托福阅读材料汇总整理

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看过宫崎骏的动画片《千与千寻》的同学大都对其中令千寻迷路的游乐园场景印象深刻，其实早在19世纪五十年代日本的浅草地区就建立了游乐园。
( c+ g" V% _9 p) `1 w- P/ C! C　　Opened by a gardener named Morita Rokusaburo in 1853, at the end of the Edo period, this is the oldest surviving theme park in Japan. Now owned by Namco, a Japanese toy manufacturer, the park occupies a tiny block of land; squashed between the Asakusa-Kannon temple and a once-thriving area of shops and restaurants from days when this was Tokyo’s HQ for organized crime.
- l3 W1 T- z+ x) f　　Today the tiny block where the original park stood is covered in layer-upon-layer of themed rides and attractions, divided into three areas, Fantasy & Dreams, Mystery & Panic and Full of Excitement. The park's centrepieces are Bee Tower, a 60 meter high gondola styled ride, and what may be the worlds first steel-tracked roller coaster. It already attracts 55,000 visitors per year, and spokesman Takashi Matsushita says attendance is on the up, though the majority of guests are local Japanese. "We would like to change style from a common ride park to a traditional Japanese entertainment park at the historical and traditional town of Asakusa. The major aim of a theme park is to offer unordinary things to visitors. We think that Tokyo itself has become 'mega theme park' through development of a large city capturing entertainment traits, so we cannot be optimistic in the business environment. Each theme park should have more personality because people can make memories here. Children turn to adults to love them, and young people become parents [and return] with their children to visit again."
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: h8 x8 J1 b  [. {& w' h/ {　　Children will surely love it, but the challenge for adults is that the seats are literally too small on some attractions.
人类冲动的行为往往会导致一些无法预料的后果，人为什么会冲动呢?最新一项研究表明这些行为与神经传递素多巴胺有关。
# W1 W/ c& P' h6 |+ f' s　　Binge-shoppers and serial daters might perpetually be living at the whim of their latest impulse, and now research is getting to the biological basis of their seemingly random behavior.
. h) s% r; p+ H( x　　"Individuals vary widely in their capacity to deliberate on the potential consequences of their choices before they act," note the authors of a new study on the impulsive tendency. "Highly impulsive people frequently make rash, destructive decisions."
9 W/ g5 p+ o0 S% a. C/ h　　Impulsivity has long been linked to the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is involved in learning and reward. And a new model helps to illuminate the connection between the two. The work is described in a study published online July 29 in Science.
' a, ~6 A8 f* }9 y　　A team of researchers led by Joshua Buckholtz, a PhD candidate in neuroscience at Vanderbilt University, proposed that people who were more impulsive might have less active dopamine receptors in their midbrain but their brains would be more likely to fire off large quantities of the neurotransmitter when stimulated.
( V+ U6 W  Q0 O5 i　　To verify their hypothesis, the researchers used PET scans to watch the brains of 32 healthy and psychiatrically normal test subjects ages 18 to 35 (who had no history of substance abuse) while they were taking a classic test to measure impulsivity. Before the first testing round, subjects had taken a placebo pill, but before the second, they were given an oral dose of amphetamine, which can stimulate the brain's reward pathways, mobilizing dopamine.
% T7 ~- u4 [; w' R+ Q( [/ w　　People who had the higher impulsivity scores had the lowest activity in the midbrain D2/D3 autoreceptors, which are in charge of receiving dopamine. But under the influence of the amphetamine, these impulsive individuals released much more dopamine than those who were less impulsive.
　　To see how these changes might be related to substance abuse—which has also been linked to dopamine abnormalities—the researchers polled the subjects about how much they wanted more of the amphetamine after the experiment ended.
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　　"The people who had the highest levels of dopamine release reported subjectively stronger cravings after we gave them the drug," Buckholtz says. These findings "suggest a neurobiological link between human impulsiveness and drug abuse vulnerability," the researchers noted in their paper.

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</p>　　But what causes these individual differences? "Our best guess is that perhaps there's some inherited or environmentally mediated predisposition to having lower midbrain dopamine autoreceptor availability," Buckholtz says.
) x; k) a9 H; [6 C' ?　　The evidence for genetic inheritance is strong, and another recent study, published earlier this month in Psychological Science, found people with a certain dopamine receptor type—known as DRD4—had different drinking habits than those without it. Specifically, test subjects with this variant were more likely to drink heavily if they had seen others doing the same while those without that variant kept their drinking moderate even when surrounded by heavier boozers.
8 c% x: ?" v" X+ W3 G　　The new results also suggest the potential for pharmacological interventions, Buckholtz notes. Some drugs for psychiatric conditions related to dopamine dysfunction, such as schizophrenia, work in broad strokes with "kind of a sledgehammer approach," he explains. Homing in on particular receptors and firing patterns might help develop drugs that could modulate in a "more targeted and perhaps nuanced way," he says, helping people with a broad range of dopamine-related ailments.
0 L) G# |3 T- ~7 f/ ~8 z地球上的生态系统是一个整体，缺少了任何物种都可能会产生一系列无法预估的后果。自然环境的好坏与许多种生物的生存息息相关，其中就包括蝴蝶。在英国，一些团体和个人正为保护蝴蝶而积极努力。
, |6 H+ ]  A. A$ k- m! t$ V　　The public is being asked to help track the UK's butterfly populations as conservationists warn many native species are in serious decline.
9 o7 ?: v. p- U" L, P　　The online Big Butterfly Count survey aims to get a better understanding of which species are in need of most help.
　　Butterflies are sensitive to changes in environment and have seen a collapse in numbers in the past three decades.
　　More than three-quarters of the 59 species found in the British Isles are in decline, including the meadow brown.
, o7 A* t- W% V' I$ u　　The holly blue and gatekeeper are among the other butterflies once recently regarded as common species which are now believed to be joining the list in need of protection.
8 v: }% q7 t4 M" z1 ?1 L　　The survey is being run by the charity Butterfly Conservation and retailer Marks & Spencer as part of its environment commitment.
& S1 ~9 R( f5 L8 O- @" q　　Adults and children are being invited to spend 15 minutes in gardens, woodlands, fields or parks between 24 July and 1 August and make a record of the butterflies and day-flying moths that they see.
　　The organisers hope the survey will help build up a better picture of the fortunes of the country's butterflies, and give an indication of the wider health of countryside and nature.