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1、2010级二下四级练习（一）Part I Writing (30 minutes)The Prevalence of Western Holidays1. 我国某些传统节日受到冷遇，而西方节日却日益升温；2. 造成这种现象的原因；3. 你对这种现象的看法Part II Reading Comprehension (Skimming and Scanning) (15 minutes)Does contagious yawning mean youre nice?Youre in a conversation with another person and he casually yawns.
2、As you wonder whether hes bored with the discussion, you find that youre yawning, too. A man walking by, sees you yawn, and pretty soon he yawns. Its carried on and on, passing from one person to another in a domino effect. Science is still investigating exactly what makes us yawn, but its a well-kn
3、own and little-studied fact: Yawning is contagious.We know that much of yawning is due to suggestibilityits infectious. You dont need to actually see a person yawn to involuntarily yawn yourself; hearing someone yawn or even reading about yawning can cause the same reaction. Chances are youll yawn a
4、t least once while reading this article.But contagious yawning goes beyond mere suggestibility. Recent studies show that the phenomenon is also related to our predisposition toward empathy-the ability to understand and connect with others emotional states. It sounds strange, but whether or not youre
5、 susceptible to contagious yawning may actually be related to how much empathy you feel for others.Empathy is an important part of cognitive development. We learn from an early age to value ourselves based on the amount and type of empathy our parents display, and developmental psychologists have fo
6、und that people who werent shown empathy by their parents struggle later on in life. A lack of early empathy has been shown to lead to the development of sociopathic behavior in adults.So empathy is important, sure, but how could it possibly be related to contagious yawning? Leave it up to psycholog
7、ists at Leeds University in England to answer that. In their study, researchers selected 40 psychology students and 40 engineering students. Each student was made to wait individually in a waiting room, along with an undercover assistant who yawned 10 times in as many minutes. The students were then
8、 administered an emotional quotient test: Students were shown 40 images of eyes and asked what emotion each one displayed.The results of the test support the idea that contagious yawning is linked to empathy. The psychology studentswhose future profession requires them to focus on othersyawned conta
9、giously an average of 5.5 times in the waiting room and scored 28 out of 40 on the emotional test. The engineering studentswho tend to focus on things like numbers and systemsyawned an average of 1.5 times and scored 25.5 out of 40 on the following test. The difference doesnt sound like much, but re
10、searchers consider it significant. Strangely, women, who are generally considered more emotionally attuned, didnt score any higher than men. These findings support what neurologists found through brain imaging: Contagious yawning is associated with the same parts of the brain that deal with empathy.
11、 These regions, the precuneus and posterior temporal gyms, are located in the back of the brain. And although the link between contagious yawning and empathy has been established, explanations for the link are still being investigated.Researchers are looking into the world of development disorders a
12、nd at higher primates for answers to this riddle.Primate Yawing, Autism and Contagious YawningYawning may serve a number of functions, and these functions might be different for different animals. Humans arent the only animals that yawneven fish do. But only humans and chimpanzees, our closest relat
13、ive in the animal kingdom, have shown definite contagious yawning.One study, conducted in Kyoto, Japan, observed six chimps in captivity. Chimps were shown videos of other chimps yawning, along with chimps that opened their mouths but did not yawn. Of the six, two chimps yawned contagiously a number
14、 of times. Even more interesting, like their human counterparts under age 5, the three chimp infants showed no susceptibility to contagious yawning.This may be related to the fact that empathy is taught and learned. If contagious yawning is the result of empathy, then contagious yawning wouldnt exis
15、t until the ability to empathize was learned. But what if empathy is never developed? Another study, led by cognitive researcher Atsushi Senju, sought to answer that question. People with autism spectrum disorder are considered to be developmentally impaired emotionally. Autistics have trouble conne
16、cting with others and find it difficult to feel empathy. Since autistics have difficulty feeling empathy, then they shouldnt be susceptible to contagious yawning.To find out, Senju and his colleagues placed 48 kids aged 7 to 15 in a room with a television. Twenty-four of the test subjects had been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, the other half were non-autistic kids. Like the Kyoto chimp study, the test subjects were sho
