【推荐2】Whether it is the flu or any of the other cold-like viruses rising in winter, it seems that stuffy noses and sore throats are common symptoms. You may have noticed, however, that your cold seems to get better or worse depending on the time of day. Most commonly, you wake up with worse symptoms. Then, they partially clear up throughout the day, only to get worse once more as you get to bed.     1    

Currently, the leading idea is that symptom severity is linked to our circadian rhythm (昼夜节律). The circadian rhythm is very important for daily cellular processes.     2     It also plays a critical role in controlling the heart and the immune system.

    3     This is why sleep is so important after you’ve been to the gym. This also applies when you are ill—the body floods the blood with white blood cells called leukocytes, resulting in and immune response against diseases and the immune system fighting infection.

This, therefore, explains why our cold symptoms get worse as we settle down for a night’s sleep. Cells infected by viruses are attracted to the local area and killed, causing soreness in the affected tissues, and mucus (鼻涕) floods the nose to join the fight.     4     You wake up feeling like death due to the battle happening within.

There are other reasons why you might feel worse at night. The first is simply gravity. When you lie down, your mucus builds up in the nose, causing pressure and headaches.     5     Another factor is about hormones. Hormonal imbalances can be caused by lack of sleep at night and could influence immune function, leading to a cycle of sleepless night s and then feeling worse.

A．Why does this happen?

B．Others are reporting the same thing.

C．As you stand up, you start to feel better.

D．It’s a good thing, but it really doesn’t feel like it.

E．Gravity helps out a lot more when you are upright.

F．While resting, the body uses the downtime to recover.

G．And it can be affected by the amount of sleep and light we get each day.

【推荐2】Working out can help teenagers boost their grades, a new study suggests. Adolescents who routinely engaged in moderate to vigorous（剧烈的）exercise showed long-term improvements in their academic performance, the British Journal of Sports Medicine study reported.

“Our study suggests that the effect of physical activity may be quite large,” John Reilly, a professor at the University of Strathclyde said. The researchers looked at a sample of about 5000 children who were involved in a long-term study that tracks children born in the U.K. between 1991 and 1992. When children reached 11 years old, their daily physical activity levels were measured using an accelerometer（加速器）for three to seven days. The device, similar to a pedometer（计步器）tracking the number of steps taken, recorded the average time children exercised, which was 29 minutes a day for boys and 18 for girls.

“The actual levels of daily physical activity at age 11 were quite low,” Mr. Reilly noted. The children had their academic performance tested at ages 11 and 13 with compulsory national tests for students, and also at 15 or 16 with the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) exam. The tests assessed the children’s abilities in English, math and science subjects. The results showed that the more children participated in moderate to vigorous physical activity, the higher their test scores were at age 11 in all three subjects. For girls, science scores were most strongly linked to exercise.

When children were tested again at age 13, their academic scores were still linked to how much they had exercised when they were 11 years old. By the time the youngsters took the GCSE exam, each 17-minute-per‑day increase in physical activity for the boys was linked to an improvement in their scores. Every additional 12-minute increase a day in exercise for the girls was also linked to an increased score, especially in the science category.

The researchers have called for more studies to look at the possible academic benefits that could be derived if students exercised the recommended 60 minutes or more a day.

1. What’s the study about?

A．The influence of exercise on students’ scores.

B．The secrets of students’ ranking high in class.

C．The causes of students’ participating in sports.

D．The ways of improving students’ physical conditions.

2. What do the study’s results show?

A．Students at age 11 do more exercise than at other ages.

B．Boys at age 13 get more benefits by doing more exercise.

C．Girls’ science scores are more closely related to exercise.

D．More and more students do exercise to improve their scores.

3. What does the underlined word “derived” probably mean in the last paragraph?

A．Maintained.

B．Obtained.

C．Concluded.

D．Reduced.

4. Where does the text most probably appear?

A．In a storybook.

B．In a fashion magazine.

C．In an exercise guide.

D．In a research report.

【推荐3】People from East Asia tend to have more difficulties than those from Europe in distinguishing facial expressions and a new report published online in Current Biology explains why.

Rachael Jack, University of Glasgow researcher, said that rather than scanning evenly (均匀的) across a face as Westerners do, Easterners fix their attention on the eyes.

“We show that Easterners and Westerners look at different face features to read facial expressions,” Jack said. “Westerners look at the eyes and the mouth in equal measure, whereas Easterners favor the eyes and overlook the mouth.”

According to Jack and her colleagues, the discovery shows that human communication of emotion is more complex than previously believed. As a result, facial expressions that had been considered universally recognizable cannot be used to reliably convey emotion in cross-cultural situations.

The researchers studied cultural differences in the recognition of facial expressions by recording the eye movements of 13 Western Caucasian and 13 East Asian people while they observed pictures of expressive faces and put them into categories: happy, sad, surprised, fearful, disgusted, angry, or neutral. They compared how accurately participants read those facial expressions using their particular eye movement strategies.

It turned out that Easterners focused much greater attention on the eyes and made significantly more errors than Westerners did. “The cultural difference in eye movements that they show is probably a reflection of cultural difference in facial expressions,” Jack said. “Our data suggest that whereas Westerners use the whole face to convey emotion. Easterners use the eyes more and mouth less.”

In short, the data show that facial expressions are not universal signals of human emotion. From here on, examining how cultural factors have diversified these basic social skills will help our understanding of human emotion. Otherwise, when it comes to communicating emotions across cultures, Easterners and Westerners will find themselves lost in translation.

1. What does the discovery show about Westerners?

A．They pay equal attention to the eyes and the mouth.

B．They consider facial expressions universally reliable.

C．They observe the eyes and the mouth in different ways.

D．They have more difficulty in recognizing facial expressions.

2. What were the people asked to do in the study?

A．To get their faces impressive.	B．To make a face at each other.
C．To classify some face pictures.	D．To observe the researchers’ faces.

3. In companion with Westerners, what are Easterners likely to do?

A．They do translation more successfully.	B．They study the mouth more frequently.
C．They examine the eyes more attentively.	D．They read facial expressions more correctly.

4. What can be a suitable title for the text?

A．The Eye as the Window to the Soul	B．Cultural Differences in Reading Emotions
C．Effective Methods to Develop Social Skills	D．How to Increase Cross-cultural Understanding

【推荐1】Although English is not as old as Chinese, it is spoken by many people around the world every day. English speakers are always creating new words, and we are often able to know where most words come from.
Sometimes, however, no one may really know where a word comes from. Did you ever think about why hamburgers(汉堡包) are called hamburgers, especially when they are not made with ham(火腿)? About a hundred years ago, some men went to America from Europe. They came from a big city in Germany called Hamburg. They did not speak good English, but they ate good food. When some Americans saw them eating round pieces of beef, they asked the Germans what it was. The Germans did not understand the question and answered, “We come from Hamburg.” One of these Americans owned a restaurant, and had an idea. He cooked some round pieces of beef like those which the men from Hamburg ate. Then he put each between two pieces of bread and started selling them. Such bread came to be called “hamburgers”. Today “hamburgers” are sold in many countries around the world.
Whether this story is true or not, it certainly is interesting. Knowing why any word has a certain meaning is interesting. too. This reason, for most English words, can be found in any large English dictionary.
1. Hamburg is_____________.

A．a kind of food	B．a round piece of beef
C．the name of a village	D．a city in Germany

2. According to the story, ________________.

A．few Americans like hamburgers

B．hamburgers are only made with beef

C．hamburgers are made with ham

D．hamburgers were first sold about a century ago

3. According to the writer, which of the following can often be found in any large English dictionary?

A．Where all the new words come from

B．Where those Germans came from

C．The reason why a word has a certain meaning

D．The reason why English is spoken around the world

4. According to the story, the word “hamburger” comes from_________________.

A．China because it has a long history

B．England because Germans don’t speak good English

C．the round pieces of beef which those people from Hamburg were eating

D．English speakers because they always create new words

【推荐2】Sleep, considered a luxury by many, is essential for a person’s health and happiness. Researchers have found that inadequate sleep and tiredness increase a person’s risk of developing severe medical conditions, such as obesity, high blood sugar levels, and heart disease. Now, a new study has found that getting enough sleep is also the key to improving academic performance.

Jeffrey Gross, the university science professor who led the research, was not trying to find the relationship between sleep and grades when he handed out smart watches to the 100 students in his chemistry class. Instead, the professor hoped the wrist-worn devices (装置), which track a person’s physical activity, would show a connection between exercise and academic achievement.

While Gross’s data showed no relationship between these two factors (因素), the study found something surprising. As the researchers were analyzing their data, they noticed that there was a straight-line relationship between the average amount of sleep a student got and their results in the course’s 11 quizzes, three midterm tests, and the final exam.

Even more interesting, it was not enough for students to just head to bed early the night before a test. Instead, it’s the sleep you get during the days when learning is happening that matters most.

The time students went to bed each night was similarly important. Those who went to bed in early hours of the morning performed poorly, even if the total sleep time was the same as a higher- performing student. “When you go to bed matters,” Gross says, “If you go to bed at 10, or 12, or 1 at night, and sleep for seven hours, your performance is the same. But if you go to bed after 2, your performance starts to go down even if you get the same seven hours. So, quantity isn’t everything. ”

Perhaps the most interesting was the huge effect that small differences in sleep patterns had on the students’ grades. The entire course grades for students averaging six and a half hours of sleep each night were 25% lower than students who averaged just one hour more sleep. Similarly, students who changed their bedtime by even one hour each night had grades that dropped 45% below those with more regular bedtimes.

Who knew getting A’s just required some extra sleep?

1. Based on his original goals, which best describes Professor Gross’s research findings?

A．Complete.	B．Accidental.
C．Convincing.	D．Doubtful.

2. How did Professor Gross’s team measure academic performance?

A．Making the students wear a special watch.

B．Giving the students regular after-class quizzes.

C．Using students’ university entrance test results.

D．Using the students’ normal test and quiz grades.

3. Based on the study’s findings, who is likely to perform best academically?

A．A person who sleeps for a total of 7 hours each night.

B．A person who sleeps from 11 p. m. to 6 a. m. each day.

C．A person whose normal bedtime changes between 9 p. m. and 12 p. m.

D．A person who has a good night’s sleep the night before an important test.

【推荐3】What is the first thing you notice when you walk into a shop? The products displayed at the entrance? Or the soft background music?

But have you ever noticed the smell? Unless it is bad, the answer is likely to be no. But while a shop’s scent (香味) may not be outstanding compared with sights and sounds, it is certainly there. And it is proving to be an increasing powerful tool in encouraging people to purchase.

A brand store has become famous for its distinctive (独特的) scent which floats through the fairly dark hall and out to the entrance, by scent machines. A smell may be attractive but it may not just be used for freshening air. One sports goods company once reported that when it first introduced scent into its stores, customers’ intention to purchase increased by 80 percent.

But while e-shops can only use sights and sounds, bricks-and-mortar stores (实体店) can offer a full experience from the minute customers step through the door to the moment they leave. Another brand store seeks to be much more than a shop, but rather a destination. And scent is just one way to achieve this.

Now a famous store uses complex man-made smell to make sure that the soft scent of baby powder floats through the kid department, and coconut (椰子)scent in the swimsuit section. A department store has even opened a new lab, inviting customers on a journey into the store’s windows to smell books, pots and drawers, in search of their perfect scent.

1. According to the passage, what is an increasingly powerful tool in the success of some brand stores?

A．Friendly assistants.	B．Unique scents.
C．Soft background music	D．Attractive window display.

2. E-shops are mentioned in the passage to_________.

A．show the advantages of bricks-and-mortar stores

B．urge shop assistants to change their attitude

C．push stores to use sights and sounds

D．introduce the rise of e-commerce

3. The main purpose of the passage is to

A．compare and evaluate	B．examine and assess
C．argue and discuss	D．inform and explain