Some colors people see late at night could cause signs of the condition mental health experts call clinical depression(临床抑郁症). That was the finding of a study that builds on earlier study findings. They show that individuals who live or work in low levels of light overnight can develop clinical depression.
Doctors use the word clinical depression to describe severe form of depression. Signs may include loss of interest or pleasure in most activities, low energy levels and thoughts of death or suicide.
In the new study, American investigators designed an experiment that exposed hamsters（仓鼠）to different colors. The researchers chose hamsters because they are nocturnal, which means they sleep during the day and are active at night. The animals were separated into four groups. One group of hamsters was kept in the dark during their night-time period. Another group was placed in front of a blue light, a third group slept in front of a white light, while a fourth was put in front of a red light. After four weeks, the researchers noted how much sugary water the hamsters drank. They found that the most depressed animals drank the least amount of water.
Randy Nelson, at Ohio State University, says animals that slept in blue and white light appeared to be the most depressed. “What we saw is that these animals didn’t show any sleep interruptions at all but they did mess up biological clock (生物钟) genes and they did show depressive sign but if they were in the dim red light, they did not.” He says there’s a lot of blue in white light. This explains why the blue light and white light hamsters appear to be more depressed than the hamsters seeing red light or darkness.From the text we know that ________ made the hamster feel depressed.
| A．the amount of the water | B．the colour of the light |
| C．the loss of pleasure | D．the level of energy |
What was the purpose of the experiment on hamsters?
| A．To show how well they slept. |
| B．To see how much sugary water they drank. |
| C．To explain why they liked dark colours. |
| D．To find out what caused the depression on them. |
The author explains the clinical depression by _________.
| A．reporting an experiment process |
| B．presenting research data |
| C．setting down general rules |
| D．giving his own experience |
Where can we probably find the text?
| A．In a science magazine. |
| B．In a physics textbook |
| C．In a tourist guidebook. |
| D．In an official announcement. |
Country music is one of the most popular kinds of music in the United States today because it is about simple but strong human feelings and events-love, sadness, good times, and bad times. It tells real-life stories and sounds the way people really talk, as life becomes more complicated (复杂的) it is good to hear music about ordinary people.
Country music, sometimes called country-western, comes from two lands of music. One is the traditional music of the people in. the Appalachian Mountains in the eastern United States. The other is traditional cowboy music from the west. The singers usually play guitars, and in the 1920s they started using electric guitars.
At first city people said country music was low class. It was popular mostly in the South. But during World War II, thousands of Southerners went to the northeast and Midwest to work in the factories. They took their music with them. Soldiers from the rest of the country went to army camps in the South. They learned country music. Slowly it became popular all over the country.
Today country music is also popular everywhere in the United States and Canada—in small tows and in New York City, among black and white, and among educated and uneducated people. About 1,200 radio stations broadcast country music twenty-four hours day, English stars sing it. In British English, and people in other countries sing it in their own languages. The music that started with cowboys and poor southerners is now popular all over the world.It can be learned from the passage that country music comes from_____.
| A．the northeast and Midwest |
| B．factories and army camps in the South |
| C．the Appalachian Mountains and the West |
| D．real-life stories in small towns |
During World War II many Southerners went to the Northeast and the Midwest because______.
| A．they wanted to take music with them |
| B．they wanted to make other people like country music |
| C．they wanted to work in the factories there |
| D．they wanted to make country music popular |
Country music is one of the most popular kinds of music in the world today because _______.
| A．many people said it was low class |
| B．people could sing it in different languages |
| C．it started with cowboys and poor Southerners |
| D．It is loved by different kinds of people in the world |
Which of the following is true according to the passage?
| A．Country music is sung by stars all in English. |
| B．Country music is about human feelings and events. |
| C．Country music is only popular with city people today. |
| D．The singers started using electric guitars in the 1930s. |
Americans have contributed to many art forms, but Jazz a type of music, is one that was not started in the United States. Blacks, who sang and played the music of their homeland, created jazz.
Jazz is a mixture of the music of Africa, the work songs the slaves sang and religious(宗教的) music. Improvisation is an important part of jazz. This means that musicians make the music up as they go along, or create the music on the spot. This is why a jazz song might sound a little different each time it is played
Jazz bands formed in the late 1800s. They played in bars and clubs in many towns and cities of the South, especially in New Orleans. New Orleans is an international seaport, and people from all over the world came to New Orleans to hear jazz.
Jazz became more and more popular. By the 1920s, jazz was popular all over the United States. By the 1940s, you could hear jazz not only in clubs and bars, But in concert halls as well. Today, people from all over the world play jazz. Jazz musicians from the United States, Asia, Africa, South America, and Europe meet and share their music at festivals on every continent. In this way jazz continues to grow and change.What can be the best title of the passage?
| A．American Art Forms |
| B．The Development of Jazz |
| C．The Music of Black Americans |
| D．The Birthplace of Jazz |
Which of the following is true?
| A．Jazz is now popular all over the world. |
| B．Jazz is now a kind of religious music. |
| C．Jazz is now played only in bars and clubs. |
| D．Jazz is now played in the same way as before. |
From the text it can be inferred that
| A．New Orleans is the place where jazz was first produced |
| B．the American people are all jazz lovers |
| C．jazz is merely sung by the black when working |
| D．jazz may become more popular as time goes on |
It took about _____years to make jazz popular in the United States.
| A．200 | B．120 | C．80 | D．40 |
Like the Five Olympic Rings from which they draw their color and inspiration, the Five Friendlies will serve as the Official Mascots of Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, carrying a message of friendship and peace and blessings from China to children all over the world.
Designed to express the playful qualities of five little children who form an intimate circle of friends, the Five Friendlies also embody the natural characteristics of four of China’s most popular animals—the Fish, the Panda, the Tibetan Antelope, the Swallow—and the Olympic Flame.
Each of the Friendlies has a rhyming two-syllable name—a traditional way of expressing affection for children in China. Beibei is the Fish, Jingjing is the Panda, Huanhuan is the Olympic Flame, Yingying is the Tibetan Antelope and Nini is the Swallow.
When you put their names together—Bei Jing Huan Ying Ni—they say “Welcome to Beijing,” offering a warm invitation that reflects the mission of the Five Friendlies as young ambassadors for the Olympic Games.
The Five Friendlies also embody both the landscape and the dreams and aspirations of people from every part of the vast country of China. In their origins and their headpieces, you can see the five elements of nature—the sea, forest, fire, earth and sky—all stylistic rendered in ways that represent the deep traditional influences of Chinese folk art and ornamentation.The Official Mascots of Beijing 2008 Olympic Games carry the following messages EXCEPT .
| A．friendship | B．peace | C．love | D．blessing |
The Five Friendlies embody .
| A．the sea and the forest | B．the fire and the earth |
| C．the sky and the earth | D．the natural characteristics, landscape, the dreams and aspirations |
What does the Five Friendlies mean when put together?
| A．Welcome to Beijing. |
| B．They represent the five elements of nature—the sea, forest, fire, earth and sky. |
| C．They are designed to express the playful qualities of five little children. |
| D．They represent the deep traditional influences of Chinese folk art and ornamentation. |
COLUMBUS, Ohio—The heart operation taking place in the pale-green operating room at the Ohio State University Medical Center was unusual. The patient, a 62-year-old man, was made to sleep, tied with blue drapes（消毒帷帘）and lying face up on a narrow table. But no one was touching him.
Instead, the operation was being performed by a robot, whose three metal arms went through pencil-sized holes in the man’s chest. At the ends of the robot’s arms were tiny metal fingers, with turning wrists, which held a tiny instrument, a light and a camera. The robot’s arms and fingers were controlled by Dr. Randall K. Wolf, sitting at a computer in a corner of the operating room about 20 feet away.
This sort of operation, heart surgeons say, is the start of what may be the biggest change in their profession since heart bypass surgery（心脏搭桥手术）began nearly 30 years ago. “The reason we make cuts is that we have big hands,” said Dr. Wolf, the director of the surgery at Ohio State. The robot’s dainty fingers, no longer than a nail on the small finger, at the end of the long sticks could work better.
Eventually, surgeons believe, most heart surgery will be done by robots whose arms are put in through pencil-sized holes punched in patients’ chests. Instead of directly staring into a patient’s body, surgeons will view magnified images of the operation on computer screens. In theory, the doctor would not have to be in the same room, or even the same country, as the patient.In this passage, the underlined word “dainty” means ______.
| A．weak | B．small | C．fat | D．quick |
According to the passage, the reason that most operations require large cuts is that ______.
| A．patients have large organs | B．surgeons have large hands |
| C．large cuts take less time | D．large cuts cost less money |
The main idea of this passage is that heart surgery by robots ______.
| A．is quicker than surgery done by doctors | B．may replace surgery done by doctors |
| C．is a new and risky procedure | D．was developed at Ohio State University |
Based on the information in this passage, all of the following conclusions are true EXCEPT ______.
| A．Robot surgery is being developed at Ohio State |
| B．Robot surgery will be used on many patients in the near future |
| C．All doctors at Ohio Sate develop new surgical techniques |
| D．Many hospitals will eventually offer robot surgery to patients |
Recently a group of children in America poured some gasoline on a sleeping man and set him on fire. When caught, the children said they had done what they’d seen on TV.
The incidents make people angry who believe that American children are harmed by watching too much TV. They claim children can’t tell between the fiction of TV and reality, and TV distracts them from learning and makes them violent.
To estimate the impact of TV on young people, “Life” magazine hires a company to interview hundreds of school children in Nora Springs, Iowa and in Dallas, Texas. Although the two cities are very different, the company finds children in each city watch the same TV shows.
Many Iowa children, who watch an average of three hours of TV a day, recognizing that life on TV is rosier than what they experience. Their favourite shows are situation comedies about American families in trouble. Many boys like violent shows about police detectives or heroes, girls particularly soap operas-stories about families and friends.
On the whole, children find real violence on news programs hard to take. “If you see a bus crash on the news, it’s frightening,” one fifth grader says. By and large, the Iowa children agree that the best thing about TV is it makes you laugh.
Children in Dallas are savvier about programs of drug use on TV. “They don’t really show them doing it right. On TV they are not real.” A fifth grader says.
“Life” agrees with a 1988 study by the U. S Department of education that finds children are none the worse for watching TV. The study finds TV doesn’t have lasting effect on children. On the contrary, kids show good judgment about what they watch. “There are very few good shows on TV anymore,” a 10-year-old boy says.
While the debate about TV is so heated, the “Life” survey gives hope that American kids aren’t wasting three or four hours a day (what is worse, by the time young people enter college today, they will have devoted more time to watching television than they will spend in college). However, a child watching TV isn’t reading a good book or joining in healthful sports.The main idea of the passage is .
| A．children who watch more TV are smarter than those who watch only one hour a day |
| B．children learn about drugs from watching TV |
| C．watching too much TV can cause children to go out and kill people |
| D．children learn from TV and can tell reality from what they see on it |
Children who see real violence on TV news programs .
| A．change the channel to watch other programs | B．live in Iowa or Texas |
| C．are sometimes upset and scared | D．think TV gives a very positive image of friendship |
Children who enter college today.
| A．usually cause the satisfaction of the society |
| B．think life on TV is happier than their life at home |
| C．have spent more time watching TV than they will spend in college |
| D．watch most the same TV shows as children in Dallas |
The “Life” survey of children’s TV habits .
| A．concludes that watching up to seven hours a day of TV is good for children |
| B．agrees with the U.S. Department of Education study that finds few negative effects from watching TV |
| C．concludes that there aren’t any good shows on TV any more |
| D．concludes that children shouldn’t pour gasoline on sleeping man |