What is the hottest topic at your school recently? In Taiyuan No.55 Middle School, it’s money.
The school held an activity called “making money” last weekend. About 200 Junior 1 and Junior 2 students were divided into 30 teams. They went out to make money by selling things.
What did they choose to sell? Some sold newspapers; some chose bottled water; some sold environmentally friendly shopping bags and bamboo baskets.
Hu Qing’s team decided to sell some useful books in front of the Children Activity Center. They thought parents would like to buy the books for their children. But unfortunately, they met urban management officers (城管). The officers asked them to leave. “We played hide-and-seek (捉迷藏) with the officers for the whole morning” said Hu. “Finally we had to give up.”
Wang Bing and her team sold ice cream in a square. They didn’t meet any officers. But few people were interested in what they were selling. The team then put up a board saying “For Country Kids”. It worked. More people came to their stall (小摊). A foreigner even gave them 100 yuan. “He didn’t want any change. He said he wanted to help the children,” said Wang. “We were touched.” Later that day they gave the 100 yuan and more to the “Project Hope” office.
Meng Zhaoxiang and his team were luckier. They sold all their cakes in four hours, spending 39.5 yuan and getting back 80 yuan. They made 40.5 yuan. “It was not easy to make the money,” said Meng. “Some people just looked. Others just tasted but didn’t buy. Now I know how hard it is for our parents to make the money we need to lead happy lives.”. In Taiyuan No.55 Middle School, what the students talk more about is _______.
| A．the officers | B．money |
| C．the activity called “making money” | D．the money they made last weekend |
______ took part in the activity.
| A．About 200 of Junior 1 and Junior 2 students | B．Some teachers |
| C．About 200 students of the three grades | D．About200 Junior 1 students |
Hu Qing’s team finally gave up because ______.
| A．the parents didn’t like to buy the books |
| B．the Children Activity Center was too crowded |
| C．the officers didn’t allow them to sell anything there |
| D．the team played the game of the hide-and-seek the whole morning |
Why did more people come to Wang Bing’s stall at last?
| A．The team put up a magic board. |
| B．A foreigner came up and helped them. |
| C．The people were willing to help country kids. |
| D．The people were interested in their ice cream. |
According to the passage the students learn ______.
| A．it’s impossible for them to make money |
| B．it’s not easy for their parents to make money |
| C．it’s very important for them to make a living |
| D．it’s necessary for school to hold more activities in the future |
She took up skating at age 85, made her first movie appearance at age 114, and held a concert in the neighborhood on her 121st birthday.
When it comes to long life, Jeanne Calment is the world’s recordholder. She lived to the ripe old age of 122. So is 122 the upper limit to the human life span（寿命）? If scientists come up with some sort of pill or diet that would slow aging, could we possibly make it to 150－or beyond?
Researchers don’t entirely agree on the answers. “Calment lived to 122, so it wouldn’t surprise me if someone alive today reaches 130 or 135, ”says Jerry Shay at the University of Texas.
Steve Austad at the University of Texas agrees. “People can live much longer than we think, ”he says. “Experts used to say that humans couldn’t live past 110. When Calment blew past that age, they raised the number to 120. So why can’t we go higher? ”
The trouble with guessing how old people can live to be is that it’s all just guessing. “Anyone can make up a number, ”says Rich Miller at the University of Michigan. “Usually the scientist who picks the highest number gets his name in Time magazine. ”
Won’t new anti-aging techniques keep us alive for centuries? Any cure, says Miller, for aging would probably keep most of us kicking until about 120. Researchers are working on treatments that lengthen the life span of mice by 50 percent at most. So, if the average human life span is about 80 years, says Miller, “adding another 50 percent would get you to 120. ”
So what can we conclude from this little disagreement among the researchers? That life span is flexible（有弹性的）, but there is a limit, says George Martin of the University of Washington. “We can get flies to live 50 percent longer, ”he says. “But a fly’s never going to live 150 years. ”Of course, if you became a new species （物种）, one that ages at a slower speed, that would be a different story, he adds.
Does Martin really believe that humans could evolve （进化）their way to longer life? “It’s pretty cool to think about, ”he says with a smile. What does the story of Jeanne Calment prove to us?
| A．People can live to 122. |
| B．Old people are creative. |
| C．Women are sporty at 85. |
| D．Women live longer than men. |
According to Steve Austad at the University of Texas, ______.
| A．the average human life span could be 110 |
| B．scientists cannot find ways to slow aging |
| C．few people can expect to live to over 150 |
| D．researchers are not sure how long people can live |
Who would agree that a scientist will become famous if he makes the wildest guess at longevity?
| A．Jerry Shay. | B．Steve Austad |
| C．Rich Miller | D．George Martin |
What can we infer from the last three paragraphs?
| A．Most of us could be good at sports even at 120. |
| B．The average human life span cannot be doubled |
| C．Scientists believe mice are aging at a slower speed than before. |
| D．New techniques could be used to change flies into a new species |
Nutrition influences not only students' grades at school but their growth and development. Improper nutrition is one of the causes of childhood obesity. What can you do to help your child avoid childhood obesity?
My first piece of advice is to look in your fridge. What are you buying at the grocery store? Think about it: if you don't buy junk food or snacks, your kids won't eat them at home. Now if you're like me — both of your kids are at school, you'll know you can't police them every second of the day. This is the time when you'll need to talk to your children about their food choices. If you don't know the right food choices, there are so many free resources on-line to guide you.
Try new things. I was very surprised to find out my 4-year-old daughter likes balsamic vinegar — she calls it the "black sauce". She likes to have it with tomatoes and cucumbers. You just never know what your kids might like.
Don't get stressed if you can't always prepare something healthy. You may sometimes leave the house and forget to take something out for dinner, or you are running late and there's no time to cook before you have to take one of the kids somewhere. However, you can still make healthy choices while dining out. Many of the fast food restaurants offer fruit and milk instead of soda. I like to buy organic frozen pizzas from the organic market — for a quick dinner solution(解决办法). All the ingredients are natural. What I do is to serve the pizza with something raw: lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, or fruit to try to give the kids something healthy with that meal.
In closing, take baby steps. Don't try to change your family's eating habits in one go, or you'll go nuts.This passage is written mainly to us
| A．explain why today’s kids are overweight |
| B．tell us the importance of healthy eating |
| C．give parents some healthy eating tips |
| D．teach parents what to cook at home |
The writer believes it is very important for parents to
| A．make sure their fridge is full of food. |
| B．teach their children how to eat healthily |
| C．check their children’s grades at school |
| D．provide their children with their favorite food |
Paragraph 4 tells parents they should .
| A．never take their kids to a fast food restaurant |
| B．eat out in a nice restaurant with their kids at times |
| C．choose healthy food while eating out with their kids |
| D．cook healthy food for their kids however busy they are |
According to the passage, it does NOT seem to be a good idea to .
| A．tell children what to eat at school |
| B．find free resources on healthy eating online |
| C．put balsamic vinegar on tomatoes or cucumbers |
| D．try to change a family’s eating habits in a very short time |
The success of Pickwick Papers made Dickens very popular. He suddenly found himself at twenty-four the most famous novelist of his day. Busy as his social life was, he worked on two novels at the same time－Oliver Twist and Pickwick Papers. He was particularly proud of Pickwick, which was a huge success and was regarded as a comedy (喜剧)masterpiece(杰作). “If I were to live a hundred years and write novels in each, I should never be so proud of any of them as I am proud of Pickwick Papers,” he said.
It has been said of Dickens that he grasped（抓住）the imagination of his readers because his imagination grasped himself. The people in his works were so real that they could make him laugh or cry. When writing Oliver Twist he said that he could not rest until Fagin, the wrongdoer(做坏事的人), had been hanged.
Dickens’ marriage to Catherine Hagarth, with whom he had nine children, ended unhappily in 1858. He started to travel about giving readings of his works. His interest in theater gave his novels the qualities that made them suitable for reading aloud on the stage. A tiring travel to the United States affected his health. On June 9, 1870, when he was working on a new novel, he died, as he had wished. He said he wanted to die working. Dickens became a famous novelist .
| A．because his social work |
| B．with the success of Pickwick Papers |
| C．because he was writing two novels at the same time |
| D．when he began to give readings of his works |
According to this passage, we know that Dickens.
| A．was only interested in writing novels |
| B．didn’t like Oliver Twist |
| C．wished to live one hundred years and write three novels in each |
| D．didn’t think he could write a better novel than Pick wick Papers in his life |
Fagin must be .
| A．a person in real life |
| B．a character in Oliver Twist |
| C．a character in Pickwick Papers |
| D．one of Dickens’ works |
Which of the following is TRUE?
| A．Dickens had a happy marriage to Catherine Hagarth |
| B．Dickens was a successful actor |
| C．Dickens’ death had little to do with his hard work |
| D．Dickens had wished to die in the course of his work |
A messy desk can actually lead people towards clearer thinking, say researchers from Germany．
The researchers found in a series of linked studies - using a messy desk and a messy shop front - that people actually thought more clearly when all around was chaos, as they sought to simplify the tasks at hand.
Visual and mental clutter（阻塞） forces human beings to focus and think more clearly.
Famous thinkers and writers such as Albert Einstein and Roald Dahl have been notorious（声名狼藉的） for their untidy desks.
“Messy desks may not be as detrimental（有害的） as they appear to be, as the problem-solving approaches they seem to cause can improve work efficiency or increase employees' creativity in problem solving,” say the authors.
“Business and government managers often promote 'clean desk' policies to avoid disorganized offices and messy desks, for the purpose of boosting work efficiency and productivity,” writes lead researcher Jia Liu of the University of Groningen in a paper published in the Journal of Consumer Research.
“This practice is based on the conventional wisdom that a disorganized and messy environment can clutter one's mind and complicate one's judgments.”
“However, not all evidence supports this conventional link between a messy environment and a messy mind.”
The scientists tested people's response in various 'messy' environments - including a messy shop front, a disorganized desk, and even a work environment where a language task 'reminded' people of messiness.
The authors found in the series of six studies people tended towards simplicity in their thinking.
“They categorized （分类） products in a simpler manner, were willing to pay more for a T-shirt that shows a simple-looking picture, and sought less variety in their choices.” said the researchers. The purpose of the first two paragraphs is to show that _____．
| A．A messy desk cannot contribute to clearer thinking |
| B．People thought more clearly about a messy desk and a shop front |
| C．People will feel confused when all around are chaos |
| D．People manage to simplify the tasks in messy environments |
Why does the author take Albert Einstein as an example?
| A．to support the idea that clearer thinking comes from messy environment． |
| B．to tell the fact that Einstein was known for his untidy desks． |
| C．to stop us from learning from Albert Einstein． |
| D．to call on us to develop a good habit． |
How do people look at messy environment according to the conventional wisdom?
| A．Messy environment will create clearer thinking． |
| B．Messy environment will simplify one' s judgment． |
| C．Messy environment can promote work efficiency． |
| D．Messy environment can block one' s mind． |
What does the last paragraph imply?
| A．People believe messy environment creates clearer thinking． |
| B．People sought more simplicity in the choices． |
| C．People were not willing to choose those complicated products． |
| D．Not all the people accept messy environment and complicated things |
We can slow down aging. That is the message Dr. Shen Ziyin wants to give the world. And the Chinese doctor claims that he has found an answer to the problems of aging. His solution is a herbal medicine（草药）to slow the process of aging.
Dr. Shen Ziyin has been trained in Western medicine. At the same time he studied traditional Chinese medicine. And, he has been working for the past forty years to put together the best of both and find a cure for aging. He has taken a hint from the ancient Chinese medicine system called “Shen”.
According to Shen, it is the kidney（肾脏）which adjusts the functioning of the body as well as its aging process. It is responsible for the level of activity that the human bodies go through. Studies conducted by Dr. Shen show that herbal medicine based on the Shen system slows the aging process, says a report in the Telegraph newspaper. We notice that when people grow old, they have reduced strength, loss of hair, backache, weakness, wrinkles and so on. This happens because when people grow old, their bodies produce T-cells. These T-cells contain a particular substance（物质）called Fas. Fas makes the cells in the body destruct themselves.
So the only way to slow down aging is to slow the production of T-cells in the body. This can happen if people eat low calorie food. Then the body is not active enough to produce extra T-cells. But, is going hungry all the time a good price to pay for staying young? This is where Dr. Shen’s herbal medicine comes in. But how effective it will be, only time can tell. How did Dr. Shen find the solution to the problem of aging?
| A．By studying Western medicine. |
| B．By learning traditional Chinese medicine. |
| C．By combining both Western and Chinese medicine. |
| D．By doing research on both Western and Chinese people. |
What plays the most important role in keeping people young according to Shen?
| A．Medical treatment. |
| B．People’s good kidney |
| C．Positive life attitude. |
| D．Level of people’s activity. |
The reason why people become old is that_____.
| A．their bodies produce T-cells |
| B．they become weaker and weaker |
| C．they have reduced strength, loss of hair |
| D．their bodies are unable to fight diseases |
We can probably learn from the passage that______.
| A．producing more low calorie food allows people to keep young |
| B．the more Chinese herbal medicine people drink, the better for health |
| C．people should try to quicken the production of T-cells in the body |
| D．it remains unknown how effective Dr. Shen’s herbal medicine is |