Early or Later Day Care

The British psychoanalyst John Bowlby maintainsthat separation from the parents during the sensitive "attachment"period from birth to three may scar a child's personality and predispose toemotional problems in later life. Some people have drawn the conclusion fromBowlby's work that children should not be subjected to day care before the ageof three because of the parental separation it entails, and many people dobelieve this. But there are also arguments against such a strong conclusion.

Firstly, anthropologists point out that theinsulated love affair between children and parents found in modern societiesdoes not usually exist in traditional societies. For example, in some tribalsocieties, such as the Ngoni, the father and mother of a child did not reartheir infant alone - far from it. Secondly, common sense tells us that day carewould not be so widespread today if parents, care-takers found children hadproblems with it. Statistical studies of this kind have not yet been carriedout, and they have uniformly reported that day care had a neutral or slightlypositive effect on children's development. But tests that have had to be usedto measure this development are not widely enough accepted to settle the issue.

But Bowlby's analysis raises the possibilitythat early day care has delayed effects. The possibility that such care mightlead to, say, more mental illness or crime 15 or 20 years later can only beexplored by the use of statistics. Whatever the long-term effects, parents sometimesfind the immediate effects difficult to deal with. Children under three arelikely to protest at leaving their parents and show unhappiness. At the age ofthree or three and a half almost all children find the transition to nurseryeasy, and this is undoubtedly why more and more parents make use of child careat this time. The matter, then, is far from clear-cut, though experience andavailable evidence indicate that early care is reasonable for infants.

练习：

1. Which of the following statements wouldBowlby support?

A) Statistical studies should be carried out toassess the positive effect of day care for children at the age of three orolder.

B) Early day care can delay the occurrence ofmental illness in children.

C) The first three years of one's life isextremely important to the later development of personality.

D) Children under three get used to the life atnursery schools more readily than children over three.

2. Which of the following is derivable fromBowlby's work?

A) mothers should not send their children today care centers until they are three years or older.

B) Day care nurseries have positive effects ona child's development.

C) A child sent to a day care center before theage of three may have emotional problems in later life.

D) Day care would not be so popular if it hasnoticeable effects on a child's personality.

3. It is suggested that modern societies differfrom traditional societies in that

A) the parents-child relationship is moreexclusive in modern societies.

B) a child more often grows up with his/herbrothers or sisters in traditional societies.

C) mother brings up children with the help ofher husband in traditional societies.

D) children in modern societies are more likelyto develop mental illness in later years.

4. Which of the following statements is NOT anargument against Bowlby's theory?

A) many studies show that day care has apositive effect on children's development.

B) Day care is safe, otherwise there wouldn'tbe so many nursery schools.

C) Separation from parent for very youngchildren is common in some traditional societies.

D) Parents find the immediate effects of earlyday care difficult to deal with.

5. Which of the following best expresses thewriter's attitude towards early day care?

A) Children under three should stay with heirparents.

B) Early day care has positive effects onchildren's development.

C) The issue is controversial and itssettlement calls for the use of statistics.

D) The effects of early day care on childrenare exaggerated and parents should ignore the issue.

Many people believe the glare from snow causessnowblindnenss. Yet, dark glasses or not , they find themselves suffering fromheadaches and watering eyes,and even snowblindness,when exposed to severalhours of "snow light" .

The United States Army has now determined thatglare from snow does not cause snowblindness in troops in a snow-coveredcountry.Rather, a man's eyes frequently find nothing to foucs on in a broadexpanse of barren snow-covered terrain. So his gaze continually shifts andjumps back and forth over the entire landscape in search of tsomething to lookat. Finding nothing, hour after hour, the eyes never sotp searching and theeyeballs become sore and the eye muscles ache. Nature offsets this irritationby producing more and fluid which covers the eyeball. The fluid coverstheeyeball in increasing quantity until vision blurs, then is obsured,and theresult is total, even though temporary,snowblindness.

Experiments led the Army to a simple method ofovercoming this problem. Scouts ahead of a main body of troops are trained toshake snow from evergreen bushes, creating a dotted line as they crosscompletely snow-covered landscape,Even the scouts themselves throw lightweight, dark colored objects ahead on which they too can focus . The men followingcan then see something.Their gaze is arrested. Their eyes focus on a bush andhaving found something to see,stop scouring the snow-blanketed lanscape. Byfocusing their attention on one object at a time,the men can cross the snowwithout becoming hopelessly snowblind or lost. In this way the problem ofcrossing a solid white terrain is overcome.

1.To prevent headaches, watering eyes andblindness caused by the glare from snow, dark glasses are_____.

A.indispensible                    

B.useful

C.ineffective

D.available

2.When the eyes are sore tears are produced to________.

A.clear the vision

B.remedy snowblindness

C.ease the irritation

D.loosen the muscles

3.Snowblindness may be avoided by_______.

A.concentrating to the solid white terrain

B.searching for something to look at insnow-covered terrain

C.providing the eyes with something to foucs on

D.covering the eyeballs with fluid

4.The scouts shake snow from evergreen bushesin order to _______.

A.bive the men behind something to see

B.beautify the landscape

C.warm themselves in the cold

D.prevent the men behind from losing their way

5.A suitable title for this passage would be_______.

A.snowblindness and how to overcome it

B.natrue's cure for snowblindness

C.soldiers in the snow

D.snow vision

The Greatest Mystery of Whales

The whale is a warm-blooded，air-breathing animal，giving birth to itsyoung alive，sucking them--and，likeall mammals，originated on land．Thereare many front flippers(鳍状肢)，usedfor steering and stability, are traces of feet．______(1)ofthis．Its Immense strength is______(2)into the greatbody of the big whales，and in fact most of a whale’s body is one gigantic muscle．The blue whale’s pulling strength has been estimated ______(3)400 horsepower．One specimen was reported to have towed(拖)awhaling vessel for seven hours at the______ (4) of eight knot (节). An angry whale will ______ (5) A famous example of this was thefate of Whaler Essex, ______ (6)was sunk off the coast of South America earlyin the last century．

More recently, steel ships have ______(7)theirplates buckled(使弯曲)in the same way． Sperm whales(抹香鲸)were known to seize theold-time whaleboats in their jaws and crush Them. The greatest ______ (8)ofwhales is their diving ability．The sperm whale dives tothe Bottom for his______ (9)food，the octopus(章鱼)．In that search he is known to go as farDown as 3,200 feet, where the．______ (10)is 1,400pounds，to a square inch．Doingso he Will ______ (11)underwater long as one hour．Twospecial skills are involved in this storing up enough______ (12)(all whales areair—breathed)and tolerating the great change inpressure．Just how he does it scientists have not______(13)．It is believed that some of the oxygen isstored in a special______ (14)of blood vessels，ratherthan just held in the lungs．And it is believed that aspecial kind of oil in his head is some sort of compensating mechanism that______ (15)adjusts the internal pressure of his body．Butsince you can’t bring a live whale into the laboratoryfor study, no one knows just how these things work．

1 A aspects B signs C ways D reasons

2 A worked B divided C built D moved

3 A at B in C of D with

4 A number B degree C distance D rate

5 A abandon B attack C leave D board

6 A as B who C which D that

7 A had B operated C Seen D caught

8 A interest B job C danger D mystery

9 A favorite B fast C new D sufficient

10 A depth B pressure C level D size11 A set Bbecome C remain D rest

12 A heat B energy C food D oxygen

13 A witnessed B determined C applied Dcalculated

14 A system B place C arrangement D equipment

15 A mentally B artificially C manually Dautomatically