【推荐1】Is there anything more important than health? I don’t think so. “    1    ” wise people say.
If you have a headache, toothache, backache, or bad pain in the stomach, if you complain of a bad cough, or if you suffer from high or low blood pressure, I think you go to the doctor.
The doctor will examine your throat, test your blood pressure, take your temperature, sound your heart and lungs, check your teeth or have your chest X-rayed.    2    The only thing you have to do is follow his advice.
    3    An old gentleman came to see the doctor. The man was very ill. He told the doctor about his weakness, memory loss and serious problems with his heart and lungs. The doctor examined him and said there was no medicine for his disease. He told his patient to go to a quiet place for a month and have a good rest.    4    In other words, the doctor advised him to follow the rule:” Eat at pleasure, drink at pleasure and enjoy life as it is.” The doctor also said that if the man wanted to be well again, he shouldn’t smoke more than one cigarette a day.
A month later the gentleman came into the doctor’s office.    5    He thanked the doctor and said that he had never felt a healthier man.
“But you know, doctor” he said,” it’s not easy to begin smoking at my age.”

A．He also advised him to eat a lot of meat, drink two glasses of red wine every day and take long walks.

B．You can’t be good at your studies or work well when you are ill.

C．After that he will advise some treatment or some medicine.

D．Health is the greatest wealth.

E．He looked cheerful and happy.

F．He was more worried about his illness.

G．Speaking about doctor’s advice, I can’t help telling you a funny story

【推荐2】Working out is great for your skin. It increases blood flow to all your organs — skin included — delivering oxygen and nutrients along with it. But if you exercise in a full face of makeup, you might be hurting your skin health, not helping it.

To find out what makeup does to skin during exercise, researchers applied a drug-store-brand cream foundation (粉底霜) to the foreheads and under-eye areas of 43 university students. They left the bottom halves of everyone’s faces makeup-free. All of the students then ran for 20 minutes.

“Our hypothesis was that makeup can block pores (毛孔) partially or completely, and because pores are important for evaporation and sweating, makeup would negatively impact skin health,” says Sukho Lee, a professor in the department of health, and kinesiology at Texas A&M University. Skin plays an important role in helping the body to regulate temperature, especially during exercise. Allowing pores to expand so that sweat can escape is just one of the ways that the skin releases excess heat from the body.

Using a device that can scan the skin for moisture (水分) levels, oil amounts, and pore size, the researchers compared people’s made-up and makeup-free parts of the face Moisture levels on the makeup side were higher than those on the bare side, which actually indicates a negative effect of the foundation. “Moisture on the skin is evidence of poor evaporation,” says Lee. People’s pores were also smaller on the areas where they wore makeup, which indicates that the skin wasn’t able to open up and properly regulate moisture and remove oil as it normally does, Lee says. Oil levels were lower on the makeup side, but it’s not clear why, says Lee. It’s possible that the foundation was interfering with the skin’s ability to regulate its oil levels.

The findings also raise questions about other products people apply to the face, such as sunscreen, designed to form a barrier on the skin against UV rays, Lee says.

1. Why was makeup applied to only certain parts of the students’ faces?

A．To measure how makeup affects skin moisture levels.

B．To test the effect of drug-store-brand cream foundation.

C．To compare the effects of makeup on different skin types.

D．To compare skin with and without makeup during exercise.

2. What can you infer about the importance of pores during exercise?

A．They are essential for delivering oxygen and nutrients to the skin.

B．They play a significant role in the skin’s temperature regulation.

C．They prevent the moisture from leaving the skin’s surface.

D．They contribute to increasing the level of oil on the skin.

3. What should be considered when applying products to the face before exercise?

A．The ability of products to make you look better.

B．The effect of products in reducing skin dehydration.

C．The impact of products on the skin’s natural functions.

D．The role of products in protecting the skin from UV rays.

4. What is Lee most likely to do next in his research?

A．To study makeup’s long-term effects on skin.

B．To extend the study to include other facial products.

C．To study the benefits of exercising without any makeup.

D．To investigate the effect of exercise intensity on skin health.

【推荐2】Recently, a group of scientists decided to find out what the funniest joke in the world was. This is obviously a difficult task, as no two people really agree about what is funny and what is not — especially when they are from different countries.

Here is the joke which the experts decided was the funniest joke in the world:

Two hunters were out in the woods. One of them fell to the ground. He didn’t seem to be breathing; his eyes were closed. The other hunter took out his mobile phone and called the emergency services. “My friend is dead!” he cried to the operator. “What can I do?” The operator said, “Don’t worry. First, make sure he’s dead.” There was a silence, and then a shot was heard. Bang! The hunter’s voice came back on the line. He said, “OK, now what?”

This is perhaps amusing. Culturally, it depends on us knowing that often hunters are not considered to be very intelligent people, and that often they are quite violent. But perhaps this is not so all over the world. It’s also quite a black joke — a joke about something that isn’t really a funny subject. The experts also found the second funniest joke in the world. Here it is:

Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson went on a camping trip. After dinner, they went to sleep. Some hours later, Holmes woke up. “Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see.”

“I see millions of stars, Holmes,” replied Watson.

“And what do you infer from that?”

“Well, there are billions of stars... we are a small part of the universe.” “Watson, you idiot! (笨蛋)” he said. “Someone has stolen our tent!” I personally think this is better.

Can scientists in the end decide what is funny? Some things are much too complicated, even for scientists.

1. What can we learn from the first paragraph?

A．Few jokes can make scientists laugh.

B．Only scientists can find out the funniest joke.

C．There are different jokes in different countries.

D．People hold different opinions about what is funny.

2. What does the author think of the first joke?

A．It is not so funny as the experts thought.

B．It is really the funniest joke he has ever heard.

C．It can greatly affect readers’ attitudes toward hunters.

D．It shows that not all hunters are intelligent.

3. What can affect a person’s understanding of a joke?

A．The person’s feeling.

B．The length of the joke.

C．The person’s cultural background.

D．The language that the teller uses.

4. Which of the following is the best title for this text?

A．Uninteresting Jokes

B．Different Kinds of Jokes

C．The Funniest Joke in the World

D．Tips on How to Make Others Laugh

【推荐3】Dieters have long sworn that grapefruit helps them lose weight. The Grapefruit Diet, also called the Hollywood Diet, dates back to the 1930s and has a host of celebrity fans including singer Kylie Minogue. It involves having grapefruit or grapefruit juice with every meal while cutting back on calories.

Now, scientists are beginning to believe them.

A study has found that drinking grapefruit juice when eating fatty food lowers the amount of weight put on by up to a fifth.

The research also suggested that grapefruit could be as good as prescription drugs at keeping blood sugar levels under control—a key part of managing diabetes.

The experiments were conducted on mice—but researchers say the results are true for humans. Professor Joseph Napoli, of the University of California, Berkeley, said, “We see all sorts of tricks about nutrition. But these results, based on controlled experiments, make it necessary to study the potential health-promoting properties of grapefruit juice further.”

The researchers found that when the mice were fed fatty food for three months, those given grapefruit juice to drink gained up to 18 percent less weight than those given water.

They also had lower blood sugar and insulin levels—despite eating the same number of calories and doing the same amount of exercise as the mice who drank water. In fact, grapefruit juice was as good at controlling insulin as the widely used diabetes drugs, the journal PLOS ONE reports.

However, the fruit juice only had an effect on weight when the animals ate fatty food. The researchers said they did not know how grapefruit stops the pounds from piling on.

Spokesman Mariette Abrahams, a dietician, said until then it is too early for people to try grapefruit diets. “Grapefruit should be part of a healthy balanced diet, but it shouldn’t be the focus of the diet.” she said.

1. What can be known about the Hollywood Diet?

A．It’s the origin of the Grapefruit Diet.

B．It was more popular in the 1930s than any time.

C．It may appeal to fat people.

D．Scientists may think it is nonsense.

2. What did the experiments on mice show?

A．They should have been conducted on humans.

B．The results apply to humans too.

C．Grapefruit could cure diabetes.

D．Mice prefer grapefruit juice to water.

3. In which case will grapefruit juice make a difference to weight loss?

A．The mice with high blood sugar.

B．The mice doing a lot of exercise.

C．The mice on a fatty diet.

D．The mice taking prescription drugs.

4. What’s the best title of the text?

A．Nutrition of Grapefruit

B．Experiment on Grapefruit

C．Grapefruit Makes a Hit

D．Grapefruit Helps Keep Fit