A
James Hargreaves was a weaver living in the village ofStanhill in Lancashire. It is claimed that one day his daughter Jenny,accidentally knocked over over the family spinning wheel. The spindle continuedto revolve and it gave Hargreaves the idea that a whole line of spindles couldbe worked off one wheel.
B
In 1764 Hargreaves built what became known as theSpinning-Jenny. The machine used eight spindles onto which the thread was spunfrom a corresponding set of rovings. By turning a single wheel, the operatorcould now spin eight threads at once. Later, improvements were made thatenabled the number to be increased to eighty. The thread that the machineproduced was coarse and lacked strength, making it suitable only for thefilling of weft, the threads woven across the warp.
C
Hargreaves did not apply for a patent for his Spinning Jennyuntil 1770 and therefore others copied his ideas without paying him any money.It is estimated that by the time James Hargreaves died in 1778, over 20,000Spinning-Jenny machines were being used in Britain.
D
James Hargreaves was born near Blackburn in about 1720.Hargreavesreceived no formal education and was unable to read or write. Heworked as a carpenter and weaver but had a strong interest in engineering.
E
By the 1760s Harg reaves was living in the village ofStanhill and was one of the many weavers who owned his own spinning wheel andloom. It is claimed that one day his daughter Jenny accidentally knocked overover the family spinning wheel. The spindle continued to revolve and it gaveHargreaves the idea that a whole line of spindles could be worked off one wheel.
F
In 1764 Hargreaves built what became known as theSpinning-Jenny. The machine used eight spindles onto which the thread was spunfrom a corresponding set of rovings. By turning a single wheel, the operatorcould now spin eight threads at once. The thread that the machine produced wascoarse and lacked strength,makjng it suitable only for the filling of weft, thethreads woven across the warp.
G
Originally Hargreaves produced the machine for family use butwhen he began to sell the machines, spinners from Lancashire, fearing thepossibility of cheaper competition, marched on his house and destroyed hisequipment. Hargreaves did not apply for a patent for his Spinning-Jenny until1770 and therefore others copied his ideas without paying him any money.
H
Hargreaves moved to Nottingham where he erected a smallspinning-mill. Others began to make improvements to the Spinning-Jenny and thenumber of threads was increased from eight to eighty. By the time JamesHargreaves died in 1778, over 20,000 Spinning-Jenny machines were being used inBritain.
passage 2 给马牙齿看病
passage 3 Insidethe Mind of Fan 运动心理健康
A
Atabout the same time that the poet Homer invented the epic hero, the ancientGreeks started a festival in which men competed in a single race, about 200metres long. The winner received a branch of wild olives. The Greeks calledthis celebration the Olympics. Through the ancient sprint remains, today theOlympics are far more than that. Indeed, the Games seem to celebrate the dreamof progress as embodied in the human form. That the Games are intoxicating towatch is beyond question. During the Athens Olympics in 2004, 3.4 billionpeople, half the world, watched them on television. Certainly, being aspectator is a thrilling experience: but why?
B
In1996, three Italian neuroscientists, Giacomo Rizzolatti, Leonardo Fogassi andVittorio Gallese, examined the premotor cortex of monkeys. They discovered thatinside these primate brains there were groups of cells that ‘store vocabularies of motor actions’. Just as there are grammars of movement. Thesenetworks of cells are the bodily ‘sentences’ we use every day, the ones our brain has chosen toretain and refine. Think，for example，about a golf swing. To those who have only watched theMasters’ Tournament on TV, golfing seemseasy. To the novice, however, the skill of casting a smooth arc with a lop-sidemetal stick is virtually impossible. This is because most novices swing withtheir consciousness, using an area of brain next to the premotor cortex. To theexpert, on the other hand, a perfectly balanced stroke is second nature. Forhim, the motor action has become memorized, and the movements are embedded inthe neurons of his premotor cortex. He hits the ball with the tranquility ofhis perfected autopilot.
C
Theseneurons in the premotor cortex, besides explaining why certain athletes seem topossess almost unbelievable levels of skill, have an even more amazingcharacteristic, one that caused Rizzolatti, Fogassi and Gallese to give themthe lofty title ‘mirror neurons’. They note. The main functional characteristic ofmirror neurons is that they become active both when the monkey performs aparticular action (for example, grasping an object or holding it) and,astonishingly, when it sees another individual performing a similar action.’ Humans have an even more elaborate mirror neuronsystem. These peculiar cells mirror,inside the brain, the outside world: they enable us to internalise the actionsof another. In order to be activated, though, these cells require what thescientists call ‘goal-orientated movements’. If we are staring at a photograph, a fixed image of arunner mid-stride, our mirror neurons are totally silent. They only fire whenthe runner is active: running, moving or sprinting.
D
Whatthese electrophysiological studies indicate is that when we watch a golfer or arunner in action, the mirror neurons in our own premotor cortex light up as ifwe were the ones ccompeting. This phenomenon of neural mirror was firstdiscovered in 1954, when two French physiologists, Gastaut and Berf, found thatthe brains of humans vibrate with two distinct wavelengths, alpha and mu. Themu system is involved in neural mirroring. It is active when your bodies arestill, and disappears whenever we do something active, like playing sport orchanging the TV channel. The suprising fact is that the mu signal is also quietwhen we watch someone else being active, as on TV, these results are the effectof mirror neurons.
E
Rizzolatti,Fogassi and Gallese call the idea of mirror neurons the ‘direct matching hypothesis’.They believe that we only understand the movement of sports stars when we ‘map the visual representation of the observed actiononto our motor representation of the same action’.According to this theory, watching an Olympic athlete ’causesthe motor system of the observer to resonate. The “motorknowledge” of the observer is used tounderstand the observed action. ‘ Butmirror neurons are more than just the neural basis for our attitude to sport.It turns out that watching a great golfer makes us better golfers, and watchinga great sprinter actually makes us run faster. This ability to learn bywatching is a crucial skill. From the acquisition of language as infants tolearning facial expressions, mimesis (copying) is an essential part of beingconscious. The best athletes are those with a premotor cortex capable ofimagining the movements of victory, together with the physical properties tomake those movements real.
F
Buthow many of us regularly watch sports in order to be a better athlete? Rather,we watch sport for the feeling, the human drama. This feeling also derives frommirror neurons. By letting spectators share in the motions of victory, theyalso allow us to share in its feelings. This is because they are directlyconnected to the amygdale, one of the main brain regions involved in emotion.During the Olympics, the mirror neurons of whole nations will be electricallyidentical, their athletes causing spectators to feel, just for a second or two,the same thing. Watching sports brings people together. Most of us will neverrun a mile in under four minutes, or hit a home run. Our consolation comes inwatching, when we gather around the TV, we all feel, just for a moment, what itis to do something perfectly.
答案：
14. F 15. B 16. E 17. C 18. D 19. E 20. C
21. A 22. C 23. YES 24. NO 25. NO 26. NOT GIVEN 27. YES
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