The Spanish Government is so worried about the number of young adults still living with their parents
that it has decided to help them leave the nest.
Around 55 percent of people aged 18-er in>Spain still sleep in their parents? homes, says the latest
report from the country?s state-run Institute of Youth.
To coax(劝诱)young people from their homes, the Institute started a “Youth Emancipation (解放)
program this month. The program offers guidance in finding rooms and jobs.
Economists blame young people?s family dependence on the precarious （不稳定的）labor market and
increasing housing prices. Housing prices have risen 17 percent a year since 2000.
Cultural reasons also contribute to the problem, say sociologists (社会学家). Family ties in south
Europe – Italy, Portugal and Greece –are stronger than those in middle and north Europe, said Spanish sociologist Almudena Moreno Minguez in her report” The Late Emancipation of Spanish Youth: Key for Understanding”.
“In general, young people in Spain firmly believe in the family as the main body around which their
private life is organized,” said Minguez.
In Spain – especially in the countryside, it is not uncommon to find entire groups of aunts, uncles,
cousins, nieces and nephews (外侄/侄子) all living on the same street. They regularly get together for Sunday dinner.
Parents? tolerance is another factor. Spanish parents accept late-night partying and are wary of setting
bedtime rules.
“A child can arrive home at whatever time he wants. If parents complain he?ll put up a fight and call
the father a fascist,” said Jose Antonio Gomez Yanez, a sociologist at Carlos III University in Madrid.
Mothers? willingness to do children?s household chores (家务) worsens the problem. Dionisio Masso,
a 60-year-old in Madrid, has three children in their 20s. The eldest, 28, has a girlfriend and a job. But life with mum is good.
“His mum does the wash and cooks for him; in the end, he lives well, ” Masso said.
31 The “Youth Emancipation” program aims at helping young people A fight for freedom. B live in an independent way. C fight against social injustice. D get rid of family responsibilities.
32 It can be inferred from paragraph 5 that family ties are stronger in Portugal than in
6
A Finland. B Greece. C Spain. D Italy.
33 Young people's family dependence can be attributed to all the following factors EXCEPT A parents' tolerance. B housing problems. C cultural traditions.
D unwillingness to get married.
34 Which of the following statements is ，NOT true of Dionisio Masso？ A She is 60 years old. B She has a boyfriend. C She has three children. D She lives in Madrid.
35 The phrase “wary of” in paragraph 8 could be best replaced by A tired of. B afraid of. C cautious about. D worried about.
第二篇
Listening to Birdsong
A male zebra finch (誉科鸣鸟) chirps （鸣）away to himself. Suddenly he notices a female bird nearby.
He realizes he has an audience and immediately changes his song. Can the female tell the difference in his performance? According to a new study, thy female zebra finch knows. And she prefers the special trills he creates in ways that people can barely detect. But the female finch can tell the difference.
Scientists had noticed slight variations in the songs of male zebra finches based on whether they were
singing alone or whether there was a female (and potential mate) nearby. With an audience, the males sped up the pace of their songs and controlled the notes they used.
For this study, researchers Sarah C. Woolley and Allison Doupe at the University of California, San
Francisco decided to focus attention on the listening females, which have not been well studied in the past.
7
In the study, Woolley and Doupe set up a long cage with a sound speaker at each end. One broadcast
the sound of a male zebra finch singing to himself, like someone singing in the shower. The other speaker broadcast a male performing for a female audience, as if was giving a concert.
Female birds were placed between the two speakers. Some of the birds had mates, others didn?s. The
females shifted around a bit, and then most of them hopped over to sit beside just one speaker. All the birds that made a clear choice liked songs meant for a female audience, even if they?d never met the male.
Mated females also had a chance to listen to two different performance songs, one from an unknown
male, and one from their mate. They spent more time listening to the concert version of mates? songs, this suggests that after a while, females learn to recognize – and prefer – the songs of their mates.
Scientists then studied the brains of the females. They found certain areas of the brain perked up (活跃
起来) when the birds listened to the concert songs. These brain areas may be involved in recognizing and evaluating the songs, and storing the memories of them.
This research deals with what?s called directed communication, when the communicator, or sender,
focuses the message for a specific audience. One example is the way moms speak to their babies. Mothers around the world use the same sort of high-pitched sing-song chatter (喋喋不休) ,and the babies respond best to those sounds. Songbirds are one of the only other species known to learn their communication, in this case their songs.
36 Which of the following is true about birdsongs？
A Female zebra finches are too shy to sing before males. B Male zebra finches sing louder than females.
C Female zebra finches like to listen to unknown males sing. D Male zebra finches change their songs to attract females.
37 What did the researchers find in their study of female zebra finches？ A Female finches only liked songs male finches sang for their mates B Female finches liked songs male finches sang for them. C Female finches liked to listen to songs from both speakers， D Female finches chose the best male singers as their mates. 38 What is meant by “concert songs” in paragraph？ A Songs sung by zebra finches at a concert. B Songs sung by female finches for male finches. C Songs sung by male finches for female finches.
8
D Songs sung by male finches to other finches.
39 The expression “directed communication” in the last paragraph means communication in which A the message sender has a specific audience. B the communicator sends messages to himself. C two communicators send messages to each other. D mothers talk to their babies in their mother tongue.
40 Which of the following can best reflect the theme of the passage？ A Chirping away.
B Zebra finches and their life. C Birdsongs as communication. D Frequencies of birdsongs.
第三篇
The Robot Man
Activities that we engage in, leaving us with little to do. Moravec sees four generations on the road to
true universal robots. The first generation will be here by 2010 and will consist of free-ranging robots that can navigate by building an internal mental map of their surroundings. In new situations they?ll be able to adapt , unlike today?s mobile industrial robots. These robots will have the computing power, to cope with simple speech and text recognition, and will be used for tasks such as domestic cleaning.
The second generation will arrive around 2020 and will be distinguished by the ability to learn.
Second generation robots are programmed with sets of primitive tasks and with feedback that provide “pleasure” and “pain” stimuli. For example, a collision provokes a negative response, a completed task would be positive.
Move forward another ten years to 2030 and you get to generation three. This robot ca build internal
simulations of the world around it. Before= beginning a task, it can imagine what will happen in order to predict problems. If it has a free moment, it can replay past experiences and try variations in order to find a better way of doing things next time. It could even observe a person or-another robot performing a task and learn by imitation. For the first time, we have here a robot that can think.
By the time we get to generation four in 2040, Moravec predicts that robots will be able to: match
human reasoning and behavior; generalize abstract ideas from specific experience; and, conversely, compile detailed plans of action from general commands such as? earn living? or ? make more robots?.
9
The Moravec manifesto (宣告) runs something like this. As robots start to become useful in generation
one, they?ll begin to take on-many tasks in industry. Driven by the availability of this cheap and tireless labour force, the economy will boom and demand for robots will grow so rapidly that they will soon become low-cost commodity items So mush so that they?ll move into the home, where the domestic robot will relieve us of many chores.
With increasing automation in generations two and three, the length of the average working day will
plummet, eventually to near zero. Most people will be unemployed as robots take over not just primary industry, but the service economy too. Moravec sees the fourth generation as an opportunity to surpass our human limitations.
These future machines will be our “mind children”. Like biological children of previous generations,
they will embody humanity?s best hope for a long-term future.
41 What will be the distinctive feature of the second generation robots？ A They will be able to recognize speeches and texts. B They will be able to learn by themselves. C They will be able to predict problems.
D They will be able to match human reasoning and behavior. 42 Which of the following statements is true of the future robots？ A They will relieve us of many chores. B They will take over the information industry. C They will never surpass us.
D They will become high-cost commodity items. 43 The author's main purpose is to A describe the life of Hans Moravec.
B support the view that robots will play a major role in our life. C make fun of the views of Hans Moravec. D get people prepared for the threat of future robots. 44 The word “plummet” in paragraph 6 means A decrease. B stretch. C extend. D grow.
10