Like distance runners on a measured course，all of us will move through time in a roughly predictable pattern．
In the first stage of our lives，we develop and grow, reaching toward the top of physical vitality(活力)．
After we grow up，however, the body begins a process of gradually wearing out．
A new awareness of physical fitness may help lengthen our years of health and vitality，yet nothing we do will work to stop the unavoidable force of aging．
Most of the changes of aging take place deep inside the body．The lungs become less able to take in oxygen．Powerful muscles gradually lose their strength．The heart loses power and pumps less blood．Bones grow easier to break．
Finally, we meet a stress，a stress that is greater than our physical resistance．Often，it is only a minor accident or chance infection(a disease caused by virus)，but this time，it brings life to an end．
In 1932，a classic experiment nearly doubled the lifetime of rats，simply by cutting back the calories in their diet The reason for the effect was then unknown．
Today, at the University of California at Berkley, Dr．Paul Seagle has also greatly lengthened the normal lifetime of rats．The result was achieved through a special protein limited diet，which had a great effect on the chemistry of the brain．Seagle showed that within the brain，specific chemicals control many of the signals that influence aging．By changing that chemical balance，the clock of aging can be reset．
For the first time, the mystery of why we age is being seriously challenged．Scientists in many fields are now making striking and far-reaching discoveries．
An average lifetime lasts 75 years，yet in each of us lies a potential for a longer life．If we could keep the vitality and resistance to disease that we have at age twenty, we would live for 800 years．What does the underlined word “it” refer to?
| A．Physical vitality． | B．Stress． | C．Aging． | D．Physical resistance． |
Which of the following is not a change of aging?
| A．People gradually lose their muscle strength． |
| B．Bones tend to break more easily． |
| C．The heart loses power and pumps less blood． |
| D．The lungs become unable to take in oxygen． |
The author believes the following except that ．
| A．human's life pattern is predictable |
| B．physical fitness can't stop the force of aging |
| C．human's lifetime will last longer than 75 years |
| D．all of the changes of aging take place deep inside the body |
How did Dr．Paul Seagle lengthen the lifetime of rats in his experiment?
| A．By keeping their physical fitness． | B．By cutting the calories in their diet． |
| C．By resetting their clock of aging． | D．By limiting the protein in their diet． |
What is probably the best title for the article?
| A．Two Great Experiments |
| B．The Mystery of Human Life |
| C．The Breakthrough in the Study of Aging |
| D．Ways to lengthen Human Life |
The Diet Zone: A Dangerous Place
Diet Coke, diet Pepsi, diet pills, no-fat diet, vegetable diet… We are surrounded by the word “diet” everywhere we look and listen. We have so easily been attracted by the promise and potential of diet products that we have stopped thinking about what diet products are doing to us. We are paying for products that harm us psychologically and physically（身体上）.
Diet products significantly weaken us psychologically. On one level, we are not allowing our brain to admit that our weight problems lie not in actually losing the weight, but in controlling the consumption of fatty, high-calorie, unhealthy foods. Diet products allow us to jump over the thinking stage and go straight for the scale（秤）instead. All we have to do is to swallow or recognize the word “diet” in food labels.
On another level, diet products have greater psychological effects. Every time we have a zero-calorie drink, we are telling ourselves without our awareness that we don’t have to work to get results. Diet products make people believe that gain comes without pain, and that life can be without resistance and struggle.
The danger of diet products lies not only in the psychological effects they have on us, but also in the physical harm that they cause. Diet foods can indirectly harm our bodies because consuming them instead of healthy foods means we are preventing our bodies from having basic nutrients(营养成分). Diet foods and diet pills contain zero calorie only because the diet industry has created chemicals to produce these wonder products. Diet products may not be nutritional, and the chemical that go into diet products are potentially dangerous.
Now that we are aware of the effects that diet products have on us, it is time to seriously think about buying them. Losing weight lies in the power of minds, not in the power of chemicals. Once we realize this, we will be much better able to resist diet products, and therefore prevent the psychological harm that comes from using them.From Paragraph 1, we learn that ________.
| A．diet products fail to bring out people’s potential |
| B．people are fed up with diet products |
| C．people have difficulty in choosing diet products |
| D．diet products are misleading people |
One psychological effect of diet products is that people tend to _____.
| A．hesitate before they enjoy diet foods |
| B．pay attention to their own eating habits |
| C．watch their weight rather than their diet |
| D．try out a variety of diet foods |
In Paragraph 3, “gain comes without pain” probably means ______.
| A．losing weight is effortless |
| B．diet products bring no pain |
| C．it costs a lot to lose weight |
| D．diet products are free from calories |
Diet products indirectly harm people physically because such products ______.
| A．lack basic nutrients | B．are over-consumed |
| C．are short of chemicals | D．provide too much energy |
I wished I had known earlier the fact that I was a low achiever because there was a reason beyond my control. Then I needn’t have worked so hard in my late twenties and early thirties. But I just didn’t know that. I was writing and writing. I was working for no other reason than to hear people praise me.
Most people who go through university read at least twice as fast as I do. I can never tell my left from my right. I avoid dialing a telephone if I can help it, because I sometimes have to try three times before getting the number right. I hear that recording “The number you have reached is not in service” more than any man on earth.
Despite my weaknesses I view my dyslexia(difficulty in reading) as a gift, not a curse(诅咒). Many dyslexics are good at right brain, namely abstract thought, and that is what my king of creative writing is. I’m starting with nothing and coming up with something that didn’t exist before. That’s my strong point. I owe my career to Ralph, Salisbury, my writing instructor at the University of Oregon, who looked past my misspellings and gave me encouragement and hope. I just carried on and never looked back. I’m also very “visual”. This means nothing in school, but when I write books or scripts, I’m seeing everything in my imagination. I write quickly. I go like the wind and can get up to 15 pages a day. Writing is not the problem. I have no problem downloading; it is inputting where things get messed up.
The real fear I have for dyslexics is not that they have to struggle with messy input, but that they will quit on themselves before they finish school. Parents have to create victories whenever they can, whether it is music, sports or the arts. You want your dyslexic child to be able to say, “Yeah, reading is hard. But I have these other things I can do.”According to the passage we know that________.
| A．The author had known he was a low achiever since he was a little child |
| B．The author didn’t work very hard on writing in his late twenties |
| C．The author owed his dyslexia to his laziness in the childhood |
| D．The author worked hard for people’s praise |
From Paragraph 3 we can know that ______
| A．The author was grateful to his writing instructor |
| B．The author often complained about his dyslexia |
| C．The author had trouble with both inputting and outputting. |
| D．Having problem in inputting, the author wrote slowly. |
Which of the following proverbs can best summarize the main idea of the passage?
| A．He who laughs last laughs best. |
| B．Where there is a will, there is a way. |
| C．Reading enriches the mind. |
| D．When God closes a door, somewhere he opens a window. |
What kind of man is the writer?
| A．Open-minded and optimistic |
| B．diligent and generous |
| C．clever but selfish |
| D．kind but useless |
I was a freshman in college when I met the Whites. They were completely different from my own family, yet I felt at home with them immediately. Jane White and I became friends at school, and her family welcomed me like a long-lost cousin.
In my family, it was always important to place blame when anything bad happened.
“Who did this? ”my mother would scream about a dirty kitchen.
“This is all your fault, Katharine, ”my father would insist when the cat got out or the dishwasher broke.
From the time we were little, my sister, brothers and I told on each other. We set a place for blame at the dinner table.
But the Whites didn’t worry about who had done what. They picked up the pieces and moved on with their lives. The beauty of this was driven home to me the summer Jane died.
In July, the White sisters and I decided to take a car trip from their home in Florida to New York. The two older sisters, Sarah and Jane, were college students, and the youngest, Amy, had recently turned sixteen. Proud of having a new driver’s license（驾照），Amy was excited about practicing her driving on the trip. She showed off her license to everyone she met.
The big sisters shared the driving of Sarah’s new car during the first part of the trip, but when they reached less crowded areas, they let Amy take over. Somewhere in South Carolina, we pulled off the highway to eat. After lunch, Amy got behind the wheel. She came to a crossroads with a stop sign. Whether she was nervous or just didn’t see the sign no one would ever know, but Amy continued into the crossroads without stopping. The driver of a large truck, unable to stop in time, ran into our car.
Jane was killed immediately.
I was slightly injured. The most difficult thing that I’ve ever done was to call the Whites to tell them about the accident and that Jane had died. Painful as it was for me to lose a good friend, I knew that it was far worse for them to lose a child.
When Mr. and Mrs. White arrived at the hospital, they found their two daughters sharing a room. Sarah had a few cuts on the head; Amy’s leg was broken. They hugged（拥抱）us all and cried tears of sadness and of joy at seeing their daughters. They wiped away the girls’ tears and made a few jokes at Amy as she learned to use her crutches（拐杖）.
To both of their daughters, and especially to Amy, over and over they simply said, “We’re so glad that you’re alive. ”
I was astonished. No blame. No accusations.
Later, I asked the Whites why they never talked about the fact that Amy was driving and had run a stop sign.
Mrs. White said, “Jane’s gone, and we miss her terribly. Nothing we say or do will ever bring her back. But Amy has her whole life ahead of her. How can she lead a full and happy life if she feels we blame her for her sister’s death? ”
They were right. Amy graduated from the University of California and got married several years ago. She works as a teacher of learning-disabled students. She’s also a mother of two little girls of her own, the oldest named Jane.How did the accident occur?
| A．Amy didn’t know what to do when she saw the stop sign. |
| B．Amy didn’t slow down so their car ran into a truck. |
| C．Amy didn’t stop at a crossroads and a truck hit their car. |
| D．Amy didn’t get off the highway at a crossroads. |
The Whites did not blame Amy for Jane’s death because _____.
| A．Amy was badly injured herself and they didn’t want to add to her pain |
| B．they didn’t want to blame their children in front of others |
| C．they didn’t want Amy to feel ashamed and sorry for the rest of her life |
| D．Amy was their youngest daughter and they loved her best |
From the passage we can learn that _____.
| A．Amy has lived quite a normal life |
| B．Amy has never recovered from the shock |
| C．Amy changed her job after the accident |
| D．Amy lost her memory after the accident |
A rainforest is an area covered by tall trees with the total high rainfall spreading quite equally through the year and the temperature rarely dipping below 16℃.Rainforests have a great effect on the world environment because they can take in heat from the sun and adjust the climate.Without the forest cover，these areas would reflect more heat into the atmosphere，warming the rest of the world.Losing the rainforests may also influence wind and rainfall patterns，potentially causing certain natural disasters all over the world.
In the past hundred years，humans have begun destroying rainforests in search of three major resources(资源)：land for crops，wood for paper and other products，land for raising farm animals.This action affects the environment as a whole.For example，a lot of carbon dioxide(二氧化碳)in the air comes from burning the rainforests.People obviously have a need for the resources we gain from cutting trees but we will suffer much more than we will benefit.
There are two main reasons for this.Firstly，when people cut down trees，generally they can only use the land for a year or two.Secondly，cutting large sections of rainforests may provide a good supply of wood right now，but in the long run it actually reduces the world's wood supply.
Rainforests are often called the world's drug store.More than 25% of the medicines we use today come from plants in rainforests.However，fewer than 1%of rainforest plants have been examined for their medical value.It is extremely likely that our best chance to cure diseases lies somewhere in the world's shrinking rainforests.Rainforests can help to adjust the climate because they ______.
| A．reflect more heat into the atmosphere |
| B．reduce the effect of heat from the sun on the earth |
| C．bring about high rainfall throughout the world |
| D．rarely cause the temperature to drop lower than 16℃ |
What does the word“this”underlined in the third paragraph refer to?
| A．Humans have begun destroying rainforests. |
| B．People have a strong desire for resources. |
| C．We will lose much more than we can gain. |
| D．Much carbon dioxide comes from burning rainforests. |
It can be inferred from the text that ______.
| A．we can get enough resources without rainforests |
| B．we will grow fewer kinds of crops in the gained land |
| C．the level of annual rainfall affects wind patterns |
| D．there is great medicine potential in rainforests |
What might be the best title for the text?
| A．Rainforests and the Environment |
| B．How to Save Rainforests |
| C．How to Protect Nature |
| D．Rainforests and Medical Development |
Living a healthy lifestyle lies in forming the right eating habits. Here are some of the good habits you can develop when it comes to healthy eating.
Drink plenty of water. You must drink at least 8 glasses of water a day. You may need even more water if you are in a hot environment or if you are exercising.
Eat breakfast. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. A recent study has shown that those who eat breakfast will consume an average of 100 calories less during the day than their colleagues who skipped breakfast. They will also be able to concentrate better.
Don’t skip lunch. If you do so, your blood sugar level will drop and your metabolism (新陈代谢) will slow down. When you get home you are starving and eat everything you can find.
We all need to snack from time to time, but please choose your snacks carefully. In fact, it’s a good idea to eat two healthy snacks besides your three main meals. Choose healthy snacks like fruits and vegetables, low fat yogurt, cottage cheese with apple sauce, and so on.
Eat your fruit and vegetables. We should eat at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day. Take a piece of fruit for a snack, add some banana and raisins to your favourite breakfast cereal, have a salad with lunch, and eat at least one vegetable at dinner each night.
Do not eat your dinner too late. Try to eat dinner at least 3 hours before you go to bed. This will give your body a chance to digest most of the food before you rest for the next 8 hours. Plan dinner for the week ahead of time and make sure you have everything you need in the house so other family members can get a head start on dinner if you have a late meeting at the office.How many good eating habits are mentioned in the passage?
| A．8. | B．7. | C．6. | D．5. |
The underlined word “raisin” most probably means “_____”.
| A．a peach leaf | B．a dried grape |
| C．a piece of cheese | D．a peanut |
Who is this passage intended for?
| A．Students. | B．Housewives. |
| C．Office workers. | D．Cooks. |
You may most probably find this article _____.
| A．in a textbook | B．in a science fiction book |
| C．in an advertisement | D．in a website |