(2).The previous study of autism has shown the following EXCEPT that（分数：4.
39、00）A.autistic children have extraordinarily large brains.B.children“s medical records might contain useful information.C.biological treatment could be applied to cure autism.D.we can guess some information from abnormal growth pattern.(3).The word “haphazardly“ in the fourth paragraph probably means
40、（分数：4.00）A.accidentally.B.frequently.C.orderly.D.quickly.(4).Which of the following implies a comparison?（分数：4.00）A.The findings are most useful to researchers attempting to define the underlying developmental neuropathology of autism.B.The new study links the condition to abnormally rapid brain gro
41、wth during infancy.C.Experts now suspect that one person in 160 lives with some degree of autism; that“s three to four times the rate in the 1970s.D.The key to last weeks finding was not a million-dollar imaging device but a tape measure.(5).The attitude of Dr. Lainhart towards the new findings is（分
42、数：4.00）A.positive.B.indifferent.C.neutral.D.negative.四、Passage 3(总题数：1，分数：20.00)Three decades after the first Apollo landing on the moon, the debate between proponents of manned and unmanned space missions has not changed a great deal. But many space scientists, who work with robotic satellites incl
43、uding me, have gradually moved from opposing human spaceflight to a more moderate position. In special situations, we now realized, sending people into space is not just an expensive stunt but can be more cost-effective than sending robots. Mars exploration is The basic advantage of astronauts is th
44、at they can explore Mars in real time, free of communications delays and capable of following up interesting results with new experiments. But the question arises: Where should the astronauts be? The obvious answeron the surface of Marsis not necessarily the most efficient. At the first “Case for Ma
45、rs“ conference in 1981, one of the more provocative conclusions was that the Martian moons, Phobos and Deimos, could serve as comparatively inexpensive beachheads. Most current mission scenarios involve a pair of spacecraft. The first positions propellants and other heavy components, such as spare m
46、odules and re-entry vehicle, on or near Mars. Because the journey time is not crucial, it can use electric propulsion and gravity-assist procedures to reduce the cost. The story is rather different for the second spacecraft, which transports the astronauts. It must traverse Earth“s radiation belts r
47、apidly, and to save on supplies, the transit time to Mars should be as short as possible. The carious mission plans part ways when it comes to deciding what should happen once the crew ship and the freight ship link up at the Red Planet. In order of increasing difficulty and expense, six possible sc
48、enarios are: a Mars flyby analogous to the early Apollo missions, with immediate return to Earth; a Mars or-biter, permitting a longer stay near the planet; a Phobos-Deimos (Ph-D) mission, involving a transfer to a circular, equatorial orbit, with a landing and base on a Martian moon, preferably Dei
49、mos; a hybrid mission (Ph-D-plus) that adds a brief sortie to the Martian surface; a full-scale Martian landing, with a longer stay on the surface and a complete program of research; and finally, an extended stay on Mars, during which astronauts erect permanent structures and commence continuous habitations of the planet. The trick will be to make sure the first manned mission is ambitiousthe adventure is, after all, part of the attractionbut not too ambitious, lest it not win funding. The Ph-D and Ph-D-plus missions offer a compelling balance of cost and benefit and would provide the
