【推荐2】Exergaming

Exergaming consists of doing exercise with video games. And there are lots to choose from. Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) is a fun way to work out. Simply stand on a platform and hit the colored arrows with your feet as you follow the instructions on the screen. You score points by hitting the right arrow at the right time. As a tagline says, “Taking dancing to a whole new level!” For a gentler form of exercise, try the “Wii Fit” series of games. You can do yoga, strength training and aerobics when standing on a balance board. Personalize your workout, or exercise with a friend, competing in games!

Anti-shoes

Anti-shoes are designed to exercise parts of your body while you’re walking. They’re meant to improve your posture, and strengthen your legs and back muscles. The shoes were invented by Swiss engineer Karl Mulier. He discovered that the Kenyan Masai tribespeople (who often walkbarefoot) don’t suffer from back pain and are famous for their perfect posture. So, he decided that the answer was a shoe with a curved sole (弯曲的鞋底) and no heel. Walking on this type of shoes is similar to the rocking motion of feet walking on soft sand or grass.

Zumba

Zumba is a fun form of exerise. As a tagline says, “Ditch the workout, join the party!” Zumba is a Latin-inspired fitness dance program that uses hip -hop, samba, mambo, martial arts and belly dance moves to get you in shape. It was created by accident when aerobics teacher forgot his exercise CD and used his own salsa music instead. There are lots of different types of classes for all levels, including “Zumbatomic” children aged 4 to 12, “Zumba Gold” for older participants, and “Aqua Zumba.” among many others.

1. If you want to release your back pain, you can choose ______.

A．Exergaming.

B．Wii Fit.

C．Anti-shoes.

D．Zumba.

2. According to the text, which of the following statements is TRUE?

A．You can play “Wii Fit” games on a platform.	B．Zumba is too difficult for the elderly to dance.
C．Kenyans are healthier than other people.	D．Zumba is a combination of many types of dancing.

3. The target readers of the text are probably those who ______.

A．are interested in hiking.	B．like playing video games.
C．want to improve dancing skills.	D．try some new kinds of exercise.

【推荐3】When I joined my middle school’s cross-country team in 8th grade, I was forced to wake up at 7 AM to get to summer practices on time.     1    

During these morning practices, I always felt tired and half asleep. On top of that, my stomach hurt no matter what I ate. As a result, I didn’t look forward to my runs. I knew I had to get through them to experience the fun part-racing, but I also wished I didn’t feel this way.

    2     One was in the morning and the other was in the evening. I looked forward to sleeping in, having my whole day ahead of me, and being fully awake and well fueled by the time practice rolled around.     3     I was once again stuck with the 8 AM practice time. It was difficult to show up each and every morning, but I did it anyway, because I knew my teammates were counting on me.

After I decided to run in college, I had to find a way to better prepare myself for early morning exercise, including a xkw weekly AM swim session. It wasn’t always easy or fun, but I put my head down and worked through each session, knowing that my race times would ultimately benefit. With all that said, you might be thinking that the best time to exercise is early in the morning.     4    

It is impossible to find a time to exercise that is the best for every single person, because everyone has unique schedule and body.     5     Anyhow, the best time to work out is when it fits into your schedule, you feel energized and ready to go, and most importantly, you enjoy doing it.

A．But that is actually not necessarily the case.

B．Unfortunately, the evening practice option was cancelled soon.

C．Therefore, the evening practice option was gaining popularity soon.

D．The best time to work out for you might not be the best time for me.

E．When I got to high school, we got to choose between two practice times.

F．Unsurprisingly, this is when my hate for exercising early in the morning began.

G．There are advantages and disadvantages to exercising in the morning, afternoon, and evening.

【推荐1】Earth could be home to 9,000 more species of trees than previously believed, according to scientists. The latest estimate of the number of tree species in the world shows there are about 73,000 different types of trees in existence. It took academics three years to count them all. In all, 150 scientists working with the Global Forest Biodiversity Initiative are behind the study.

The team collected an extensive database of forest tree species around the world and then mapped them. Then they used artificial intelligence and a supercomputer to do complex calculations, which discovered there are in fact 73,000 tree species.

Before the research was conducted, scientists’ knowledge of trees in many parts of the world was patchy as data was only collected by observation or making lists of trees in different areas. Of the newly found species, 40 percent of them could be in grasslands and tropical (热带的) forests in South America.

Study author Roberto Cazzolla Gatti, a professor from the University of Bologna, said: “We combined individual datasets, coming from someone going out to a forest stand and measuring every single tree, into one massive global dataset of tree-level data. Counting the number of tree species worldwide is like a puzzle with pieces spreading all over the world. We, the Global Forest Biodiversity Initiative, solved it together as a team, each sharing our own piece.”

Researchers say their findings highlight how delicate biodiversity is and how weak it is to changes caused by humans, such as the climate crisis and unsustainable land use, with rare species being at the greatest risk. Extensive knowledge of tree richness and diversity is key to preserving the stability and functionality of the ecosystem.

1. How many tree species were originally believed to exist on Earth?

A．About 9,000.

B．About 64,000.

C．About 73,000.

D．About 82,000.

2. What does the underlined word “patchy” mean in paragraph 3?

A．Broad.

B．Changeable.

C．Incomplete.

D．Reliable.

3. What does professor Gatti think highly of during the research?

A．Advanced measuring methods.	B．A well-designed plan.
C．Individual financial assistance.	D．Integrated cooperation.

4. What is the last paragraph mainly about?

A．The significance of the research findings.

B．The prospect of the research application.

C．The challenge of carrying out the research.

D．The background information of researchers.

【推荐3】Whenever you pick up an apple and prepare to eat it, you may notice a small sticker attached to the fruit with a row of four or five numbers on it.That string of numbers is something called a Price Look-Up (PLU) code.     1     It’s designed to help supermarkets get to know their inventory (库存) of fruits and vegetables, and to make it easy for checkout clerks to know what to charge for a particular item. Thus, you can get through the line and out of the door more quickly.

From the code, you can also know what specific variety of a particular fruit or vegetable you’re going to enjoy — whether it’s a Honeycrisp apple or a Shamouti orange. And it may tell you the size of the fruit or vegetable.     2     You may know whether it was grown conventionally (常规地) or on an organic farm.

A volunteer committee developed PLUs in 1988. One important reason why PLUs were invented was to enable supermarkets to tell the difference between conventionally grown fruits and vegetables and higher-priced organic food. As organic produce was being introduced then, cashiers often wrongly sold it at the conventional price.     3     There are now more than 1,500 different PLUs in use around the globe.     4     Just type in the code from a sticker on a piece of fruit, and it will tell you that 3114, for example, refers to an extra large green mango,belonging to the Keitt or Francis varieties of that fruit.

    5     The produce industry has been trying to develop biodegradable (可生物降解的) PLUstickers, but it’s difficult to do that. Eventually, PLUstickers may be replaced altogether by lasers that mark the codes on fruits and vegetables.

A．The function is fairly simple.

B．PLU codes have a long history.

C．You probably think organic food is healthier.

D．The appearance of PLUs helped solve this problem.

E．Besides, it shows where the fruit or vegetable comes from.

F．The future of fruit and vegetable stickers is still uncertain.

G．You can use the PLU search app to know what a particular one means.