Thinking is something you choose to do as a fish chooses to live in water. To be human is to think. But thinking may come naturally without your knowing how you do it. Thinking about drinking is the key to critical（判断性的）thinking. When you think critically, you take control of your thinking processes（过程）. Otherwise, you might be controlled by the ideas of others. Indeed, critical thinking is at the heart of education.
The word “critical” here has a special meaning. It does not mean taking one view against another view, as when someone criticizes another person for doing something wrong. The nature of critical thinking is thinking beyond the easily seen-beyond the pictures on TV, the untrue reports in the newspapers, and the faulty reasoning.
Critical thinking is an attitude as much as an activity. If you are curious about life and desire to dig deeper into it, you are a critical thinker. If you find pleasure in deep thinking about different ideas, characters, and facts, you are a critical thinker 。
Activities of the mind and higher-order reasoning are processes of deep and careful consideration. They take time, and do not go hand in hand with the fast speed in today’s world: fast foods, instant coffee, and self-developing film. If you are among the people who believe that speed is a measure of intelligence（智力）, you may learn something new from a story about Albert Einstein. The first time Banesh Hoffman, a scientist, was to discuss his work with Albert Einstein. Hoffman was too nervous to speak. But Einstein immediately put Hoffman at ease by saying, “Please go slowly. I don’t understand things quickly.”
73. Critical thinking is important to us because if we do not think critically, _______.
A. it will be hard for us to think naturally and fast
B. we might be controlled by other people’s ideas
C. we will follow the ideas of others naturally
D. we might be footed by other people’s ideas
74. If you are a critical thinker, you will ________.
A. think deeply about different ideas B. trust the reports in the newspapers
C. take one view against another view D. criticize other people for their mistakes
75. In the last paragraph, “something new” suggests that ________.
A. the smarter you are, the faster you do things
B. the faster you do things, the smarter you become
C. speed can improve intelligence
D. intelligence is not decided by speed
76. What would be the best title for the passage?
A. Thinking and Critical Thinking. B. Understanding Critical Thinking.
C. Thinking Is Natural and Human. D. Thinking Fast Means Intelligence.
If it really is what’s on the inside that counts, then a lot of thin people might be in trouble.
Some doctors now think that the internal(内部的) fat surrounding important organs like the heart or liver could be as dangerous as the external fat which can be noticed more easily.
“Being thin doesn’t surely mean you are not fat,” said Dr Jimmy Bell at Imperial College. Since 1994, Bell and his team have scanned nearly 800 people with MRI machines to create “fat maps” showing where people store fat.
According to the result, people who keep their weight through diet rather than exercise are likely to have major deposits(储蓄,沉淀物)of internal fat, even if they are slim.
Even people with normal Body Mass Index scores can have surprising levels of fat deposits inside. Of the women, as many as 45 percent of those with normal BMI scores (20 to 25) actually had too high levels of internal fat. Among men, the percentage was nearly 60 percent.
According to Bell, people who are fat on the inside are actually on the edge of being fat. They eat too many fatty and sugary foods, but they are not eating enough to be fat. Scientists believe we naturally store fat around the belly first, but at some point, the body may start storing it elsewhere.
Doctors are unsure about the exact dangers of internal fat, but some think it has something to do with heart disease and diabetes(糖尿病). They want to prove that internal fat damages the body’s communication systems.
The good news is that internal fat can be easily burned off through exercise or even by improving your diet. “If you want to be healthy, there is no shortcut. Exercise has to be an important part of your lifestyle.” Bell said. What is the passage mainly about?
| A．Internal fat leads to many diseases. |
| B．Internal fat is of no importance. |
| C．Thin people may be fat inside. |
| D．Thin people don’t have diabetes. |
According to the passage, which of the following is WRONG?
| A．Exercise can help to reduce the internal fat. |
| B．People with heart disease all have internal fat. |
| C．Men are more likely to have too much internal fat. |
| D．People can get rid of internal fat by improving diet. |
From the last paragraph, we can find that ______.
| A．internal fat leading to disease has been proved |
| B．it is easier to burn off internal fat than external fat |
| C．thin people usually have internal fat even if they are slim |
| D．exercise plays an important role in people’s life for keeping healthy |
The underlined part in the last paragraph means ______.
| A．long road | B．clear difference |
| C． short distance | D．easy way |
The United States government is back in business. Early Thursday morning, President Barack Obama signed a bill to reopen the government. The budget bill, drafted by Senate late on Wednesday night, raised the government’s debt ceiling and averted(避免)a serious economic crisis. “With the shutdown behind us,” Obama said after the Senate vote, “we now have an opportunity to focus on a sensible budget that is responsible, that is fair and that helps hardworking people all across this country.”
Now that a settlement has been reached, formerly furloughed(休假)employees have returned to work, national museums and parks are reopening, and the government’s gears are slowly beginning to turn again.
Before the shutdown, a federal funding bill went back and forth between the Senate and the House. A major issue was whether or not the government would pay for changes in Obama’s healthcare plan. The Senate, with a Democratic majority, wanted to pass a budget that would fund the new healthcare law. But the House, which has a Republican majority, did not want government money used that way. Because an agreement could not be reached on a budget plan, the government was forced to partially shut down.
Sixteen days later, the two sides have come together to pass a measure that raised the country’s debt ceiling. The debt ceiling is the strict legal limit Congress places on the amount of money that can be borrowed each year. Had this agreement not been met by October 17, the U.S. may not have been able to pay its promised payments. This legislation, or law, will fund the government through January 15. During this time, Obama and Congress will work on a long-term spending plan.
The effects of the two-week government shutdown were widespread. In addition to national parks, museums, memorials and monuments were off-limits to visitors. Workers at government-run organizations like NASA and the Environmental Protection Agency were furloughed. Part of the new legislation will pay back the 800,000 workers who were without pay during the shutdown.
Early Thursday, the Smithsonian Institution celebrated the government’s reopening on Twitter. “We’re back from the shutdown!” they wrote, announcing that museums would reopen Thursday and the National Zoo in Washington on Friday.
To the delight of many people, that also means the return of the zoo’s popular live Panda camera.What may have lead to the government shutdown?
| A．Economic crisis. |
| B．The senate voting. |
| C．Dispute on the budget bill. |
| D．Lazy people across the country. |
What does the underlined phrase “two sides” in paragraph four refers to?
| A．The senate and the house. |
| B．The senate and the president. |
| C．The president and the congress. |
| D．The legislator and the government. |
What can we learn about the U.S. Government from the shutdown?
| A．It is run by lazy workers. |
| B．It is affected by different political forces. |
| C．The people has no say in the decision making process. |
| D．Obama decides whether his health care bill will be passed or not. |
In mentioning the live Panda camera, the author suggests that ______.
| A．zoos were government-run |
| B．pandas were popular among the public |
| C．the effects of the shutdown were widespread |
| D．tourists were affected the most by the shutdown |
For as long as they can remember Jynne Martin and April Surgent had both dreamed of going to Antarctica. This winter, they each made it to the icy continent as guests of the National Science Foundation (NSF). But they didn’t go as scientists. Martin is a poet and Surgent is an artist. They went to Antarctica as participants in the NSF’s Artists and Writers program. The NSF is the government agency that funds scientific research in Antarctica. But it also makes it possible for artists, including filmmakers and musicians, to experience Antarctica and contribute their own points of view to our understanding of the continent.
The mixing of science and art in Antarctica isn’t new. Some of the earliest explorers brought along painters and photographers. Edward Wilson was a British painter, doctor, and bird expert who journeyed with Robert Falcon Scott on two separate Antarctic expeditions more than 100 years ago. Herbert Ponting was a photographer who also accompanied Scott on one of those expeditions. In hundreds of photos, Ponting captured the beauty of the continent and recorded the daily lives and heroic struggles of the explorers.
Today’s scientists write articles for scientific journals. Unlike the early explorers’ journals, scientific papers can now be very difficult for non-scientists to understand. Writers in Antarctica work to explain the research to the public. Peter Rejcek is editor, writer, and photographer for the Antarctic Sun, an online magazine devoted to news about the U.S. Antarctic Program. Rejcek began his career in the Antarctic in 2003 by spending a year at the South Pole. He has returned every year since, interviewing scientists about research at Palmer, McMurdo, and South Pole stations.
There are also scientists in Antarctica who work hard to explain their research to the public. Scientist Diane McKnight wrote The Lost Seal, a children’s book that explains the research she and others are doing in an unusual ice-free area in Antarctica called the Dry Valleys.
Antarctica is full of stories and wonders that are scientific, historical, and personal. People such as Martin, Surgent, Rejcek, and McKnight are devoted to bringing those stories to as many people as they can. “Some people are going to be scientists, some people are going to be journalists, some people are going to be artists, but we can all work together,” says Surgent, “to celebrate this extraordinary place.”What do we know about the NSF?
| A．It is a government agency. |
| B．It only funds scientists in Antarctica. |
| C．It encourages the understanding of human nature. |
| D．It enables the mixing of science and art for the first time. |
Why didn’t some earliest explorers bring writers along?
| A．Writers were not funded at that time. |
| B．Writing can’t capture the beauty of the continent. |
| C．Writers were not interested in popularizing science. |
| D．Early explorers’ journals can be easily understood by the public. |
By mentioning Diane McKnight, the author may try to suggest that ______.
| A．scientists should explain their research to children |
| B．writers are not necessary since scientists can tell stories as well |
| C．telling stories to children is more important than knowing the truth |
| D．no matter what role we play, we can work together to appreciate Antarctica |
What would be the best title for this article?
| A．Antarctica: A Land for All |
| B．The NSF: A Program for All |
| C．Antarctica: A Land of Beauty and Stories |
| D．The NSF: A Program for Artists and Scientists |
Ocean animals have been getting bigger over the last half-billion years. Not a little bigger. Not even a lot bigger. They have mushroomed gigantically, scientists now conclude.
Their new finding lends support for something known as “Cope’s rule.” It holds that animals tend to evolve into species that are much larger than their distant ancestors. This hypothesis(假说)takes its name from the 19th century paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope. While studying fossils(化石), he was the first to notice this trend.
Noel Heim is a paleontologist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. He also is a co-author of the new study. His team compared the body size of animals between the Cambrian Period and modern times. This was a span of 542 million years. The animals studied included species from more than 17,000 genera. They ranged from ancient trilobites, plesiosaurs (extinct reptiles with a long neck and flippers) and many less familiar creatures to today’s whales and clams.
Ocean animals today are an average of 150 times larger than they were during the Cambrian, Heim’s group reports. The smallest animals alive today — tiny crustaceans called ostracods — are only about one-tenth the size of the Cambrian’s tiniest animals. But today’s largest ocean animals — whales — are more than 100,000 times bigger than the biggest in the Cambrian.
“Classes of animals that were already big … tended to live longer,” Heim says. They also tended to change more than classes of animals that were small did.
The size gains in ocean animals are much larger than would be expected by chance, saysJonathan Payne. He’s a co-author who also works at Stanford.
The scientists don’t know what drives the trend. One possibility is an arms race(军备竞赛)between predators and prey. The idea here is that larger animals are less likely to become some other animals’ meal. Another possibility has to do with oxygen. Land animals evolved from species that started in the ocean. Some of these land animals eventually returned to the ocean. And they kept the ability to breathe oxygen-rich air. That may have made it easier for them to outgrow animals that had to filter(过滤)their oxygen out of the water.What current animals may best illustrate “mushroomed” in paragraph one?
| A．Plesiosaurs. | B．Ostracods. |
| C．Whales. | D．African Elephants. |
What is the third paragraph mainly about?
| A．The result of the study. |
| B．The participants of the study. |
| C．The significance of the study. |
| D．The targeted animals of the study. |
The ocean animals’ change in size ______.
| A．is determined by environment |
| B．cannot be predicted by any factor |
| C．is fully explained by the new study |
| D．relates to the size of their ancestors |
In the last paragraph, the explanations for the trend suggest that ______.
| A．bigger animals will never be eaten |
| B．land animal can get oxygen more easily |
| C．oxygen is important to all ocean animals |
| D．land animals can grow bigger than ocean animals |
As I drive about the Sois in rural Thailand I catch little glimpses of things that barely register on the mind as the scenery flies by; strange things, beautiful things, sad things, interesting things. I wish I could hold on to these scenes; explore them in detail. I wish that I had the time to stop and investigate further as I’m driving by, but time is a commodity(商品)worth more than all the moneys in the world. I wish I had more.
I once had a guy wave to me as I passed him. He yelled out something, almost in greeting, as if he knew me. I wonder if we knew each other once, in another place, another time, and he recognized my soul as I drove by in the truck, and just had to yell a hello. I wish I had stopped and said hello too.
I saw two young girls, dressed in school uniforms. White blouses, blue skirts, books in hand. They were holding hands, talking, walking down the road, jostling(推，搡)each other with their shoulders and teasing each other as they strolled along. As I passed the one closest to the truck looked up. She was close enough to touch almost. Her smiling face, her clear eyes and golden smooth skin are there in my mind’s eye now. I can see her as if she were standing next to me. Once in a while her face just pops into my head. Why? Why is she still there? Sometimes I think maybe I’m a bit mad.
I stopped at a road stop on a corner one time. An old lady standing by the roadside walked over to the truck and put her hand on my arm and smiled at me. Her palm was so cool. It must have been a hundred degrees out that day. She said something in Thai and giggled(咯咯地笑) and walked away. Who was she? Why did she touch me? Why was her hand so cool? Why did I just sit there and let her touch me? I didn’t flinch(退缩)away. It was almost as if I knew her, and we were just saying a quick hello. Her cool touch almost seemed familiar; like my long dead grandmother’s soothing cool touch remembered from when I was just a little boy.
I need more time. I need to stop the truck more often, and just say hello. Things glimpsed along the road are often far more interesting and wonderful than that which seems to consume our daily lives. Slow down. Stop the truck. Get out, and say hello.What kind of life does the writer normally lead?
| A．Busy. | B．Tiring. | C．Meaningless. | D．Boring. |
The man in paragraph two yelled out because he ______.
| A．had met the writer before |
| B．recognized the writer’s soul |
| C．wanted to show friendliness |
| D．mistook me as one of his friends |
The writer describes the two school girls in great details to show ______.
| A．his liking for them |
| B．that he was kind of crazy |
| C．his interest in observing people |
| D．the deep impression they left on him |
Why does the author compare the old lady with his grandmother?
| A．The old lady behaved like his grandmother. |
| B．He suggests the old lady had very cold hands. |
| C．He suggests the old lady’s touch was comforting. |
| D．The old lady reminded the writer of his entire childhood. |