2020수능특강 영어독해연습 9강 본문

9강

1

Scientists hope to someday establish beyond a doubt that aging and all the nefarious things that go with it can be indefinitely postponed simply by reducing the amount of food and calories we consume. Take note that in the prevention of Alzheimer’s disease, maintaining an ideal weight may not be enough. Studies have shown that the risk of Alzheimer’s disease is more closely linked to caloric intake than to weight or body mass index (BMI). This means that a junk food junkie who is blessed with a high metabolic rate that keeps her from gaining weight may still be at a higher risk for developing a memory problem. If we consider the logic that explains how caloric restriction exerts its beneficial effects on the body and mind, this makes a lot of sense. The amount of age‑accelerating oxygen free radicals generated from our diet is related to the amount of calories we consume, not to our weight. Thus a person with a high metabolic rate who consumes greater calories may actually be producing more harmful forms of oxygen than someone with a slower metabolic rate.

 

2

Economies are organized in different ways to answer the question of what is to be produced. The dispute over the best way to answer this question has inflamed passions for centuries. Should a central planning board make the decisions, as in North Korea and Cuba? Sometimes this highly centralized economic system is referred to as a command economy. Under this type of regime, decisions about how many tractors or automobiles to produce are largely determined by a government official or committee associated with the central planning organization. That same group decides on the number and size of school buildings, refrigerators, shoes, and so on. Other countries, including the United States, much of Europe, and increasingly, Asia and elsewhere have largely adopted a democratic and participatory decision‑making process where literally millions of individual producers and consumers of goods and services determine what goods, and how many of them, will be produced. A country that uses such a decentralized decision‑making process is often said to have a market economy.

 

3

Research with human runners challenged conventional wisdom and found that the ground‑reaction forces (GRFs) at the foot and the shock transmitted up the leg and through the body after impact with the ground varied little as runners moved from extremely compliant to extremely hard running surfaces. As a result, researchers gradually began to believe that runners are subconsciously able to adjust leg stiffness prior to foot strike based on their perceptions of the hardness or stiffness of the surface on which they are running. This view suggests that runners create soft legs that soak up impact forces when they are running on very hard surfaces and stiff legs when they are moving along on yielding terrain. As a result, impact forces passing through the legs are strikingly similar over a wide range of running surface types. Contrary to popular belief, running on concrete is not more damaging to the legs than running on soft sand. As human runners are able to regulate their leg stiffness in response to the surface hardness, the level of impact forces transmitted to the runner is almost constant.

 

4

The MNM philosophy—Make New Mistakes—recognizes that mistakes are opportunities to learn. Of course, making the same old mistakes over and over isn’t very smart. We should learn from our mistakes so that we don’t repeat them. Yet making no mistakes isn’t very smart either. Making no mistakes means that we continue to execute a familiar model or formula; making no mistakes means a lack of creativity and new strategies. Conversely, making new mistakes means that different activities and directions are being attempted. We should make mistakes when we try new things; if we don’t do so  then we aren’t being ambitious enough. The key is to learn from our new mistakes so that we grow as a result of them. If we want our teachers to learn from their experiences—to actively engage in anticipating, hypothesis testing, reflecting, and analyzing—they need to know that learning is messy and that it’s all right to feel comfortable when they make a mistake.

 

5-7

One beautiful spring day, a farmer was plowing his ground to plant carrots, when a bear wandered by. The bear was just about to grab him, but the farmer begged, “Don’t hurt me, Bear. Why don’t we farm together? I’ll do all the work for both of us. You can have everything that grows above the ground, and I’ll take the roots.” “That sounds fair,” said the bear. “But you’d better not try to trick me, or you won’t be safe in the woods anymore!” The carrots the farmer planted grew to be quite large. At last the day came to harvest them. When they were all dug up, the farmer said to the bear, “Now let’s divide them evenly. Just as I promised, you get all the tops, and I get the roots.” The bear was quite pleased with the huge bundle of carrot leaves he took home. But he was not pleased with their bitter taste. He returned to the farmer and demanded to taste one of the roots. The bear ate a carrot and said, “These are sweet and delicious. You’ve tricked me, Farmer. You had better not go in the woods again!” “I’m sorry, Bear. I didn’t mean to trick you. Next year you can have all the roots, and I’ll take what grows above the ground. It’s only fair.” But the next year, the farmer didn’t plant carrots. Instead, he planted wheat. He figured since he was doing all the work, he should get the best end of the deal. When it was time to harvest the wheat, the bear showed up again. The farmer gave the bear all the roots and then loaded the wheat in his wagon. When the bear got home, he couldn’t think of anything to do with the roots. He was furious! He went to the farmer’s house and warned him, “You’ve shown how smart you are, Farmer. But if you’re really smart, from now on you’ll stay out of my woods!” To this day, the farmer is always a little nervous when he goes into the woods. And with good reason, for the bear still hasn’t forgiven the farmer for tricking him.

 

8

Socially anxious people usually feel friendly towards others and certainly have their fair share of the positive characteristics that other people appreciate. They may have a sense of fun, be energetic and generous, kind and understanding, serious, amusing, quiet or lively, and they spontaneously behave in these ways when they feel at ease. But feeling at ease in company is so hard for them, and makes them so anxious, that these qualities are often hidden from view. The anxiety interferes with their expression, and the ability to display them may have gone rusty from lack of use. Indeed, socially anxious people may have altogether lost belief in their likeable qualities together with their self‑confidence. One of the rewards of learning to overcome social anxiety is that it enables you to express aspects of yourself that may previously have been stifled, and allows you to enjoy, rather than to fear, being yourself.

 

9

Exotic pets pose a risk to human health and safety, particularly because some infectious diseases they carry are transmittable to humans. Ecological risks are also significant. Species loss due to the exotic pet trade can be so dramatic that experts have coined the term “empty forest syndrome” to describe some of these exporting zones. In importing regions, too, exotic pets can escape or be illegally released into non‑native environments, where they may become invasive. The most famous case of this is the breeding population of Burmese pythons now established in the Florida Everglades. But the traded animals themselves arguably bear the risks of the exotic pet trade most profoundly. Pre‑purchase mortality rates within the trade are as high as 70 percent for reptiles and some birds, or 80 percent for wild‑caught marine fish, with similar mortality rates persisting within the first year after purchase. Experts argue it is difficult if not impossible to provide adequate care for exotic pets.

 

10

What was arguably the all‑time greatest example of selection bias resulted in the embarrassing 1948 Chicago Tribune headline “Dewey defeats Truman.” In reality, Harry Truman trounced his opponent. All the major political polls at the time had predicted Thomas Dewey would be elected president. The Chicago Tribune went to press before the election results were in, its editors confident that the polls would be correct. The statisticians were wrong for two reasons. First, they stopped polling too far in advance of the election, and Truman was especially successful at energizing people in the final days before the election. Second, the telephone polls conducted tended to favor Dewey because in 1948, telephones were generally limited to wealthier households, and Dewey was mainly popular among elite voters. The selection bias that resulted in the infamous Chicago Tribune headline was accidental, but it shows the danger and potential power—for a stakeholder wanting to influence hearts and minds by encouraging others to hop on the bandwagon—of selection bias. As a good example of selection bias, in the 1948 US presidential election, the Chicago Tribune incorrectly predicted the results because of the early closure of the political polls and the data from telephone polls that were not representative.

 

11

Despite advances in desktop mapping software, which would empower reporters as mapmakers, news publishers tend to treat maps like photographs and other images—as illustrations developed by specialists working in an art department outside the news room. Some newspapers have a separate graphics department that is responsible for maps and other information graphics or a “graphics editor” who mediates between the news desk and the art department. Elsewhere the integration of illustrations and art relies on informal alliances—inviting the art director to the daily editorial meeting is a common concession. Because reporters and editors are rarely trained in graphic design and mapmaking, this division of labor is likely to persist. Even so, some newspapers committed to investigative reporting acquired a geographic information system and made the software available to reporters covering crime, elections, or the environment. The resulting maps are often team efforts involving reporters, editors, and graphics specialists.

 

12-14

At the 2008 Washington State Class 4A Track and Field Championship, Nicole Cochran had just finished the 3,200‑meter race. The defending champion thought she had won. After all, Cochran—a senior at Bellarmine Prep—seemed to have finished first by more than three seconds. But then her coach was called to the officials’ tent. The officials said that Cochran had stepped outside of her lane during one of the turns. Cochran knew she hadn’t done it, but the ruling was final. She was going to be disqualified. Almost everybody, including the other runners, believed the judge had made a mistake. Still, the title was awarded to the runner‑up, Andrea Nelson from Shadle Park High. Nelson wasn’t happy about it. In fact, she was upset. She had been running in the lane next to Cochran’s, and she knew Cochran had run a clean race. “That’s not how I wanted to win the state championship,” said Nelson. “It wasn’t fair. She deserved it. She totally crushed everybody.” So as the eight top finishers took their places on the podium to receive their medals, Nelson made a decision. She stepped off the podium, walked over to Cochran, and placed the first‑place medal around her neck. “It’s your medal,” she said. Cochran was moved by the gesture. She was pretty astonished. The other runners were inspired, too. The second‑place finisher gave her medal to Nelson. Then the third‑place finisher gave her medal to the second‑place runner, and so on down the line. Finally, a girl named Lyndy Davis from Monroe High School gave her eighth‑place medal away. That meant she wouldn’t be receiving one at all. “It gave me chills,” said Cochran. “It shows how much respect distance runners have for each other.” Cochran competed in two more events, including the 800‑meter race. She finished in eighth place. Afterward, she found Lyndy Davis and gave her the eighth‑place medal. “After what she had done, I didn’t want her to go home from the meet in her senior year without a medal,” said Cochran. Then, 10 days after the competition, officials decided the original ruling had been wrong. Cochran was formally named the 3,200‑meter champ.