Teaching a child to read at a young age gives him a valuable start in life. Reading is the basic part of education and a child's reading ability will influence his school success greatly. Learning difficulties, many of which begin from poor reading skills, can damage a school child's confidence and affect his future achievement. Young children are programmed to learn and they can learn better with encouragement. Ten to twenty minutes of reading a day still leaves plenty of time for play. Many parents are concerned that learning to read is too challenging a task for a pre-school child, but they should also remember that most children learn to speak by the time they are 3. Learning a language is probably the single most challenging task any individual can undertake, yet children do it without formal instruction, achieving the fluency much better than adult language students. There is a window of opportunity in terms of IQ development, which is most open during a child's early years. A scientific study, carried out by Dr. Peter Huttenlocher at the University of Chicago, showed that the number of connectors, called synapses , between the nerve endings in a newborn baby's brain is similar to the number in the average adult brain. These synapses increase rapidly during early childhood. By 12-24 months a child's brain has about 50% more synapses than the average adult brain. After that the synapses which are not in use begin to atrophy . For most people, from age 16, the number remains steady. It begins to drop again as we move into our golden years. Doing intellectual activities at a young age, such as learning to read, can stimulate and preserve these connectors in the brain resulting in a long-term beneficial effect on IQ development. Another notable study is probably the Milwaukee project. This study took a group of babies, all of whose mothers had low IQs, and gave them special training for seven hours a day, five days a week, until they started first grade. By the age of 6 these children had an average IQ 30... At the end of this passage the author advises _ . A) parents not to get angry too often B) children to enjoy reading as early as possible C) children not to wear out their parents' patience D) parents to get their children to take an online program
D
(Question)
We've heard about radiation from the damaged nuclear reactors in Japan reaching American shores. Experts say so far there is no reason to worry, and point out that we meet radiation every day. Where and how? NPR's Renee Montagne posed that question to Peter Caracappa, a radiation safety officer and professor of nuclear engineering. MONTAGNE: How many things emit radiation? Dr CARACAPPA: Well, radiation and radioactive material is a part of nature. So everything that's living has some amount of radiation coming from it--a very small amout. Plus there's radiation in the ground and the air. So the extremes are uranium in the soil to bananas? Yes. By the way, why do bananas have radiation? Bananas have a lot of potassium . And a small amount of potassium naturally is called potassium 40, which is radioactive What's the difference between radiation that's harmful and not harmful? Well, the term radiation can apply to a lot of different things. But the harmful radiation is ionizing radiation. It has enough energy that it can make chemical changes in material. We could get ionizing radiation from an X-ray, for example. It's the kind of radiation that causes cancer. The broader definition of radiation includes a lot of things that we call non-ionizing radiation. That includes everything like radio waves and visible light and your microwave. So what then is the largest contributor of ionizing radiation? For the natural sources of ionizing radiation, actually the biggest chunk of that tends to come from radon , which is a radioactive material that is present in the air. It can become a concern when it builds up in low-lying areas of homes like basements. Would it be fair to say that most people do not need to worry about the danger of being exposed to radiation? I would say that the everyday exposure to radioation that we meet contributes an extremely tiny risk to our life or to our health compared to all of the other risks that we meet in our day-to-day life. The passage may be _ . A) an interview B) an argument C) a talk show program D) a science report
(Answer)
A
Ques: Nearly all the tourists who come to southeast France make a tour to Monaco , too. Lying near the French-Italian border, Monaco is not part of France, but a separate principality , though it is surrounded by its greatest neighbour. Monaco became a principality in the 16th century after being owned by a family member of a certain Italian king. The French and Italians, however, soon came to "protect" it one after another, until 1861, when it became its own master again. Facing the blue Mediterranean , Monaco is mainly made up of two cities, Monaco, where the palace of the prince stands, and Monte Carlo , which is a wonderful place for tourists. Every year, around half a million people from all parts of the world come to Monaco, nearly 25 times as much as its population. Believe it or not, Monaco has no soldiers or policemen of its own. Law and order is kept by French police, and French stands for it in its foreign affairs, even the money used in Monaco is franc, too. The Head of Monaco is _ . A) the King B) the President of France C) a member of the royal family D) the Emperor
Ans: C
Ques:Why do our eyes open wide when we feel fear? And why do our eyes become narrow when we express disgust ? According to a new research, it has something to do with survival. In a recently published paper, researchers concluded that expressions of fear and disgust changed the way human eyes gather and focus light. They argued that these changes were the result of evolutionary development and were intended to help humans survive, or at least discover, very different dangers. In order to test their hypothesis ,researchers examined two dozen volunteer college students with standard eye-exam equipment, and asked them to show expressions of fear and dislike. It was found that when the students widened their eyes, more light was admitted and their field of vision was expanded. When they wrinkled their noses in disgust, their eyes narrowed. This had the effect of blocking out more light but focusing on a specific point. Although some scientists have admitted that emotional expressions are intended primarily to communicate information, expressions of fear and disgust seem to perform different visual functions. "Eye widening may help to find a potential danger that requires much attention. And this would agree with the hypothesized function of fear," said researchers. "On the other hand, eye narrowing may help to distinguish and avoid different kinds of dangers, such as disease carriers and dirty foods. And this would agree with the hypothesized function of disgust." These findings supported naturalist Charles Darwin's view that expressions are not necessarily for communication and are not arbitrary ."If our expressions were arbitrary, they would show little cross-cultural relationship." researchers said. "But actually, our expressions probably have some universal functional principles." What is the hypothesis of the research in this text? A) Changes of human eyes lead to different emotional expressions. B) Evolutionary development helps humans survive different dangers. C) Emotional expressions affect how human eyes collect or focus light. D) Evolutionary development causes people to express different feelings.

Ans:
C