After a busy day of work and play, the body needs to rest. Sleep is necessary for good health. During this time, the body recovers from the activities of the previous day. The rest that you get while sleeping makes it possible for your body to prepare itself for the next day.
There are four levels of sleep, each being a little deeper than the one before. As you sleep, your body relaxes little by little. Your heart beats more slowly, and your brain slows down. After you reach the fourth level, your body shifts back and forth from one level of sleep to the other.
Although your mind slows down, you will dream from time to time. Scientists who study sleep point out that when you are dreaming, your eyeballs begin to move more quickly (although your eyelids are closed). This stage of sleep is called REM, which stands for rapid eye movement.
If you have trouble falling asleep, some people suggest breathing very slowly and very deeply. Other people believe that drinking warm milk will make you drowsy. There is also an old suggestion that counting sheep will put you to sleep. The text makes us know that not getting enough sleep might make you _________.
| A．suffer form poor health | B．enjoy more |
| C．dream more often | D．breathe quickly |
During REM, _______.
| A．you move restlessly | B．you start dreaming |
| C．your mind stops working | D．your eyeballs move quickly |
The underlined word “drowsy” in the last paragraph probably means______.
| A．lazy | B．sleepy | C．relaxed | D．pleased |
A good title for this text might be_________.
| A．Dreams | B．Sleep | C．Good Health | D．Work and Rest |
One of the ways to fall asleep easily is to _______________.
| A．breathe slowly and deeply | B．drink cold drinks |
| C．get up and run | D．look for some sheep |
What does it mean to say that we live in a world of persuasion? It means that we live among competing interests. Your roommate’s need to study for an exam may take priority over pizza. Your instructor may have good reasons not to change your grade. And the object of your romantic/interest may have other choices.
In such a world, persuasion is the art of getting others to give fair and favorable consideration to our points of view. When we persuade, we want to influence how others believe and behave. We may not always prevail — other points of view may be more persuasive, depending on the listener, the situation, and the merit of the case. But when we practice the art of persuasion, we try to ensure that our position receives the attention it deserves.
Some people, however, object to the very idea of persuasion. They may regard it as an unwelcome interruption into their lives. Just the opposite, we believe that persuasion is unavoidable — to live is to persuade. Persuasion may be ethical or unethical, selfless or selfish, inspiring or degrading. Persuaders may enlighten our mind or prey on our vulnerability. Ethical persuasion, however, calls on sound reasoning and is sensitive to the feelings and needs of listeners. Such persuasion can help us apply the wisdom of the past to the decisions we now must make. Therefore, the most basic part of education is learning to resist the one kind of persuasion and to encourage and practice the other.
Beyond its personal importance to us, persuasion is necessary to society. The right to persuade and be persuaded is the bedrock of the American political system, guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution.According to the passage, persuasion means ________.
| A．changing others’ points of view |
| B．exercising power over other people |
| C．getting other people to consider your point of view |
| D．getting people to agree with you and do what you want |
The underlined word in the second paragraph “prevail” means________.
| A．win | B．fail | C．speak | D．listen |
The passage states that some people object to persuasion because they think it is ________.
| A．a danger to society | B．difficult to do well |
| C．unwelcome behavior | D．never successful |
The passage mainly discusses ________.
| A．how people persuade |
| B．why people persuade |
| C．that persuasion is both good and bad |
| D．that persuasion is important and it is all around us |
A new study says one part of the human brain may become smaller as the result of a condition known as jet lag. Jet lag results from flying long distances in an airplane. Jet lag interferes with a person's normal times for sleeping and waking. People with jet lag may feel extremely tired for several days. They also may have problems thinking clearly and remembering.
Kwangwook Cho is a researcher at the University of Bristol in Britain. He reported the findings of his jet lag study in the publication Nature Neuroscience.
The study involved twenty young women who worked for international airlines. The women had served passengers on airplanes for five years. These flight attendants flew across many countries and at least seven time zones. In the study, the flight attendants had different amounts of time to recover from jet lag. Half the women spent five days or fewer in their home areas between long flights. The other half spent more than fourteen days in their home areas.
Mister Cho took some fluid from the women's mouths to measure levels of a hormone that increases during stress. He tested them to see if they could remember where black spots appeared on a computer screen. And he took pictures of their brains using magnetic resonance imaging. This is a way to measure the size of the brain's temporal lobes.
It was found that the women who had less time between flights had smaller right temporal lobes. This area of the brain deals with recognizing and remembering what is seen. The same group performed worse and had slower reaction times on the visual memory test. And their saliva samples showed higher levels of stress hormones.
Mister Cho says he believes the brain needs at least ten days to recover after a long trip. He says airline workers told him their ability to remember got worse after working on planes for about four years. Other studies have shown that increased feelings of stress can cause a loss of cells in the part of the brain that controls memory.
Scientists say more tests are needed to study the effects of jet lag on the brain. They want to find out if too much jet lag could permanently affect memory.According to the text, jet lag _____.
| A．can cause difficulties in speaking |
| B．can make people feel tired for a few weeks |
| C．is the illness only found in people who work on the airplanes |
| D．can be caused by flying over several time zones in an airplane |
It is inferred that more tests need to be done because _____.
| A．the conclusion was questioned by many scientists |
| B．scientists fear that his research is not done properly |
| C．every scientific conclusion needs the support from many tests |
| D．the woman who were studied in the research were not healthy |
What is the subject discussed in the test?
| A．The cause of jet lag. |
| B．A story of a group of flight attendance. |
| C．A research about the effects of jet lag on the brain. |
| D．The importance of having enough rest after long flights. |
The Channel is the name given to the stretch of water which separates England and France. Ferries operate all year round to carry people across the Channel, and they are busy most of the year. January is the only quiet month nowadays. As well as summer holiday-makers, there are day trippers and coach traffic, not to mention lorries and other commercial vehicles. Some ferries carry cars and their passengers, while others also connect train passengers with the Continental rail network.
The biggest hazard for the ferry is the wind. The crew listens to BBC weather reports four times a day. Or they sometimes get gale warnings from local radio station.
Crossing the Channel by ferry is a bit like trying to cross Oxford Street on a busy afternoon, according to one ferryboat captain. The ferries from Folkstone and Dover to Calais and Boulogne have to cross the main flow of traffic. This consists of ships traveling through the Channel to and from Northern Europe. There may be four hundred ships making the journey at any one time, and they all pass through a “choke point” which is only fifteen miles (twenty-five kilometers) wide. The cross-channel ferries have to sail right through the middle of all this traffic.The passage is mainly concerned with _____.
| A．the English Channel |
| B．the weather on the Channel |
| C．cross-channel ferries |
| D．what crossing the Channel by ferry is like |
The word hazard is closest in meaning to ________.
| A．trouble | B．danger | C．enemy | D．problem |
We can infer from the passage that _______.
| A．if there is a gale warning from the BBC, the ferries will stop operating. |
| B．the traffic on the Channel is very busy only in winter |
| C．ferries are busiest in the afternoon |
| D．the crew of the ferry listens to the weather reports four times a day |
Where does this passage most probably appear?
| A．In a dictionary. | B．In a novel. |
| C．In a transportation magazine. | D．In a geography textbook. |
Just before midnight, six University of Cincinnati students were watching TV in an on-campus apartment when three men burst through the door. While one of the intruders pointed a gun at the group, the other two scooped up $4,400 worth of laptops, cell phones, video games and cash. Once they had what they wanted, the trio fled into the night.
Furious, the students chased down and tackled one of the burglars -- the one with the gun. In the struggle, it went off, and a bullet grazed a student's leg. His friends piled on the gunman and held him until police showed up.
By the next day, the injured young man was back in his apartment, and the suspect was in jail, charged with burglary, felonious assault and receiving stolen property. But how did the men manage to storm into an on-campus residence that November night in the first place? Simple: Students told police the building's main doors hadn't latched properly for days.
As parents confront ballooning college costs and shrinking acceptance rates, they are finding themselves with an even bigger, more basic problem: Which campuses are safe? Colleges seem like idyllic and secure places, and for the most part, they are. But ivy-covered walls can't keep out every bad element. This country's 6,000 colleges and universities report some 40,000 burglaries, 3,700 forcible sex offenses, 7,000 aggravated assaults and 48 murders a year. Other hazards -- fires, binge-drinking, mental-health problems -- are also on the rise.
Of course, that's not what parents and students see on America's serene campuses. There's a false sense of security, says Harry Nolan, a safety consultant in New York City. "Students see guards patrolling at night or a video camera monitoring the dorm entrance and think, nothing bad can happen to me," he explains. "People don't know that safety controls are often very lax."What did the students do after the burglars fled into the night?
| A．They stood there in surprise. |
| B．They ran after the burglars at once. |
| C．They waited for the police. |
| D．They phoned their teacher. |
What does the underlined word “latched” in the third paragraph probably mean?
| A．watched | B．fixed | C．locked | D．kept |
What worries parents most except ballooning college costs and shrinking acceptance rates?
| A．Their children’s grades in the universities or colleges. |
| B．Their children’s safety in the universities or colleges. |
| C．Their children’s behavior in the universities or colleges. |
| D．Their children’s relationship with classmates in the universities or colleges. |
Which is right according to the passage?
| A．Their children’s grades in are high. |
| B．Their children’s safety in the universities or colleges will be mornitored well. |
| C．The universities or colleges don’t pay much attention to the children. |
| D．The universities or colleges are not key educational departments in the local area. |
Hundreds of secondary schools are using a controversial reward scheme which “bribes” (贿赂)pupils with iPods and DVD players to turn up in classes and do homework.
Almost one million schoolchildren have been issued with supermarket-style reward cards which allow them to collect good-behavior “points” and cash them in for prizes.
Schools taking part in the “Vivo Miles” scheme are spending several thousand pounds a year in an attempt to cut truancy (逃学) and promote achievements. The prizes are ultimately funded by the taxpayer, through school budgets. Nearly 500 secondary schools, one in six, have decided to take part in the scheme, which is intended to replace old-style rewards such as stickers and golden stars.
But the extent of rewards being offered in schools brought a warning that a generation of children is growing up expecting to be rewarded at every stage. Many youngsters are collecting points for ordinary achievements such as remembering to bring their PE kit and wearing the correct uniform.
Under the scheme, teachers award Vivo points—worth 1 penny each—according to the school’s policy. Schools typically spend￡4 to￡6 on prizes per pupil each year, although some commit considerably more. Most pupils accumulate between 400 and 600 Vivos a year. Vivo Miles insists it is “pretty rare” for a pupil to accumulate enough points to buy an iPod, which requires 3,100 Vivos.
But Chris McGovern, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, said the scheme amounted to “bribery”. “It misleads children into thinking anything which requires effort has to have a special reward,” he said. “This ‘all must have prizes’ view is damaging to children in the long-term.” The scheme amounted to an “admission of failure” by schools. He said. “It shows a school has failed to convince children education is important.”The “Vivo Miles” scheme is aimed at ______________.
| A．increasing the income of the school |
| B．encouraging students to perform well at school |
| C．inviting more students to attend the school nearby |
| D．encouraging parents to donate to the school |
Those who oppose the “Vivo Miles” scheme think ______________.
| A．it helps control the problem of truancy |
| B．it teaches children the importance of saving |
| C．it will mislead children about efforts and rewards |
| D．it’s not easy to get more than 600 Vivos a year |
What’s the writer’s attitude towards the scheme?
| A．Supportive. | B．Opposed. | C．Unconcerned. | D．Objective. |