1、大学英语六级改革适用（阅读）模拟试卷 13及答案与解析 Section B 0 Less News, Much Better A)In the past few decades, the fortunate among us have recognized the hazards of living with an overabundance of food(obesity, diabetes)and have started to change our diets. But most of us do not yet understand that news is to the mind w
2、hat sugar is to the body. News is easy to digest. The media feeds us small bites of trivial matter, tidbits that dont really concern our lives and dont require thinking. Thats why we experience almost no saturation. Unlike reading books and long magazine articles(which require thinking), we can swal
3、low limitless quantities of news flashes, which are bright-colored candies for the mind. Today, we have reached the same point in relation to information that we faced 20 years ago in regard to food. We are beginning to recognize how toxic news can be. B)News misleads. Take the following event(borro
4、wed from Nassim Taleb). A car drives over a bridge, and the bridge collapses. What does the news media focus on? The car? The person in the car? Where did he come from? Where did he plan to go? How he experienced the crash(if he survived). But that is all irrelevant. What s relevant? The structural
5、stability of the bridge? Thats the underlying risk that has been lurking, and could lurk in other bridges. C)But the car is flashy, its dramatic, its a person(non-abstract), and its news that s cheap to produce. News leads us to walk around with the completely wrong risk map in our heads. So terrori
6、sm is over-rated. Chronic stress is under-rated. The collapse of Lehman Brothers is overrated. Fiscal irresponsibility is under-rated. Astronauts are over-rated. Nurses are under-rated. D)We are not rational enough to be exposed to the press. Watching an airplane crash on television is going to chan
7、ge your attitude toward that risk, regardless of its real probability. If you think you can compensate with the strength of your own inner contemplation, you are wrong. Bankers and economists who have powerful incentives to compensate for news-borne hazards have shown that they cannot. The only solu
8、tion: cut yourself off from news consumption entirely. E)News is irrelevant. Out of the approximately 10,000 news stories you have read in the last 12 months, name one that because you consumed it allowed you to make a better decision about a serious matter affecting your life, your career or your b
9、usiness. F)The point is: the consumption of news is irrelevant to you. But people find it very difficult to recognize whats relevant. Its much easier to recognize whats new. The relevant versus the new is the fundamental battle of the current age. Media organizations want you to believe that news of
10、fers you some sort of a competitive advantage. Many fall for that. We get anxious when we re cut off from the flow of news. In reality, news consumption is a competitive disadvantage. The less news you consume, the bigger the advantage you have. G)News has no explanatory power. News items are bubble
11、s popping on the surface of a deeper world. Will accumulating facts help you understand the world? Sadly, no. The relationship is inverted. The important stories are non-stories: slow, powerful movements that develop below journalists radar but have a transforming effect. The more “news factoids“ yo
12、u digest, the less of the big picture you will understand. If more information leads to higher economic success, we d expect journalists to be at the top of the pyramid. Thats not the case. H)News is toxic to your body. It constantly triggers the limbic system. Panicky stories spur the release of ca
13、scades of glucocorticoid(Cortisol). This deregulates your immune system and inhibits the release of growth hormones. In other words, your body finds itself in a state of chronic stress. High glucocorticoid levels cause impaired digestion, lack of growth(cell, hair, and bone), nervousness and suscept
14、ibility to infections. The other potential side-effects include fear, aggression, tunnel-vision and desensitisation. I)News increases cognitive errors. News feeds the mother of all cognitive errors: confirmation bias. In the words of Warren Buffett: “What the human being is best at doing is interpre
15、ting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact.“ News exacerbates this flaw. We become prone to overconfidence, take stupid risks and misjudge opportunities. J)News inhibits thinking. Thinking requires concentration. Concentration requires uninterrupted time. News pieces are
16、specifically engineered to interrupt you. They are like viruses that steal attention for their own purposes. News makes us shallow thinkers. But it s worse than that. News severely affects memory. K)There are two types of memory. Long-range memorys capacity is nearly infinite, but working memory is
17、limited to a certain amount of slippery data. The path from short-term to long-term memory is a choke-point in the brain, but anything you want to understand must pass through it. If this passageway is disrupted, nothing gets through. Because news disrupts concentration, it weakens comprehension. L)
18、News works like a drug. As stories develop, we want to know how they continue. With hundreds of arbitrary storylines in our heads, this craving is increasingly compelling and hard to ignore. Scientists used to think that the dense connections formed among the 100 billion neurons inside our skulls we
19、re largely fixed by the time we reached adulthood. Today we know that this is not the case. Nerve cells routinely break old connections and form new ones. M)The more news we consume, the more we exercise the neural circuits devoted to skimming and multitasking while ignoring those used for reading d
20、eeply and thinking with profound focus. Most news consumers even if they used to be avid book readershave lost the ability to absorb lengthy articles or books. After four, five pages they get tired, their concentration vanishes, they become restless. It s not because they got older or their schedule
21、s became more onerous. It s because the physical structure of their brains has changed. N)News wastes time. If you read the newspaper for 15 minutes each morning, then check the news for 15 minutes during lunch and 15 minutes before you go to bed, then add five minutes here and there when youre at w
22、ork, then count distraction and refocusing time, you will lose at least half a day every week. Information is no longer a scarce commodity. But attention is. You are not that irresponsible with your money, reputation or health. Why give away your mind? O)News makes us passive. News stories are overw
23、helmingly about things you cannot influence. The daily repetition of news about things we can t act upon makes us passive. It grinds us down until we adopt a worldview that is pessimistic, desensitized, sarcastic and fatalistic. The scientific term is “learned helplessness“. Its a bit of a stretch,
24、but I would not be surprised if news consumption, at least partially contributes to the widespread disease of depression. P)News kills creativity. Finally, things we already know limit our creativity. This is one reason that mathematicians, novelists, composers and entrepreneurs often produce their
25、most creative works at a young age. Their brains enjoy a wide, uninhabited space that emboldens them to come up with and pursue novel ideas. I dont know a single truly creative mind who is a news junkie not a writer, not a composer, mathematician, physician, scientist, musician, designer, architect
26、or painter. On the other hand, I know a bunch of viciously uncreative minds who consume news like drugs. If you want to come up with old solutions, read news. If you are looking for new solutions, dont. Q)Society needs journalism but in a different way. Investigative journalism is always relevant. W
27、e need reporting that polices our institutions and uncovers truth. But important findings dont have to arrive in the form of news. Long journal articles and in-depth books are good, too. I have now gone without news for four years, so I can see, feel and report the effects of this freedom first-hand
28、: less disruption, less anxiety, deeper thinking, more time, and more insights. It s not easy, but it s worth it. 1 Many people believe that reading news can strengthen their competitive force. 2 Long journal articles and in-depth books may be better choice than news to report significant findings.
29、3 News always makes us focus on some unimportant points instead of those ideas really significant. 4 All cognitive errors originate from confirmation bias which gets driving force from news. 5 The reason why people cant concentrate on books for long time is that their brains physical structure has c
30、hanged. 6 Compared with books and long magazine articles, news is easier for us to understand. 7 High glucocorticoid makes you easy to get ill and has diverse effect on your growth. 8 Our attitudes towards risk are influenced by the news report, no matter what the reality is like. 9 If a person can
31、t cross the span between short-term memory and long-term memory, he will learn nothing. 10 According to the author, all of the creative persons are not addicted to reading news. 10 Relationship Talking Points: Speak Your Spouses Language A)Anna and Mike Peterson recently had dinner at their favourit
32、e steakhouse, came home, checked on their teenagers watching TV in the basement and then retired to their bedroom where Ms. Peterson lit a candle “to create an intimate atmosphere“. The next morning, Mr. Peterson left early for work. When his wife woke up, she texted him: “Good morning, my love. How
33、 are you today? I had a wonderful night with you. I hope we can find time for that more often.“ Mr. Peterson responded immediately with exactly one word: “Busy.“ Do men and women speak the same language? B)A University of Pennsylvania study of brain scans has reignited the controversy over what migh
34、t explain the differences in the social behaviour of men and women, and why they often have so much trouble communicating. The findings, published earlier this month in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, indicate that, starting in adolescence, brain wiring starts to differ
35、in men and women. Brain scans of women showed more connections between the two hemispheres, left and right, compared with men of the same age, whose scans showed more connections within hemispheres. C)Neuroscientists say the study lends visual support to an idea many have long believed that women, i
36、n general, may be better wired for multitasking and analytical thought, which require coordination of activity in both hemispheres. Men may be better wired for focused linear tasks that require attention to one thing at a time. Experts caution the conclusions are speculative, and these patterns show
37、 up only when a large number of people are studied. D)Other research, though, holds the differences between men and women are a matter of degree, not of kind. There are no categorical differences between the sexes in areas such as sexual attitudes and behaviours, personality and social orientation(w
38、hether men are more aggressive or women more caring, for example), according to a re-analysis of 13 studies on the psychological characteristics of men and women published earlier this year in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. E)“Men and women are much more similar than they are fund
39、amentally different,“ says Harry T. Reis, a researcher on the study and professor of psychology at the University of Rochester. Yet men and women often express themselves in what can seem like predictably different ways. “Women put their emotional state into speech much faster,“ says Louann Brizendi
40、ne, a neuropsychiatrist at the University of California, San Francisco, and author of the books “The Female Brain“ and “The Male Brain.“ “That can be overwhelming to men,“ she says. F)Men and women both feel emotions deeply but process them at different speeds. And individuals vary. “From what we kn
41、ow of brain circuitry, 10% of each gender behaves more like the other gender,“ Dr. Brizendine says. G)The research suggests men are more comfortable with linear thinking while women dont mind toggling between topics. They each gravitate to different issues. Women are often encouraged to attend to em
42、otions from a young age, and they like to talk about relationships. Men typically dont like relationship talk as much. In both instances, nurture reinforces nature, Dr. Brizendine says. H)If after an argument many women would say they remain upset longer than their husbands, it may be because estrog
43、en enhances and prolongs the secretion of the stress hormone Cortisol, which can stay elevated for up to 24 hours, according to Marianne Legato, a cardiologist and founder of the Partnership for Gender-Specific Medicine at New Yorks Columbia University Medical Centre. “This makes women keep obsessin
44、g, stay awake and stay anxious, long after he s forgotten the unpleasant incident,“ she says. I)Ms. Peterson, author of the love text, says she was upset by her husband s one-word response. “I felt that hed moved on,“ says Ms. Peterson, a 45-year-old licensed clinical social worker from Frederick, M
45、d. Several days later, she told her husband, 58, that she was hurt and asked if he had enjoyed the evening. “He confirmed with a deeply toned Yes,“ she says. “I recognized that he was content and ready for the next leg of the conversation.“ Mr. Peterson, a structural welder for a railroad, says his
46、text was brief because he was at work and it can be dangerous to use a cellphone near the tracks. “I wanted her to understand that I did get her message and was responding to her,“ he says. J)In 18 years of marriage, the Petersons have worked to understand each others communication style. Ms. Peters
47、on accepts that her husband doesnt talk about feelings or reminisce much. She doesnt try to engage him in long emotional, nostalgic conversations, and calls a girlfriend or writes in her journal instead. K)When she does want to share something with him, Ms. Peterson tells him all he needs to do is l
48、isten. “That validates his process and mine,“ she says. Mr. Peterson says he gives his wife a “thumbs up“ for adjusting how she relates to him. How can you communicate better with the opposite sex? L)Therapists say before speaking, both men and women should take a breath to collect their thoughts. T
49、hink through what you want to say and remind yourself to listen. It may be helpful for men to explain that they want to be accepted even if they don t often share emotions. But be aware: Sharing emotions often helps a relationship. M)Carolyn Daitch, a Farmington Hills, Mich., psychologist and author of “Anxious in Love,“ says men often experience emotions physically, and to help them understand their emotions she often advises them to take cues from their bodies. Is your heart pounding? “Then take a risk and try to expre
