今天是世界小狗日！

3月23日，世界小狗日。

今天你练听力了吗？

🤔️小作业：

1. Why might pets be more effective than siblings in teaching children empathy, according to the passage?

A. Pets inherently demand less attention than human siblings.

B. Children perceive pets as neutral observers without conflicting perspectives.

C. Pets provide immediate rewards for empathetic behavior.

D. Siblings are less likely to engage in caregiving activities.

无注释原文：

How pets give your kids a brain boost

From: BBC

Pick up a book from a young child's bookshelf and you're more likely to find an animal protagonist than a human one. From very hungry caterpillars to great big humpback whales, children seem universally fascinated by animals. But while characters in a picture book are often far removed from reality, the pets many of us share a home with offer children a more realistic glimpse of the animal world – and a meaningful relationship that influences them in a whole host of other ways, too.

Understanding that relationship may not only help parents choose the right pet for their child, but also give them deeper insights into the factors that make for a truly successful bond.

For many people, pets are much-loved family members who provide support across many stages of life. They can help couples to cement their relationship, act as playmates for young children, and provide companionship for parents when children leave home. One study in the US found that 63% of households with a baby under 12 months old had a pet, and an Australian study found a 10% increase in pet ownership around the time the children start school.

Many parents intuitively feel that looking after an animal can offer children valuable lessons about caregiving, responsibility and empathy. "It's really important, especially for young kids, to learn that someone's perspective might be different from their own," says Megan Mueller, associate professor of human-animal interaction at Tufts University, US. "That's an easier lesson to learn, perhaps, with an animal than it is with, say, a sibling or a peer."

But claims about the beneficial impacts of pets on children go further, suggesting that pets can influence children's social skills, physical health, and even cognitive development, and that keeping them is associated with higher levels of empathy. For children with autism and their families, pet care may help reduce stress and create opportunities to form supportive bonds.

Other research shows that children gain from animals in-the-moment, too. In one pair of studies, children made fewer errors on an object categorisation task and needed fewer prompts in a memory task when there was a dog in the room. Research has even found that, for adults at least, the simple act of viewing our pets as family members improves our wellbeing – though headlines touting the wide-ranging benefits of pet ownership are not without criticism, since people often believe that their pets improve their health and happiness, even when objective measures don't show any difference.

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注：完整题目见本文开头；中文文本为BBC官方译文，仅供参考

含注释全文：

How pets give your kids a brain boost

From: BBC

Pick up a book from a young child's bookshelf and you're more likely to find an animal protagonist than a human one. From very hungry caterpillars to great big humpback whales, children seem universally fascinated by animals. But while characters in a picture book are often far removed from reality, the pets many of us share a home with offer children a more realistic glimpse of the animal world – and a meaningful relationship that influences them in a whole host of other ways, too.

随便从一个小孩的书架上拿起一本书，你很可能会发现书中的主角是一个动物，而不是一个人。孩子们似乎普遍热爱动物，从饥饿难耐的毛毛虫到巨大的座头鲸，动物就是孩子的最爱。不过，一本图画书中的动物角色往往远离现实，而我们许多人家中的宠物则为孩子们提供了一个较现实的动物世界，以及一种可在多方面积极影响孩子成长的人与动物相处之道。

protagonist /prəʊˈtæɡənɪst/ 表示“（戏剧、电影或故事的）主要人物，主角，主人公”，英文解释为“the most important character in a play, film, or story”

类似的表达还有：

📍lead 表示“（戏剧、电影等中的）主角；扮演主角的演员”（the main part in a play, film/movie, etc.; the person who plays this part），如：the male/female lead 男/女主角。

📍main character 主要人物；主要角色；

📍star表示“主角，主演”（the person who has the main part, or one of them, in a film, play, show etc）；

📍hero和heroine分别表示“男主角/男主人公”（the man or boy who is the main character in a book, film, play etc）和“女主角/女主人公”（the woman or girl who is the main character in a book, film, play etc）

caterpillar /ˈkæt.ə.pɪl.ər/表示“毛虫，蠋（蝴蝶或飞蛾的幼虫）”，英文解释为“a small, long animal with many legs that feeds on the leaves of plants, and develops into a butterfly or moth”

表示“座头鲸”，英文解释为“a large whale with long front fins and a hump (= large raised area) on its back instead of a back fin”

fascinated /ˈfæsɪneɪtɪd/ 表示“极感兴趣的；入迷的”，英文解释为“extremely interested”举个🌰：I was fascinated to hear about his travels in Japan. 我着迷地听他讲他的日本之旅。

🎬电影《哈利·波特与死亡圣器》（Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows）中的台词提到：Well, Neville, I'm sure we'd all be fascinated to hear what you have to say. 纳威，我可以肯定大家都很想听听你要说的事。

glimpse /ɡlɪmps/ 一词早在iOS 14来了!文中出现过Apple just offered a glimpse at how the experience of using an iPhone is about to change.

1）表示“一瞥；一见”，英文解释为“an occasion when you see something or someone for a very short time”举个🌰：He caught a glimpse of her in the crowd. 他一眼瞥见她在人群里。

2）表示“短暂的感受（或领会/体验）”，英文解释为“a quick idea or understanding of what something is like”举个🌰：This biography offers a few glimpses of his life before he became famous. 这部传记展示了他成名前的一些生活情况。

📺英剧《神探夏洛克》（Sherlock）第一季中的台词提到：I've given you a glimpse, Sherlock, just a teensy glimpse. 我给过你暗示 夏洛克 一点点提示/只字片语。

理解这种关系不仅可以帮助父母为孩子选择合适的宠物，还能让父母更深入地了解形成真正成功的人与宠物的关系所需的要素。

作名词，bond /bɒnd/ 1）表示“保证金；保释金”，英文解释为“an amount of money that is paid to formally promise that someone accused of a crime and being kept in prison will appear for trial if released”举个🌰：The judge ordered that he post a $10,000 bond pending his appeal of the verdict. 法官判令他在判决上诉期缴纳1万美元的保释金。

2）表示“纽带；联系；关系”，英文解释为“a close connection joining two or more people”如：the bond(s) of friendship/love 友谊的纽带/恋爱关系。

作动词，表示“联合；团结；建立关系”，英文解释为“to develop a close connection or strong relationship with someone, or to make someone do this”举个🌰：The aim was to bond the group into a closely knit team. 其目的在于使整个团体紧密团结在一起。

📍bonding本身可以作不可数名词，表示“人与人之间的关系（或联结）；亲密关系的形成”，英文解释为“the process of forming a special relationship with sb or with a group of people”如：mother-child bonding 母子亲情，female bonding 女性的情谊。

For many people, pets are much-loved family members who provide support across many stages of life. They can help couples to cement their relationship, act as playmates for young children, and provide companionship for parents when children leave home. One study in the US found that 63% of households with a baby under 12 months old had a pet, and an Australian study found a 10% increase in pet ownership around the time the children start school.

许多人都深爱宠物，视宠物为人生不同阶段能与自己相互扶持的家人。宠物可以帮助夫妻巩固婚姻关系，可以当孩子的玩伴，孩子离开家后则陪伴父母。美国的一项研究发现，有未满一岁婴儿的家庭中，63%养有宠物。澳大利亚的一项研究发现，孩子上学前后养宠物的家庭会增加10%。

cement /sɪˈment/ 作名词，表示“水泥”，英文解释为“a grey powder that is mixed with water and sand to make mortar or with water, sand, and small stones to make concrete”如：a bag of cement 一袋水泥，也可以指表示“胶合剂；黏固剂”，英文解释为“a substance that sticks things together”

作动词，表示“加强，巩固（协议或友谊）”，英文解释为“to make something such as an agreement or friendship stronger”举个🌰：The university's exchange scheme has cemented its links with many other academic institutions. 这所大学的交流计划加强了与许多其他学术机构的联系。

Many parents intuitively feel that looking after an animal can offer children valuable lessons about caregiving, responsibility and empathy. "It's really important, especially for young kids, to learn that someone's perspective might be different from their own," says Megan Mueller, associate professor of human-animal interaction at Tufts University, US. "That's an easier lesson to learn, perhaps, with an animal than it is with, say, a sibling or a peer."

许多父母直觉地认为，对于孩子，照顾动物是一种难能可贵的学习课程，可以让孩子学会照顾他人、有责任感和同理心。美国塔夫茨大学（Tufts University）研究人类与动物互动关系的副教授梅根·穆勒（Megan Mueller）说，“尤其是对于儿童来说，学习了解别人的看法可能会与自己不一致是很重要的。与动物相处也许会比与兄弟姐妹或同龄伙伴相处，更容易学到这一人生道理。”

empathy /ˈem.pə.θi/ 表示“同情；同感，共鸣”，英文解释为“the ability to share someone else's feelings or experiences by imagining what it would be like to be in that person's situation”

🎬电影《谍影重重4》（The Bourne Legacy）中的台词提到：Amped mission fidelity, minimized empathy 增强了任务忠诚度，降低了情感因素。

🎬电影《爸爸的好儿子》（That's My Boy）中的台词提到：with unending empathy, encouragement and honesty, 永恒的爱 鼓励和忠诚。

对比：

📍sympathy /ˈsɪmpəθɪ/ 表示“同情（心），理解”，英文解释为“(an expression of) understanding and care for someone else's suffering”举个🌰：He don't have much sympathy for her. 他不太同情她。

perspective /pəˈspek.tɪv/ 表示“（思考问题的）角度，观点，想法”，英文解释为“a particular way of considering something”举个🌰：Her attitude lends a fresh perspective to the subject. 她的态度为这一问题提供了新的视角。

But claims about the beneficial impacts of pets on children go further, suggesting that pets can influence children's social skills, physical health, and even cognitive development, and that keeping them is associated with higher levels of empathy. For children with autism and their families, pet care may help reduce stress and create opportunities to form supportive bonds.

但宠物有益于儿童成长的说法还不止于此，还有说法认为宠物可以影响孩子的社交技能、身体健康，甚至认知发展，已发现养宠物与儿童同理心程度较高有关联。对于自闭症儿童及其家人，照顾宠物可能有助于减轻压力，并能创造建立相互支持关系的机会。

cognitive /ˈkɒɡ.nə.tɪv/ 表示“认知的；感知的；认识的”，英文解释为“Cognitive means relating to the mental process involved in knowing, learning, and understanding things.”举个🌰：As children grow older, their cognitive processes become sharper. 随着孩子们长大，他们的认知过程也变得越来越敏锐了。

autism /ˈɔː.tɪ.zəm/ 表示“孤独症；自闭症”，英文解释为“a condition that starts in young children and typically causes behaviour that is unusually centred on the self while limiting the development of social and communication skills”举个🌰：Autism is four times more common in boys than in girls. 男孩子患自闭症的发病率是女孩子的4倍。

Other research shows that children gain from animals in-the-moment, too. In one pair of studies, children made fewer errors on an object categorisation task and needed fewer prompts in a memory task when there was a dog in the room. Research has even found that, for adults at least, the simple act of viewing our pets as family members improves our wellbeing – though headlines touting the wide-ranging benefits of pet ownership are not without criticism, since people often believe that their pets improve their health and happiness, even when objective measures don't show any difference.

其他研究表明，儿童也能在与动物相处之时获得益处。两组研究发现，如房间内有一只宠物狗，孩子执行物件分类的任务时比较少出错，在记忆事物时需要的提示也要少一些。研究甚至发现，虽然大讲养宠物好处多多的媒体报道并非没有批评，不过至少对成年人来说，把宠物视为家庭成员这一简单的行为确实会提高我们的幸福感，因为人们一般都相信宠物能改善他们的健康和提升幸福，即使客观测量没有显示出养与不养宠物有任何差异。

categorisation /ˌkæt.ə.ɡər.aɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/ 表示“分类，归类”，英文解释为“the process of putting people or things into categories (= groups with the same features)”

prompt /prɒmpt/ 作名词，1）表示“（计算机屏幕上的）提示符（显示计算机已经准备好接受指令）”，英文解释为“a sign on a computer screen that shows that the computer is ready to receive your instructions”

📍在ChatGPT火热的今天，prompt通常指的是给模型的输入，用来激发或引导模型生成特定的输出或回答。简而言之，prompt是指用户提供给语言模型的一段文字或命令，以便模型据此理解用户的需求并给出相应的响应或信息。例如，在与像ChatGPT这样的大语言模型交互时，用户提出的问题或指令就是一个“prompt”。模型会根据这个prompt的内容分析、处理并生成回答或执行相关的任务。Prompt对于大语言模型来说是非常关键的，因为它直接决定了模型如何理解和回应用户的需求。

📍prompt中文里有译为“提示词”，prompt engineering 就是“提示工程/提示词工程”。

2）表示“（给演员的）提词，提白”，英文解释为“words that are spoken to an actor who has forgotten what he or she is going to say during the performance of a play”

3）作动词，表示“促使；导致；激起”，英文解释为“to make sb decide to do sth; to cause sth to happen”举个🌰：His speech prompted an angry outburst from a man in the crowd. 他的讲话激起了人群中一男子的愤怒。

📺美剧《斯巴达克斯：血与沙》（Spartacus: Blood and Sand）中的台词提到：One cannot but wonder what would prompt such an act 不知他们为何遭此不幸。

4）作动词，表示“（尤指）给（演员）提词”，英文解释为“to help someone, especially an actor, to remember what they were going to say or do”举个🌰：I forgot my line and had to be prompted. 我忘词了，只好让人提词。

tout /taʊt/ 表示“标榜；吹捧；吹嘘”，英文解释为“to try to persuade people that sb/sth is important or valuable by praising them/it”举个🌰：A local car dealership was touting its services/wares on the radio. 一家地方汽车特许经销商正在当地电台作宣传。

🎬电影《大谎言家》（Big Fat Liar）中的台词提到：Big Fat Liar is already being touted as next summer's must-see movie event. 《大谎言家》已被誉为明年夏天必看的电影。

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