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It does not matter who wins. We are told that from day one. Usually, that statement is followed by some remark about being a loser. If we do not care who wins, then why do we compete? Fun, experience, the chance to meet new people --- these are the reasons we try to outdo each other.
People will compete over anything. Every Christmas, my neighbors and I have a little Christmas light competition. It is heaven for the electric company, but I think we give Will Rogers Airport a scare. It is bright enough to land a plane in our front yards. I admit that last year my neighbors won, but only because they bought every strand of lights Wal-Mart had before I could get there.
Personal competitions are great, but we get a little carried away. I cannot stand to see coaches shout at kids playing sports. Who cares if someone messes up and the other team advances?
I’m tired of people competing just to win. It happens not only in sports, but in music competitions, too. People auditioning（试音）for chair placement in certain bands can get really unfriendly. This year I did not audition for a certain band, but I went to auditions anyway. This was the first time I actually had the opportunity to comprehend the whole picture.
Other times I’ve been the person who was nervous and anxious. This time, I sat back and observed everyone else. I came to the realization that the people who aren’t so good are terrified of the good people, and the good people are scared stiff that the bad people have taken lessons and can now show them up. Unless a person is on the outside looking in, I don’t think anyone realizes this.
Maybe competing is human nature, but we shouldn’t let it influence our judgment. Being disrespectful to opponents（对手）, letting competition become our life, and becoming so involved that we close ourselves off from friends and family is not the meaning of competition.
A little competition is healthy, so it shouldn’t hurt anyone. If it does, someone somewhere needs to back off, find the good thing hidden inside, and try it again. Winning isn’t everything, and losing isn’t the end of the world.
63. The author mentions his competition with his neighbors to __________.
A. make excuses for his failure
B. express his concern about the airport
C. imply his neighbor cheated in the competition
D. show people really care about the result of competition
64. The underlined word “this” in Paragraph 5 refers to ________.
A. the rules of competition
B. competitors’ effort to win
C. the influence of competition on life
D. the negative attitude to competition
65. From the passage, we can learn that _______.
A. the author failed the audition
B. competitors may be unfriendly to each other
C. it is coaches who always mess up the match
D. those who observe opponents calmly always win
66. Which of the following opinions does the author probably accept?
A. Competition for the job is fierce.
B. Winning or losing is none of people’s concern.
C. Competition is healthy, but it can get out of hand.
D. The disadvantages of competition outweigh the benefits.
D
The chimp didn’t feel well. She fell over, ignoring the other wild chimps. Finally, the sick chimp crawled over to a bush, picked some leaves and swallowed them. By the next afternoon, the chimp was as good as new!
Biologists watching the chimp were surprised. Somehow, the plant had cured the chimp! Did the chimp know the plant would make her feel better? Or was it just a lucky accident?
Many scientists don’t think it has anything to do with luck. They’re discovering that some animals seem to use plants to cure themselves. And these animals are leading scientists to new plants that could cure humans!
Dr. Richard Wrangham, an anthropologist at Harvard University, agrees that animals may know something we don’t know about forest plants.
Wrangham got to know chimps and their diets while studying them for three years in Tanzania. “You must know a lot about an animal’s feeding habits to know what it doesn’t consider food,” Wrangham explains. Every morning, he saw that most chimps ate fruit near their nests. Later on, they ate on leaves.
When he noticed chimps eating the leaves of a plant they usually ignored, Wrangham thought something interesting was going on---especially when he saw that they’d sometimes walk for 20 minutes to find the plant. Another strange thing that caught his eye was how they ate the bitter leaves.
“They swallowed the leaves whole,” explains Wrangham, noting that chimps usually chew their food well. “They seemed to rub（摩擦）the leaves around the roofs of their mouths. They closed their eyes, wrinkled their noses and swallowed slowly. ”
Wrangham wondered what could be so good about something tasting so bad. He had a chemist analyze the leaves. He discovered that the leaves contain a red oil that kills different viruses（病毒）. Later tests showed that the oil might even fight cancer and the AIDS virus!
Why don’t the chimps chew the leaves? “Rubbing the leaves between the tongue and the inside of the mouth might allow the chemicals to enter the bloodstream directly,” he suggests, “instead of going to the stomach, where they might get destroyed by acids. The chimps seem to know what they’re doing.”
67. We can learn from the passage that _________.
A. chemicals in plants help cure animals
B. chimps cure themselves by chewing plants
C. scientists live with chimps to study their diets
D. Dr. Wrangham knows a lot about forest plants
68. How can Dr. Wrangham tell which plants are medicine for chimps?
A. By talking with the biologists.
B. By analyzing the chimps’ favorite food.
C. By studying the chimps’ feeding habits.
D. By comparing other scientists’ discoveries.
69. The author wrote the passage to ___________.
A. present a finding B. test a theory
C. provide a solution D. describe an experiment
70. What does the passage mainly talk about?
A. Forest plants. B. Animal doctors.
C. Chimp’s diets. D. A cure for cancer.
