Passage 3 (explanations)阅读训练.pptVIP

The main idea is found through the repetition of words or concepts. TEST ONE Artificial light in winter means we no longer have to go to bed when it gets dark. We can also get up before it is light. This means we can have a summer sleep pattern all year round. Animals sleep more during winter than summer. Researchers in America wanted to find out whether humans might want to do the same on a winter day without artificial light. People observed in the research did sleep longer, usually up to 11 hours. However, winter sleep seems to be interrupted by periods of quiet ‘wakefulness’ like those experienced in meditation. These were found to be very restful. The study found that modern humans are not getting enough sleep. 1. The topic of the passage is _____ . A. artificial light B. natural light C. human sleep D. animal sleep Watch a baby between six and nine months old, and you will observe the basic concepts of geometry being learned. Once the baby has mastered the idea that space is three-dimensional, it reaches out and begins grasping various kinds of objects. It is then, from perhaps nine to fifteen months, that the concepts of sets and numbers are formed. So far, so good. But now an ominous(evil/bad) development takes place. The nerve fibers in the brain insulate themselves in such a way that the baby begins to hear sounds very precisely. Soon it picks up language, and it is then brought into direct communication with adults. From this point on, it is usually downhill all the way for mathematics, because the child now becomes exposed to all the nonsense words and beliefs of the community into which it has been so unfortunate as to have been born. Nature, having done very well by the child to this point, having permitted it the luxury of thinking for itself for eighteen months, now abandons it to the arbitrary conventions and beliefs of society. But at least the child knows something of geometry and numbers, and