2014考研英语辅导大学英语六级阅读讲义第一部分（补充阅读）主讲：赵南望Text 1Aristotle wrote that men come together in cities to live, but stay in them to live the good life. It was the Greeks who invented the idea of the city, and urbanity continues as a thriving tradition. But in the first decade of the 21st century, urban life is changing. “Cities are now junctions in the flows of people, information, finance and freight,” says Nigel Harris, a professor of development planning. “They’re less and less places where people live and work.”The enlargement of the European Union in December in 2002 has given residents of up to 13 new member nations freedom of movement within its borders. At the same time, an additional 13.5 million immigrants a year will be needed in the EU just to keep a stable ratio between workers and pensioners over the next half century. All this mobility will make Europe’s cities nodes of nomadism, linked to each other by high-speed trains and cheap airline flights. The bustle around airports and train stations will ma ke the crowds in Europe’s great piazza look thin by comparison. Urban designers, with a freshly pricked interest in transience rather than stasis, are even now dreaming up cityscapes that focus on flows of people and fungible uses for buildings.Public spaces are due for a revamp. Earlier architects conceived of train stations as single buildings; today’s designers are thinking of them as transit zones that link to the city around them, pouring travelers into bus stations and surrounding shops, In Amsterdam, urban planner Ben van Berkel, co-director of the design firm of UN Studio, has developed what he calls Deep Planning Strategy, which inverts the traditional “top-down” approach: the creation of a space comes before the flow of people through it. With 3-D modeling and animation, he’s able to look at different population groups use public spaces at different times of the day. He uses the data todesign spaces that accommodate mobs at rush hour and sparser crowds at other times.The growing mobility of Europe has inspired a debate about the look and feel of urban sprawl. “Up until now, all our cultural heritage has been concentrated in the city center,” notes Prof. Heinrich Moding of the German Institute of Urban Affairs. “But we’ve got to imagine how it’s po ssible to have joyful vibrancy in these outlying parts, so that they’re not just about garages, highways and gasoline tanks.” The designs of new building are also changing to anticipate the emerging city as a way station. Buildings have been seen as disconnecting, isolating, defining. But increasingly, the quality of space that’s in demand is movement.Text 2Pain, unfortunately, is a horrible necessity of life. It protects people by alerting them to things that might injure them. But some long-term pain has nothing to do with any obvious injury. One estimate suggests that one in six adults suffer from a “chronic pain” condition.Steve McMahon, a pain researcher at King’s College, London, says that if skin is damaged, for instance with a hot iron, an area of sensitivity develops around the outside of the burn where although untouched and undamaged by the iron the behavior of the nerve fibers is disrupted. As a result, heightened sensitivity and abnormal pain sensations occur in the surrounding skin. Chronic pain, he says, may similarly be caused not by damage to the body, but because weak pain signals become amplified.This would also help explain why chronic pains such as lower-back pain and osteoarthritis fail to respond well to traditional pain therapies. But now an entirely new kind of drug, called Tanezumab, has been developed. It is an antibody for a protein called nerve growth factor (NGF), which is vital for new nerve growth during development. NGF, it turns out, is also crucial in the regulation of the sensitization of pain in chronic conditions.Kenneth Verburg, one of the researchers involved in the development of Tanezumab at Pfizer, says it is not exactly clear what role NGF plays in normal physiology, but after an injury which involves tissue damage and inflammation, levels of NGF increase dramatically. NGF seems to be involved in transmitting the pain signal. As a consequence, blocking NGF reduces chronic pain.Tanezumab must still complete the final stages of clinical trials before it can become a weapon in the toolkit for reducing human suffering. But unexpected pains do not always come from the body. According to Irene Tracey, a pain researcher at the University of Oxford, how pain is experienced also depends upon a person’s state of mind. If successive patients suffer the same burn, the extent to which it hurts will depend on whether one is anxious, depressed, happy or distracted.Such ideas are being explored with brain scans which suggest that even if a low level of p ain is being sent to the brain, the signal can be turned up by the “mind” itself. Indeed, patients can even be tricked into feeling pain.In one experiment volunteers were given a powerful analgesic and subjected to a painful stimulus—which, because of the analgesic, they could not feel. Then they were told the drug had worn off (although it had not), and subsequently complained that the stimulus hurt.People can, therefore, feel pain simply because it is expected. They can fail to feel pain for exactly the same reasons, for example when they are given placebos or are distracted. But although pain may be subjective, that does not mean the final experience is controlled solely by the mind.A recent paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has shown that genes play a role in determining sensitivity to pain. One gene, known as SCN9A, codes for a protein that allows the channels along which nerve signals are transmitted to remain active for longer and thus transmit more pain signals. It seems likely that this protein will attract a great deal more analgesic research. Variations in SCN9A may also explain why some patients prefer different classes of painkillers.Although pain may be a horrible necessity, there is no doubt that humanity could cope with far less of the chronic sort. Understanding how the mind, the body andpeople’s genes interact to cause pain should bring more relief.Text 3More than 41m Americans tuned in on March 7th to watch “The Hurt Locker” win the award for best picture at the Oscars, the annual ritual of glitz that reminds the world that Hollywood is the global centre of the film and entertainment industry. “The Hurt Locker”, however, was filmed in Jordan, not Hollywood. Perhaps that is as it should be for a f ilm set in Iraq. But what about “Battle: Los Angeles”? Hitting cinemas next year, it is a film about marines fighting an alien invasion. And it is being shot in Louisiana.California has been worrying about “runaway production” since 1998, when Canada began luring producers and their crews away from Los Angeles with tax breaks. Other places followed, and all but seven American states and territories and 24 other countries now offer, or are preparing to offer, rebates, grants or tax credits that cut 20%, 30% or even 40% of the cost of shooting a movie.These incentives have become a huge factor in choosing where to shoot a film. Hollywood types are used to going on location, says Amy Lemisch, the director of the California Film Commission, a state body that tries to retain film production. These days, she says, producers first compare the incentives offered by the different locations and only then look at their scripts to see which of the places on the shortlist make sense. California’s world share of studio f ilms (ie, those made by the six biggest studios) dropped from 66% in 2003 to 34% in 2008, she estimates, and has fallen further since then.The decline in movie-shooting would have been even faster if California had not, last July, also got into the game of giving out incentives. Ten feature films which would otherwise have been made outside the state were filmed in Los Angeles in the second half of 2009 purely because of this financial aid. But California’s incentives are relatively modest, says Ms Lemisch, and are set to expire in 2014.It may seem strange that even states with budget crises, such as Michigan, New York or California, choose to make their deficits worse with such giveaways—and in Michigan the tax credits have indeed become controversial. But states and countries are enthusiastic about hosting film crews, for good reason. With no factories to build, the economic benefit is instantaneous. Jack Kyser at the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation estimates that the average film (with a budget of $32m) leads to 141 jobs directly, from caterers to make-up artists, and another 425 jobs indirectly. And it generates $4.1m in sales taxes and income taxes.Even with its film schools and armies of cameramen and extras, therefore, Hollywood is not quite as unshakable as it once thought. The business of film-making may split, says Ms Lemisch, with the lawyers, agents and other suits staying in their Brentwood and Bel Air villas, and the crews decamping. Every time a film is shot in another state, moreover, the locals pick up skills that make subsequent shoots easier. In a sign of how desperate Los Angeles is becoming, the city is now considering offering its most treasured resource to crew members at no charge: parking places.六级阅读第二部分（新题型）主讲：赵南望Text 1It’s a universal phenomenon, and one of the most common things we do. We laugh many times a day, for many different reasons, but rarely think about it, and seldom consciously control it. We know so little about the different kinds and functions of laughter, and my interest really starts there. Why do we do it? What can laughter teach us about our positive emotions and social behaviour? There’s so much we don’t know about how the brain contributes to emotion and I think we can get at understanding this by studying laughter.Only 10 or 20 percent of laughing is a response to humor. Most of the time, it's a message we send to other people——communicating joyful disposition, a willingness to bond and so on. It occupies a special place in social interaction and is a fascinating feature of our biology, with motor, emotional and cognitive components. Scientists study all kinds of emotions and behaviour, but few focuses on this most basic ingredient. Laughter gives us a clue that we have powerful systems in our brain which respond to pleasure, happiness and joy. It's also involved in events such as release of fear.My professional focus has always been on emotional behaviour. I spent many years investigating the neural basis of fear in rats, and came to laughter via that route. When I was working with rats, I noticed that when they were alone, in an exposed environment, they were scared and quite uncomfortable. Back in a cage with others, they seemed much happier. It looked as if they played with one another——real rough-and-tumble——and I wondered whether they were also laughing. The neurobiologist Jaak Panksepp had shown that juvenile rats make short vocalizations, pitched too high for humans to hear, during rough-and-tumble play. He thinks these are similar to laughter. This made me wonder about the roots of laughter.Everything humans do has a function, and laughing is no exception. Its function issurely communication. We need to build social structures in order to live well in our society and evolution has selected laughter as a useful device for promoting social communication. In other words, it must have a survival advantage for the species.The brain scans are usually done while people are responding to humorous material. You see brainwave activity spread from the sensory processing area of the occipital lobe, the bit at the back of the brain that processes visual signals, to the brain’s frontal lobe. It seems that the frontal lobe is involved in recognising things as funny. The left side of the fronta l lobe analyses required to “get” jokes. Finally, activity spreads to the motor areas of the brain controlling the physical task of laughing. We also know about these complex pathways involved in laughter from neurological illness and injury. Sometimes after brain damage, tumours, stroke or brain disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, people get “stonefaced syndrome” and can’t laugh.I laugh a lot when I watch amateur videos of children, because they’re so natural. I’m sure they’re not forcing anything funny to happen. I don’t particularly laugh hard at jokes, but rather at situations. I also love old comedy movies such as Laurel and Hardy and an extremely ticklish. After starting to study laughter in depth, I began to laugh and smile more in social situations, those involving either closeness or hostility. Laughter really creates a bridge between people, disarms them, and facilitates amicable behaviour.[A] What have they found?[B] Is it true that laughing can make us healthier?[C] So why do people laugh so much?[D] What makes you laugh?[E] How did you come to research it?[F] So what’s it for?Text 2If you're a socially awkward, glass-half-empty sort of person, take note: New research suggests having a "distressed" personality may jeopardize your health. A study published today in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes finds that those with this personality type, known as Type D, are at three times the risk for future heart problems, including peripheral artery disease, heart failure, and death, compared to more optimistic sorts.Type D personality, first defined in the '90s, is characterized by feelings of negativity, depression, anxiety, stress, anger, and loneliness. Type D personalities sweat the small stuff and often expect the worst. They have trouble making friends and often have low self-esteem. They are tense, chronically angry, and overreact to stressful situations; they also tend to conceal their feelings from others out of fear of rejection. About 20 percent of healthy Americans are Type D's, as are up to half of people being treated for heart problems, says study author Johan Denollet, a psychologist at Tilburg University in the Netherlands.Denollet and his colleagues analyzed 49 previous studies involving more than 6,000 people and found that Type D spells trouble—especially for heart patients, who had a greater risk of dying if they had this personality type, compared to non-D's. "It really adds weight to the argument that this core, hostile personality is a concern—or ought to be a concern—for people who have it," says Barry Jacobs, a clinical psychologist and American Heart Association spokesman. "If you perceive things in a particularly skewed, negative way, your body will become more reactive over time, and there will be long-term health consequences." In previous research, Denollet studied nearly 300 heart patients in a cardiac rehabilitation program and found that 27 percent of those classified as Type D died within eight years (mostly of heart attacks and strokes), compared to 7 percent of the non-D’s.The link between Type D personality and poor health outcomes is most likely driven by its hallmark high stress levels, Denollet says. Unlike Type A's who vent, Type D's—who don't tend to speak up for themselves or express their emotions—have nooutlet for their stress. Stress causes high cortisol levels, which, in turn, can elevate blood pressure and lead to chronic, artery-damaging inflammation. Behavior probably plays a role, too, says Denollet, since Type D's are less likely to exercise, quit smoking, and are rather bad at "complying with treatment programs." And because they're typically tense and insecure in social situations, Type D's may also shy away from seeking medical care or prefer not to discuss worrisome symptoms with their doctors.A 14-question scale is used to determine whether folks have Type D. But you can ask yourself the following questions: Do you often feel unhappy? Is your view of the world gloomy? Are you often irritated, or in a bad mood? Do you make a big deal out of unimportant issues? Is it difficult for you to start conversations? Do you tend to keep people at a distance? Answering yes to several may clue you in that you need to make some changes.While personality can be tough to change, psychotherapy and cognitive behavioral therapy may help those who find that their extreme pessimism or social withdrawal affects their daily functioning. For most Type D's, however, professional help isn't necessary. "People can work on changing their outlook. Sometimes they turn over a new leaf because of an experience they've had, and they learn to count their blessings," Jacobs says. "Having a good attitude about the world, avoiding negative thinking, and learning to relax [should] all become part of a heart-wellness program."Text 3Current gym dogma holds that to build muscle size you need to lift heavy weights. However, a new study conducted at McMaster University has shown that a similar degree of muscle building can be achieved by using lighter weights. The secret is to pump iron until you reach muscle fatigue.The findings are published in PLoS ONE."Rather than grunting and straining to lift heavy weights, you can grab something much lighter but you have to lift it until you can't lift it anymore," says Stuart Phillips, associate professor of kinesiology at McMaster University. "We're convinced that growing muscle means stimulating your muscle to make new muscle proteins, a process in the body that over time accumulates into bigger muscles."Phillips praised lead author and senior Ph.D. student Nicholas Burd for masterminding the project that showed it's really not the weight that you lift but the fact that you get muscular fatigue that's the critical point in building muscle. The study used light weights that represented a percentage of what the subjects could lift. The heavier weights were set to 90% of a person's best lift and the light weights at a mere 30% of what people could lift. "It's a very light weight," says Phillips noting that the 90-80% range is usually something people can lift from 5-10 times before fatigue sets in. At 30%, Burd reported that subjects could lift that weight at least 24 times before they felt fatigue."We're excited to see where this new paradigm will lead," says Phillips, adding that these new data have practical significance for gym enthusiasts but more importantly for people with compromised skeletal muscle mass, such as the elderly, patients with cancer, or those who are recovering from trauma, surgery or even stroke.Text 4When the clock struck midnight on June 30th the number of jobless men in America increased by 450. Few, though, will pity these idle labourers. The average among them earned around $5m last year.Their employers had long thought that too much. So the owners of the National Basketball Association (NBA) locked out their players after the two sides failed to reach a new collective-bargaining agreement. With the National Football League (NFL) in a similar state of abeyance, sports fans are becoming well-versed inAmerican labour law.As with the NFL, the NBA lockout comes at an inopportune time. The decision was taken just 18 days after an exciting championship that saw the league’s most captivating (and skilled) villain, LeBron James of the Miami Heat, outplayed by a likeable legend, Dirk Nowitzki of the victorious Dallas Mavericks. That capped a season in which sales of tickets and merchandise, as well as TV ratings, were up.“We had a great year in terms of the appreciation of our fans for our game. It just wasn’t a profitable one for the owners,” says David Stern, the league’s longtime commissioner. He claims that 22 of the NBA’s 30 teams are losing money.As a result, team owners want fundamental changes to the economic structure of the league. For starters, that means replacing the current soft cap on players’ salaries with a hard one that will do more to limit the contracts doled out by the wealthier clubs. They also want to see the league’s revenues, which amounted to $3.8 billion last season according to Forbes, split up in a way that is much more favourable to them and less favourable to the players.The players, in turn, accuse the owners of poor teamwork. They say that more revenue-sharing between the league’s haves and have-nots could resolve the teams’ exaggerated financial troubles. Much depends on whose numbers you believe.In the end the players will probably have to make at least modest concessions on their contracts and salaries, but they have thus far rejected the owners’ demanding proposals. About the only thing the two sides currently agree on is how far apart they are, raising fears that the next season may be cancelled altogether.The NFL, on the other hand, looks to be moving closer to a deal that would end its four-month work stoppage. But that ought not to raise the hopes of NBA fans much. No NFL team appears to be losing money and the league’s basic economic framework is not in dispute. The incentives facing each sport are also quite different. With pre-season games only a month away, further squabbling could cost the NFL as much as $200m for each missed week of practice. Compare that with the NBA, where some owners may actually prefer to forgo another unprofitable season if it results in a better deal.Text 5Here I want to try to give you an answer to the questions what personal qualities are desirable in a teacher? Probably no two people would draw up exactly similar lists, but I think the following would be generally accepted.First, the teacher’s personality should be pleasant ly live and attractive. This does not rule out people who are physically plain, or even ugly, because many such have great personal charm. But it does rule out such types as the over-excitable, melancholy, frigid, sarcastic, cynical, frustrated, and over-bearing: I would say too, that it excludes all of dull or purely negative personality. I still stick to what I said in my earlier book that school children probably “suffer more from bores than from brutes.”Secondly, it is not merely desirable but essential for a teacher to have a genuine capacity for sympathy——in the literal meaning of that word; a capacity to tune in to the minds and feelings of other people, especially, since most teachers are school teachers, to the minds and feelings of children. Closely related with this is the capacity to be tolerant——not, indeed, of what is wrong, but of the frailty and immaturity of human nature which induce people, and again especially children, to make mistakes.Thirdly, I hold it essential for a teacher to be both intellectually and morally honest. This does not mean being a plaster saint. It means that he will be aware of his intellectual strengths, and limitations, and will have thought about and decided upon the moral principles by which his life shall be guided. There is no contradiction in my going on to say that a teacher should be a bit of an actor. That is part of the technique of teaching, which demands that every now and then a teacher should be able to put on an act——to enliven a lesson, correct a fault, or award praise. Children, especially young children, live in a world that is rather larger than life.A teacher must remain mentally alert. He will not get into the profession if of low intelligence, but it is all too easy, even for people of above-average intelligence, to stagnate intellectually——and that means to deteriorate intellectually. A teachermust be quick to adapt himself to any situation, however improbable and able to improvise, if necessary at less than a moment’s notice.On the other hand, a teacher must be capable of infinite patience. This, I may say, is largely a matter of self-discipline and self-training; we are none of us born like that. He must be pretty resilient; teaching makes great demands on nervous energy. And he should be able to take in his stride the innumerable petty irritations any adult dealing with children has to endure.Finally, I think a teacher should have the kind of mind which always wants to go on learning. Teaching is a job at which one will never be perfect; there is always something more to learn about it. There are three principal objects of study: the subject, or subjects, which the teacher is teaching; the methods by which they can best be taught to the particular pupils in the classes he is teaching; and——by far the most important——the children, young people, or adults to whom they are to be taught. The two cardinal principles of British education today are that education is education of the whole person, and that it is best acquired through full and active co-operation between two persons, the teacher and the learner.[A] It’s the teachers’ obligation to be upright[B] Good characteristics are important[C] Teachers should show endurance[D] Teachers can make quick adjustment[E] Teachers should never stop learning[F] Teachers should identify with students。