Question

Professor Reason recently persuaded 35 people to keep a diary of all their absent?minded actions for two weeks. When he came to analyse their embarrassing errors, he was surprised to find that nearly all of them fell into a few groups.

     One of the women, for instance, on leaving her house for work one morning threw her pet dog her ear?rings and tried to fix a dog biscuit on her ear. “The explanation for this is that the brain is like a computer,”explains the professor.“People programme themselves to do certain activities regularly. It was the woman's custom every morning to throw her dog two biscuits and then put on her ear rings. But somehow the action got reversed(顛倒) in the programme.” About one in twenty of the incidents the volunteers reported were these “programme assembly failures”.

     Twenty percent of all errors were “test failures”— primarily due to not verifying the progress of what the body was doing. A man about to get his car out

 of the garage passed through the back yard where his garden jacket and boots were kept, put them on—much to his surprise. A woman victim reported:“I got into the bath with my socks on.”

     The commonest problem was information “storage failures”. People forgot the

 names of people whose faces they knew,went into a room and forgot why they were

 there, mislaid something, or smoked a cigarette without realizing it.

     The research so far suggests that while the “central processor” of the brain is liberated from second?to?second control of a well?practised routine, it must repeatedly switch back its attention at important decision points to check that the action goes on as intended. Otherwise the activity may be “captured” by another frequently and recently used programme, resulting in embarrassing errors.

1.The purpose of Professor Reason's research is  _______.

A.to show the difference between men and women in their reasoning

B.to classify and explain some errors in human actions

C.to find the causes which lead to computer failures

D.to compare computer functions with brain workings

2.Which of the following might be grouped under “programme assembly failures”?

A.A woman went into a shop and forgot what to buy.

B.A man returning home after work left his key in the lock.

C.A lady fell as she was concentrating on each step her feet were taking.

D.An old man, with his shoes on, was trying to put on his socks.

3.The word “verifying” in paragraph 3 can be replaced by _______ .

A.improvingB.changingC.checkingD.stopping

4.According to the passage, the information “storage failures” refer to _______ .

A.the destruction of information collecting system

B.the elimination of one's total memory

C.the temporary loss of part of one's memory

D.the separation of one's action from consciousness

Answer 1

1----4     BDCC     

解析:

1.這是一道細(xì)節(jié)題。Professor Reason根據(jù)自愿者的日記，把他們心不在焉而做錯(cuò)事的原

因分為：programme assembly failures, test failures,和storage failures等，并對此進(jìn)行了研究。說明了他的目的是對人們行為錯(cuò)誤進(jìn)行分類和解釋。答案為B。

2.這是一道細(xì)節(jié)推斷題。根據(jù)因progassembly failures而出現(xiàn)的差錯(cuò)(把耳環(huán)當(dāng)狗食扔給狗，而把狗食戴在自己的耳朵上)可以判斷，一位老人穿上鞋子后，又試圖再穿自己的襪子屬于這種錯(cuò)誤類型。答案為D。 

3.這是一道猜義題。第三段第一句話說明人們發(fā)生錯(cuò)誤的其中一個(gè)原因是沒有檢查自己將要做什么的，所以，verifying(檢驗(yàn)，驗(yàn)證)的意思是checking。答案為C。 

4.這是一道猜義題。短文第四段第二句說明這種類型的錯(cuò)誤是暫時(shí)失去部分記憶。答案為C。