【推荐2】The Health Benefits of Gardening

Gardening is popular in many parts of the world. This outdoor activity gives us beautiful plants, pleasant smelling flowers and fresh fruits and vegetables.     1    

Reduces loneliness

Gardening connects people. When you are gardening, you are outdoors.     2     Most people love to talk about their hobbies, and gardeners are no different. They usually enjoy showing people what they are growing. And most enjoy sharing advice and stories about their gardens.

    3    

Gardening is a great activity to do with children. Children can learn about nature and wildlife. Gardening can teach a child about where food comes from and healthy eating. It can also help them to understand the limits of natural resources and the importance of using them carefully.

Vitamin D

    4     This means you are getting Vitamin D. Vitamin D helps our bodies use calcium. That is necessary to keep bones strong. Vitamin D also helps us fight diseases.

Exercise

When you garden you must move around. All the different movements needed for gardening — bending, twisting, stretching and lifting — work small muscles in the body. And you can easily get a good work out when you are digging holes or pulling weeds.

Brain health

Gardening may help your brain stay young. Activities such as gardening use many repeated actions, such as weeding or dead-heading (removing dying flowers from a plant).     5     The brain is still active but not in the same way that it is, say, when we use computers. In our technology-filled lives, gardening offers a chance to unplug. You cannot hold a phone or other electronic devices when your hands are filled with dirt.

A．Gardening can be a great teacher.

B．But it also gives us many health benefits.

C．Harvests from gardening are organic food.

D．These actions have a calming effect on the brain.

E．So it is a perfect time to socialize with your neighbors.

F．When you are in your garden, you might feel the sunshine on your skin.

G．Gardening can also give you the feeling that you have done something good.

【推荐3】Here’s a new warning from health experts: Sitting is deadly.

Scientists are increasingly warning that sitting for long periods --- even if you also exercise regularly --- could be bad for your health. And it doesn’t matter where the sitting takes place. Several studies suggest people who spend most of their days sitting are more likely to be fat, have a heart attack or even die.

In an article published this week in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, Elin Ekblom-Bak of the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences suggested that authorities rethink how they define physical activity to stress the dangers of sitting.

While health officials have recommended minimum amounts of physical activity, they haven’t suggested people try to limit how much time they spend in a seated position.

“After four hours of sitting, the body starts to send harmful signals,” said Ekblom-Bak. She explained that genes regulating the amount of glucose (葡萄糖) and fat in the body start to shut down.

Even for people who exercise, spending long periods of time sitting at a desk is still harmful. Tim Armstrong, a physical activity expert at the World Health Organization, said people who exercise every day --- but still spend a lot of time sitting --- might get more benefit if that exercise was spread across the day, rather than in a single bout (一回).

Still, in a study published in 2015 that tracked more than 17,000 Canadians for about a dozen years, researchers found people who sat more had a higher death risk, whether or not they exercised.

“We don’t have enough evidence yet to say how much sitting is bad,” said Peter Katzmarzyk of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, who led the Canadian study. “But it seems the more you can get up and interrupt this sedentary (久坐的) behavior, the better.”

Experts said more research is needed to figure out just how much sitting is dangerous, and what might be possible to offset those effects.

“People should keep exercising because that has a lot of benefits,” Ekblom-Bak said. “But when they’re in the office, they should try to interrupt sitting as often as possible,” she said.

1. What is the best title for the text?

A．Not Sitting Too Much While Working.

B．How to Avoid Sitting Too Much.

C．Sitting Too Much Could Be Deadly.

D．More and More People Sit Too Much.

2. According to the research, ________.

A．the more time you spend in exercising in a single bout, the healthier you will be

B．those who often sit too much are sure to grow fat or suffer from a heart attack

C．regular exercise is effective in getting rid of the side effects of sitting too much

D．you had better not sit for more than four hours in a single bout

3. How does the danger of sitting too much affect the human body?

A．It results in a higher death risk.

B．It increases glucose and fat in the body.

C．It makes a person unable to exercise long enough in a day.

D．It causes the genes to fail to balance the glucose and fat in the body.

4. The underlined word “offset” in Paragraph 9 most probably means ________.

A．improve

B．balance

C．ignore

D．achieve

5. In the opinion of Ekblom-Bak, you’d better have a rest in the office by ________.

A．having a walk around your office

B．sending your friends e-mails

C．chatting online or playing computer games

D．listening to music with your head on the desk

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7-Day Tour from London to Edinburgh

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9- Day Tour from Dublin to London

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1. How much would the 7-day tour from London to Edinburgh cost a couple at least?

A．$849.

B．$1,149.

C．$1,698.

D．$2,138.

2. Which place can you visit if you take the 9-day tour from Dublin to London?

A．Trinity College.

B．Downing Street.

C．The Thames River.

D．Con c or de Square.

3. What do the three tours have in common?

A．They cover the same number of sights.	B．They all begin in the capital city of London.
C．They take people the same amount of time.	D．They all include a visit to Bucking ham Palace.