Unit 1 Section Ⅰ Starting out & Understanding ideas-【精讲精练】2023-2024学年高中英语选择性必修第一册外研版（课时作业）

Ⅰ.阅读理解

A

Laughter is a kind of universal body language that's shared by people of all nationalities，skin colors，cultures and traditions.But did you know that the ability to tell genuine laughter apart from fake laughter also transcends (超越) cultures?

Greg Bryant，a professor of communication at the University of California，Los Angeles，US，published a study in Psychological Science in late July in which he found that people are able to identify real laughter through slight variations in sound.

In the study,884 people from 21 countries were asked to listen to random recordings of laughter.Some of the recordings were made up of natural laughs，while others were made by people who were asked to laugh on command.

The study showed that people around the world have the ability to pick out real laughter，although their abilities vary from country to country.Residents of the Samoan Islands，an island chain in the central South Pacific，were particularly good at it，correctly identifying real laughter 56 percent of the time.According to Bryant，people from smaller，less industrialized nations “are more accurate in identifying a natural smile” because they rely heavily on emotional engagement (联系) in order to predict others' behavior and create stronger social relationships.

But how do people from different cultures detect natural laughter so easily and what traits does real laughter have？As Professor Jessica Wolf of the University of California，Los Angeles，told the Association for Psychological Science，in real laughter，our vocal chords (声带) “produce qualities such as higher pitch (音调) and volume，as well as faster bursts of unclear sounds and more non­tonal (无语调的) noise”．

By contrast，fake laughter will “sound like speech”．According to Science Daily，fake laughter is controlled by the same brain system that controls the lips and tongue.

Bryant further explained that this system has an imitative capacity，saying “with this speech system，you can make a lot of different noises，including crying，laughter or a shriek(尖叫) of pain.That's where fake laughter comes from.”

So that's something to think about the next time one of your friends laughs at something you said.Will you be able to tell if it's real or fake?

[语篇解读]　本文是一篇说明文。文章介绍了人们都有区分真假笑的能力，只是能力有差异，并描述了如何区分。

1．What did Bryant discover about people's ability to distinguish between real and fake laughter?

A．People from different backgrounds laugh in different ways.

B．It has greatly improved in recent years.

C．People can identify natural laughter by small differences in the voice.

D．Not all people are born with this ability.

解析：选C　细节理解题。根据第二段中“which he found that people are able to identify real laughter through slight variations in sound”可知，关于人们区分真笑和假笑的能力，布莱恩特发现了人们可以通过声音的微小差异来识别真正的笑声。故选C。

2．What can we conclude from the fourth and fifth paragraphs?

A．Samoans did best in picking out real laughter in the steady.

B．People from developing countries are usually not good at detecting natural laughter.

C．People across cultures have different abilities to identify real laughter.

D．The better one's social relationships，the more accurate one can identify real laughter.

解析：选C　推理判断题。根据第四段第一句可知，不同文化背景的人辨别真笑的能力不同。故选C。

3．Natural laughter is usually characterized by       .

A．a lower pitch

B．a higher volume

C．clear，loud sounds

D．slow bursts of toneless noise

解析：选B　细节理解题。根据第五段“in real laughter，our vocal chords(声带) ‘produce qualities such as higher pitch(音调) and volume，as well as faster bursts of unclear sounds and more non­tonal (无语调的) noise’”可知，自然笑的特点通常是更高的音调和音量。故选B。

4．What do we know about fake laughter?

A．It is difficult to imitate.

B．It sounds like high­pitched speech.

C．It is produced by a speech system in the brain.

D．It is often accompanied with different noises.

解析：选C　细节理解题。根据倒数第二段中“with this speech system，you can make a lot of different noises，including crying，laughter or a shriek (尖叫) of pain.That's where fake laughter comes from”可知，假笑是由大脑中的语言系统产生的。故选C。

B

People who laugh frequently in their everyday life may be better equipped to deal with stressful events — although this does not seem to apply to the intensity(强度) (strong，medium or weak) of laughter.These are the findings reported by a research team from the University of Basel in the journal PLOS ONE.

It is suggested that people typically laugh 18 times a day.Researchers have also reported differences related to time of day，age，and sex — for example，women smile more than men on average.Now，researchers from the Department of Psychology at the University of Basel have recently conducted a study on the relationship between stressful events and laughter in terms of sensed stress in everyday life.

In the study，a sound signal from a mobile phone app required participants to answer questions eight times a day at irregular intervals(间隔) for a period of 14 days.The questions related to the frequency and intensity of laughter and the reason for laughing — as well as any stressful events or stress symptoms experienced — in the time since the last signal.

Using this method，the researchers were able to study the relationships between laughter，stressful events，and physical and psychological symptoms of stress(“I had a headache” or “I felt restless”) as part of everyday life.The newly published analysis was based on data from 41 psychology students,33 of whom were women，with an average age of just under 22.

The first result of the observational study was expected based on the specialist literature：in stages in which the subjects laughed frequently，stressful events were connected with lighter symptoms of stress.However，the second finding was unexpected.When it came to the interaction between stressful events and the intensity of laughter，there was no statistical correlation (关联) with stress symptoms.“This could be because people are better at judging the frequency of their laughter，rather than its intensity，over the last few hours，” says the research team.

[语篇解读]　本文是一篇说明文。文章主要介绍了研究发现，在日常生活中，笑可以帮助减轻压力。

5．What does Paragraph 2 intend to show?

A．The identity of the subjects.

B．The purpose of the research.

C．The conclusion of the new study.

D．The basic theory of the experiment.

解析：选B　段落大意题。根据第二段内容可知，本段主要介绍研究的目的。故选B。

6．What question was most probably asked in the study according to Paragraph 3?

A．Why did you choose to major in psychology?

B．Which event impressed you recently?