What makes us who we are? This question has two different answers. One is the environment that surrounds us when we grow up, and the other is our genes (基因). In English, this is called the “nature vs nurture debate(辩论)”. Nature means genes, and nurture means environment, including the people around you.
There is a famous saying: “Give me a child until the age of 7 and I’ll show you the man.” Now, there is a scientific research to support this famous saying.
They watched small birds in new environments, and wrote down how much they explored(探索). Birds that grew up with very outgoing birds were more outgoing themselves. Scientists at the universities of Exeter, UK and Hamburg, Germany did studies on birds. They found that their personalities（个性） were affected most by the birds around them when they grew up – more so than genes.
Nick Royle from the University of Exeter in the UK said the research was surprising because it shows that “for these birds, personality is mainly determined（决定） by environment.” However, human personalities are a lot more complicated than birds, so there is much we still don’t know. The nature vs nurture debate will continue for a long time, if not forever.
小题1:The famous saying in the passage tells us _________.
A.A 7-year-old boy can do things as well as an adult.
B.An adult can be influenced and changed by a 7-year-old boy.
C.The environment in the early part of our life has the biggest influence on our adult life.
小题2:Nick Royle is a(n) ______ scientist.
A. American B. British C. German
小题3:What do the scientists think of the research?
A. Outgoing. B. Exciting. C. Surprising.
小题4:What does the underlined word “complicated” mean?
A. 有趣的 B. 类似的 C. 复杂的
小题5:Which is NOT TRUE according to the passage?
A. The environment and genes affect our personality.
B. The scientists are sure that the environment influences the human personality more than the genes do.
C. The nurture means the environment .
