About 45 percent of Americans don’t get enough sleep, according to a recent survey. However, the benefits of getting enough sleep far outweigh the thrill of watching TV for one more hour or surfing the web. Getting a better night’s sleep will help you lose or keep your weight more effectively. Try these simple steps to improve your quality of sleep.
Take time to relax
So many of us go-go-go until it’s time for bed, but it’s important to take time to slow down and relax before sleeping. Do relaxing things, such as listening to soothing (抚慰的) music or deep breathing. Avoid stimulating (刺激的) activities such as writing e-mails, talking on the phone and watching TV. Some guidelines (指导方针): no e-mail after 8 p.m. and no TV or phone calls after 9 p.m..
Darker is better
Your body regulates your sleep cycle in response to the presence and absence of light, so dim the lights as evening approaches. Try getting ready for bed by candlelight. When you’re ready to sleep, make sure your room is as dark as possible.
Put your thoughts to bed
We all need time to process our day, but bed is not the place to do it if you want to sleep well. Take 10 to 15 minutes to record your thoughts in a journal. This effective technique will capture what’s in your mind so you don’t lie awake. Tell yourself you’re putting your thoughts to bed so that you can go to bed.
No sugar or alcohol before bed
These may wake you up. If you need a snack before bed, make it protein.
Try to get more sleep
Get an extra hour or two of sleep every night for a week and see how you feel. You’ll notice the difference!The purpose of writing this text is to ________________________.
| A．share some ways to slow down and relax before sleeping |
| B．guide readers to improve their quality of sleep |
| C．tell readers the importance of getting a good night’s sleep |
| D．publish the results of a recent survey on quality of sleep |
According to the text, we know that __________________________.
| A．we should keep our bedrooms in strong light before going to bed |
| B．writing a diary may excite us and influence our sleep |
| C．we should never get up later on weekends than we do on weekdays |
| D．candlelight is a good choice for our bedrooms when we’re getting ready to sleep |
We should take time to slow down because it can _________________________.
| A．inform us of the importance of sleeping |
| B．signal to our body it’s time to sleep |
| C．tell us to stop watching TV for making phone calls |
| D．tell us not to do stimulating activities |
Duke Ellington is known as one of the most important composers of his tim
e, and his work has been enjoyed for more than 80 years by music lovers all over the world. During his lifetime Ellington turned musical sounds into many compositions, mostly in the style known as jazz.
The Early Years
Edward Kennedy Ellington was born in 1899 in Washington, D. C. It wasn’t until Ellington was a teenager that his interest in music grew. He taught himself to play the piano by listening to local piano players. Sometime around 1916 Ellington began playing the piano at high school parties. Ellington realized that he enjoyed entertaining people with his music. He soon became a very popular musician, playing at parties and other events in t
he Washington area. Young adults seemed especially delighted by the modern pieces he composed.
Success in New York
In 1923, when Ellington was almost 24 years old, he joined The Washingtonians, a five-piece group of musicians in Washington, and became the group’s leader in early 1924. In 1927 Ellington and his orchestra won an engagement（雇佣期）at Harlem’s famous Cotton Club. For the next three years, his orchestra played at the Cotton Club nearly every night.
The Influenc
e of the Cotton Club
Working at the Cotton Club encouraged Ellington’s creativity. Since the shows changed every six months, he was challenged by the need to continually develop new material. He had to compose a wide variety of music to accompany the various acts in the Cotton Club shows and to adapt that music to the strengths and weaknesses of the players in his orchestra.
By 1928 the popular nightspot began radio broadcasts. From the broadcasts Ellington and his orchestra gained a national reputation.
On the Road
As Ellington’s popularity increased, he realized that his orchestra could do well on concert tours. They left the Cotton Club in 1931 and toured America and Europe almost continually for the next 43 years. In addition to touring, Ellington made recordings and continued to compose music.
D
uke Ellington played the piano, composed music, and led his famous orchestra for more than 50 years, until his death in 1974. Music lovers all over the world agree that the large quantity of music he created will be enjoyed for many years to come.From the second paragraph, we know that Ellington ____________.
| A．could sing as well as he played the piano |
| B．preferred mature audiences to young adults |
| C．had a natural talent for musical composition |
| D．learnt to play musical instrument from very young age |
Which of the following can show us Ellington’s leadership ability?
| A．Ellington was very popular at parties in the Washington area. |
| B．Ellington took the responsibility for a band for a long time. |
| C．Ellington did live radio broadcasts in New York City. |
| D．Ellington continually developed new material. |
We may infer from the passage that ____________.
| A．Ellington’s career took off overnight |
| B．Ellington loves touring around the world |
| C．Ellington could compose a wide variety of songs |
| D．Ellington had a great effect on the world of music |
Which of the following shows the order in which the events happened in the story?
a. Ellington joined a five-piece group of musicians in Washington.
b. Ellington’s orchestra played at the Cotton Club.
c. Ellington and his orchestra gained a national reputation.
d. Ellington began playing
the piano at high school parties.
e. Ellington’s orchestra went on concert tours.
A．d-b-a-e-c |
B．d-a-b-c-e | C．a-d-b-c-e | D．a-d-b-e-c |
Special Bridges Help Animals Cross the Road
——Reported by Sheila Carrick
Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side.
Most people know this joke. But recently, some people have been much more worried about how the grizzly bear and mountain lion can cross the road.
“Millions of animals die each year on U. S. roads,” the Federal Highway Administration reports. In fact, only about 80 ocelots, an endangered wild cat, exist in the U. S. today. The main reason? Road kill.
“Ecopassages” may help animals cross the road without being hit by cars. They are paths both over and under roads. “These ecopassages can be extremely useful, so that wildlife can avoid road accidents,” said Jodi Hilty of the Wildlife Protection Society.
But do animals actually use the ecopassages? The answer is yes. Paul Beier of Northern Arizona University found foot marks left by mountain lions on an ecopassage that went under a highway. This showed that the lions used the passage.
Builders of ecopassages try to make them look like a natural part of an area by planting trees on and around them. Animals seem to be catching on. Animals as different as salamanders and grizzly bears are using the bridges and underpasses.
The next time you visit a park or drive th
rough an area with a lot of wildlife, look around. You might see an animals overpass!The writer uses the example of “ocelots” to show that _____________.
| A．wild animals have become more dangerous |
| B．the driving conditions have improved greatly |
| C．the measure for protecting wildlife fails to work |
| D．an increasing number of animals are killed in road accidents |
From the news story, we know an ecopassage is _____________.
| A．an underground path for cars |
| B．a fence built for the safety of the area |
| C．a bridge for animals to get over a river |
| D．a pass for animals to cross the road |
When the writer says that animals seem “to be catching on”, he means ___________.
| A．animals begin to realize the dangers on the road |
| B．animals begin to learn to use ecopassages |
| C．animals are crossing the road in groups |
| D．animals are increasing in number |
The writer asks visitors and drivers to look around when traveling because _________.
| A．wild animals may attack cars |
| B．wild animals may jam the road |
C．they may see w ild animals in the park |
| D．they may see wild animals on ecopassages |
Visit one of the most outstanding prehistoric sites in the United Kingdom, and enjoy amazing historic English attractions. Please notice that every tour starts and ends in London. Have a tour with Visiting Britain.
Stonehenge Direct Tour
Visit one of the most outstanding prehistoric sites in England and in the world: Stonehenge.
Duration: 1 day
Price: Adults ￡29.99, Children ￡28.99
Stonehenge and Bath Tour
Enjoy a late breakfast before heading to the Stonehenge site and end your day with an original visit of the Roman Baths.
Duration: 10 hours（departure 10:30 am return 8:30 pm）.
Price: Adults ￡64, Children ￡60
Stonehenge, Bath and Windsor Castle Tour
Explore three of England’s most popular sites to visit: Windsor Castle, Stonehenge and the Roman Baths.
Duration: 1 day（return 8:30 pm）
Price: Adults ￡64.80, Children ￡61.20
Stonehenge, Lacock and Bath Tour
Come and feel the warmth of Bath, see the pleasant village of Lacock, and solve the mystery of Stonehenge.
Duration: 1 day（return 6 pm）
Price: Adults ￡85, Children ￡78
Stonehenge, Windsor and Oxford Tour
Choose Stonehenge, Windsor and Oxford Tour and enjoy ancient mysticism, royal history and illustrious knowledge.
Duration: 1 day
Price: Adults ￡72, Children ￡68
Stonehenge, Bath a
nd Stratford Tour
Take a tour to make the most of the English historic attractions: the Stonehenge site, Bath and Stratford, the b
irthplace of playwright William Shakespeare.
Duration: 1 day（return 8 pm）
Price: Adults ￡79, Children ￡68The purpose of the passage is to _____________.
| A．advertise some popular English attractions |
| B．recommend some different tours in England |
| C．tell readers how to save money while traveling |
| D．describe different routes to travel in England |
Two 15-year-old foreign students who want to visit Stonehenge and Oxford University will have to pay at least _____________.
| A．￡136 | B．￡170 | C．￡110 | D．￡126 |
When can you come back to London after visiting Stonehenge and the Roman Baths?
| A．At 6 pm. | B．At 7 pm. | C．At 8 pm. | D．At 8:30 pm. |
If you
plan to travel with your kid who is a fan of Shakespeare, you would choose _______.
| A．Stonehenge Direct Tour |
| B．Stonehenge, Bath and Stratford Tour |
| C．Stonehenge, Windsor and Oxford Tour |
| D．Stonehenge, Bath and Windsor Castle Tour |
I needed to buy a digital camera, one that was simply good at taking good snaps (快照), maybe occasionally for magazines. Being the cautious type, I fancied a reliable brand. So I went on the net, spent 15 minutes reading product reviews on good websites, wrote down the names of three top recommendations and headed for my nearest big friendly camera store. There in the cupboard was one of the cameras on my list. And it was on special offer. Oh joy. I pointed at it and asked an assistant, “Can I have one of those?”? He looked perturbed (不安). “Do you want to try it first?” he said. It didn’t quite sound like a question. “Do I need to?” I replied ,“There is nothing wrong with it？” This made him look a bit insulted and I started to feel bad. “No, no. But you should try it,” he said encouragingly. “Compare it with the others. ”
I looked across at the others: shelves of similar cameras placed along the wall, offering a wide range of slightly different prices and discounts, with each company selling a range of models based around the same basic box. With so many models to choose from, it seemed that I would have to spend hours weighing X against Y, always trying to take Z and possibly H into account at the same time. But when I had finished, I would still have only the same two certainties that I had entered the store with: first, soon after I carried my new camera out of the shop, it would be worth half what I paid for it; and second, my wonderful camera would very quickly be replaced by a new model.
But something in the human soul whispers that you can beat these traps by making the right choice, the clever choice, the wise choice. In the end, I agreed to try the model I had chosen. The assistant seemed a sincere man. So I let him take out of my chosen camera from cupboard, show how it took excellent pictures of my fellow shoppers… and when he started to introduce the special features, I interrupted to ask whether I needed to buy a carry-case and a memory card as well.
Why do we think that new options still offer us anything new? Perhaps it is because they offer an opportunity to avoid facing the fact that our real choices in this culture are far more limited than we would like to imagine.The shop assistant insisted that the writer should________.
| A．try the camera to see if there was anything wrong with it. |
| B．compare the camera he had chosen with the others. |
| C．get more information about different companies. |
| D．trust him and stop asking questions. |
What does the writer mean by “it would be worth half what I paid for it ”(paragraph 2)
| A．He should get a 50% discount. |
| B．The price of the camera was unreasonably high. |
| C．The quality of the camera was not good. |
| D．The camera would soon fall in value. |
The writer decided to try the model he had chosen because he________.
| A．knew very little about it. |
| B．didn’t trust the shop assistant |
| C．wanted to make sure the one he chose would be the best. |
| D．had a special interest in taking pictures of his fellow shoppers. |
It can be inferred from the passage that in the writer’s opinion__________.
| A．people waste too much money on cameras |
| B．cameras have become an important part of our daily life |
| C．we don’t actually need so many choices when buying a product |
| D．famous companies care more about profit than quality |
It’s hard to track the blue whale, which has almost been killed off by commercial whaling. Attaching radio devices to it is difficult and visual sightings are too unreliable to give real insight into its behavior.
So biologists were delighted early this year when, with the help of the US Navy, they are able to track a particular blue whale for 43 days recording its sounds. This was possible because of the Navy’s former top secret system of underwater listening devices across the oceans.
Tracking whales is but one example of an exciting new world just opening to civilian scientists after the cold war as the Navy starts to share and partly uncover its global network of underwater listening system built over the decades to track the ships of potential enemies.
Earth scientists announced at a news conference recently that they had used the system for closely observing a deep-sea volcanic eruption for the first time and that they planned similar studies. Other scientists have proposed to use the network for tracking ocean currents and measuring changes in the ocean and global temperatures. Different layers of ocean water can act as channels for sounds focusing them in the same way a stethoscope(听诊器) does when it carries faint noises from a patient’s chest to a doctor’s ear. This focusing is the main reason that even relatively weak sounds in the ocean, especially low-frequency ones, can often travel thousands of miles.The underwater listening system was originally designed _________________.
| A．to trace and locate enemy ships |
| B．to observe deep sea volcanic eruptions |
| C．to study the movement of ocean currents |
| D．to replace the global radio communications network |
The deep-sea listening system makes use of __________________.
| A．the ability of sound to travel at high speed |
| B．the top-level technology of focusing sounds under water |
| C．the unique characteristic of layers of ocean water in carrying sound |
| D．low-frequency sounds traveling across different layers of water |
What can we infer from the passage?
| A．New radio devices are developed for tracking the blue whales. |
| B．Blue whales are no longer endangered with the new system. |
| C．Opinions differ on the use of military technology. |
| D．Military technology has great potential in civilian use. |
What is the passage chiefly about?
| A．An effort to protect an endangered marine species. |
| B．The civilian use of a military detection system. |
| C．The exposure of a US Navy top-secret weapon. |
| D．A new way to look into the behavior of blue whales. |