Drinking a lot of water does not do any good to the body, according to two experts in the United States. In fact, they warn, drinking too much water could be, in certain Cases, harmful.
In a study, Dr Stanly Goldfarb and Dr Dan Negoianu, both of the Renal, Electrolyte and Hypertension Division at the University of Pennsylvania, the United States, have denied the popular belief that drinking a lot of water clears body toxins (毒素) better, improves skin, and helps reduce weight.
Dr Goldfarb and Dr Negoianu say that they found little proof to support the public opinion that drinking 8 glasses of water every day benefits health. At the same time, they found little proof of harm in drinking 8 glasses of water every day.
It is widely believed that in some cases — such as athletes, people who live in hot, dry environments, and those with certain medical conditions — drinking a lot of water indeed helps, but no studies have been done to prove the benefits of this practice in average, healthy people, the website medheadlines. com reports.
The study at the University of Pennsylvania also examined reports that some people experienced increased headaches when their consumption of water was low. In one small study, which the doctors reviewed, the group drinking the most water reported fewer headaches than the control group, “but the difference in the number of headaches was so small between the two groups as to be considered unimportant.”
The researchers concluded that there is no scientific proof to support that average, healthy people need to drink at least 8 glasses of water each day.
The website medheadlines. com says that, according to an Indian doctor, drinking too much water is harmful. If water enters the body more quickly than it can be removed, problems can occur.
1. What’s the key message delivered in the passage?
A. Drinking too much water might bring harm.
B. Whether to drink enough water makes no difference.
C. Drinking too much water may cause headaches.
D. Average, healthy people should drink more water.
2. We can learn from the passage that 8 glasses of water every day ________.
A. proves good for the body B. has scientific proof of harm
C. is sure to reduce headaches D. is generally considered necessary
3. Who may agree that drinking lots of water helps to lose weight?
A. Two experts. B. General public.
C. An Indian doctor. D. A website.
4. According to the passage, we know that ________.
A. the website medheadlines. com is developed by an Indian doctor
B. the study was carried out by two experts with an Indian doctor
C. the two experts performed the study at the University of Pennsylvania
D. drinking 8 glasses of water every day can cure certain diseases
Let's face it．No one drinks diet soda for the taste．People drink diet soda in the hope that it will help them lose weight or at least keep them from gaining it．Yet it seems to have exactly the opposite effect, according to a new study．
Researchers from the University of Texas said those who drank two or more diet sodas a day had waist size increases that were six times greater than those who didn't drink diet soda．"What we saw was that the more diet sodas a person drank, the more weight they were likely to gain," said Sharon Fowler．
The study was based on data from 474 participants in a large, ongoing research project, where the participants were followed for nearly l0 years．
While the findings are surprising, they also offer some explanations．
Nutrition expert, Melanie Rogers, who works with overweight patients in New York, has found that when patients are switched from regular to diet soda, they don't lose weight at all．"We weren't seeing weight loss necessarily, and that was confusing to us," said Rogers．
So why would diet soda cause weight gain? No one knows for sure yet, but it could be that people think they can eat more if they drink diet soda, and so over-compensate for the missing calories．
A related study found some sweeteners （甜味剂） raised blood sugar levels in some mice．"Data from this and other potential studies suggest that the promotion of diet sodas and artificial sweeteners may be risky," said Helen P．Hazuda, professor at the University of Texas's school of medicine．"They may be free of calories, but not of consequences．"People drink diet soda to _____．
| A．enjoy its taste | B．achieve weight loss |
| C．stay in fashion | D．gain more energy |
The new study suggests that drinking diet soda _____．
| A．causes people to become heavier | B．helps people to be healthier |
| C．makes people much thinner | D．offers people more calories |
We can learn from the passage that _____．
| A．regular soda makes people lose more weight |
| B．diet soda does help reduce calories |
| C．diet soda drinkers tend to eat more food |
| D．most blood diseases come from diet soda |
The underlined word "They" in the last paragraph probably refers to _____．
| A．sweeteners |
| B．diet soda drinkers and sweetener takers |
| C．sodas |
| D．diet sodas and artificial sweeteners |
Driving to a friend's house on a recent evening, I was attracted by the sight of the full moon rising just above my friend’s rooftops. I stopped to watch it for a few moments, thinking about what a pity it was that most city people, myself included, usually miss sights like this because we spend most of our lives indoors.
My friend had also seen it. He grew up living in a forest in Europe, and the moon meant a lot to him then. It had touched much of his life.
I know the feeling. Last December I took my seven-year-old daughter to the mountainous jungle of northern India with some friends. We stayed in a forest rest-house with no electricity or running hot water. Our group had campfires outside every night, and indoors when it was too cold outside. The moon grew to its fullest during our trip. Between me and the high mountains lay three or four valleys. Not a light shone in them and not a sound could be heard. It was one of the quietest places I have ever known, a bottomless well of silence. And above me was the full moon, which struck me deeply.
Today our lives are filled with glass, metal, plastic and fibre-glass. We have televisions, cell phones, pagers, electricity, heaters and ovens and air-conditioners, cars, computers.
Struggling through traffic that evening at the end of a tiring day, most of it spent indoors, I thought: before long, I would like to live in a small cottage. There I will grow vegetables and read books and walk in the mountains And perhaps write, but not in anger. I may become an old man there, and wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled and measure out my life in coffee spoons. But I will be able to walk outside on a cold silent night and touch the moon.The best title for the passage would be______.
| A．The pleasures of modern life | B．Touched by the moon |
| C．A bottomless well of silence | D．Break away from modern life |
What impressed the writer most in the mountainous jungle of northern India?
| A．The nice moonlight | B．Complete silence. |
| C．No modern equipment | D．The high mountains |
Modern things (Paragraph 4) are mentioned mainly to______.
| A．show that the writer likes city life very much |
| B．tell us that people greatly benefit from modern life |
| C．show that we can also enjoy nature at home through them |
| D．explain that people have less chances to enjoy nature |
The author wrote the passage to_______.
| A．advise modern people to learn to live |
| B．show the love for the moonlight |
| C．express the feeling of returning to nature |
| D．want to communicate longing for modern life |
There are some things humans can go without. We can lose a kidney or a lung, an arm or two and still live perfectly well. But some fish put us to shame. They can get by without stomachs.
One such fish is the stout longtom. The group it belongs to carries a more appropriate name: the needlefish. All needlefish lack stomachs. Their ancestors had them, but later they were lost.
The stout longtom can reach 1.3 meters in length, and lives near the sea surface. Like all needlefish, it can jump out of the water to escape its enemies. Tropical fishermen are sometimes injured by needlefish. In 1977, a 10-year-old Hawaiian boy was killed when a needlefish jumped through his brain. The longtom eats smaller fish. It teeth are not good at cutting fish into pieces, so it swallows fish whole.
Ryan Day from Australia and his colleagues wanted to know how the longtom digests its meaty meals without a stomach, so they ran some chemical tests about the fish.
Day’s results show that the longtom can consume food without the help of a stomach. It uses a special material called trypsin that can break down proteins without acid — although the approach is less efficient than using a stomach.
Because it’s a meat-eating animal, the longtom gets a lot of protein in its food, so it can afford this slightly less efficient system for absorbing it. Two plant-eating fish that Day studies actually had higher levels of trypsin in their body, as their food was low in protein.
Day thinks that the longtom and its stomachless relatives might actually have arrived at an energy-saving solution. He says that although the stomach is critical to many kinds of animal, the organ is “a fairly expensive organ to run”. This perhaps explains why some animals have got rid of theirs. What does the underlined phrase “get by” mean?
| A．Recover. | B．Fight. | C．Hunt. | D．Live. |
Ryan Day ran the chemical tests in order to find out how the longtom ______.
| A．catches smaller fish in the water | B．digests the smaller fish in its body |
| C．can jump so high to escape its enemies | D．uses acid to break down the protein |
What plays a key role in the longtom’s digestion process?
| A．Trypsin. | B．Acid | C．The stomach. | D．Protein in its body. |
Ryan Day’s results show that ______.
| A．the longtom can make acid easily |
| B．the longtom often waste energy |
| C．the longtom’s high-protein food helps its unique way of consuming food. |
| D．meat –eating fish have higher levels of trypsin in their bodies than plant-eating fish |
Here is some information about several famous local bakeries(面包房) in Indiana, the US. They serve as a social gathering place for locals.
Maple Lane Bakery
At 8260 S. State Rd. Claypool, IN. (574) 566-2917, it offers a variety of cooked pies, cookies, and bread. With 20 years’ experience Maple Lane Bakery has specialized in the making of pies. The menu includes peach pie $7.19, berry pie $ 7.70, apple pie $7.19 and banana pie $6.99. Feel free to place an order at least 24 hours in advance.
Betty’s cakes & Candy Shop
At 816 E. Winona Avenue Warsaw, IN. (574) 269-1231, it specializes in cakes and offers cookies and candies. The chocolate cookies are sold at $ 8.99 a dozen. Betty’s cakes & Candy Shop, started half a century ago, specializes in wedding cakes and birthday cakes. Buying a cake from Betty’s will not disappoint you as they are always excellent.
Crepes’ Quality Bakery
At 217S. Cavin Street Ligonier, IN.(260) 894-3024, this third generation bakery is located downtown Ligonier. It offers cookies and cupcakes, and specializes in rolls and bread. If you plan to buy cookies for the office or work area, you had better get there early as the building workers arrive just before 5:00 am waiting for the doors to open.
Olympia Candy Kitchen
At 136N. Main Street Goshen, IN. (574) 533-5040, it has been welcoming visitors for almost a century in its unchanged location in downtown Goshen, Indiana. Its tradition began in 1912 when Greek Nicholas began making his own chocolates. Today this family-owned operation offers all kinds of candies and boxed candies. If you need an order, you should call ahead of time to see if they can meet your request.Which of the following pies is the most expensive?
| A．Berry pie. | B．Banana pie. | C．Apple pie. | D．Peach pie. |
If you want to order a birthday cake, you are advised to call ______.
| A．(574) 566-2917 | B．(574) 533-5040 |
| C．(260) 894-3024 | D．(574) 269-1231 |
Which of the following bakeries has the shortest history?
| A．Olympia Candy Kitchen | B．Crepes’ Quality Bakery |
| C．Maple Lane Bakery | D．Betty’s cakes & Candy Shop |
The author wrote this passage mainly to ______.
| A．warn customers to order bakeries in advance |
| B．make the bakeries better known to readers |
| C．tell readers some travel information |
| D．persuade more people to eat pies |
After my brother died in an accident, my mother was in deep sadness. I was only a four-year-old girl at the time, but I still understood the sudden shift in my mom’s attitude towards safety. Suddenly everything around us was potentially dangerous. Overnight, the world had gone from a playground to a dangerous zone. I grew up with a lot of limits and rules. I couldn’t walk home from school by myself, even though everyone I knew already did. I couldn’t go to summer camp because what if something happened to me?
As I got older, the list of things of fear got longer. My whole life was divided into “things you should avoid”, and “things you needed to do in order to have a good, long life.” I became a natural worrier. I worry about things like getting cancer, losing my wallet, car accidents, earthquakes, and losing my job — disasters big and small, real and imagined.
The funny part is that you’d never know it by looking at my life. In fact, I’ve developed a rule for myself: If it scares me, then I have to do it at least once. I’ve done lots of things that my mom would have worried about: I’ve ridden a motorcycle; I’ve traveled —a lot. I’ve performed stand-up comedy, and I’m planning my second wedding.
There’s something else I don’t usually talk about, but it’s a cornerstone in my belief: When I was 14, my mother died suddenly in a car accident. At my mom’s funeral I remember making a choice. I could either live out the rest of my life trying to be “safe” or I could be brave enough to live out a fulfilling, exciting and, yes, sometimes dangerous life.
I worry that I may have betrayed(背叛) my mother by writing her in this light, but she has been a driving force in my life and, in the end I think she would have been proud of me. Courage isn’t a natural character of human beings. I believe that using courage is like developing a muscle. The more often I do things that scare me or that make me uncomfortable, the more I realize that I can do a lot more than I originally thought I could do.
Even though I inherited (继承) my mother’s cautious nature. I’ve also come to believe that fear can be a good thing, if we face it. Believing that has made my world a less scary place. In the writer’s childhood, the limits and rules were used to ______.
| A．improve her behavior | B．develop her independence |
| C．be in memory of her dead brother | D．protect her from possible danger |
How does the writer deal with the things that frighten her?
| A．She just ignores them. | B．She faces up to them. |
| C．She turns to her mother for help. | D．She does them with her friends. |
From the passage, we can learn that ______.
| A．the writer failed in her first marriage |
| B．nothing can make the writer afraid now |
| C．frightening things made the writer lose her self-confidence |
| D．the writer’s mother felt annoyed with her |
What does the passage mainly talk about?
| A．Mothers influence their children much. |
| B．Fear is in fact not a bad thing. |
| C．Facing fear bravely produces courage. |
| D．The world is not as scary as people expect. |