题型：阅读选择 题类：模拟题 难易度：普通
江苏省盐城市毓龙路实验学校2017届九年级下学期英语中考第一次模拟考试
Do you look like your name? Scientists say there's a good chance you do.
This comes from a new study published in a magazine. Researchers from Israel found that our given names may have something to do with our facial (面部的) appearances.
Lead writer Yonat Zwebner of a university, along with her team, did eight different experiments (实验) in Israel and France. The different experiments were set up to answer two main questions: whether people can correctly guess a person's name based only on a photo of a face and what is behind this matching effect.
During the experiments, researchers asked students to look at photos of people's faces and guess each person's name from a list of four choices. They correctly guessed the right name 38 percent of the time, which was better than the 25 percent of a random (随机的) guess.
What's more, when the faces the students looked at came from within their own country, they were able to best match the faces to the names. French students were better at matching only French names and faces while Israeli students were better at matching only Hebrew names and Israeli faces.
Researchers believe it is possible that people change their appearances without paying attention to it, to match their names. One study especially backed up this idea, showing that a hairstyle, something that can be changed by people easily, was enough to guide others in correctly guessing their names.
“Earlier research has shown there are cultural stereotypes (偏见) carried by names, including how someone should look. For example, people are more likely to imagine a person named Bob to have a rounder face than a person named Tim. We believe these stereotypes can, over time, influence people's facial appearances,” Zwebner said.
The results of the experiments may even make parents think twice when choosing a name for their children.
“If a name can influence appearance, it can influence many other things. This research opens an important direction that may suggest how parents should consider better the names for their children,” said Zwebner, who recently had a baby herself.
“As parents, it was really difficult for us to name our 12-day-old daughter as we know the meanings of names.”
E
 | Recently, China announced it had achieved success in drilling fire ice or methane hydrate (天然气水合物，即可燃冰), from the seabed in the Shenhu area of the South China Sea. It produces high amount of energy when it is burned, leaving nothing but dioxide and water. Many countries, including the United States and Japan, have long beeaban doing research on methane hydrate, but taking it from bottom of the sea has been a common problem they are facing. According to reports, China succeeded in drilling methane hydrate for a number of days continuously and got an average of over 16,000 m3 daily. It is believed to be a big breakthrough. |
| Scientists say there is about 21, 000 trillion (万亿) m3 of methane hydrate in the world. If we can use it, it can meet the world's energy need for 1, 000 years. However, it is too early to say a new energy source (来源) has been found because we are still facing two main challenges—environmental risk and economic (经济的)cost. When methane hydrate is taken from the seabed, it may go into the air easily. That's very bad for the environment because methane is one of the worst greenhouse gases. Besides, drilling methane hydrate is very expensive as well. However, China's technology breakthrough is very important because it shows the way researchers across the world should take. It also raises hopes that one day we can drill methane hydrate as a source of energy. | |
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