【推荐1】Exercise makes you happier than wealth, a new study says. Regular physical activity is a huge boost to mental well-being, on par with a pay rise.

Instead of logging extra hours at work in hopes of getting a pay rise, maybe you should hit the gym instead, as it could make you just as happy as that extra money. An interesting new study, published in the Lancet, found that people who are physically active have a greater sense of well-being than those who are inactive — and that active individuals feel as good as inactive people who earn $25,000 more per year.

Researchers from Oxford and Yale Universities used data gathered from more than 1.2 million Americans. They were asked, “How many times have you felt mentally unwell in the past 30 days, for example, due to stress, depression, or emotional problems?”

Participants were also asked about their exercise habits and were able to choose from 75 diverse physical activities, including mowing the lawn, doing housework and childcare, running, weightlifting, and cycling. The researchers found that people who exercise regularly feel bad for an average of 35 days per year, whereas inactive people feel bad for an additional 18 days. From the study:

“Individuals who exercised had 43 percent fewer days of poor mental health in the past month than individuals who did not exercise but were otherwise matched for several physical and socio-demographic (社会人口的) characteristics. All exercise types were associated with a lower mental health burden.”

Social physical activities (i.e. team sports) had an even more positive effect, although cycling ranked highly. (I wonder if that’s because it takes place outdoors, which is always a mood booster.)

It is possible to get too much exercise. From Business Insider’s write-up on the study, “The mental health of those participants who exercised for longer than three hours a day suffered more than that of those who weren’t particularly physically active.” The ideal amount seems to be three to five training sessions per week, lasting 30 to 60 minutes each.

But the takeaway should be that any amount helps, so don’t stress about hitting that perfect balance: “All exercise types were associated with a lower mental health burden than not exercising.”

1. Who probably has the greatest sense of well-being?

A．The individual who works out more than three hours a day.

B．The inactive individual who gets better paid than before.

C．The man who is physically active.

D．The man who works out regularly and gets a pay rise.

2. Which of the following statements is true based on the study?

A．Inactive people felt bad for 53 days per season.

B．Active Individuals were 43 percent more likely to suffer from poor mental health.

C．It doesn’t matter what forms of exercise you take.

D．You’d better take exercises three to six days a week, each lasting 30 to 60 minutes.

3. Why does cycling rank highly as far as the author is concerned?

A．Because it has more positive effect than other physical activities like team sports.

B．Because you can build up your body more efficiently.

C．Because you can work out in the open air and lift your spirits.

D．Because it is an exercise which doesn’t exhaust your body too much.

4. What’s the main idea of Paragraph 5-7?

A．The study’s procedure.	B．The study’s application.
C．The study’s significance.	D．The study’s findings.

【推荐1】Dreams, according to Carl Jung, reveal a certain amount of reality hidden during waking consciousness. In Jungian philosophy, the conflict and chaos experienced in dreams finally bring order to our lives. While Jung’s mystical theories are debatable, he was not mistaken about the importance of dreaming. A growing number of reports show that a continuous lack of dreaming is damaging our waking hours in many ways.

This trend is causing damage to our immune and metabolic (新陈代谢的) systems, let alone the electronic products that keep us up late at night are ruining our sleep patterns, which has long-term consequences on our memory system. One study showed that not allowing mice to have adequate amounts of REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, the stage in which we dream, the mice couldn’t strengthen memories.

You might think this is just a sleep problem, but dreaming is inseparable from our nighttime rest. We sleep in cycles, each lasting about 90 minutes; in a sleep cycle, we go through non-REM sleep before hitting REM. As the night progresses, REM sleep periods increase in length while deep sleep (one of the stages of non-REM sleep) decreases. The longer we sleep, the more time we spend in REM, which is why we are often dreaming when waking up in the morning. If we sleep less than seven hours, however, it becomes harder to achieve this level of REM.

The combination of sleeping and dreaming acts as an emotional stabilizer. We recover from emotional hurt faster when we sleep and dream properly. However, we’re not getting enough sleep to cycle through the stages to take advantage of this natural circadian anti-depressant (抗抑郁剂) — dreams. Instead, we get depressed and turn to alcohol or medicines to get to sleep, which only makes things worse because even one drink leads to late REM while anti-depressants promote deep sleep at the expense of REM.

We’re paying for this lack of dreaming in many ways. For example, a 2021 study stated that compared with quiet rest and non-REM sleep, REM promoted the formation of associative networks and the integration (整合) of unassociated information. Volunteers that experienced more REM sleep were better equipped for solving problems requiring creative solutions.

Rowan Hooper, the managing editor at New Scientist, writes that dreams that include an “emotional core” appear to be a main function of REM sleep and that we should look at sleep patterns as seriously as we do diet and exercise habits.

1. What’s Carl Jung’s view about dreams?

A．They cause chaos.	B．They damage immunity.
C．They reveal secrets.	D．They mirror reality.

2. Why is the sleep process explained in paragraph 3?

A．To show a dream mainly occurs during REM sleep.

B．To prove the minimum sleep time should be seven hours.

C．To prove dream problems and sleep problems are attached.

D．To show people often dream when waking up in the morning.

3. What conclusion can be inferred from paragraph 5?

A．REM sleep promotes creativity.

B．REM sleep helps fight depression.

C．The brain still receives new information during REM sleep.

D．The brain is paying the price for having more non-REM sleep.

4. What’s the main idea of the passage?

A．The importance of sleep lies in dreams.

B．The absence of dreams is terrible for us.

C．Dreaming patterns are more important than we realize.

D．Dreaming has mystical power of strengthening memories.

【推荐3】While staring out of the window during a flight; not everyone will think carefully about the question why airplanes have rounded windows rather than square ones.

Over the years, aerospace engineering has made huge steps in airplane technology, meaning planes can carry more passengers and go faster. The planes have also changed shape to increase safety — including the windows. As commercial air travel took off in the mid-20th century, airline companies began to fly at higher altitudes to lower their cost — the air density (密度) is lower up there, creating less drag (阻力) for airplanes. However, higher altitudes came with problems, like the fact human beings can’t really survive at 30, 000 feet. To make that possible, the cabin was changed to a cylindrical (圆柱体) shape to support the pressure inside. The de Havilland Comet came into fashion in the 1950s. With a closed cabin, it was able to go higher and faster than other aircraft.

But at first, plane builders left in the standard square windows and this expansion meant disaster. Where there’s a corner, there’s a weak spot. Windows, having four corners, have four potential weak spots, making them likely to crash under stress — such as air pressure. By curving the window, the stress that would eventually break the window corner is distributed and the chance of it breaking is reduced. Rounded shapes are also stronger and resist deformation (变形), and can thus survive the extreme differences in pressure between the inside and outside of the aircraft.

Fortunately, designers figured out the lack of design pretty quickly. Now we have nice, rounded airplane windows that can resist the pressure of traveling altitude. It gives being able to gaze out of your window to the world from 35, 000 feet a whole new outlook, doesn’t it?

1. Why did airlines aim to fly at higher altitudes?

A．To save money for less drag.	B．To help the plane to takeoff.
C．To increase safety of the plane.	D．To carry more passengers and go faster.

2. What does the underlined words “de Havilland Comet” in Paragraph 2 refer to?

A．An aircraft.

B．A band.

C．A planet.

D．A design.

3. Which is the advantage of the rounded window?

A．It increases the air pressure.

B．It weakens the strength of air pressure.

C．It reduces the possibility of breaking up.

D．It helps to survive the extreme weather.

4. Where does this text come from?

A．A newspaper on safe driving.	B．A science book on flying.
C．A website on survival skills.	D．A magazine on fashion design.