Question

【題目】 Few people refuse to look at pictures of cute animals. Take Sally chicken as an example. The chicken with a yellow body and a flat mouth always looks lovely, which makes it popular on the Internet. Seeing her cute picture cheers people up. But there's another advantage of cute animals.

New research has found that looking at pictures of cute animals can also help us concentrate(聚精會(huì)神)better.

The study comes from researchers at Hiroshima University in Japan. They invited 132 university students to take part in a series of experiments.

In one experiment, students played a game in which they had to pick up small objects from a hole without touching the sides. In another experiment, students were asked to find a given number from a list of numbers quickly.

In both experiments, they did the given tasks twice – before and after looking at pictures of either kittens (baby cats) and puppies (baby dogs), or adult cats and dogs.

Researchers were surprised to find that in both cases students who were shown cute baby animal pictures made fewer mistakes.

But, baby animals look both "cuter" and "more pleasant" than adult animals. Some people may ask whether the test difference came from their being "pleasant"?

To find the answer, the researchers chose some food pictures which looked pleasant but not cute, and gave them to a third group of students. But viewing the foods did not make the students do any better in the number test.

This finding shows that viewing cute pictures makes participants(參與者)behave more deliberately and do tasks with greater care.

The "power of cuteness" may be of great use in everyday life.

Think about situations in which people need to act carefully: driving, office work and exams.

"In my first year of high school, I brought small plastic toys to school during tests. I would set them up in a row on my desk, facing me, and then get busy with answering exam questions," Susana Martinez-Conde wrote in Scientific American.

【1】Why is Sally chicken mentioned at the beginning of the article?

A.Because the article is about Sally chicken.

B.Because Sally chicken is popular online.

C.To explain why Sally chicken is popular.

D.To introduce the topic of cute animals' advantage.

【2】What was the main finding of the study at Hiroshima University?

A.Seeing cute animals could cheer people up.

B.Seeing cute things could help people concentrate.

C.People concentrated better after seeing anything pleasant.

D.People did better after seeing pictures of adult cats and dogs.

【3】The underlined word "deliberately" is closest in meaning to________ .

A.happilyB.relaxedlyC.carefullyD.actively

【4】What do Martinez-Conde's words tell us?

A.It's improper to look at toys in an exam.

B.Cuteness can be very useful in daily life.

C.Toys are popular among high school students.

D.All Cute toys can help students get good scores.

Answer 1

【答案】

【1】D

【2】B

【3】C

【4】B

【解析】

本文講述了看到可愛(ài)的照片，人們會(huì)開(kāi)心起來(lái)；看可愛(ài)動(dòng)物的圖片還有一個(gè)好處，看可愛(ài)動(dòng)物的圖片也能幫助人們更好地集中注意力。看可愛(ài)的圖片會(huì)讓人們的行為更有目的性，做事更小心謹(jǐn)慎�！翱蓯�(ài)的力量”在日常生活中可能很有用。

【1】細(xì)節(jié)理解題。根據(jù)“Seeing her cute picture cheers people up. But there's another advantage of cute animals.”可知看到她可愛(ài)的照片，人們會(huì)開(kāi)心起來(lái)�？蓯�(ài)的動(dòng)物還有一個(gè)好處，所以第一段介紹可愛(ài)動(dòng)物的優(yōu)點(diǎn)。故選D。

【2】細(xì)節(jié)理解題。根據(jù)“New research has found that looking at pictures of cute animals can also help us concentrate(聚精會(huì)神)better.”可知看可愛(ài)動(dòng)物的圖片也能幫助我們更好地集中注意力，故選B。

【3】詞義猜測(cè)題。happily開(kāi)心地；relaxedly松弛地；carefully認(rèn)真地；actively積極地；根據(jù)“do tasks with greater care”可知更仔細(xì)地完成任務(wù)，可推測(cè)出該單詞是“認(rèn)真地”，故選C。

【4】推理判斷題。根據(jù)“The "power of cuteness" may be of great use in everyday life.”可知可愛(ài)的東西在日常生活中可能很有用，故選B。