【正文】 me. During the night, the mechanism inside the leaf measures the size of the starch store and guesses the length of time until dawn. Information about time es from an internal clock. The size of the starch store is then divided by the length of time until dawn to set the correct rate of starch consumption, so that, by dawn, around 95 percent of the starches are used up. That is, even in the night, plants are still growing and producing. Understanding how plants continue to grow in the dark could help unlock new ways to increase crop production. What?s notable is how efficiently plants share out their starch stores. It is pointed out that if the starch store is used too fast, plants will starve and stop growing during the night. If the store is used too slowly, some of it will be wasted. However, scientists emphasize that this is not evidence for plant intelligence, but simply suggests that plants have a mechanism designed to automatically regulate how fast they bum carbohydrate (碳水化合物 ) at night. But it offers a window into the secret life of plants, to questions of plant sentience (感受能力 ) and, the ability of cooperation of plants with animals. Plants may not do math with a purpose in mind like people do. But anyone who opens the refrigerator containing only a tomato and a jar of peanut butter has to admire plant?s ability to divide their starch stores, their food, with such careful efficiency. 41. Plants perform arithmetic division overnight to . A. regulate how fast to store sugars B. get through the night without starving C. store the energy from the sun on time D. change carbon dioxide into starches 42. The underlined word “mechanism” in the third paragraph may refer to . A. the colored part of a plant from which the seed or fruit develops B. a part of the plant that has a particular purpose such as the root C. a system of parts in a living thing that together perform a particular function D. an anized set of ideas or theories or a particular way of doing something 43. This finding can be of great help in . A. sports. B. industry C. agriculture D. culture 44. Form the passage, we can infer that . A. plants often waste their stores of starches B. using starches irregularly can be harmful to plants C. starving plants may grow very fast at night D. using starches too fast may make plants die suddenly 45. What might be the most suitable title for the passage? A. Whether there is plant intelligence. B. Why plants grow quickly at night. C. What your plant is doing at night. D. How the internal clock affects plants. C Firstborn children do better in school and have higher IQs. They also tend to be considered more acplished by their parentsand it?s being linked to the fact that they are brought up more strictly than their younger siblings (兄弟姐妹 ). The study found that percent of mothers claimed their firstborn is one of the best students in the classand only percent put their children at the bottom. With each successive (依次的 ) sibling, the former fell and the latter figure rose: essentially, more mothers consider their second or third born children less intelligent. Of the women surveyed, percent said their secondborn was one of the best students. Less than a third, 29 percent, said the same of their third, and percent rated their fourth in the top. Conversely (相反地 ), the near the bottom of the class numbers rose: Two percent rated their second the worst, the third and the fourth. The mothers, who reported being stricter with their first children, are right, according to the NBER paper. Eldest children were found to have consistently higher grades and test scores at school. According to the study, parents are more likely to bring up their first children strictly, while younger children are less likely to be punished if their marks are dire. The study?s findings support the theory that school performance goes down with birth order. But could this be down to the way in which they?re treated by their parents? When asked how they would respond if a child brought home bad grades, parents stated that they would be less likely to punish their laterborn children. It seems younger siblings don?t fed the same parental pressure to succeed as their older brothers or sisters doand so don?t do quite as well academically. Study authors, V. Joseph Hots and Juan Pantano, found that parents are more involved in the academic performance of firstborns。 Some fourteen years ago, I read Diet for a New America by John Robbins. At that time I wanted to change the world by means of stopping animals from being eaten by people. Diet for a New America paints a beautiful picture of the animal world, in which one is rich not only in intelligence and beauty but even in passion (同情 ). It tells stories, for example, of dolphins saving sea mammals from predatory whales (食肉 鯨 ) and saving humans from shipwreck. It appealed to my sense of passion, one of the values I had always cherished deeply in my heart, no matter how stupidly or wisely I had tried to put it into practice. Having captured my passion, the book naturally le