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必修2 Unit 1 Cultural relics (60分钟79分) Part A 一、阅读理解(共7小题;每小题2分,满分14分) A Research has shown that first-born children are better than their kid brothers or sisters.First-borns do better on IQ tests and are more likely to become president of the United States but less likely to do drugs and so on. But why birth order appears to matter so much for school achievement level is much less clear.Many theories have been put forward,ranging from to the stable family life and to different schoolings among children.Based on long studies of data from survey,Pantano and I offer a different explanation:It comes down to parents’ reputations for maintaining discipline(维持纪律) with their kids. The basic idea is this:There are two types of parents—those who in our study we call “unforgiving” —they’ll punish children for poor school performance,regardless of the child’s birth order,and those who are “forgiving,” meaning they don’t like to punish any of their children,regardless of birth.The latter type of parents face a dilemma.If they don’t punish their oldest child’s poor behavior,all of their children will follow suit.As a result,all of them will tend not to work hard in school.To avoid this situation,forgiving parents are strict with their first-born,hoping to convey an idea that will influence the behavior of their younger children as well.The younger children,seeing their big brother or sister punished,will be less likely to slack off(懈怠) in school because they can’t be sure that mom and dad aren’t really unforgiving types. | 
