Scroll through social media sites such as Instagram, Twitter or Facebook and you will be confronted with picture after picture of perfectly presented and delicious-looking meals. While the smell and taste of food can have an undeniably powerful effect on our cravings, are endless posts of steaming snacks more than just a feast for our eyes?
Our eating habits are influenced by what we see. “There is some evidence that, if you see pictures of food, that visual stimulation can prompt you to feel a desire to eat,” says Suzanne Higgs, a professor in the psychobiology of appetite. “If all your fiends on social media are posting pictures or livestreaming of themselves consuming fast food, it’s going to set a norm that eating fast food is what people do.” says Higgs.
Scientists are becoming increasingly concerned that food-related content on social media is making us think differently about food. Social media algorithms promote content that users engage with more, so viewing more unhealthy food means seeing more of it on our social media feeds.
It seems that healthier foods are often seen as boring in comparison, says Tina Tessitore, associate professor of marketing, “In advertising, you see unhealthy food in social settings—people having a barbecue with friends, for example, while healthy food often focuses more on the nutritional value. If you saw friends eating salad together, it would seem so incredible,” she says.
But while studies have found that social media can make us think differently about food, and that we typically engage more with content featuring unhealthy food, it’s uncertain yet whether this actually translates to our changes in our behavior in daily life. “If I’m scrolling through Instagram, looking at photos of tasty food, whether I seek out the food depends on how hungry I am, and whether it’s appropriate in that moment,” says Higgs. And when we do eat, we’re influenced by more than what we’ve seen online, she adds.
1. What does the author want to tell us in the first two paragraphs?| A．The flavour of food can stimulate our appetite. |
| B．There are many food posts on the social media. |
| C．Social media can help us establish healthy habits. |
| D．Food posts can bring us negative impacts as well. |
| A．People have got used to viewing unhealthy food. |
| B．Social media always encourage us to eat more. |
| C．Food posts may have negative effects on people. |
| D．Consuming fast food is becoming more common. |
| A．More attention has been paid to healthier foods. |
| B．All healthy food seems to lack nutritional value. |
| C．Friends can hardly be seen eating salad together. |
| D．Having a barbecue is healthier than eating salad. |
| A．Social media is changing our daily behavior. |
| B．More factors are influencing our eating habits. |
| C．Photos of tasty food always appeal to us to eat. |
| D．People have formed the same idea of food eating. |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】One of the most popular street food found in China is no doubt the barbecue. A new programme, called the Story of Chuaner, tells the story of this popular food cooked over hot coals on just about every street corner in cities and towns across the country. Barbecued meat is an important part of people’s nightlife.
Shown on June 20, the programme has had more than 25 million clicks on the video site bilibili.com. To find the most popular barbecue stalls(摊位), the production team travelled to more than 500 locations in 30 cities across the country. Some viewers compare the Story of Chuaner to Midnight Diner, a Japanese TV programme telling stories from late-night informal Japanese bars.
“I’m happy to hear this comparison because Midnight Diner is a good programme and we share the same topic—night food,” the Story of Chuaner’s director Chen Yingjie said. “However, they are quite different.” He said that Midnight Diner focused more on food itself, though there was some conversation while people were eating. However, the night food scene of Chinese people means joy and a more lively atmosphere. People eating these barbecue snacks develop a feeling of connection, which can be a cure for loneliness.
The barbecue, regarded as the most ordinary and common night street snack, is different from home-made food by mothers as that is a symbol of family and kinship. The barbecue is where you go to become connected to people in society. And unlike official business lunches, during which people are rather polite, the barbecue lets people relax with old friends and new friends, leaving a lasting impression of friendship.
The world, as a whole, holds deep-rooted good feelings towards the barbecue, either for the taste or the warmth produced by fire. “What we should do is to present the Chinese barbecue just the way it is. Because with its special ingredients(食材), ways of cooking and more importantly, the special environment and people, the world will recognize it and might fall in love with it just as we do,” said Chen.
1. What do we know about the Story of Chuaner?| A．It has become very popular on the Internet. |
| B．It mainly talks about the most famous Chinese food. |
| C．It is thought highly of by most of the foreign tourists. |
| D．It shows the colourful nightlife in large cities of China. |
| A．It showed the eating habits. | B．It showed more kinds of food. |
| C．It focused more on people. | D．It was less popular than Midnight Diner. |
| A．The importance of the barbecue to family. |
| B．The role of the barbecue in people’s relationship. |
| C．The influence of the barbecue on people’s lifestyle. |
| D．The influence of the barbecue on people’s manners. |
| A．To show the feature of Chinese food. | B．To research a special way of cooking. |
| C．To introduce the history of the barbecue. | D．To help the world understand China. |
Every land has its own dining custom, and the United States is no exception. Americans feel that the first rule of being a polite guest is to be on time. If a person is invited to dinner at 6:30, the hostess expects him to be there at 6:30 or not more than a few minutes later. Because she usually does her own cooking, she times the meal so that the coffee and meat will be at their best at the time she asks the guest to come. If he is late, the food will not be so good, and the hostess will be disappointed. When the guest cannot come on time, he calls his host or hostess, gives the reason, and tells at what time he thinks he can come.
As guests continue to arrive, the men in the group stand when a woman enters and remain standing until she has found a chair. A man always rises when he is being introduced to a woman. A woman does not rise when she is being introduced either to a man or a woman unless the woman she is being introduced to is much older.
When the guests sit down at a dinner table, it is customary for the men to help the ladies by pushing their chairs under them.
Even an American may be confused by the number of knives, forks, and spoons beside his plate when he sits down to a formal dinner. The rule is simple, however: use them in the order in which they lie, beginning from the outside. Or watch the hostess and do what she does. The small fork on the outside on the left is for salad, which is often served with the soup. The spoon on the outside at the right is for soup, and so on. Sometimes there is a separate little knife, called a butter spreader, on a small bread-and-butter plate at the left. As the bread is passed, each guest puts his piece on the bread-and-butter plate.
按具体要求回答下面问题，在答题卡相应题号后的横线上写下相关信息。
1. When a man is introduced to a woman, what does he do? (no more than 3 words)
2. When the guests sit down at a dinner table, how can the men to help the ladies?(no more than 6 words)
3. When you don’t know how to use knives, forks or spoons, what will you do?(no more than 8 words)
4. What is the passage about? (no more than 4 words)
【推荐3】Important Things to Know When Dining Out
Cultural dining manners might surprise you with some of its important rules.
Chopstick Rules
Hands or Utensils (餐具)
In India and the Middle East, it’s considered very rude to eat with your left hand. People in France expect you to eat with a utensil in each hand.
Making Requests
It may seem like a simple request to ask for salt and pepper at a meal. In Portugal, this would be a serious mistake, because it shows the chef that you don’t like their seasoning skills.
Some of these cultural dining manners may seem random and strange, but they are important in various countries.
| A．The more friends you make in your lifetime, |
| B．The more time you spend in any given country, |
| C．It’s embarrassing to make a mistake at a restaurant. |
| D．Mexicans consider it inappropriate to eat with knives or forks, |
| E．It’s a good sign for the chef if you make a mess around your plate. |
| F．Similarly, in Italy, never ask for extra cheese to add to your food. |
| G．The way you handle chopsticks is important to avoid annoying your companions. |
【推荐1】Mass transportation revised the social and economic fabric of the American city in three fundamental ways. It catalyzed physical expansion, it sorted out people and land uses, and it accelerated the inherent instability of urban life. By opening vast areas of unoccupied land for residential expansion, the omnibuses, horse railways, commuter trains, and electric trolleys pulled settled regions outward two to four times more distant form city centers than they were in the premodern era. In 1850, for example, the borders of Boston lay scarcely two miles from the old business district; by the turn of the century the radius extended ten miles. Now those who could afford it could live far removed from the old city center and still commute there for work, shopping, and entertainment. The new accessibility of land around the periphery of almost every major city sparked an explosion of real estate development and fueled what we now know as urban sprawl. Between 1890 and 1920, for example, some 250,000 new residential lots were recorded within the borders of Chicago, most of them located in outlying areas. Over the same period, another 550,000 were plotted outside the city limits but within the metropolitan area. Anxious to take advantage of the possibilities of commuting, real estate developers added 800,000 potential building sites to the Chicago region in just thirty years – lots that could have housed five to six million people.
Of course, many were never occupied; there was always a huge surplus of subdivided, but vacant, land around Chicago and other cities. These excesses underscore a feature of residential expansion related to the growth of mass transportation: urban sprawl was essentially unplanned. It was carried out by thousands of small investors who paid little heed to coordinated land use or to future land users. Those who purchased and prepared land for residential purposes, particularly land near or outside city borders where transit lines and middle-class inhabitants were anticipated, did so to create demand as much as to respond to it. Chicago is a prime example of this process. Real estate subdivision there proceeded much faster than population growth.
1. With which of the following subjects is the passage mainly concerned?
| A．Types of mass transportation. |
| B．Instability of urban life. |
| C．How supply and demand determine land use. |
| D．The effect of mass transportation on urban expansion. |
| A．To demonstrate positive and negative effects of growth. |
| B．To exemplify cities with and without mass transportation. |
| C．To show mass transportation changed many cities. |
| D．To contrast their rate of growth. |
| A．It was expensive. |
| B．It happened too slowly. |
| C．It was unplanned. |
| D．It created a demand for public transportation. |
| A．that is large. |
| B．that is used as a model for land development. |
| C．where the development of land exceeded population growth. |
| D．with an excellent mass transportation system. |
【推荐2】Children born in Asia are less likely to develop an allergy （过敏）to nuts than those born in Australia, according to Australian scientists.
A questionnaire from University of Melbourne distributed to 57,000 five-year-old children in the state of Victoria found that, of those voted, none of the children born in Asia then migrated （迁移） to Australia had an allergy to nuts.
However, children with Asian parents born in Australia were found to be up to three times more likely to develop an allergy to nuts than children with Australian parents.
The findings have led researchers to believe that the Asian environment somehow protects children against developing many food allergies.
Professor Katie Allen, who led the University of Melbourne research, said that this discovery could help us understand why allergy rates were rising in Australia and possibly lead to the development of a treatment.
We know that food allergies are a new kid on the block; we know this has happened in the last 20 to 30 years so we know it's something to do with modern lifestyle," Allen told Xinhua in an interview on Wednesday.
So if we can work out if it's one factor, or several factors working together, then we can turn back the tide."
Allen theorized that there were three contributing factors to the Asian environment preventing allergies from developing; Vitamin D, allergen exposure and exposure to a greater variety of organisms.
People living in Asia have often had to deal with coming into contacts with different levels of public health so their immune system is healthy and able to fight off allergies," she said.
"People are enetically at risk of developing allergies if they're Asian but if they're born in Asia those protective factors come into play."
1. What can you infer according to Paragraph 1?| A．The children born in Asia will never have an allergy to nuts. |
| B．Children are protected against developing all kinds of allergies. |
| C．Australian parents are more likely to develop an allergy than Asian parents. |
| D．Children born in Australia are more likely to develop an allergy than those born in Asia. |
| A．Because of the Australian environment. |
| B．Because of the Australian unhealthy food. |
| C． Because of the Australian water. |
| D．Because of too fast development of Australia. |
| A．Vitamin D. | B．Immune system. |
| C．Allergen exposure. | D．Exposure to all sorts of organisms. |
| A．A questionnaire from University of Melbourne. |
| B．People are genetically at risk of developing allergies. |
| C．Asian immune system is healthy and able to fight off allergies. |
| D．Who are more likely to develop an allergy, kids born in Australia or Asia? |
【推荐3】More than 360 million years ago, during the Devonian (泥盆纪) period, life was flourishing in spectacular fashion. As fish and invertebrates populated the seas, the first trees emerged on land. But by the end of the Devonian, more than half of all Earth’s species had disappeared in a series of mass extinctions. New research shows how tree evolution could have contributed to these extinction events.
As land plants diversified, “they started to grow more complex root systems that were able to reach farther down to grab water,” says U. S. Naval Academy oceanographer Mathew Smart, lead author of the new study in the Geological Society of American Bulletin. Deep tree roots drew crucial minerals such as phosphorus (磷) out of the bedrock and then eventually decayed, forming mineral-rich soil. Periodically, large quantities of this soil were washed into the seas and lakes-where the sudden phosphorus inflow caused harmful algal blooms (藻华) that pulled oxygen from the waters below. Then came a series of large-scale extinctions.
The researchers tracked this deadly pattern in five prehistoric lake beds in Scotland and Greenland. They measured a gradual phosphorus decrease in sediment layers from the middle to late Devonian, accompanied by sudden increase of the mineral with evidence of corresponding oxygen depletion (耗竭).
“We’ve been working on the Devonian for a long time, and we have been thinking that these cycles have occurred, but we couldn’t really explain it,” says Anne-Christine Da Silva, a sedimentologist at the University of Liège in Belgium. “This paper could bring an explanation.”
University of New Mexico planetary scientist Maya Elrick, who was also not involved in the study, says that while the oxygen depletion incidents coincided with extinctions, it is unclear how much of a role tree roots played. Phosphorus levels did gradually decrease overall as trees evolved, but she says this reduction may have already been occurring: “If it’s a trend that was happening prior, you can’t blame it on the plants.”
Next, Smart’s team plans to test its results using computer models to see whether plants on land could have caused ocean-wide oxygen depletion and corresponding extinction-analysis that could also help predict modern algal blooms’ impact.
1. What’s the main idea of paragraph 2?| A．The evolution of land plants. | B．The effect of phosphorus inflow. |
| C．The source of crucial minerals. | D．The process of mass extinctions. |
| A．Disapproving. | B．Favorable. | C．Doubtful. | D．Unclear. |
| A．Oxygen depletion worsened as trees evolved. |
| B．Tree evolution can’t necessarily reveal extinctions. |
| C．Plant extinction resulted from the mineral increase. |
| D．Phosphorus reduction occurred before tree evolution. |
| A．The Rise and Fall of the Devonian Period |
| B．The Role of Phosphorus in Trees’ Evolution |
| C．Algal Blooms Contribute to Oxygen Depletion |
| D．Tree Roots May Have Set Off Mass Extinctions |
【推荐1】The pyramids of Giza(吉萨金字塔) have been timeless(永恒的) symbols of Egyptian culture. But who actually built them? For years, we did not know for sure. But recently an ancient village was discovered near the pyramids. Close by, there was a cemetery(墓地) where pyramid builders were buried. From studying these places, archeologists are now certain that the pyramids were not built by slaves or foreigners (or aliens!). Instead, ordinary Egyptians built them.
It took about eighty years to build the pyramids. According to archeologists, about 20,000 to 30,000 people took part in the task. The workers had different roles. Some were responsible for digging up the rocks that were to be used. Others were tasked with moving them, while another group was given the job of shaping them into blocks. People also worked on different teams, each with its own name. These teams would often compete against each other to do a job faster.
Life for these workers was hard. “We can see that in their skeletons,” says Azza Mohamed Sarry El-Din, a scientist who has been studying the bodies that were found in the cemetery. The bones show signs of arthritis (关节炎), which probably developed as a result of having to carry heavy things for a long time. Archeologists have also found many female skeletons in the cemetery. The damage to their bones is similar to that of the men. Their lives may have been even tougher. Male workers would on average live to be between the ages of 40 and 45, but women would only live to be between the ages of 30 and 35. However, workers usually had enough food, and they also had good medical care when they got sick or hurt.
The work was hard, but the laborers were proud of their work. On a wall in Khufu’s Great Pyramid, for example, a group of workers wrote Friends of Khufu. “It’s because they were not just building the tomb of their king,” says Egyptian archeologist Zahi Hawass. “They were building Egypt. It was a national project, and everyone was a participant.”
1. According to the latest discoveries in the text, who built the pyramids in Egypt?| A．Some foreigners. | B．Some aliens. |
| C．Some ordinary Egyptians. | D．Some slaves. |
| A．ancient societies | B．living things |
| C．human behavior | D．the outer space |
| A．The pyramid builders were looking for new friends. |
| B．The pyramid builders were very angry with their bosses. |
| C．The pyramid builders were satisfied with their achievements. |
| D．The pyramid builders were in trouble because of their bad behavior. |
| A．Sports. | B．Fashion. |
| C．Personal Feelings. | D．Scientific Research. |
【推荐2】Robots aid in coronavirus fight
Robots have certain advantages compared to humans: They are efficient, tireless, can be repaired when damaged and they never get sick. This last trait has made them the star during our fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. While hundreds of thousands of medical workers have fallen ill dealing with this highly infectious virus and a lot more are forced to stay at home for fear of getting the disease, this isn’t a problem for robots.
This is why the COVID-19 outbreak is seen as the “tipping point” —noted The Independent science reporter Anthony Cuthbertson – for robots to start to replace humans in certain jobs.
In areas like hospitals and healthcare facilities, robots are used to perform high-risk tasks. In China, for example, a hotel in Hangzhou employed a robot named “Little Peanut”to deliver food to people under quarantine. In Spain, robots are about to be used to test people for the coronavirus. Ultraviolet-light-disinfection(紫外线消毒) robots are also being widely used to clean hospital corridors and wards(病房).
“Hospitals around the world are waking up to autonomous disinfection.” Per Juul Nielsen, CEO of Denmark’s UVD Robots, a leading company manufacturing(制造) disinfection robots, told Forbes. “We can’t build these robots fast enough.”
In non-medical companies, robots are also replacing human employees since they don’t have the problem of social distancing and will never take sick leave. Walmart and Amazon, for example, where robots are already used in sorting, packing and shipping, are planning to increase the number of robots in their facilities. Fast-food chains like McDonald’s are not only delivering food with robots in some areas, but also looking to use them as cooks and servers.
According to futurist Martin Ford, using more robots than human employees can prove to be rewarding for companies – even when the pandemic is over. “People will prefer to go to a place that has fewer workers and more machines because they feel they can lower overall risk, ” Ford told the BBC.
But this sudden surge(激增) in robot demand doesn’t mean that they triumph over humans in every aspect. According to Bill Smart, a roboticist at Oregon State University, the human contact between doctors and patients is still important. Doctors comfort the patients and guide them through hard decisions while robots are only doing routine tasks, like cleaning and giving tests, just to free up doctors and nurses.
It might be true that robots have certain advantages over humans. But they are still secondary to human interaction.
1. What is the text mainly about?| A．The advantages of robots compared to humans. |
| B．Different views toward applying robots to fight COVID-19 |
| C．Why the COVID-19 outbreak has fueled robot demand. |
| D．Whether robots will replace humans in certain areas one day. |
| A．They can be repaired when damaged. |
| B．They test people for coronavirus more precisely. |
| C．They never get tired and can replace doctors and nurses. |
| D．They are not vulnerable to the coronavirus. |
| A．Its benefits are appealing and lasting. |
| B．Machines are less disturbing than humans. |
| C．It poses a threat to human employment. |
| D．There are some risks with the use of robots. |
| A．The demand for robots is too great to meet. |
| B．Doctors can make more accurate judgments than robots. |
| C．Humans interactions are essential in some areas. |
| D．Robots need updating to improve contact with humans. |
【推荐3】Do you love food? Whether you’re a foodie or someone who just likes eating, there is so much to choose from. We know that too much of the wrong kind of food can be bad for our health, but for some people having a food allergy means eating certain things can actually be harmful — and now, it seems, this is affecting more and more of us.
An allergy is caused by the immune system fighting substances in the environment, known as allergens(过敏原), which should be seen as harmless. Food allergies can cause life-threatening reactions, which means people have to spend their lives following strict dietary restrictions and worrying about the ingredients of everything they consume. Allergy specialist Dr Adam Fox says, “If you look back over, say, 30 or 40 years… there are much more allergic problems around now than there were.”
We often hear about people having allergies to dairy products and to peanuts. Last year a young girl died after suffering a deadly allergic reaction from eating a baguette containing sesame seeds. This led to a call for better food-labelling laws.
Research has found that this problem is particularly affecting children. More and more of them are having allergic reactions to certain foodstuffs. Dr Alexandra Santos from King’s College London says “food allergy now affects about 7 percent of children in the UK and 9 percent of those in Australia. Across Europe, 2 percent of adults have food allergies”.
So what might be the cause? Dr Santos says the increase in allergies is not simply the effect of society becoming more aware of them and better at diagnosing them; it seems to be more environmental. She says possible factors are “pollution, dietary changes and less exposure to microbes (微生物), which change how our immune systems respond”.
A lot of work is being done to try and find a cure, but that’s not easy. So for now allergy sufferers must watch what they eat and they must rely on clear and accurate labelling.
1. What does the underlined word “this” in paragraph 1 refer to?| A．Having an imbalanced diet. |
| B．Being allergic to some certain food. |
| C．Consuming too much of harmful food. |
| D．Fighting substances in the environment. |
| A．Giving a definition. | B．Making a comparison. |
| C．Offering an example. | D．Presenting specific data. |
| A．Dairy products are to blame for most food allergies. |
| B．Kids don’t suffer from food allergies as much as adults. |
| C．Allergies unknown in the past may be diagnosed now. |
| D．More exposure to microbes can reduce food allergies. |
| A．Never try new food. | B．Make efforts to find a cure. |
| C．Have a balanced diet. | D．Read labels before eating. |
