Since 1950, the amount of information about the nutrition of food has increased by nearly 900 percent. Besides this fact, obesity has risen by 214 percent and nearly two out of every three adults in America are overweight or obese. Being overweight is not only an appearance problem, and it also increases the risk of various diseases including diabetes, sleep disorder and cancer.
With so much nutritional knowledge easy to find, we cannot simply ignore our present obesity epidemic(流行病). We know that fruits and vegetables are rich in vitamin. Though we are overweight, many of us choose junk food over healthy food out of habits. One explanation for our strong desire for junk food is that we learn to connect junk food with positive feelings when we are young, and changing this attitude requires a huge amount of confidence and determination. Fortunately, new research published in May 2012 has shown a simple and accessible way to make healthier food choices- the one that doesn’t rely on great determination.
The research was based on two separate studies and it was carried out by T. Bettina Cornwell of the University of Oregon and Anna R. McAlister of Michigan State University. In the first study, 60 adults between the ages of 19 and 23 were questioned about the role of food and drinks. The survey tells us that adults prefer sweetened drinks with high-calorie, salty foods, to sweetened drinks with vegetables.
In the second study, 75 children between the ages of 3 and 5 were gathered for some experiments including drinks served with vegetables. The preschooler experiments were carried out under different situations and on different days. The researchers found that the children chose to take more green vegetables when they were served with water instead of a sweetened drink.
According to Cornwell, children learn to connect high calorie, sugary drinks such as cola, with high fat foods such as French fries, from a very early age. McAlister adds that early taste development appears to play an important role in food choices later in life. Meals served at home and meals offered at restaurants, set the stage for this idea and for the preference to choose junk food over healthy food, when beginning to take sweetened drinks.
“Our taste preferences are heavily influenced by regularly eating particular food and drinking particular drink,” states Cornwell. “If the drink on the table goes against both adults and children eating their vegetables, then perhaps it is time to change that drink… and to serve water with all meals. Restaurants could easily use water as free drink for children’s meals and charge extra money for other drinks.” Both McAlister and Cornwell are confident that serving water with meals could effectively reduce the nation’s obesity rates, diabetes rates and ever rising healthcare costs.What may cause the risk of diseases according to the text?
| A．Over nutrition. | B．Obesity. | C．Unbalance diets. | D．Junk food. |
What makes many of us choose junk food according to the author?
| A．Positive feelings about food. | B．High calorie of junk food. |
| C．Nice taste. | D．Eating habits. |
The underlined word “accessible” in Paragraph 2 means”_________”.
| A．quick | B．useful | C．easy to change | D．easy to get |
From Paragraph5, we know that __________.
| A．children may like sugary and high-calorie drinks even from an early age |
| B．early preference for food and drink may influence food choices later in life |
| C．easy preference for drinks should not be allowed in most of the restaurants |
| D．restaurants should provide the same food and drink as those at home |
Which would be the best title for this text?
| A．Stop children drinking sugary drinks |
| B．Drink water to eat more healthy |
| C．Change eating habits to lose weight |
| D．Eat healthy food at home |
The Fourth "21th Century Cup" National English Speaking Competition is to be held in Shanghai.
Organizers: China Daily and Shanghai Broadcasting Network.
Co-ordinater: China University English Speaking Association ( CUESA).
Co-sponsors (联办单位): English Speaking Union (ESU), Lotus Software (China) Co. LtD.,Times Publishing Group of Singapore, Hilton Shanghai, Pearson Education, Foreign Language Teaching & Research Press.
Date: March 26 ( Friday), 2011
Place: Hilton Shanghai.
Competition Format (形式): Each student will present a prepared speech on the given topic, followed by a three-minute off-hand speech and a three-minute question and answer period with the judges.
Prepared speech period: six minutes.
Q & A period: three minutes.
Speech topic: People and Nature: In search of harmony (和谐）in a new age + your personal opinion. (Topics for the off hand speech will be given on the day of competition).
Prizes: Besides books and certificates (证书), the top two winners will be offered scholarships to travel to the annual international English-speaking competition which will be held by the English Speaking Union in London in May, 2011. The third and fourth place winners will be offered a study trip to Singapore, sponsored by the Times Publishing Group. The fifth through 10th place winners will be offered cash prizes. All the competitors will receive certificates from the English Speaking Union and book prizes provided by Pearson Education and Foreign Language Teaching & Research Press. The teachers of the top winners will also receive a one-year membership to the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL).
1. The main purpose of this passage is ________________________ .
A. to invite you to take part in the competition
B. to tell you some information of the competition
C. to help to improve your spoken English
D. to show you how to win the competition
2. Which of the following is NOT mentioned about the Shanghai English Speaking Competition?
A. Where and when it will take place. B. Its program.
C. What each winner will be offered. D. The number of its competitors.
3. Suppose you get the sixth place, you'll________________________ .
A. travel to London for free.
B. become a one-year member of IATEFL
C. get some money, some books and a certificate
D. get a chance to study in Singapore
4. An "off-hand speech" is________________________ .
A. a speech not longer than three minutes B. a speech with a piece of paper in hand
C. a speech without preparation D. a speech which is well prepared
IV. 阅读理解（共20小题；每小题1.5分，满分30分）
When I was at university, I studied very hard. But a lot of my friends did very little work. Some did just enough to pass exams. Others didn't do quite enough. Fred Baines was one of them. He spent more time drinking in the Students' Union than working in the library.
Once, at the end of the term, we had to take an important test in chemistry. The test had a hundred questions. Beside each question, we had to write "True" or "False". While I was studying in my room the night before the test, Fred was watching television. Fred usually worried a lot the night before a test. But on that night he looked perfectly calm. Then he told me of his plan.
"It's very simple. There are a hundred questions and I have to get fifty correct to pass the test. I'll take a coin into the examination room. I haven't studied a chemistry book for months, so I'll just toss the coin. That way, I'm sure I'll get half the questions right."
The next day Fred came cheerfully into the examination room. He sat tossing a coin for half an hour as he marked down his answers. Then he left, half an hour before the rest of us.
The next day, he saw the chemistry professor in the corridor .
"Oh, good," he said. "Have you got the result of the test? What mark did I get?"
The professor looked at him and smiled.
"Ah, it's you, Baines. Just a minute."
Then he reached into his pocket and took out a coin. He threw it into the air, caught it in his hand and looked at it.
"I'm terribly sorry, Baines," he said, "you failed."
1. Fred Baines _______.
A. spent quite some time working in the Students' Union
B. worked hard at his lessons but he failed again and again
C. often failed his tests
D. wouldn't work hard so long as he could pass a test
2. Fred looked perfectly calm before the chemistry test because _______.
A. he was already well prepared for it
B. he didn't think the test was so important for him
C. someone had promised to help him out
D. he believed he had found out a way to pass the test without any difficulty
3. The professor told Baines the result of the test by tossing a coin because _______.
A. he hadn't marked all the papers yet
B. he couldn't remember the mark Baines got
C. he wouldn't hurt Baines' feeling by telling him the truth
D. he wanted to teach Baines a lesson
In the UK, students’ residence halls are run as profit-making business, but this can occasionally be to students’ disadvantage.
As many universities choose to contract out their hall’s management to private companies, room rents are rising and student rights are suffering.
In 2006, 55 percent of student rooms were managed by private companies — only 27 percent by universities and colleges, the National Union of Students (NUS) has reported.
These private companies are improving the hall’s facilities in return for higher room rents. The most noticeable example of this trend is the growth in luxury halls. These are halls for students willing to pay more for larger rooms with better services.
Chancellors Court, at Edinburgh University in Scotland, is one such luxury hall. Rooms are divided between standard and large, with larger rooms costing 173 pounds each week, 40 pounds more than smaller rooms. They come with a scenic view, color TV, fast Internet connection and a modern bathroom.
Other luxury halls have private gyms for their residents. Private companies capitalize (用…以牟利) on their investment by renting out the students rooms to travelers over the summer vacation period.
But the NUS is concerned that luxury halls are affecting room rents at standard un-privatized halls. Most students in the UK pay on average 126 pounds a week for a private room in catered (提供餐饮的) halls of residence, the International Students Advice and Welfare organization has reported. According to the NUS, rent in UK halls of residence has risen by almost a quarter from 2005 to 2007.
Veronica King, NUS vice-president of welfare, wants the privatization of university accommodation to stop.
“For the students for whom luxury is not affordable, there is a significant risk that accommodation costs, coupled with the burden of complete fees, may reduce the choice of where to go to university,” she said.
Legal quarrels with privatized halls may also account for some of the 10 percent per year rise in student complaints to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education (OIA). The OIA is an independent student complaints scheme that has authority over all higher education institutions in England and Wales.
Rob Behrens, chief executive of the OIA, said he was unsurprised by the rise in complaints. “The bottom line is that students are today more self-confident in thinking about what their rights are and what are the things they can get form the commitments they make.”
1.Why are room rents rising in British universities?
A.Because the world is facing a financial crisis.
B.Because most universities are getting bored about students’ complaints.
C.Because many universities let private companies run students’ halls.
D.Because not all universities can meet the demands of the students.
2. Which of the following is not mentioned about a luxury hall?
A.Students have to pay more for a luxury hall.
B.Students can have a good view in a luxury hall.
C.Students can enjoy their own gym in a luxury hall.
D.Students can have an Internet connection free of charge.
3.Why do some students want to pay more for a luxury hall?
A.Because they just want to show that they are rich.
B.Because they are better served in a luxury hall.
C.Because there are too much complaints about small rooms.
D.Because there are no other choices.
Research shows that humans switch from selfish to unselfish behaviour when they are watched. Do you?
A picture of a set of eyes on a computer screen can cause a change in the way people act. Even images of eyes on a charity donation collection box encourage people to be unselfish, because people put more money in a collection box that has a picture of eyes on it than they do when a flower symbol is on the box.
Manfred Milinski from the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Germany and Bettina Rockenbach of the University of Berlin, the authors of a new study, found that people act better when they are being watched because they feel they will be rewarded for good behaviour. Their report also referred to other research showing that this response of behaving well when watched is somehow coded into humans and people respond this way unconsciously, or without realising it.
It is not just humans that act unselfishly when they are being watched. A fish called the grooming fish cleans other fish. When other fish are around, it is gentler. When no other fish are around, however, the grooming fish bites chunks from the fish it is supposed to be cleaning.
The researchers suggest that the best way to get people to behave in the correct way is to make them feel watched. This could be the reason for the success of a famous American army poster. On it was a picture of an elderly man staring fiercely and pointing, it appeared, to the person who was looking at the poster. Under the picture was the caption “I Want You”. It encouraged hundreds of thousands of young American men to join the army during the Second World War to fight the Germans and Japanese.
1. The underlined word “coded” (paragraph 3) is closest in meaning to______________.
A. hidden B. programmed C. made D. learned
2. What is the text mainly about?
A. It describes changed behaviour when observed.
B. It details ways to control people's behaviour.
C. It tells how to make people work harder.
D. It discusses different advertising methods.
3. According to the text, which of the following statements is true?
A. People pretend to behave better when they are watched.
B. Fish bite other fish in a fish tank when they are alone.
C. People donate more money when they feel they are watched.
D. Soldiers fought better during World War II because of a poster.
4. Where would the study described in the text most likely be found?
A. In a newspaper. B. In a scientific journal.
C. In an advertising magazine. D. In a science textbook.
“If there is one thing I’m sure about, it is that in a hundred years from now we will still be reading newspapers. It is not that newspapers are a necessity. Even now some people get most of their news from television or radio. Many buy a paper only on Saturday or Sunday. But for most people reading a newspaper has become a habit passed down from generation to generation.
The nature of what is news may change. What basically makes news is what affects our lives — the big political stories, the coverage of the wars, earthquakes and other disasters, will continue much the same. I think there will be more coverage of scientific research, though. It’s already happening in areas that may directly affect our lives, like genetic engineering. In the future, I think there will be more coverage of scientific explanations of why we feel as we do — as we develop a better understanding of how the brain operates and what our feelings really are.
It’s quite possible that in the next century newspapers will be transmitted (传送) electronically from Fleet Street and printed out in our own home. In fact, I’m pretty sure that how it will happen in the future. You will probably be able to choose from a menu, making up your own newspaper by picking out the things you want to read — sports and international news, etc.
I think people have got it wrong when they talk about competition between the different media. They actually feed off each other. Some people once foresaw that television would kill off newspapers, but that hasn’t happened. What is read on the printed page lasts longer than pictures on a screen or sound lost in the air. And as for the Internet, it’s never really pleasant to read something just on a screen.
1. What is the best title for the passage?
A. The Best Way to Get News B. The Changes of Media
C. Make Your Own Newspaper D. The Future of Newspaper
2. What will probably be on in the newspaper made by yourself?
A. Sports and international news. B. A menu of important news.
C. The most important news. D. What you are interested in.
3. From the passage, we can infer _______.
A. newspapers will win the competition among the different media
B. newspapers will stay with us together with other media
C. television will take the place of newspaper
D. the writer believes some media will die out
4. The phrase “feed off” in the last paragraph means _______.
A. depend on B. compete with C. fight with D. kill off