Stage Fright
Imagine that you are an actor performing in a play for the first time. You have learned all your lines and you know where to walk on stage. Waiting behind the closed curtain, you can hear the audience whispering and taking their seats.
Then your big moment arrives! The curtain goes up, and the crowd falls silent. All you can see is the spotlight shining down on you. 1. The inside of your mouth is dry, and your hands are wet.
If you have experienced a moment like this, you know all too well what it means to have stage fright. It is one of the most common types of fear and tends to strike people when they find themselves at the center of attention. 2. People experience this fear when playing sports, giving a presentation, or even speaking in class. A person who suffers from stage fright may get sweaty hands, a dry mouth, a tight throat, or shaky knees. Stage fright is actually a form of panic, and these feelings are very real.
3.The experience differs from person to person, but the same chemical process occurs in each of us. In reaction to anxiety, our bodies produce a chemical that prepares us to either fight or run away quickly. Scientists refer to this as our bodies’ “fight or flight” reaction. As a result, we feel great energy that makes our hands sweat, our hearts race, and our knees shake.
4. Practicing your performance and following some simple tips can help calm nerves and manage the feelings caused by anxiety. First, dress comfortably and appropriately. Second, before the performance, take deep breaths and stretch to help relax your body. Third, stay away from drinks that contain caffeine. 5. Instead, try a banana! Some doctors believe that eating a banana can help calm your heart and the rest of your body. Finally, when you look into a crowd, try to focus on particular people instead of the whole group. These tips have helped many people learn to deal with their fears.
A. These might make your heart race even faster.
B. You don’t have to be onstage to get stage fright.
C. Stage fright is part of the body’s reaction to stress.
D. You try to speak your lines, but nothing seems to come out.
E. With practice, we can learn how to relax while playing sports.
F. The good news about stage fright is that here are ways to deal with it.
G. However, there is a time when stage fright prevents you from stepping onstage.
Mark Twain has been called the inventor of the American novel. And he surely deserves additional praise: the man who popularized the clever literary attack on racism. I say clever because anti-slavery fiction had been the important part of the literature in the years before the Civil War. H. B. Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin is only the most famous example. These early stories dealt directly with slavery. With minor exceptions, Twain planted his attacks on slavery and prejudice into tales that were on the surface about something else entirely. He drew his readers into the argument by drawing them into the story.
Again and again, in the postwar years, Twain seemed forced to deal with the challenge of race. Only a few books have been kicked off the shelves as often as Huckleberry Finn, Twain’s most widely read tale. Once upon a time, people hated the book because it struck them as rude. More recently the book has been attacked because of the character Jim, the escaped slave, and many occurrences of the word nigger.
But the attacks were and are silly—and miss the point. The novel is strongly anti-slavery. Jim’s search through the slave states for the family from whom he has been forcibly parted is heroic. As J. Chadwick has pointed out, the character of Jim was a first in American fiction—a recognition that the slave had two personalities, “the voice of survival within a white slave culture and the voice of the individual: Jim, the father and the man.”
There is much more. Twain’s mystery novel Pudd’n-head Wilson stood as a challenge to the racial beliefs of even many of the liberals of his day. Written at a time when the accepted wisdom held Negroes to be inferior (低等的) to whites, especially in intelligence, Twain’s tale centered in part around two babies switched at birth. A slave gave birth to her master’s baby and, for fear that the child should be sold South, switched him for the master’s baby by his wife. The slave’s light-skinned child was taken to be white and grew up with both the attitudes and the education of the slave-holding class. The master’s wife’s baby was taken for black and grew up with the attitudes and intonations of the slave.
The point was difficult to miss: nurture (养育), not nature, was the key to social status. The features of the black man that provided the stuff of prejudice—manner of speech, for example—were, to Twain, indicative of nothing other than the conditioning that slavery forced on its victims.
1.How do Twain’s novels on slavery differ from Stowe’s?
A.Twain was more willing to deal with racism.
B.Twain’s attack on racism was much less open.
C.Twain’s themes seemed to agree with plots.
D.Twain was openly concerned with racism.
2.Recent criticism of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn arose partly from its ________.
A.target readers at the bottom
B.anti slavery attitude
C.rather impolite language
D.frequent use of “nigger”
3.What best proves Twain’s anti slavery stand according to the author?
A.Jim’s search for his family was described in detail.
B.The slave’s voice was first heard in American novels.
C.Jim grew up into a man and a father in the white culture.
D.Twain suspected that the slaves were less intelligent.
4.The story of two babies switched mainly indicates that ________.
A.slaves were forced to give up their babies to their masters
B.slaves babies could pick up slave holders way of speaking
C.blacks social position was shaped by how they were brought up
D.blacks were born with certain features of prejudice
What would it be like to be able to remember anything you ever learned? Would it be a blessing or a curse?
Since the early 20th century, psychologists have identified countless cases of people with super memories that allow them to learn and retain (保持) new information with total accuracy. The most famous was Solomon Sherashevski, the subject of Alexander Luria’s classic book, The Mind of a Mnemonist (记忆大师).
Sherashevski could recall an amazing number of facts due to his talent for eidetic imagery(照相式记忆), which allowed him to recall sights, sounds, smells etc. Sadly enough, he seemed to have significant difficulty living a normal life due to his inability to forget anything he learned and the continual daydreaming caused by his constant recall.
There are certainly other mnemonists, whose memory feats (功绩) are also surprisingly impressive. Strangely enough though, research suggests these professional mnemonists are no better than average people’s peaking of remembering events out of their own lives.
But there are also people whose memories seem to work differently. They are able to recall almost every moment of their lives even the early childhood, a condition commonly called hyperthymesia (超忆症).
Unlike mnemonists, people with hyperthymesia don’t rely on any techniques to memorize, it seems to happen automatically. While no former studies have found the reasons, a recent laboratory test shows they aren’t any better than average people in terms of learning new information.
Recently Neuropsychology presents a study of a 63-year-old man identified as “MM”. He didn’t realize his memory skills until 29 when he found he could recall events from American history with amazing accuracy. Despite his superior memory, his life seemed completely unaffected. He did poorly in school, no friends at all. Besides, though his recall resembled that of people with hyperthymesia, his memories weren’t quite as vivid.
So far there isn’t enough information to make any real conclusions about the super memory. However, as new studies become available, we are sure to learn about what makes these brains so unusual.
1.What made it difficult for Sherashevski to live a normal life?
A.His poor social skills.
B.His great interest in history.
C.His inability to forget things.
D.His early childhood experience.
2.People with hyperthymesia differ from mnemonists in that ________.
A.they remember things without intention
B.they count on techniques to memorize
C.they are better at learning new information
D.they can’t recall as vividly as mnemonists
3.What can be learned from the passage?
A.Former studies have found the roots for unusual memory.
B.It’s hard to tell whether super memory is good or not.
C.MM’s life has been greatly improved by his memory.
D.Super memory contributes to better academic performance.
4.Where is the passage probably taken from?
A.A book review.
B.A public speech.
C.A popular science magazine.
D.A report on mental health.
It’s 3 o’clock and you’ve been hard at work. As you sit at your desk, a strong desire for chocolate overcomes you. You try to busy yourself to make it go away. But it doesn’t. Here is another situation. Perhaps you are not feeling well. The only thing you want to eat is a big bowl of chicken soup, like your mum used to make when you were sick as a child. Food cravings are a strong desire for a specific type of food. And they are normal.
Scientists at the website How Stuff Works compare hunger and cravings this way. Hunger is a fairly simple connection between the stomach and the brain. They even call it simply “stomach hunger”. When our stomachs burn up all of the food we have eaten, a hormone (激素) sends a message to one part of the brain for more food, which regulates our most basic body functions such as thirst, hunger and sleep. The brain then produces a chemical to start the appetite and you eat. Hunger is a function of survival.
A craving is more complex. It activates brain areas related to emotion, memory and reward. These are the same areas of the brain activated during drug-craving studies. Because of this, some scientists call food cravings “mind hunger”. People often crave foods that are high in fat and sugar. Foods that are high in fat or high in sugar produce chemicals in the brain. These chemicals give us feelings of pleasure.
In a 2007 study, researchers at Cambridge University found that dieting or restricted eating generally increases the possibility of food cravings. So, the more you deny yourself a food that you want, the more you may crave it. However, fasting (禁食) is a bit different. They found that eating no food at all for a short period of time lessened food cravings.
So, the next time you crave something very specific, know that your brain may be more to blame than your stomach.
1.What is the function of the first paragraph?
A. To deepen the understanding of hunger.
B. To lead to the topic of the whole passage.
C. To report the discovery of craving study.
D. To remind readers of their own special food.
2.What do we learn about food cravings?
A. It means the stomach functions well. B. It ensures a person survives hunger.
C. It shows food is linked to feelings. D. It proves the brain decides your appetite.
3.What’s the likely result of dieting?
A. The increase of food desire. B. The decrease of chemicals.
C. The refusal of fat and sugar. D. The disappearance of appetite.
4.What does the passage mainly discuss?
A. The findings of food cravings. B. What hunger is all about.
C. The functions of brain areas. D. What dieting may bring us.
It may seem hard to leave Sydney’s attractions and sights, but when the urge arises to explore beyond the city, many exceptional day trips await travelers.
Scenic World
On a visit to the World heritage-listed Blue Mountains, enjoy clean fresh air and breath-taking landscapes of ancient rainforests. Scenic World in Katoomba is the best way to access the beauty of this region. Besides climbing, you can choose cablecars, elevated boardwalks or the Scenic Railway—the world’s steepest train travelling through a rock tunnel, to reach the mountain top.
Royal National Park
Established in 1879, the Royal is the world’s second-oldest national park. Located an hour’s drive south of Sydney, the beaches are unspoilt, crowd-free and great for surfing or swimming. There’s dramatic scenery along the way with a range of unique heritage attractions. Bushwalking, boating, canoeing and fishing are also popular activities.
Featherdale Wildlife Park
Located 45 minutes west of Sydney, Featherdale has the world’s largest collection of Australian native birds, mammals (哺乳动物) and reptiles (爬行动物). Situated in a bushland environment, Featherdale provides a unique opportunity for up-close animal interactions (交往). Hand-feed a kangaroo, have breakfast with a koala and check out a huge variety of species including dingos, emus, penguins and more.
The Hawkesbury River
An hour north-west of Sydney, the Hawkesbury is one of New South Wales’ best-kept secrets. Experience what this picturesque region of waterways, farmland and national parks has to offer—from waterskiing and bushwalking to horse riding, river cruises and retail therapy.
1.What can you do when visiting Scenic World?
A.Ride horses.
B.Hand-feed a kangaroo.
C.Go surfing.
D.Climb mountains.
2.If you are an animal lover, you can go to ________.
A.Scenic World
B.Royal National Park
C.The Hawkesbury River
D.Featherdale Wildlife Park
3.What do Royal National Park and The Hawkesbury River have in common?
A.Both can be reached by cablecars.
B.Visitors can go swimming and fishing.
C.Bushwalking is available on the two trips.
D.Visitors can enjoy beautiful mountain scenery.
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