Anyone who cares about what schools and colleges teach and how their students learn will be interested in the memoir(回忆录) of Ralph W. Tyler, who is one of the most famous men in American education.

   Born in Chicago in 1902, brought up and schooled in Nebraska, the 19-year-old college graduate Ralph Tyler became hooked on teaching while teaching as a science teacher in South Dakota and changed his major from medicine to education.

    Graduate work at the University of Chicago found him connected with honorable educators Charles Judd and W. W. Charters, whose ideas of teaching and testing had an effect on his later work. In 1927, he became a teacher of Ohio State University where he further developed a new method of testing.

    Tyler became well-known nationality in 1938, when he carried his work with the Eight-Year Study from Ohio State University to the University of Chicago at the invitation of Robert Hutchins.

    Tyler was the first director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, a position he held for fourteen years. There, he firmly believed that researchers should be free to seek an independent (独立的) spirit in their work.

    Although Tyler officially retired in 1967, he never actually retired. He served on a long list of educational organizations in the United States and abroad. Even in his 80s he traveled across the country to advise teachers and management people on how to set objectives (目标) that develop the best teaching and learning within their schools.

21. Who are most probably interested in Ralph W. Tyler's memoir?

A. Top managers.

B. Language learners.

C. Serious educators.

D. Science organizations.

22. The words "hooked oh teaching" underlined in Paragraph 2 probably mean _____.

A. attracted to teaching

B. tired of teaching

C. satisfied with teaching

D. unhappy about teaching

23. Where did Tyler work as the leader of a research center for over 10 years?

A. The University of Chicago.

B. Stanford University.

C. Ohio State University.

D. Nebraska University.

24. Tyler is said to have never actually retired because _________.

   A. he developed a new method of testing            B. he called for free spirit in research

   C. he was still active in giving advice               D. he still led the Eight-Year Study

The Queen’s English is now sounding less upper-class, a scientific study of the Queen’s Christmas broadcasts had found. Researchers have studied each of her message to the Commonwealth countries since 1952 to find out the change in her pronunciation from the noble Upper Received to the Standard Received.

Jonathan Harrington, a professor at Germany’s University of Munich, wanted to discover whether accent (口音) changers recorded over the past half century would take place within one person. “As far as I know, there just is nobody else for whom there is this sort of broadcast records,” he said.

He said the noble way of pronouncing vowels (元音) had gradually lost ground as the noble upper-class accent over the past years. “Her accent sounds slightly less noble than it did 50 years ago. But these are very, very small and slow changes that we don’t notice from year to year.”

“We may be able to relate it to changes in the social classes,” he told The Daily Telegraph, a British newspaper. “In 1952 she would have been hears saying ‘thet men in the bleck het’. Now it would be ‘that man in the black hat’. And ‘hame’ rather than ‘home’. In the 1950s she would have been ‘lorst’, but by the 1970s ‘lost’.”

The Queen’s broadcast is a personal message to the Commonwealth countries. Each Christmas, the 10-minute broadcast is put on TV at 3 pm in Britain as many families are recovering from their traditional turkey lunch. (传统火鸡午餐).

The results were published (发表) in the Journal of Phonetics.

25. The Queen’s broadcasts were chosen for the study mainly because ______.

A. she has been Queen for many years     B. she has a less upper-class accent now

C. her speeches are familiar to many people  D. her speeches have been recorded for 50 years

26. Which of the following is an example of a less noble accent in English?

A. “duaty”        B. “citee”       C. “hame”      D. “lorst”

27. We may infer from the text that the Journal of Phonetics is a magazine on _______.

A. speech sounds    B. Christmas customs   C. TV broadcasting       D. personal messages

28. What is the text mainly about?

A. The relationship between accents and social classes.

B. The Queen’s Christmas speeches on TV.

C. The changes in a person’s accent.

D. The recent development of the English language.

Over the last 70 years, researchers have been studying happy and unhappy people and finally found out ten factors that make a difference. Our feelings of well-being at any moment are determined to a certain degree by genes. However, of all the factors, wealth and age are the top two.

Money can buy a degree of happiness. But once you can afford to feed, clothe and house yourself, each extra dollar makes less and less difference.

Researchers find that, on average, wealthier people are happier. But the link between money and happiness is complex. In the past half-century, average income has sharply increased in developed countries, yet happiness levels have remained almost the same. Once your basic needs are met, money only seems to increase happiness if you have more than your friends, neighbors and colleagues.

"Dollars buy status, and status makes people feel better," conclude some experts, which helps explain why people who can seek status in other ways－scientists or actors, for example－may happily accept relatively poorly-paid jobs.

 In a research, Professor Alex Michalos found that the people whose desire－not just for money, but for friends, family, job, health－rose furthest beyond what they already had, tended to be less happy than those who felt a smaller gap (差距). Indeed, the size of the gap predicted happiness about five times better than income alone. "The gap measures just blow away the only measures of income." Says Michalos.

Another factor that has to do with happiness is age. Old age may not be so bad. "Given all the problems of aging, how could the elderly be more satisfied?" asks Professor Laura Carstensen.

In one survey, Carstensen interviewed 184 people between the ages of 18 and 94, and asked them to fill out an emotions questionnaire. She found that old people reported positive emotions just as often as young people, Some scientists suggest older people may expect life to be harder and learn to live with it, or they're more realistic about their times running out, older people have learned to focus on things that make them happy and let go of those that don't.

"People realize not only what they have, but also that what they have cannot last forever," she says. "A goodbye kiss to a husband or wife at the age of 85, for example, may bring far more complex emotional responses than a similar kiss to a boy or girl friend at the age of 20."

29. According to the passage, the feeling of happiness _______. 

A. is determined partly by genes

B. increases gradually with age

C. has little to do with wealth

D. is measured by desires

30. Some actors would like to accept poorly-paid jobs because the jobs _______.

A. make them feel much better

B. provide chances to make friends

C. improve their social position

D. satisfy their professional interests

31. Aged people are more likely to feel happy because they are more _______.

A. optimistic        B. successful      C. Practical     D. emotional

32. Professor Alex Michalos found that people feel less happy if _______.

A. the gap between reality and desire is bigger

B. they have a stronger desire for friendship

C. their income is below their expectation

D. the hope for good health is greater

The African elephant, the largest land animal remaining on earth, is of great importance to African ecosystem(生态系统). Unlike other animals, the African elephant is to a great e4xtent the builder of its environment. As a big plant-eater, it largely shapes the forest-and-savanna(大草原)surroundings in which it lives, therefore setting the terms of existence for millions of other animals that live in its habitat(栖息地).

It is the elephant's great desire for food that makes it a disturber of the environment and an important builder of its habitat. In its continuous search for the 300 pounds of plants it must have every day, it kills small trees and underbushes, and pulls branches off big trees. This results in numerous open spaces in both deep tropical forests and in the woodlands that cover part of the African savannas. In these open spaces are numerous plants in various stages of growth that attract a variety of other plant-eaters.

Take the rain forests for example. In their natural state, the spreading branches overhead shut out sunlight and prevent the growth of plants on the forest floor. By pulling down trees and eating plants, elephants make open spaces, allowing new plants to grow on the forest floor. In such situations, the forests become suitable for large hoofed plant-eaters to move around and for small plant-eaters to get their food as well.

What worries scientists now is that the African elephant has become an endangered species. If the elephant disappears, scientists say, many other animals will also disappear from vast areas of forest and savanna, greatly changing and worsening the whole ecosystem.

33. What is the passage mainly about?

A. Disappearance of African elephants.

B. Forests and savannas as habitats for African elephants.

C. The effect of African elephants' search for food.

D. The eating habit of African elephants.

34. What does the underlined phrase “setting the terms” most probably mean?

A. Fixing the time.                 B. Worsening the state.

C. Improving the quality.         D. Deciding the conditions.

35. What do we know about the open spaces in the passage?

A. They result from the destruction of rain forests.

B. They provide food mainly for African elephants.

C. They are home to many endangered animals.

D. They are attractive to plant-eating animals of different kinds.

Easy Ways to Keep Your Brain Sharp

Everyone is forgetful, but as we age, we start to feel like our brains are slowing down a bit---and that can be a very annoying thing.  36   Read on for some techniques worth trying.

   1.   37 

   People who regularly made plans and looked forwards to upcoming events had a 50 percent reduced change of Alzheimer’s disease(早老性痴呆症), according to recent study.

___38　　

Something as simple as setting a goal to have a weekly coffee date with a friend will do. There's evidence that people who have a purpose in life or who are working on long or short-term goals appear to do better. In other words, keep your brain looking forward.

　　2. Go for a walk

　　Mildly raised glucose(葡萄糖)levels can harm the area of the brain that helps you form memories and physical activity can help get blood glucose down to normal levels. In fact, exercise produces chemicals that are good for your brain.   39　

　　3. Learn something new

　　Take a Spanish class online, join a drawing club, or learn to play cards. A study found that mental stimulation (刺激)limits the weakening effects of aging on memory and the mind. But the best thing for your brain is when you learn something new and are physically active at the same time.　　40　　 Or go dancing with your friends.

A. Focus on the future.

B. This can be especially harmful to the aged.

C. It should be something like learning gardening.

D. So take a few minutes each day to do some reading.

E. But don't worry if our schedule isn't filled with life-changing events.

F. Luckily, research shows there is a lot you can do to avoid those moments.

G. In other words, when you take care of your body, you take care of your brain.