英语四六级短文理解四招攻略(特别技巧篇)
52. The "so-called fight-or-flight response" (Line 2, Para. 1) refers to "________".
A) the biological process in which human beings' sense of self-defense evolves
B) the instinctive fear human beings feel when faced with potential danger
C) the act of evaluating a dangerous situation and making a quick decision
D) the elaborate mechanism in the human brain for retrieving information 本文来自
56. In Hallowell's view, people's reaction to the terrorist threat last fall was ________.
A) ridiculous
B) understandable
C) over-cautious
D) sensible 本文来自
1.快速浏览全文,把握文章脉络
文中加粗部分皆为具体阐释或举例,所以无需仔细阅读,可快速浏览甚至跳过不看。而下划线部分的成分则需读者特别注意,如第三段的this,它表明该段是上文的总结;that is表明后文为前文的解释,所以读者如果前文看懂了,后文也就没有太大作用了。
Passage One
In a purely biological sense, fear begins with the body's system for reacting to things that can harm us —— the so-called fight-or-flight response. "An animal that can't detect danger can't stay alive," says Joseph LeDoux. Like animals, humans evolved with an elaborate mechanism for processing information about potential threats. At its core is a cluster of neurons (神经元) deep in the brain known as the amygdala (扁桃核)。
LeDoux studies the way animals and humans respond to threats to understand how we form memories of significant events in our lives. The amygdala receives input from many parts of the brain, including regions responsible for retrieving memories. Using this information, the amygdala appraises a situation - I think this charging dog wants to bite me - and triggers a response by radiating nerve signals throughout the body. These signals produce the familiar signs of distress: trembling, perspiration and fast-moving feet, just to name three.
This fear mechanism is critical to the survival of all animals, but no one can say for sure whether beasts other than humans know they're afraid. That is, as LeDoux says, "if you put that system into a brain that has consciousness, then you get the feeling of fear."
Humans, says Edward M. Hallowell, have the ability to call up images of bad things that happened in the past and to anticipate future events. Combine these higher thought processes with our hardwired danger-detection systems, and you get a near-universal human phenomenon: worry.
That's not necessarily a bad thing, says Hallowell, "When used properly, worry is an incredible device," he says. After all, a little healthy worrying is okay if it leads to constructive action —— like having a doctor look at that weird spot on your back.
Hallowell insists, though, that there's a right way to worry. "Never do it alone, get the facts and then make a plan," he says. Most of us have survived a recession, so we're familiar with the belt-tightening strategies needed to survive a slump.
Unfortunately, few of us have much experience dealing with the threat of terrorism, so it's been difficult to get facts about how we should respond. That's why Hallowell believes it was okay for people to indulge some extreme worries last fall by asking doctors for Cipro (抗炭疽菌的药物) and buying gas masks.
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