"Earworms", some people call them. Songs that get stuck in your head go round and round, sometimes for days, sometimes for months. For no clear reason you cannot help yourself from humming or singing a tune by Lady Gaga.
To a psychologist, the most interesting thing about earworms is that they show a part of our mind that is clearly outside of our control. Earworms arrive without permission and refuse to leave when we tell them to. They are parasites (寄生虫) living in a part of our minds.
If you have got an earworm you can suffer an attack of it simply by someone mentioning the tune, without having to hear it. This proves that earworms are a part of long-term memory. Humans have an "inner ear", for remembering phone numbers, for instance. When it gets infected with earworms, rather than review our plans for the day, or lists of things to remember, the inner ear gets stuck on a few short bars of music or a couple of phrases from a song. A part of us that we normally do not have to think about, that should just do what we ask, has been turned against us, upsetting us with a request that we never asked for. The mind is an inner world which we do not have complete knowledge of, or have control over.
Fortunately psychology can provide some advice on how to deal with an uncontrollable mind. Consider the famous "don’t think of a white bear" problem, which tells you to try not to think about white bears, or to do something else, to avoid both thinking of the white bear and not thinking of the white bear. For earworms, the solution may be the same. Our inner ear has become infected with an earworm. This is a part not under our control, so just sending in instructions to "shut up" is unlikely to be of much help (and has been shown to make it worse). Much better is to employ the inner ear in another task. If your mind is poisoned by Brittany Spears’ Toxic, for instance, then try singing Kylie Minogue’s Can’t Get You out Of My Head. Let me know if it works!

1. 1.

   According to the passage, earworms are ______

   1. A.
      songs that keep going round in our mind
   2. B.
      worms that live in a part of our brain
   3. C.
      tunes by pop singers like Lady Gaga
   4. D.
      parasites clearly under our control
2. 2.

   Which of the following statements is TRUE?

   1. A.
      Singing songs may get earworms out of your head
   2. B.
      Earworms are used for keeping long-term memory
   3. C.
      Humans do not have complete control over their mind
   4. D.
      You won’t suffer from earworms unless you hear the song
3. 3.

   What does “it” in the last paragraph refer to?

   1. A.
      The instruction to shut up your mind
   2. B.
      “Don’t think of the white bear” problem
   3. C.
      Kylie Minogue’s Can’t Get You out Of My Head
   4. D.
      Using the earworm-infected inner ear in another task
4. 4.

   What is the passage mainly about?

   1. A.
      The causes and influences of earworms
   2. B.
      What earworms are and how to deal with them
   3. C.
      How to clear earworms out of your head
   4. D.
      The relation between earworms and popular songs

It is common to believe that learning just takes place in school, but much of human learning happens outside the classroom, even from birth and people continue to learn throughout their lives.

Even before they enter school, young children learn to walk, to talk, and to use their hands to use toys, food, and other objects. They use all of their senses to learn about the sights, sounds, tastes, and smells in their environments. They learn how to communicate with their parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, and other people important to their world. When they enter school, children learn subjects like reading, writing, and maths. They also continue to learn a lot outside the classroom. They learn which behaviors are likely to be rewarded and which are likely to be punished. They learn social skills for communicating with other children. After they finish school, people must learn to deal with many changes that affect their lives, such as getting married, raising children, and finding and keeping a job.

Because learning continues throughout our lives and influences almost everything we do, the study of learning is important in many different fields. Teachers need to understand the best ways to educate children. Scientists, social workers and other human service workers need to understand how certain experiences change people’s behaviors.

Learning is closely related (相关的) to memory, which is the storage(储存) of information in the brain (大脑). Scientists who study memory are interested in how the brain stores knowledge, where this storage takes place, and how the brain later offers knowledge when we need it. However, scientists who study learning are more interested in behavior and how behavior changes as a result of a person’s experiences. ?

1.The underlined word “siblings” in Paragraph 2 probably means _________.

A．teachers          B．classmates         C．doctors           D．brothers or sisters

2.When do children begin to know to behave well according to the passage?

A．After they go into society.                 B．Before they enter school.

C．When they are at school.                 D．Before they are born.

3.Which of the following is WRONG according to the passage?

A．As a matter of fact, learning begins at a person’s birth and last the whole life.

B．Teachers need to understand the best ways to educate their students.

C．People need to understand how certain experiences change their behaviors.

D．Social workers need to study how experiences affect people’s thoughts.