閱讀理解題

　　第一篇

Sleep Necessary for Memories

　　Burning the midnight oil before an exam or interview does harm to the performance according to a recent research which found that sleep is necessary for memories to be taken back into the brain. A good night's sleep within 30 hours of trying to remember a new task is a required condition of having good recall in the weeks ahead, scientists have found.

　　The research, published in the December issue of Nature Neuroscience, showed that it was the act of sleep, rather than the simple passage of time, that was critical for long-term memory formation.

　　"We think that getting that first night's sleep starts the process of memory consolidation （鞏固）," said Robert Stickgold, a sleep researcher at Harvard Medical School who conducted the latest study.

　　"It seems that memories normally wash out of the brain unless some process nails them down. My suspicion is that sleep is one of those things that does the flailing down," Professor Stickgold said.

　　With about one in five people claiming that they are so chronically short of sleep that it affects their daily activities, the latest work emphasizes the less well-understood side effect- serious memory impairment （損害）.

　　Volunteers in an experiment found it easier to remember a memory task if they were allowed to sleep that night. But for those kept awake, no amount of subsequent sleep made up for the initial loss.

　　Professor Stickgold's team trained 24 people to identify the direction of three diagonal （斜線形的） bars flashed for a sixtieth of a second on a computer screen full of horizontal （水平的） stripes.

　　Half of the subjects were kept awake that night, while the others slept. Both groups were allowed to sleep for the second and third nights to make up for any differences in tiredness between the volunteers.

　　Those who slept the first night were significantly and consistently better at remembering the task while the second group showed no improvement despite enjoying two nights of catch-up sleep.

　　1 The research published in Nature Neuroscience showed that what was essential to the formation of long-term memory was

　　A intelligence.

　　B time.

　　C food.

　　D sleep.

　　2 Which of the following statements about the research is NOT true?

　　A It was done within 30 hours.

　　B It was headed by Professor Stickgold.

　　C It focused on long-term memory formation.

　　D There were altogether 24 subjects in the experiment.

　　3 Stickgold's research focused on the side effect produced by

　　A memory impairment.

　　B lack of sleep.

　　C low work efficiency.

　　D memory recall.

　　4 In Stickgold's experiment, those who were kept awake on the first night

　　A could very well remember the direction of the diagonal bars.

　　B didn't do any better after two nights' sleep.

　　C were as tired as those who were not.

　　D could recall the direction of more bars than those who were not.

　　5 Those who slept the first night

　　A couldn't remember the task.

　　B could not sleep the second and third nights.

　　C performed slightly better than those who did not

　　D did much better than those who did not.

　　第二篇

The Cherokee Nation

　　Long before the white man came to America, the land belonged to the American Indian nations. The nation of the Cherokees lived in what is now the southeastern part of the United States.

　　After the white man came, the Cherokees copied many of their ways. One Cherokee named Sequoyah saw how important reading and writing were to the white man. He decided to invent a way to write down the spoken Cherokee language. He began by making word pictures…… For each word he drew a picture. But that proved impossible - there were just too many words. Then he took the 85 sounds that made up the language. Using his own imagination and an English spelling book, Sequoyah invented a sign for each sound. His alphabet proved amazingly easy to learn. Before long, many Cherokees knew how to read and write in their own language. By 1828, they were even printing their own newspaper.

　　In 1830, the U.S. Congress passed a law. It allowed the government to remove Indians from their lands. The Cherokees refused to go. They had lived on their lands for centuries. It belonged to them. Why should they go to a strange land far beyond the Mississippi River?

　　The army was sent to drive the Cherokees out. Soldiers surrounded their villages and marched them at gunpoint （在槍口的威脅下） into the western territory. The sick, the old and the small children went in carts, along with their belongings, The rest of the people marched on foot or rode on horseback. It was November, yet many of them still wore their summer clothes. Cold and hungry, the Cherokees were quickly exhausted by the hardships of the journey. Many dropped dead and were buried by the roadside. When the last group arrived in their new home in March 1839, more than 4,000 had died. It was indeed a march of death.

　　6 The Cherokees used to live

　　A by the roadside.

　　B in the southeastern part of the US.

　　C beyond the Mississippi River.

　　D in the western territory.

　　7 Which of the following statements about Sequoyah is NOT true?

　　A He was imaginative.

　　B He was an Indian.

　　C He was a white man.

　　D He wrote down the spoken Cherokee language.

　　8 A law was passed in 1830 to

　　A allow the Cherokees to stay where they were.

　　B stop the Cherokees using their own language.

　　C force the Cherokees to move westward.

　　D forbid the Cherokees to print their own newspaper.

　　9 The Cherokees went to their new lands

　　A in carts.

　　B on horseback.

　　C on foot.

　　D all of the above.

　　10 The word "exhausted' in the last paragraph could be best replaced by

　　A worn out.

　　B ended up.

　　C run out.

　　D finished up.

　　第三篇

Knitting

　　My mother knew how to knit （紡織）, but she never taught me. She assumed, as did many women of her generation, that knitting was no longer a skill worth passing down from mother to daughter. A combination of feminism （女權(quán)主義） and consumerism （消費(fèi)主義） made many women feel that such homely accomplishments were now out of date. My Grandmother still knitted, though, and every Christmas she made a pair of socks for my brother and me, of red wool （毛線）. They were the ones we wore under our ice skates （冰鞋）, when it was really important to have warm feet.

　　Knitting is a nervous habit that happens to be productive. It helped me quit smoking by giving my hands something else to do. It is wonderful for depression because no matter what else happens, you are creating something beautiful. Time spent in front of the television or just sitting is no longer time wasted.

　　I love breathing life into the patterns. It's true magic, finding a neglected, dog-eared （翻舊了的） old book with the perfect snowflake design, buying the same Germantown wool my grandmother used, in the exact blue to match my daughter's eyes, taking it on the train with me every day for two months, working enthusiastically to get it done by Christmas, staying up late after the stockings are filled to sew in the sleeves and weave in the ends.

　　Knitting has taught me patience. I know that if I just keep going, even if it takes months, there will be a reward. When I make a mistake, I know that anger will not fix it, and that I just have to go back and start over again.

　　People often ask if I would do it for money, and the answer is always a definite no. In the first place, you could not pay me enough for the hours I put into a sweater. But more important, this is an activity I keep separate from such considerations. I knit to cover my children and other people I love in warmth and color. I knit to give them something earthly that money could never buy.

　　Knitting gives my life an alternative rhythm to the daily deadline. By day I can write about Northern Ireland or the New York City Police Department and get paid for it, but on the train home, surrounded by people with laptops, I stage my little rebellion. I take out my old knitting bag and join the centuries of women who have knitted for love.

　　11 Why did many women feel that knitting was out of date?

　　A Because their mothers had not taught them.

　　B Because they were influenced by feminism and consumerism

　　C Because they were feminists.

　　D Because they were consumerists.

　　12 The author wore the red socks her grandmother had knitted for her

　　A when she went to school.

　　B when she went hiking.

　　C when she celebrated Christmas.

　　D when she went skating.

　　13 The word "quit' in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to

　　A give up.

　　B speed up.

　　C slow down,

　　D build up.

　　14 According to the passage, which of the following statements is NOT true?

　　A Knitting helps one get rid of bad habits.

　　B Knitting helps one get free from a bad mood.

　　C Knitting requires patience.

　　D Knitting is a profit-making business.

　　15 Which of the following is NOT the writer's purpose of knitting?

　　A To save money.

　　B To save time.

　　C To enrich her life,

　　D To show her love for the family.

　　【參考答案】

　　1. D　　2. A　　3. B　　4. B　　5. D

　　6. B　　7. C　　8. C　　9. D　　10. A

　　11. B　 12. D　 13. A　 14. D　 15. A