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The Cost of Thinking
Despite their many differences, all human beings share several defining characteristics, such as large brains and the ability to walk upright on two legs.
The first unique human characteristic is that humans have extraordinarily large brains compared with other animals. It seems obvious that evolution should select for larger brains. Mammals(哺乳动物) weighing sixty kilograms have an average brain size of 200 cm2. Modern man has a brain averaging 1200-1400 cm2. We are so fond of our high intelligence that we assume that when it comes to brain power, more must be better. Unfortunately, that is not the case.
The fact is that a huge brain is a huge drain—consumption of energy—on the body. It’s not easy to carry around, especially when boxed inside a massive skull(倾骨). It’s even harder to provide energy. In modern man, the brain accounts for about 2-3% of total body weight, but it consumes 25% of the body’s energy when the body is at rest. By comparison, the brains of apes(类人猿) require only 8% of rest-time energy. Early humans paid for their large brains in two ways. Firstly, they spent more time in search of food. Secondly, their muscles grew smaller and weaker. It’s hardly an obvious conclusion that this is a good way to survive. A chimpanzee(黑猩猩) can’t win an argument with a modern man, but it can tear the man apart like a rag doll.
Another unique human characteristic is that we walk upright. Standing up, it’s easier to find food or enemies. In addition, their arms that are unnecessary for moving around are freed for other purposes, like throwing stones or signaling. As a result, humans can perform very complex tasks with their hands.
Yet walking upright has its disadvantage. The bone structure of our ancestors developed for millions of years to support a creature that walked on all fours and has a relatively small head. Adjusting to an upright position was quite a challenge, especially when the bones had to support an extra-large skull. Humankind paid for its broad vision and skillful hands backaches and painful necks.
We assume that a large brain makes huge advantages. It seems obvious that these have made humankind the most powerful animal on earth. But humans enjoyed all of these advantages for a full 2 million years during which they remained weak and marginal creatures. Thus humans who lived a million years ago, despite their big brains and sharp stone tools, lived in constant fear of meat-eating animals.
The Cost of Thinking | |
Introduction | • Large brains for their bodies and the ability to walk upright are two 1. of human beings. |
The 2. of large human brains | • The larger brains may not be better because of the cost. • The big brains make it harder for the body to move around and consume more energy. • The animal brain requires less 3. when the body is at rest. • Large human brains consume more food, and weaken muscles. |
The 4. of walking upright | • Walking upright makes it easy to find food or 5. against enemies. • Freed hands can serve some 6. purposes and perform complex tasks. |
• Walking upright challenges the human bone structure, and 7. the size of brains. • Walking upright results in 8. sufferings. | |
Conclusion | • With a large brain, human beings 9. other beings in terms of intelligence. • Weak and marginal, human beings remained 10. of meat-eating animals. |
Old problem，new approaches
While clean energy is increasingly used in our daily life，global warming will continue for some decades after CO2 emissions (排放) peak. So even if emissions were to begin to decrease today，we would still face the challenge of adapting to climate change. Here I will stress some smarter and more creative examples of climate adaptation.
When it comes to adaptation，it is important to understand that climate change is a process. We are therefore not talking about adapting to a new standard，but to a constantly shifting set of conditions. This is why, in part at least，the US National Climate Assessment says that：“There is no ‘onesize fits all’ adaptation.” Nevertheless，there are some actions that offer much and carry little risk or cost.
Around the world, people are adapting in surprising ways，especially in some poor countries. Floods have become more damaging in Bangladesh in recent decades. Mohammed Rezwan saw opportunity where others saw only disaster. His notforprofit organization runs 100 river boats that serve as floating libraries，schools，and health clinics，and are equipped with solar panels and other communicating facilities. Rezwan is creating floating connectivity(连接) to replace flooded roads and highways. But he is also working at a far more fundamental level：his staff show people how to make floating gardens and fish ponds to prevent starvation during the wet season.
Elsewhere in Asia even more astonishing actions are being taken. Chewang Norphel lives in a mountainous region in India, where he is known as the Ice Man. The loss of glaciers (冰川) there due to global warming represents an enormous threat to agriculture. Without the glaciers, water will arrive in the rivers at times when it can damage crops. Norphel's inspiration came from seeing the waste of water over winter, when it was not needed. He directed the wasted water into shallow basins where it froze, and was stored until the spring. His fields of ice supply perfectly timed irrigation(灌溉) water. Having created nine such ice reserves, Norphel calculates that he has stored about 200，000m3 of water. Climate change is a continuing process, so Norphel's ice reserves will not last forever. Warming will overtake them. But he is providing a few years during which the farmers will, perhaps, be able to find other means of adapting.
Increasing Earth's reflectiveness can cool the planet. In southern Spain the sudden increase of greenhouses (which reflect light back to space) has changed the warming trend locally, and actually cooled the region. While Spain as a whole is heating up quickly, temperatures near the greenhouses have decreased. This example should act as an inspiration for all cities. By painting buildings white, cities may slow down the warming process.
In Peru, local farmers around a mountain with a glacier that has already fallen victim to climate change have begun painting the entire mountain peak white in the hope that the added reflectiveness will restore the lifegiving ice. The outcome is still far from clear. But the World Bank has included the project on its list of “100 ideas to save the planet”．
More ordinary forms of adaptation are happening everywhere. A friend of mine owns an area of land in western Victoria. Over five generations the land has been too wet for cropping. But during the past decade declining rainfall has allowed him to plant highly profitable crops. Farmers in many countries are also adapting like this—either by growing new produce, or by growing the same things differently. This is common sense. But some suggestions for adapting are not. When the polluting industries argue that we've lost the battle to control carbon pollution and have no choice but to adapt, it's a nonsense designed to make the case for business as usual.
Human beings will continue to adapt to the changing climate in both ordinary and astonishing ways. But the most sensible form of adaptation is surely to adapt our energy systems to emit less carbon pollution. After all, if we adapt in that way, we may avoid the need to change in so many others.
1.The underlined part in Paragraph 2 implies ________．
A.adaptation is an everchanging process
B.the cost of adaptation varies with time
C.global warming affects adaptation forms
D.adaptation to climate change is challenging
2.What is special with regard to Rezwan's project?
A.The project receives government support.
B.Different organizations work with each other.
C.His organization makes the best of a bad situation.
D.The project connects flooded roads and highways.
3.What did the Ice Man do to reduce the effect of global warming?
A.Storing ice for future use.
B.Protecting the glaciers from melting.
C.Changing the irrigation time.
D.Postponing the melting of the glaciers.
4.What do we learn from the Peru example?
A.White paint is usually safe for buildings.
B.The global warming trend cannot be stopped.
C.This country is heating up too quickly.
D.Sunlight reflection may relieve global warming.
5.According to the author, polluting industries should ________．
A.adapt to carbon pollution
B.plant highly profitable crops
C.leave carbon emission alone
D.fight against carbon pollution
6.What's the author's preferred solution to global warming?
A.Setting up a new standard.
B.Reducing carbon emission.
C.Adapting to climate change.
D.Monitoring polluting industries.
Who cares if people think wrongly that the internet has had more important influences than the washing machine? Why does it matter that people are more impressed by the most recent changes?
It would not matter if these misjudgments were just a matter of people’s opinions. However, they have real impacts, as they result in misguided use of scarce resources.
The fascination with the ICT(Information and Communication Technology) revolution, represented by the internet, has made some rich countries wrongly conclude that making things is so “yesterday” that they should try to live on ideas. This belief in “post-industrial society” has led those countries to neglect their manufacturing sector(制造业), with negative consequences for their economies.
Even more worryingly, the fascination with the internet by people in rich countries has moved the international community to worry about the “digital divide” between the rich countries and the poor countries. This has led companies and individuals to donate money to developing countries to buy computer equipment and internet facilities. The question, however, is whether this is what the developing countries need the most. Perhaps giving money for those less fashionable things such as digging wells, extending electricity networks and making more affordable washing machines would have improved people’s lives more than giving every child a laptop computer or setting up internet centres in rural villages, I am not saying that those things are necessarily more important, but many donators have rushed into fancy programmes without carefully assessing the relative long-term costs and benefits of alternative uses of their money.
In yet another example, a fascination with the new has led people to believe that the recent changes in the technologies of communications and transportation are so revolutionary that now we live in a “borderless world”. As a result, in the last twenty years or so, many people have come to believe that whatever change is happening today is the result of great technological progress, going against which will be like trying to turn the clock back. Believing in such a world, many governments have put an end to some of the very necessary regulations on cross-border flows of capital, labour and goods, with poor results.
Understanding technological trends is very important for correctly designing economic policies, both at the national and the international levels, and for making the right career choices at the individual level. However, our fascination with the latest, and our under valuation of what has already become common, can, and has, led us in all sorts of wrong directions.
1.Misjudgments on the influences of new technology can lead to ________.
A.a lack of confidence in technology
B.a slow progress in technology
C.a conflict of public opinions
D.a waste of limited resources
2.The example in Paragraph 4 suggests that donators should ________.
A.take people’s essential needs into account
B.make their programmes attractive to people
C.ensure that each child gets financial support
D.provide more affordable internet facilities
3.What has led many governments to remove necessary regulations?
A.Neglecting the impacts of technological advances.
B.Believing that the world has become borderless.
C.Ignoring the power of economic development.
D.Over-emphasizing the role of international communication.
4.What can we learn from the passage?
A.People should be encouraged to make more donations.
B.Traditional technology still has a place nowadays.
C.Making right career choices is crucial to personal success.
D.Economic policies should follow technological trends.
In the 1960s, while studying the volcanic history of Yellowstone National Park, Bob Christiansen became puzzled about something that, oddly, had not troubled anyone before: he couldn’t find the park’s volcano. It had been known for a long time that Yellowstone was volcanic in nature — that’s what accounted for all its hot springs and other steamy features. But Christiansen couldn’t find the Yellowstone volcano anywhere.
Most of us, when we talk about volcanoes, think of the classic cone(圆锥体) shapes of a Fuji or Kilimanjaro, which are created when erupting magma(岩浆) piles up. These can form remarkably quickly. In 1943, a Mexican farmer was surprised to see smoke rising from a small part of his land. In one week he was the confused owner of a cone five hundred feet high. Within two years it had topped out at almost fourteen hundred feet and was more than half a mile across. Altogether there are some ten thousand of these volcanoes on Earth, all but a few hundred of them extinct. There is, however, a second less known type of volcano that doesn’t involve mountain building. These are volcanoes so explosive that they burst open in a single big crack, leaving behind a vast hole, the caldera. Yellowstone obviously was of this second type, but Christiansen couldn’t find the caldera anywhere.
Just at this time NASA decided to test some new high-altitude cameras by taking photographs of Yellowstone. A thoughtful official passed on some of the copies to the park authorities on the assumption that they might make a nice blow-up for one of the visitors’ centers. As soon as Christiansen saw the photos, he realized why he had failed to spot the caldera: almost the whole park—2.2 million acres—was caldera. The explosion had left a hole more than forty miles across—much too huge to be seen from anywhere at ground level. At some time in the past Yellowstone must have blown up with a violence far beyond the scale of anything known to humans.
1.What puzzled Christiansen when he was studying Yellowstone?
A.Its complicated geographical features.
B.Its ever-lasting influence on tourism.
C.The mysterious history of the park.
D.The exact location of the volcano.
2.What does the second paragraph mainly talk about?
A.The shapes of volcanoes.
B.The impacts of volcanoes.
C.The activities of volcanoes.
D.The heights of volcanoes.
3.What does the underlined word “blow-up” in the last paragraph most probably mean?
A.Hot-air balloon. B.Digital camera.
C.Big photograph. D.Bird’s view.
Thanks for your interest in visiting the Los Angeles Zoo with your school group! Please read the following information before booking your field trip.
Requirements
Special discounted admission prices are available with advance reservations ONLY for California school groups, short-termed as CSG, (registered with the California Department of Education). They can enjoy 10% off.
PLEASE NOTE:
Reservation blackout dates(限制日期) may apply to all groups at certain times of the year (e.g. holidays and spring break). If your group comes on a blackout date or has not made the necessary reservations before arriving at the Zoo, your group will be charged the regular admission fees.
Docent(讲解员)-Guided Tours
Our docent guides lead educational walking tours for students and their teachers, beginning at first grade. A limited number of docent-guided tours are available. There is no additional fee for a docent-guided tour, but you must book your tour at least two weeks in advance. Do not assume you have a guided tour booked until you have received a confirmation number and packet from the Los Angeles Zoo. On the day of your field trip, your group will need to arrive at least 30 minutes before the confirmed start time of your tour to check in. Make sure to tell Zoo staff upon your arrival that your group has a docent-guided tour. If you are more than 15 minutes late for your tour, it may be canceled.
Maximum number: 150 participants Ages: K-12
Regular Pricing: $5 per student, 1 teacher per 10 students is included, $5 per additional teacher
1.How much should be paid if a California school group with 2 teachers and 13 students has made an early booking for the zoo?
A.$63. B.$67.5. C.$70. D.$75.
2.From the above information, we can learn that _________.
A.California groups have access to special discounted prices
B.all groups may have to pay regular prices in spring break
C.additional fees for a docent-guided tour will be chained
D.a field group must arrive half an hour earlier to check in
At the mid-May in 2018, the 69 year-old amputee(被截肢者) Xia Boyu finally stood proud on two artificial legs on the peak of Mount Qomolangma, a symbol showcasing to the world the power of_______.
More than 40 years ago, Xia_______ both of his feet to frost bite after lending his sleeping bag to a team member during the trip to climb Mount Qomolangma.
Even though artificial legs were not _______in China at the time, Xia strongly _______ that he would one day fulfill his _______dream and so, before that day came, the best thing to do was to_______ himself by training constantly. Three years later he finally got his new legs, which enabled him to_________his sports career.
However, fate once again took a _______turn when he was in his 40s. In 1993, illness developed on the stumps(残肢) on his legs, which required _______ third of his lower legs be amputated. Three years after that, he was diagnosed with lymph cancer.
Over the years, Xia never gave up his dream of climbing Mount Qomolangma. ____________ to his final successful climb in 2018, he had tried four other times to climb to the summit, but each time Lady Luck gave him the ____________ .
The last time he ____________ his dream was in 2016. The then 67-year-oldwas only 94 meters from the summit, but a snow storm ____________ his way. Taking his team members’ ____________ into consideration, Xia made the ____________ decision to go back.
On May14, Xia felt ____________ and a strong sense of fulfillment ____________in him, standing on the peak of the highest mountain in the world.
The key is to focus on your dreams, instead of the ____________ you encounter along the way. I didn’t regret anything that I had done and accepted everything that life had ____________ me, but I never stopped fighting against ____________ ,”Xia said, stressing that fulfilling one’s dream has nothing to do with age, disability or the thoughts or expectations of others, but a firm belief in yourself.
1.A.strength B.dream C.confidence D.mind
2.A.cost B.gave C.lost D.paid
3.A.affordable B.acceptable C.available D.reachable
4.A.confirmed B.assured C.hoped D.believed
5.A.unfinished B.unchallenged C.unsolved D.unreached
6.A.pressure B.present C.preserve D.prepare
7.A.take B.begin C.complete D.continue
8.A.sudden B.sharp C.dark D.good
9.A.one B.another C.the other D.other
10.A.Previous B.Contrary C.Back D.Similar
11.A.tough nut B.red carpet C.cold shoulder D.last straw
12.A.put effort into B.devoted himself to C.got close to D.threw himself into
13.A.blanketed B.blocked C.bathed D.smoothed
14.A.honour B.safety C.credit D.struggle
15.A.final B.disappointing C.wise D.heartbreaking
16.A.tiredness B.relief C.pain D.1oneliness
17.A.welled up B.showed up C.came up D.sprang up
18.A.distrust B.doubt C.hardships D.criticism
19.A.thrown at B.provided for C.arranged for D.distributed to
20.A.challenges B.fear C.fate D.misbelief
