【推荐1】Even if you know that working out will make you feel great, it can still be hard to motivate yourself to get up and do it. However,     1    , you can get back on track no matter how long it’s been since you worked out!

    2    . Think about the reasons you want to work out, and a few fitness goals you’d like to achieve. Put the list somewhere you’ll see it often, like on the refrigerator or near your bathroom mirror.

Make bargains with yourself if you’re having trouble getting started. Sometimes the hardest part of working out is taking the first step. If you’re finding it hard to get started, try bargaining with yourself.     3    . After that, try telling yourself to just go outside, do your warm-up routine, or drive to the gym.

Keep a fitness journal and write down your feelings after each workout. You can use this journal to keep up with your progress, too.     4    , take out the journal and read how good each workout made you feel, and look at how far you’ve come.

Set up rewards for when you complete a workout or hit a new goal. Think of something that will motivate you when the workout gets tough or you don’t want to get off the sofa.     5    .

A．if it is the case

B．When you don’t feel like working out

C．Try to include both short-term and long-term goals on your list

D．They can be anything that you look forward to, for example, buying a new pair of shoes you’ve been eyeing

E．if you acquire some tricks that can help you

F．Write down a list of achievable goals and look at it often

G．Tell yourself you just have to put on your workout clothes, but you don’t have to do anything else

【推荐2】The last attempt of Ken Campbell to run could date back to high school. When his wife, Susan, injured her foot, she needed support to rejoin her running group, so Campbell went along to keep her company in the recovery. “We were just walking at the beginning,” he says, “I was heavy, and weighed over 90kg.” But as the weeks and months passed, the weight fell away, Susan recovered and Campbell’s abilities grew. At the age of 63, he ran 50 km, and at 70, he completed a 100 km ultramarathon (超长距离马拉松赛跑).

So how does someone with no experience of running become an ultradistance runner in his 60s and 70s? Susan had run marathons (马拉松比赛) before her injury, but for Campbell, the turning point came when Susan’s Fleet Feet running group started training near their home.

Campbell went out to visit Susan’s group, and “the paths were a terrible mess. It had been raining, and I was slipping, sliding and falling. But I thought, well, I like this a lot.” What he liked above all was the feeling of “being wrapped by the path, being hugged by the closeness of the plants and the nearness of the river”.

Running the 100 km ultramarathon took Campbell 16 hours. When Campbell crossed the finish line, Susan handed him a 100 km sticker to display on the back of his truck. “It is a public statement that you are part of this community,” he says. “Wherever we park, I see a line of vehicles with their various stickers and I feel that we are a community.”

Campbell suffered from arthritis before he started running, and was “waiting for knee replacement”, but for now, he no longer needs an operation. It can put an end to the running—but the “sense of wellbeing and achievement will carry me on forever,” he says, “If I can’t run, I will walk.”

1. What is Paragraph 1 mainly about?

A．Why Campbell attempted to run marathon.

B．What led to Campbell’s weight loss.

C．What made Campbell start running.

D．What Campbell did for Susan’s recovery.

2. What was the turning point for Campbell?

A．His visit to Susan’s group.	B．Feeling free in nature.
C．Falling down when training.	D．Susan’s starting training.

3. What did the 100 km sticker mean to Campbell?

A．A sense of achievement.	B．Encouragement from his wife.
C．A sense of belonging.	D．Display of his happiness.

4. What can we learn from the passage?

A．Well begun is half done.	B．Actions speak louder than words.
C．Failure is the mother of success.	D．It is never too late to begin.

【推荐3】It is hard to say I was a runner years ago. The longest I had ever run was 5 km. What’s more, I didn’t like running. No matter how hard I tried, every so often I would fasten my old shoes, walk out of the house with heavy steps, get less than a mile in and wonder why I was bothering, especially when there are many more satisfying ways of exercising.

Before last summer, I had never taken part in any kind of race at all. But at the end of July, I completed a triathlon(三项全能)after two weeks’ training. At the end of it came the run—which ended up more like a walk. Then I realized something about it attracted me. The extremely painful fun of doing something I hated and was unprepared for turned out to be an excitement. The difficulty felt like something to test my abilities.

When an invitation of the Berlin Marathon dropped onto my desk a few weeks after the triathlon, it felt like a change of fate. After the triathlon, I didn’t say I should start running at once. Was it because I hate running? In fact, in course of running I enjoyed the joy of exceeding my limits. I felt necessary to find out again where those limits might lie. So I said yes.

Training for a marathon often takes at least 20 weeks or more. The training plan becomes something to stop me worrying when the race seems too frightening. This worry feels impossible to avoid, but there is something equally sure about the training plan: if I follow it, then I have done everything I can; if I do everything I can, then I won’t regret what comes at the end.

1. What aspect of the triathlon drew the writer?

A．The special feeling of facing a challenge.

B．The fun of walking to the finish line.

C．The excitement of winning a race.

D．The two-week painful training.

2. Why did the writer accept the invitation of the Berlin Marathon?

A．He was eager to change his destiny.

B．He wasn’t supposed to stop running.

C．He wanted to realize his full potential.

D．He was keen on taking part in another triathlon.

3. Which of the following words can best describe the writer?

A．Patient and pessimistic.	B．Courageous and determined.
C．Helpful and persistent.	D．Energetic and changeable.

4. What can be learned from the text?

A．A bad beginning makes a bad ending.

B．Challenge ourselves to live without regrets.

C．Life is full of challenges that can’t be avoided.

D．Exercise is to the body what reading is to the mind.

【推荐1】Parrots live extremely long partly due to their relatively large brains; an international team of researchers has discovered. Simeon Smeele, a doctoral student at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, led the study, the results of which were published in March in the Proceedings of the Royal Society.

When it comes to lifespan, birds truly stand out. Lifespan tends to increase with an animal’s body size, roughly speaking. Thus, the bigger the animal, the longer they live. But a bird tends to live much longer than a comparably-sized mammal. One theory is that birds’ ability to fly means they are less at risk from the animals that kill them, which reduces their risk of being eaten, decreases stress, and frees up bodily resources for growth.

And among birds, parrots are the aging champions. The confirmed longest-living bird was Cookie, a Major Mitchell’s cockatoo (a species of parrot), who lived at the Brookfield Zoo in Illinois for all but one of his 83 years. Though cockatoos often weigh around a pound, they usually live for four decades. Most of the other 398 parrot species also live longer than other birds of similar size.

What sets parrots apart? In the new research, Smeele and his colleagues gathered data on over 130,000 individual parrots held in more than 1,000 zoos, representing 217 species. Through this data, they created reliable estimates of the average lifespan for each species. They next searched for a link between each species’ lifespan and its relative brain size and found a clear, positive correspondence. Parrot species with larger brains relative to their body size lived longer than species with smaller brains.

“This supports the idea that in general larger brains make species more flexible. For flexibility allows them to live longer.” Smeele said in a statement. “For example, if they run out of their favorite food, they could learn to find something new and thus survive.” He added, “All parrots have relatively large brain sizes compared to most other birds.”

Researchers have previously shown that, when trained, some parrots can recognize and understand objects, colors, and shapes, and even speak with an impressive vocabulary. They can even match five-year-old humans on basic tests of intelligence.

1. What do we know about parrots according to the text?

A．They outlive other similar-sized birds.

B．They live longer in the zoo than in the wild.

C．They have an average lifespan of four decades.

D．They live in relatively less competitive environments.

2. What does the underlined word “correspondence” in Paragraph 4 probably mean?

A．Goal.

B．Evidence.

C．Difference.

D．Connection.

3. With the example in Paragraph 5，what does the author want to stress?

A．Parrots find it hard to survive nowadays.

B．Bigger brains give parrots more adaptability.

C．Parrots like to discover new things by nature.

D．Bigger brains aid parrots with their social ability.

4. What would be the best title for the text?

A．Why do parrots live so long?	B．Why are parrots so intelligent?
C．What do parrots do for a living?	D．What are the longest living animals?

【推荐3】Cat behaviors can vary enormously from one cat to another. They are certainly interesting creatures with many cute and sometimes strange habits that often have us wondering.    1    Why do cats like high places? Wild cats were predators (捕食者), and frequenting high places meant they had somewhere safe to view their territory, watch for danger, and attack prey.    2    Our domesticated cats also enjoy watching the world from above, which provides them with a safe, calm place away from the activity in a house.

    3    Both wild and domestic cats are drawn to hiding and sleeping in contained areas. At home, it is often the humble cardboard box. Cats are predators, and a box offers a perfect place to hide while waiting for prey and also to spring out of, as only one entrance exists.

Why does my cat give “gifts”? Cats are well known for leaving us gifts that we may not want, such as lizards or mice.    4    Showing off their catch to you means you are a part of their family and they want to show you their hunting skills.    5    Instead, be sure to offer your cat a variety of toys to help them satisfy these natural bunting instincts.

A．Why do cats sit in boxes?

B．Why do cats like playing with boxes?

C．This appears to be coded into their DNA.

D．Don’t express anger, as they will not understand.

E．Cats are predators and will hunt if allowed outdoors.

F．A cat’s natural behavior is to withdraw and hide in stress situation.

G．Veterinarian Dr. Katrina Warren provides answers to your questions about cat behaviors.