Anyone who ever wondered why a dying plant, say, a freshly-cut red rose may appeal to a lady friend, might take some comfort in science, which once again offers us a reasonable answer to one of the world’ s great mysteries.

Beyond a common preference in people for blue, “the long history of color preference studies has been described as ‘confusing and contradictory(矛盾的)’,” write scientists Anya Hurlbert and Yazhu Ling of England’ s Newcastle University, authors of a new study in the journal Current Biology. “This fact is perhaps surprising,” they said, “though the popularity of the concept that little girls differ from boys in preferring pink.”

But the scientists believe they have an answer to this scientific mystery, discovering women’s preference for red, hidden above the average liking for blue.

In their study, the pair quickly flashed color cards, displaying many different aspects, at 208 volunteers, mostly Britishers but with a number of Han Chinese, who moved to the United Kingdom recently. Tested in three different experiments, the researchers found out a small but significant preference for reddish colors in the female volunteers.

Puzzled, the authors realized that most of the difference between men and women came in the form of a preference for green VS red in the color cards, regardless of the other slight differences such as the slightly blue ones that everyone liked. Why might this be?

Evolution might offer an answer, they reason. Human color perception(感知), the assessment of three separate color types — red — green — blue— in our vision (視覺) is a relatively recent addition to our line of mammals(脯乳動(dòng)物)

Adding weight to their argument, they found the women who are most typically feminine(女性的) on a psychological survey also had the biggest preference for reddish colors. “My love is like a red, red rose,” wrote the Scottish poet Rober Burns in 1794.

1.What does the first paragraph probably tell us ?

A．Scientific research can help people solve the mystery.

B．When we are tired, we can turn to science for help.

C．Science can make our study interesting and contradictory.

D．We should turn to scientific invention for comfortable life.

2.The word “pair” in Para.4 refers to _____.

A．boy and girl                            B．the two authors

C．research and result                      D．pink and blue

3.According to the passage, ______________.

A．boys like blue better than girls

B．girls like pink better than boys

C．men like red better than women

D．men and women both like green

4.How did the scientist do the research?

A．By asking questions                      B．By telephoning the interviewees

C．By adding numbers                      D．By doing experiments

5.What is the purpose of writing this article?

A．To sell products packed in red              B．To introduce the history of color

C．To inform us of a research finding           D．To analyze men’s taste for color

 

Researchers at the University of Kansas say that people can accurately judge 90 percent of a stranger's personality simply by looking at the person's shoes．
"Shoes convey a thin but useful slice of information about their wearers," the authors wrote in the new study published in the Journal of Research in Personality．"Shoes serve a practical purpose, and also serve as nonverbal cues with symbolic messages．People tend to pay attention to the shoes they and others wear．"
Medical Daily notes that the number of detailed personality traits detected in the study include a person's general age, their gender, income, political affiliation, and other personality traits, including someone's emotional stability．
Lead researcher Omri Gillath said the judgments were based on the style, cost, color and condition of someone's shoes．In the study, 63 University of Kansas students looked at pictures showing 208 different pairs of shoes worn by the study's participants．Volunteers in the study were photographed in their most commonly worn shoes, and then filled out a personality questionnaire．
So, what do your shoes say about your personality?
Some of the results were expected: People with higher incomes most commonly wore expensive shoes, and flashier footwear was typically worn by extroverts（外向性格的人）．
However, some of the more specific results are intriguing．For example, "practical and functional" shoes were generally worn by more "agreeable" people, while ankle boots were more closely aligned with "aggressive" personalities．
The strangest of all may be that those who wore "uncomfortable looking" shoes tend to have "calm" personalities．
And if you have several pairs of new shoes or take exceptional care of them, you may suffer from "attachment anxiety," spending an inordinate amount of time worrying about what other people think of your appearance．
There was even a political calculation in the mix with more liberal types wearing "shabbier and less expensive" shoes．
The researchers noted that some people will choose shoe styles to mask their actual personality traits, but researchers noted that volunteers were also likely to be unaware that their footwear choices were revealing deep insights into their personalities．
【小題1】We learn from the text that shoes one wears may            ．

A．be used to judge others’ personality accurately

B．show thick and useful information about one’s personality

C．convey useful information including one’s emotional stability

D．only convey some information about one’s personality

【小題2】Which of the following is not true according to the text?

A．People who wear practical and functional shoes may be hard to deal with．

B．People with high incomes probably wear expensive shoes．

C．Ankle boots are closely aligned with “aggressive” personalities．

D．People wearing “uncomfortable looking” shoes tend to be calm．

【小題3】What can be the best title for this article?

A．Shoes and Information	B．Shoes and One’s Personality
C．Shoes One Wears	D．Judging One’s Personality

閱讀理解

　　It is ten o'clock at night and you are outside. You can see many stars in the sky. Each star is another sun. The sky is big, and it hag many suns.

　　Our sun is near to us. It warms us and gives us light in daytime. The stars are not near. We can see their light only at night, and they do not warm us.

　　The stars are not all the same. Many stars are quite like our sun. They are the same size, and they have the same colour, yellow. Other stars are bigger or smaller. A “giant(巨人)” star is very, very big. A “dwarf(侏儒)”is a small star—smaller than the sun.

　　Stars have different colours, too. They can be blue, orange, yellow, white or red. There are giants and dwarfs in all these colours. All stars are, of course, very hot. The hottest stars are the blue ones. White stars come next, they are less hot. Then yellow and orange stars are less hot again. Red stars are the least hot, and they are also the oldest stars.

　　Light moves very quickly across the sky, eighteen million (18,000,000)kilometers in a minute. Our nearest star is a red dwarf. Its name is Proxima Centauri ( proxima ＝ nearest), and it gives a weak, red light. We can just see this light. It left Proxima Centauri 4.25 years ago, and now tonight, it is reaching cur eyes. Think about it! In one minute, 18,000,000 kilometres. So, in 4.25 years—well, how many kilometers? You can find the answer yourself.

　　I will just say this: Proxima Centauri is a long way from us.

1．According to the temperatures on stars, the right order from the lowest temperature to the highest is ________.

[　　]

A．red→yellow→white→blue

B．orange→red→blue→white

C．blue→white→yellow→red

D．white→blue→orange→red

2．All the following am right except ________.

[　　]

A．a(chǎn) “dwarf” is smaller than the sun

B．there are dwarfs in different colours

C．a(chǎn) “dwarf” is a small star

D．dwarfs are the least hot

3．How far away is the star Proxima Centauri from us?

[　　]

A．40,208,400,000,000 kilometres.

B．9,460,800,000,000 kilometres.

C．679,140,000,000 kilometres .

D．279,225,000,000 kilometres .

4．When we say “The star Procyon is ‘ten light years’ away.”, we mean ________.

[　　]

A．we can reach the star in ten years

B．we first saw the star ten years ago

C．the light left Procyon ten years ago

D．Procyon has been that far away for ten years

Researchers at the University of Kansas say that people can accurately judge 90 percent of a stranger's personality simply by looking at the person's shoes．

"Shoes convey a thin but useful slice of information about their wearers," the authors wrote in the new study published in the Journal of Research in Personality．"Shoes serve a practical purpose, and also serve as nonverbal cues with symbolic messages．People tend to pay attention to the shoes they and others wear．"

Medical Daily notes that the number of detailed personality traits detected in the study include a person's general age, their gender, income, political affiliation, and other personality traits, including someone's emotional stability．

Lead researcher Omri Gillath said the judgments were based on the style, cost, color and condition of someone's shoes．In the study, 63 University of Kansas students looked at pictures showing 208 different pairs of shoes worn by the study's participants．Volunteers in the study were photographed in their most commonly worn shoes, and then filled out a personality questionnaire．

So, what do your shoes say about your personality?

Some of the results were expected: People with higher incomes most commonly wore expensive shoes, and flashier footwear was typically worn by extroverts（外向性格的人）．

However, some of the more specific results are intriguing．For example, "practical and functional" shoes were generally worn by more "agreeable" people, while ankle boots were more closely aligned with "aggressive" personalities．

The strangest of all may be that those who wore "uncomfortable looking" shoes tend to have "calm" personalities．

And if you have several pairs of new shoes or take exceptional care of them, you may suffer from "attachment anxiety," spending an inordinate amount of time worrying about what other people think of your appearance．

There was even a political calculation in the mix with more liberal types wearing "shabbier and less expensive" shoes．

The researchers noted that some people will choose shoe styles to mask their actual personality traits, but researchers noted that volunteers were also likely to be unaware that their footwear choices were revealing deep insights into their personalities．

1.We learn from the text that shoes one wears may            ．

A．be used to judge others’ personality accurately

B．show thick and useful information about one’s personality

C．convey useful information including one’s emotional stability

D．only convey some information about one’s personality

2.Which of the following is not true according to the text?

A．People who wear practical and functional shoes may be hard to deal with．

B．People with high incomes probably wear expensive shoes．

C．Ankle boots are closely aligned with “aggressive” personalities．

D．People wearing “uncomfortable looking” shoes tend to be calm．

3.What can be the best title for this article?

A．Shoes and Information                   B．Shoes and One’s Personality

C．Shoes One Wears                       D．Judging One’s Personality

 

Anyone who ever wondered why a dying plant, say, a freshly-cut red rose may appeal to a lady friend, might take some comfort in science, which once again offers us a reasonable answer to one of the world’ s great mysteries.

Beyond a common preference in people for blue, “the long history of color preference studies has been described as ‘confusing and contradictory,” write scientists Anya Hurlbert and Yazhu Ling of England’ s Newcastle University, authors of a new study in the journal Current Biology. “This fact is perhaps surprising,” they said, “though the popularity of the concept that little girls differ from boys in preferring pink.”.

But the scientists believe they have an answer to this scientific mystery, discovering women’s preference for red, hidden above the average liking for blue.

In their study, the pair quickly flashed color cards, displaying many different aspects, at 208 volunteers, mostly Britishers but with a number of Han Chinese, who moved to the United Kingdom recently. Tested in three different experiments, the researchers found out a small but significant preference for reddish colors in the female volunteers.

Puzzled, the authors realized that most of the difference between men and women came in the form of a preference for green VS red in the color cards, regardless of the other slight differences such as the slightly blue ones that everyone liked. Why might this be?

Evolution might offer an answer, they reason. Human color perception（感知）, the assessment of three separate color types-red-green-blue-in our vision is a relatively recent addition to our line of mammals.

Adding weight to their argument, they found the women who are most typically feminine（女性的）on a psychological survey also had the biggest preference for reddish colors. “My love is like a red, red rose,” wrote the Scottish poet Rober Burns in 1794.

1.The scientists discovered the colour mystery that exists between men and women by _____..

A．giving examples                        B．doing experiments.

C．stating causes and effects                 D．interviewing volunteers.

2.The word “pair” in Para.4 refers to _____.

A．man and woman                        B．science and evolution .

C．Anya Hurlbert and Yazhu Ling              D．red and green

3.According to the study the scientists have carried out in the passage, _____.

A．men like blue most.

B．women have preference for red besides blue.

C．generally speaking boys prefer slight pink to blue.

D．girls also love slight green.