If you were to walk up to Arthur Bonner and say, "Hey, Butterfly Man," his face would break into a smile. The title suits him.,and he loves it. Arthur Bonner works with the Palos Verdes blue butterfly, once thought to have died out. Today the butterfly is coming back -- thanks to him. But years ago if you'd told him this was what he'd be doing someday, he would have laughed, "You're crazy." As a boy, he used to be "a little tough guy on the streets". At age thirteen, he was caught by police stealing. At eighteen, he landed in prison for shooting a man. "I knew it had worried my mom," Bonner said after he got out of prison. "So I told myself I would not put my mom through that pain again." One day he met Professor Mattoni, who was working to rebuild the habitat for an endangered butterfly called El Segundo blue. "I saw the sign 'Butterfly Habitat' and asked, 'How can you have a habitat when the butterflies can just fly away?'" Bonner recalls. "Dr. Mattoni laughed and handed me a magnifying glass , 'Look at the leaves.' I could see all these caterpillars on the plant. Dr Mattoni explained, 'Without the plant, there are no butterflies.'" Weeks later, Bonner received a call from Dr. Mattoni, who told him there was a butterfly that needed help. That was how he met the Palos Verdes blue. Since then he's been working for four years to help bring the butterfly back. He grows astragalus, the only plant the butterfly eats. He collects butterflies and brings them into a lab to lay eggs. Then he puts new butterflies into the habitat. The butterfly's population, once almost zero, is now up to 900. For their work, Bonner and Dr. Mattoni received lots of awards. But for Bonner, he earned something more: he turned his life around. For six years now Bonner has kept his promise to stay out of prison. While he's bringing back the Palos Verdes blue, the butterfly has helped bring him back, too. When he was young, Arthur Bonner _ . A) broke the law and ended up in prison B) was fond of shooting and hurt his mom C) often laughed at people on the streets D) often caught butterflies and took them home
A
(Question)
Imagine sailing through the sky, high above buildings and trees, in perfect peace and quiet. No noisy engines. No window with dirty marks in your way. No strong wind blowing in your face. You can't feel or hear the wind because you're traveling in the exact same direction and at the exact same speed it is. A hot-air balloon has three main parts: the balloon, called an envelope; a basket, where passengers ride; and a burner system, which supplies the hot air. Most balloon envelopes are made of strong, lightweight nylon. They vary in size and shape, but they have to be really, really big to lift even a single person. Most weigh more than an adult man and use more fabric than you'd need to cover a baseball diamond . The basket is usually made of wicker ,which is strong but not too stiff . It needs to bend a bit for a soft landing, just like a good jumper bends her legs instead of keeping them stiff and straight when she lands. When the burner system blasts flames, it makes a noisy sound, but once the balloon is flying , the burner can be turned off. The air in the envelope will then slowly cool, and the balloon will gradually sink unless the pilot starts the burner again. To operate, a pilot adds hot air to the balloon to go up or deflates it to go down, until he finds a breeze blowing in the direction he wants to fly. But no matter which way the wind blows them, balloonists have an amazing bird's-eye view of the world. The text is probably from _ . A) a story about hot-air balloon adventures B) a newspaper article about hot-air balloon facts C) a brochure advertising hot-air balloon rides D) an article on hot-air balloons in an airplane magazine
(Answer)
D
Ques: New findings show that musical training affects the structure and function of different brain areas, how those areas communicate during the creation of music, and how the brain interprets and combines sensory information. The findings were presented at Neuroscience 2013, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience and the world's largest source of emerging news about brain science and health. These views suggest potential new roles for musical training including training plasticity in the brain, offering an alternative tool in education, and treating a range of learning disabilities. Today's new findings show that long-term high level musical training has a broader effect. Researchers found that musicians have a better ability to combine sensory information from hearing, touch, and sight. The age at which musical training begins influenced brain structure and its function. Beginning training before the age of seven has the greatest effect. Even older adults who took music lessons as children but haven't actively played an instrument in decades have a faster brain response to a speech sound than those who never played an instrument, according to a study appearing November 6 in the Journal of Neuroscience. The finding suggests early musical training has a lasting, positive effect on how the brain deals with sound. "Playing a musical instrument is a multi-sensory and motive experience that creates emotions and movements--from finger tapping to dancing -- and engages pleasure and reward systems in the brain. It has the potential to affect brain function and structure when done over a long period of time," said Gottfried Schlaug, MD, PhD, of Harvard Medical School, press conference speaker, also an expert on music. "As today's findings show, musical training brings about new processes within the brain, at different stages of life, and with a range of effects on creativity, cognition , and learning," he added. According to the passage, we learn that _ . A) musical training causes new processes within the brain B) Gottfried Schlaug thinks it hard to learn music C) playing a musical instrument is a single -sensory experience D) people having music lessons as children respond slowly
Ans:
A