2014年高考英语真题试卷（上海卷）

    Research has shown that two-thirds of human conversation is taken up not with discussion of the cultural or political problems of the day, not heated debates about films we've just watched or books we've just finished reading, but plain and simple 1.

    Language is our greatest treasure as a species, and what do we 2 do with it? We gossip. About others' behaviour and private lives, such as who's doing what with whom, who's in and who's out-and why; how to deal with difficult 3 situations involving children, lovers, and colleagues.

    So why are we keen on gossiping? Are we just natural4, of both time and words? Or do we talk a lot about nothing in particular simply to avoid facing up to the really important issues of life? It's not the case according to Professor Robin Dunbar. In fact, in his latest book, Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language, the psychologist says gossip is one of these really5issues.

    Dunbar 6 the traditional view that language was developed by the men at the early stage of social development in order to organize their manly hunting activities more effectively, or even to promote the exchange of poetic stories about their origins and the supernatural. Instead he suggests that language evolved among women. We don't spend two-thirds of our time gossiping just because we can talk, argues Dunbar—7, he goes on to say, language evolved specifically to allow us to gossip.

    Dunbar arrived at his cheery theory by studying the 8 of the higher primates（灵长类动物）like monkeys. By means of grooming--cleaning the fur by brushing it, monkeys form groups with other individuals on whom they can rely for support in the event of some kind of conflict within the group or9 from outside it.

    As we human beings evolve from a particular branch of the primate family, Dunbar 10 that at one time in our history we did much the same. Grouping together made sense because the bigger the group, the greater the 11 it provided; on the other hand, the bigger the group, the greater the stresses of living close to others. Grooming helped to 12 the pressure and calm everybody down.

    But as the groups got bigger and bigger, the amount of time spent in grooming activities also had to be 13 to maintain its effectiveness. Clearly, a more 14 kind of grooming was needed, and thus language evolved as a kind of vocal（有声的）grooming which allowed humans to develop relationship with ever-larger groups by exchanging information over a wider network of individuals than would be possible by one-to-one 15contact.

    Most people agree that honesty is a good thing. But does Mother Nature agree? Animals can't talk, but can they lie in other ways? Can they lie with their bodies and behavior? Animal experts may not call it lying, but they do agree that many animals, from birds to chimpanzees, behave dishonestly to fool other animals. Why? Dishonesty often helps them survive.

    Many kinds of birds are very successful at fooling other animals. For example, a bird called the plover sometimes pretends to be hurt in order to protect its young. When a predator（猎食动物）gets close to its nest, the plover leads the predator away from the nest. How? It pretends to have a broken wing. The predator follows the "hurt" adult, leaving the baby birds safe in the nest.

    Another kind of bird, the scrub jay, buries its food so it always has something to eat. Scrub jays are also thieves. They watch where others bury their food and steal it. But clever scrub jays seem to know when a thief is watching them. So they go back later, unbury the food, and bury it again somewhere else.

    Birds called cuckoos have found a way to have babies without doing much work. How? They don't make nests. Instead, they get into other birds' nests secretly. Then they lay their eggs and fly away. When the baby birds come out, their adoptive parents feed them.

    Chimpanzees, or chimps, can also be sneaky. After a fight, the losing chimp will give its hand to the other. When the winning chimp puts out its hand, too, the chimps are friendly again. But an animal expert once saw a losing chimp take the winner's hand and start fighting again.

    Chimps are sneaky in other ways, too. When chimps find food that they love, such as bananas, it is natural for them to cry out. Then other chimps come running. But some clever chimps learn to cry very softly when they find food. That way, other chimps don't hear them,  and they don't need to share their food.

    As children, many of us learn the saying "You can't fool Mother Nature." But maybe you can't trust her, either.

    Let's say you want to hit the gym more regularly this year. How do you make that happen? Consider putting the habit loop to use.

    Here's how it works:

    A habit is a 3-step process. First, there's a cue, something that tells your brain to operate automatically. Then there's a routine. And finally, a reward, which helps your brain learn to desire the behavior. It's what you can use to create-or break-habits of your own.

    Here's how to apply it:

    Choose a cue, like leaving your running shoes by the door, then pick. a reward-say, a piece of chocolate when you get home from the gym. That way, the cue and the reward become interconnected. Finally, when you see the shoes, your brain will start longing for the reward, which will make it easier to work out day after day. The best part? In a couple of weeks, you won't need the chocolate at all. Your brain will come to see the workout itself as the reward. Which is the whole point, right?

    If you could be anybody in the world, who would it be? Your neighbour or a super star? A few people have experienced what it might be like to step into the skin of another person, thanks to an unusual virtual reality（虚拟现实）device. Rikke Wahl, an actress, model and artist, was one of the participants in a body swapping experiment at the Be Another lab, a project developed by a group of artists based in Barcelona. She swapped with her partner, an actor, using a machine called The Machine to Be Another and temporarily became a man. "As I looked down, I saw my whole body as a man, dressed in my partner's pants," she said. "That's the picture I remember best."

    The set-up is relatively simple. Both users wear a virtual reality headset with a camera on the top. The video from each camera is sent to the other person, so what you see is the exact view of your partner. If she moves her arm, you see it. If you move your arm, she sees it.

    To get used to seeing another person's body without actually having control of it, participants start by raising their arms and legs very slowly, so that the other can follow along. Eventually, this kind of slow synchronised（同步的）movement becomes comfortable, and participants really start to feel as though they are living in another person's body.

    Using such technology promises to alter people's behaviour afterwards-potentially for the better. Studies have shown that virtual reality can be effective in fighting racism-the bias（偏见）that humans have against those who don't look or sound like them. Researchers at the University of Barcelona gave people a questionnaire called the Implicit Association Test, which measures the strength of people's associations between, for instance, black people and adjectives such as good, bad, athletic or awkward. Then they asked them to control the body of a dark skinned digital character using virtual reality glasses, before taking the test again. This time, the participants' bias scores were lower. The idea is that once you've "put yourself in another's shoes" you're less likely to think ill of them, because your brain has internalised the feeling of being that person.

    The creators of The Machine to Be Another hope to achieve a similar result. "At the end of body swapping, people feel like holding each other in their arms," says Arthur Pointeau, a programmer with the project. "It's a really nice way to have this kind of experience. I would really, really recommend it to everyone."

                           My Stay in New York

    After graduation from university, I had been unable to secure a permanent job in my small town. So I decided to leave home for New York,I might have a better chance to find a good job.  (earn) some money to pay the daily expenses, I started work in a local café as a waiter. I believe that30． I was offered a good position, I would resign at once.

    Over time, the high cost of living became a little burden on my already   (exhaust) shoulder. On the other hand, my search for a respectable job had not met with much success. As I had studied literature at university, I found it quite difficult to secure a suitable job in big companies. Mother had just said that  I want to have a better career advancement, I had to find work in the city. Perhaps my mother had told me was deeply rooted in my mind. I just did as she had expected.

    Soon I had lived in the city for over six months but I still did not like it. Apparently, I had difficulty (adapt) myself to life in the city, let alone finding a job to my delight. After nine months of frustration, I eventually decided to go back to my small town. Not until I returned I realize that a quiet town life was the best for me.

    The giant vending machine (自动售货机) is a new village shop

Villagers have long been used to facing a drive when they run out of basic supplies. However, help is now nearer at hand in form of the country's first automatic push-button shop. Now residents in the Derbyshire Village of Clifton can buy groceries around the clock after the huge vending was installed outside a pub in the village this week.

    Peter Fox, who iselectrical engineer, spent two and a half years working on the project. The machine  (equip) with securing cameras and alarms and looks like a mini shop with a brick front, a grey roof and a display window.

    Mr. Fox said he hoped his invention, is set to be installed in other villages in the area over the coming months, will mark a return to convenience shopping for rural communities.

He said:“ I had this idea a few years ago but I couldn't find a manufacture who could deliver what I wanted, so I did it by The result is what amounts to huge outdoor vending machine. Yet I think the term “automatic shop” is far (appropriate)

    In recent years, the commercial pressure from supermarket chains force village shops across the country to close. In 2010, it was estimated that about 400 village shops closed, (urge) the local government to give financial support to struggling shops or set-up new communities stores.

    Hundreds of communities have since stepped in and opened up their won volunteer-run shops, but Mr. Fox hopes his new invention will offer a solutionthese villages without a local shop.

    Let's say you've decided you want to eat more healthfully. However, you don't have time to carefully plan menus for meals or read food  at the supermarket. Since you really yourself to a healthier lifestyle, a little help would come in handy, wouldn't it? This is where a "choice architect" can help_some of the burden of doing it all yourself. Choice architects are people who organize the contexts in which customers make decisions. For example, the person who decides the layout of your local supermarket-including which shelf the peanut butter goes on, and how the oranges are piled up—is a choice architect.

    Governments don't have tohealthier lifestyles through laws  for example, smoking bans. Rather, if given an environment created by a choice architect-one that encourages us to choose what is best-we will do the right things. In other words, there will be designs that gently push customers toward making healthier choices, without removing freedom of choice. This idea combines freedom to choose withhints from choice architects, who aim to help people live longer, healthier, and happier lives.

    The British and Swedish governments have introduced a so-called "traffic light system" to foods as healthy or unhealthy. This means that customers can see at a glance how much fat, sugar, and salt each product containsby looking at the lights on the package. A green light _that the amounts of the three nutrients are healthy; yellow indicates that the customer should be; and red means that the food is high in at least one of the three nutrients and should be eaten in . The customer is given important health information, but is still free to decide what to choose.

    More and more corporations are taking an interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR). CSR is made up of three broad layers. The most basic is traditional corporate charity work. Companies typically spend about 1% of pre-tax profits on worthy projects. But many feel that simply writing cheques to charities is no longer enough. In some companies, shareholders want to know that their money is being put to good use, and employees want to be actively involved in good works.

    Money alone is not the answer when companies come under attack for their behavior. Hence the second layer of CSR, which is a branch of risk management. Starting in the 1980s, with environmental disasters such as the explosion at Bhopal and the Exxon Valdez oil spill, industry after industry has suffered blows to its reputation.

    So, companies often responded by trying to manage the risks. They talk to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and to governments, create codes of conduct（行为准则) and devote themselves to more transparency（透明）in their operations. Increasingly, too. they, along with their competitors, set common rules to spread risks.

    All this is largely defensive, but there are also opportunities for those that get ahead of the game. The emphasis on opportunity is the third layer of CSR: the idea that it can help to create value. If approached in a strategic way, CSR could become part of a company's competitive advantage. That is just the sort of thing chief executives like to hear. The idea of "doing well by doing good" has become popular.

Nevertheless, the business of trying to be good is bringing difficult questions to executives. Can you measure CSR performance? Should you be cooperating with NGOs and you're your competitors? Is there any really competitive advantage to be had from a green strategy?

    Corporate social responsibility is now seen as a mainstream. Big companies want to tell the world about their good citizenship with their devotion to social responsibilities. Done badly, CSR is often just window-dressing and can be positively harmful. Done well, though, it is not some separate activity that companies do on the side, a corner of corporate life reserved for virtue（美德）：it is just good business.

     (Note: Answer the questions or complete the statements in NO MORE THAN TEN WORDS)

    Directions: Translate the following sentences into English, using the words given in the brackets.

1）你建议去除的栏目及去除的理由；

2）你建议增加的栏目及增加的理由。