Passage 1
【主旨】历史
【内容】1890’s之前，美国尚未经历City Beautiful Movement，除去极个别的Washington D.C，当时的城市规划最大的特点就是——no urban planning.
影响美国人民住址选定的几个因素主要为：economics，preference to live individually, etc.当时的两大特点为：(1)随着移民风潮(migration)和大量农村人口涌入城市，城市对于住房的要求开始增长;(2)大量城市人口(urbanites)考虑到城市居住诸多隐患，迁移乡村。主要的城市居住弊端为，大量建筑材料易燃、楼距太近、城市明火使用导致火灾频发;排水系统不完善，进而啮齿类动物传播疾病，危及居民健康。
总而言之，当时的城市规划相当不完善，，基础设施建设相当落后。
参考文章：
Rise of Industrial America
Between 1880 and 1900, cities in the United States grew at a dramatic rate. Owing most of their population growth to the expansion of industry, U.S. cities grew by about 15 million people in the two decades before 1900. Many of those who helped account for the population growth of cities were immigrants arriving from around the world. A steady stream of people from rural America also migrated to the cities during this period. Between 1880 and 1890, almost 40 percent of the townships in the United States lost population because of migration.
Industrial expansion and population growth radically changed the face of the nation's cities. Noise, traffic jams, slums, air pollution, and sanitation and health problems became commonplace. Mass transit, in the form of trolleys, cable cars, and subways, was built, and skyscrapers began to dominate city skylines. New communities, known as suburbs, began to be built just beyond the city. Commuters, those who lived in the suburbs and traveled in and out of the city for work, began to increase in number.
Many of those who resided in the city lived in rental apartments or tenement housing. Neighborhoods, especially for immigrant populations, were often the center of community life. In the enclave neighborhoods, many immigrant groups attempted to hold onto and practice precious customs and traditions. Even today, many neighborhoods or sections of some of the great cities in the United States reflect those ethnic heritages.
During the final years of the 1800s, industrial cities, with all the problems brought on by rapid population growth and lack of infrastructure to support the growth, occupied a special place in U.S. history. For all the problems, and there were many, the cities promoted a special bond between people and laid the foundation for the multiethnic, multicultural society that we cherish today
City Beautiful Movement
The City Beautiful Movement was a reform philosophy of North American architecture and urban planning that flourished during the 1890s and 1900s with the intent of introducing beautification and monumental grandeur in cities. The movement, which was originally associated mainly with Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Washington, D.C. promoted beauty not only for its own sake, but also to create moral and civic virtue among urban populations.[1] Advocates of the philosophy believed that such beautification could thus promote a harmonious social order that would increase the quality of life.
Origins and Effect
The movement began in the United States in response to crowding in tenement districts, a consequence of high birth rates, increased immigration and consolidation of rural populations into cities. The movement flourished for several decades, and in addition to the construction of monuments, it also achieved great influence in urban planning that endured throughout the 20th century, in particular in regard to the later creation of housing projects in the United States. The "Garden City" movement in Britain influenced the contemporary planning of some newer suburbs of London, and there was cross-influence between the two aesthetics, one based in formal garden plans and urbanization schemes and the other, with its "semi-detached villas" evoking a more rural atmosphere.
Passage 2
【主旨】Honeybees Juvenile Hormone
【内容】在蜜蜂种群当中，根据年龄的不同，承担不同的任务，这种现象称之为“age polytheism”。比如，年幼的蜜蜂，一般在蜂巢工作，feed the queen and pupae;年长一点的蜜蜂，负责找食物(forage)和存储食物。分工不同的具体解释为，特定举动的频率会比较高，而并非彻底add or eliminate to the total number of the tasks they perform(这里有考题)。
研究表明，如此的分工，主要是由于蜜蜂当中一种叫做Juvenile Hormone的物质进行控制。Juvenile Hormone随着蜜蜂年龄的增长，分泌的速率提升，JH刺激蜜蜂大脑当中叫做mushroom区域逐渐增大，导致最后行为的不同。实验验证，摘除蜜蜂分泌JH的区域，人工注射JH类似物，能够使蜜蜂转变行为方式。
Passage 3
【主旨】气候
【内容】南美洲太平洋东岸的居民，每年都能迎来由南极洲方向洋流涌向赤道，在季风共同作用下，深层富含营养的冷水涌向海表层，带来大量的鳀鱼(anchovies)。但特定年份，海水异常温暖，持续2-3个月，因为发生在耶稣降临的月份周围，所以被称之为“圣婴现象”。
Gilbert Walker研究太平洋东岸和西岸气压发现了“跷跷板效应(Seesaw Effect)”，东岸气压高，则西岸气压低;反之亦然，该现象与厄尔尼诺有着千丝万缕的关系，所以合称——El Niño-Southern Oscillation。
回溯15世纪，西班牙人的各种记录，厄尔尼诺之前每隔6年发生一次，近年来有频率上升的趋势，每隔2年发生一次;且强度逐年增高，比如美国遭受暴雨侵袭等。