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If you are a sleep deprived(被剥夺) teacher, you may not be aware of the term woodpeckering(啄木鸟式点头), but you've probably done it. It happens the day following a bad night's sleep. You're sitting in a long meeting and you can barely keep your eyes open, so you support your head up with your hand. Next thing you know, you are moving your sleeping head back to its upright position. Do this a few times and you are woodpeckering.
I thought I knew sleep deprivation when I did my medical internship(实习) in hospital. That year I frequently went 36 hours with no sleep. When I finished my stay in neurology(神经内科), I welcomed the promise of full nights of sleep ever after. It went pretty well for the next 10 years until I became a school teacher and experienced a whole new level of sleep deprivation.
Teachers' working hours go far beyond the 8 am to 5 pm schedule of kids in school. There are hours spent at staff meetings, correcting homework, preparing for the next day- and then there is the worrying. What I did in a hospital emergency room required no more intensive mental energy than what is need to keep 30 kids attentive enough to learn what I was teacher.
Good teachers are like magicians keeping a dozen balls in the air to come at right time, with alarm set for 6 am to finish grading papers, memories of the day that's gone- including the students who didn't understand something, forgot their lunch or were embarrassed by wrong ansers. All these will become sleep-resistant barriers. And also with some financial stress, you'll have a cycle of insomnia(失眠) with unwelcome consequences.
With inadequate sleep comes irritability(易怒), forgetfulness, lower tolerance of even minor annoyances, and less efficient organization and planning. These are the very mental nuseles that teachers need to meet the challenges of the next day. In wanting to do a better job the next day, the brain keeps bringing up the worries that deny the rest it needs.
36. After a bad night's sleep, usually the direct effect for the next day is to ______.
A. keep one's eyes open all the time
B. move head back and forth
C. raise one's head in upright position
D. keep nodding like a woodpecker
37. The writer's new level of sleep deprivation began since he _____.
A. did his medical internship in hospital
B. began to teach in a school
C. left hospital ten years ago
D. went 36 hours with no sleep
38. From paragraph 3 we can infer that ____.
A. teachers' work is comfortable
B. correcting homework needs less time
C. working in hospital is even tougher
D. teaching needs more mental energy
39. Good teachers' sleep problems are mainly due to the _____.
A. common sleep-resistant barriers
B. embarrassment for wrong answers
C. diligence and devotion to teaching
D. misunderstanding of their students
40. What does the writer really want to tell us in the last paragraph?
A. Unfavorable effects of inadequate sleep are various
B. Lay down worries and sleep well first for the next day.
C. Teachers should often practice mental muscles.
D. Better job has nothing to do with inadequate sleep.
D
An absolute description of the threat hanging over the world's mammals, reptiles, amphibians(不如、爬行、两栖动物) and other life forms has been published by the well-known scientific journal, Nature. A special analysis carried out by the journal indicates that an astonishing 41% of all amphibians on the planet now face extinction while 26% of mammal species and 13% of birds are similarly threatened.
Many species are already critically endangered and lose to extinction, including the Sumatran elephant, Amur leopard and mountain gorilla. But also in danger of vanishing for the wild, it now appears, are animals that are currently rated as merely being endangered.
In each case, the finger of blame points directly at human activites The continuing spread of agriculture is destroying million of hectares of wild habitats(栖息地)every year, leaving animals without homes, while the introduction of newly-come species, often helped by humans, is also damaging native populations. At the same time, pollution and overfishing are destroying ocean ecosystems.
"Habitat destruction, pollution or overfishing either skill off wild creatures and plants or keaves them badly weakened," said Derek Tittensor, an ocean ecologist at the World Conservation Monitoring Centre in Cambridge. "The trouble is that in coming decades, the additional threat of worsening climate change will become more and more common and could then kill off these survivors."
The problem, according to Nature, is worsened because of the huge gaps in scientists knowledge about the planet's biodiversity. Evaluations of the total number of species of animals and plants alive vary from 2 million to 50 million. In addition, evaluations of current rates of species' disappearances vary from 500 to 36, 000 a year. "That is the real problem we face," added Tittensor. "The scale of uncertainty is huge."
In the end, however, the data indicate that the world is heading cruelty towards a mass extinction-which is defined as one involving a loss of 75% of species or more. This could arrive in less than a hundred years or could take a thousand, depending on extinction rates.
41. What's the main idea of the first two paragraphs?
A. Figures about some wild animals are astonishing.
B. "Nature" is the famous journal around the world.
C. Many endangered species are close to extinction.
D. Some rare species have appeared around the world.
42. The direct reason for the extinction of some species is _____.
A. continuous appearance of new species
B. destructive activities of human beings
C. more and more homeless animals
D. the great change of ocean ecosystem
43. From paragraph 4 we know that another future threat is ______.
A. destruction of habitats
B. overfishing and pollution
C. the worsening climate change
D. killing off wild creatures and plants
44. What is the real problem we are facing now according to paragraph 5?
A. The killing of wild creatures and cutting of trees.
B. The global warming caused by human beings.
C. The destruction of ocean ecosystem by pollution.
D. Evaluation of current rates of species' disappearances.
45. What does "This" in the last sentence refer to _____?
A. mass extinction
B. extinction rates
C. extinction time
D. 75% of species or more
