【推荐1】What Your Nose Knows

Your sense of smell enriches your experience of the world around you. Different scents can change your mood or transport you back to a distant memory. Your ability to smell also plays a key role in your health.     1    

The things we smell are actually the tiny molecules(分子) released by substances all around us. When we breathe in these molecules, they stimulate specialized sensory cells high inside the nose.     2     But a given molecule can stimulate a combination of these receptors, creating a unique representation in the brain. We perceive that representation as a smell.

    3     A stuffy(不通气的) nose or a harmless growth in the nose can block air and thus scents from reaching the sensory cells. Certain medications, like some blood pressure pills, can change smell, but these effects are usually temporary. Your smell should come back once you’ve recovered or stopped the medication. But some things can cause a long-lasting loss of smell. A head injury or virus, for example, can sometimes damage the nerves related to smell.     4     According to Dr. Davangere Devanand, an expert on neurodegenerative(神经变性的) diseases and smell loss, the main reason appears to be that the functioning of the brain regions involved in smell and memory becomes damaged as we grow older.

But problems with your ability to smell may be more than normal aging. They can sometimes be an early sign of serious health conditions, such as Parkinson’s disease or Alzheimer’s disease. Devanand’s group is studying the relationships between smell dysfunction and certain disease.

Researchers are also looking for ways to avoid smell loss. Some studies suggest that smell training may help you improve your ability to distinguish and identify scents.     5     But the question remains as to whether and how this might work.

A．Many things can cause smell loss.

B．People may have lost their ability to smell before they notice it.

C．Each of these sensory cells has only one type of scent receptor.

D．It may improve your brain’s ability to interpret low levels of scents.

E．As people get older, many of them couldn’t identify certain kind of smell.

F．If your ability to smell declines, it can affect your physical well-being and everyday safety.

G．And with age, there is a decline in the ability to smell to some extent in the nose, but much more in the brain itself.

【推荐2】One way to prevent anxiety from getting out of control is to recognize its benefits. It is a mistake to think that we can make better decisions if we keep our feelings under control.Instead,a mix of feelings like anxiety and logical thinking leads to sound decision-making. There is plenty of research showing that higher levels of anxiety can make us more likely to avoid risks in our decision-making.There is also evidence that anxiety can increase the attention you pay to relevant information.

Recent studies have shown that people who are anxious about their relationships (for example,they fear to be abandoned) tend to be better at recognizing people who tell lies and are more likely to raise the alarm when danger approaches.

In the real world though, it’s worth realizing that feeling anxious for a while is very common.It helps you communicate with others that you care about, and what’s more, it’s probably a sign that you are intelligent. At least two published studies have identified that people who score higher on measures of anxiety also tend to perform better on intelligence tests. This seems reasonable: If you’re a thinker, you are sure to be always thinking about the future and imagining possible plots, including bad ones.

The important thing, if you are a person likely to worry, is not to let your fear destroy your dreams. And don’t bury your head in the sand. Instead, act on your fears - do research as well as preparation.So rather than walk blindly into what you fear, why not meet challenges in full readiness?

When anxiety beats you, or casts a shadow over your life, this is a serious problem.No one is denying that. But like everyday anxiety of this kind that you feel before a presentation or interview,you needn’t see it as your enemy. Anxiety is an important feeling，developed through evolution(进化).As for people who are fairly anxious by nature, there is a reason to cheer,too.Your nerves are a sign of your watchfulness. Listen to them and act on them. Then you can turn your nervousness into your advantage.

1. What can we infer about anxiety from paragraph 1?

A．It enables us to be more focused.

B．It stops us from thinking logically.

C．It makes us more willing to take risks.

D．It contributes to bad decision-making.

2. What can be learned about anxious people?

A．They sense danger in advance.

B．They score higher in tests.

C．They prefer to interact with strangers.

D．They tend to be thoughtful about future.

3. How should we deal with anxiety in the author’s opinion?

A．By regarding it as our enemy.

B．By taking action to control it.

C．By making use of it properly.

D．By treating it as a minor feeling.

4. What does the passage focus on?

A．Effective ways to prevent anxiety.

B．Unexpected benefits of anxiety.

C．Tips on how to keep a good mood.

D．Misunderstandings about anxiety.

【推荐1】Most polar bears could disappear by the end of the century, scientists say. Global warming is to blame. According to a study published this month in Nature Climate Change, most polar bear populations will be in serious decline by 2080. The cause is melting sea ice.       

Polar bears hunt seals on the ice. Without ice, the bears must wander on the shore, where they are spending more and more time away from their main food source. That means the animals could starve.

“There’s not enough food on land to sustain a polar bear population,” Péter K. Molnár told the New York Times. He is the study’s lead author.

Lack of food leads to another problem: Mother bears may not be fat enough to produce milk for their cubs. Some bear populations could stop having babies, leading to a rapid decline in numbers.

Arctic sea ice usually melts in the spring and summer, then grows in the winter. But now, the ice is taking longer to grow back. Weather statistics say the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet. Ice in the region has declined 13% every 10 years since the 1970s.

The Arctic is home to roughly 25,000 polar bears. Scientists have long known that the animals are in danger. This study, which looked at 13 of the world’s 19 polar bear populations, is the first to identify when they could disappear.

But the study also notes that it is still possible to slow Arctic melting. The world can reduce the burning of fossil fuels and lower the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. It would have to be a drastic reduction. Bringing emissions to only a moderate level will still mean the loss of some polar bears.

Saving the bears is up to us, Holland says. “I believe that there is hope,” she says. “But humans need to act quickly to turn that hope into a reality.”

1. Why are polar bears in danger of disappearing?

A．Lack of seals.	B．Global warming.
C．Less milk for cubs.	D．The loss of home.

2. What does the underlined word “ sustain” in paragraph 3 probably mean?

A．Reduce.

B．Suffer.

C．Support.

D．Increase.

3. What is Holland’s attitude toward saving the polar bears?

A．Doubtful.

B．Neutral.

C．Negative.

D．Positive.

【推荐2】It’s never easy to admit the mistakes you make, but doing so is an important step toward moving forward. National Geographic magazine recently published an article with the title “For decades, our coverage was racist. To rise above our past, we must acknowledge it.” It was written by the magazine’s editor-in-chief Susan Goldberg, the first woman and first Jewish person to hold the position. National geographic has acknowledged that its coverage of black and minority ethnic people in America and the wider world has been historically racist, frequently promoting caricatures (讽刺画) of the “nobel savage (野蛮人)” and barely featuring the US’ minority ethnic population.

According to Goldberg, the 130-year-old publication’s April issue “explores how race defines, separates and unites us”. In honor of 50 years since the killing of Martin Luther King, who is known for fighting racial inequality in the US, the issue is devoted to race.

The publication republished a number of examples of historical racism in its coverage. One 1916 article about Australia included a photo of two Indigenous Australians with the caption (说明文字): “South Australian Black fellows: These savages rank lowest in the intelligence of all human beings.”

To review its previous coverage of race, Goldberg asked University of Virginia historian John Edwin Mason to look back at the magazine’s text, choice of subjects, and photography of people of color from the US and abroad. “Until the 1970s, National Geographic all but ignored people of color who lived in the United States, rarely acknowledging them beyond laborer or domestic workers,” Goldberg wrote about Mason’s findings. “Meanwhile, it pictured ‘natives’ elsewhere as exotics, famously and frequently unclothed, happy hunters, noble savages.”

Mason also found that the magazine often ran photos of “uncivilized” natives amazed by “civilized” Western technology.

In recent years, however, the magazine has improved. For example, in a 2015 project, National Geographic gave cameras to young people in the Caribbean country of Haiti and asked them to shoot pictures of their everyday lives.

The coverage wasn’t right before, because it was told from a white American point of view, and I think it speaks to exactly why we needed a diversity of storytellers,” Goldberg told the Associated Press.

National Geographic’s look at its past also inspired other media organizations to revisit their own historical coverage of race. The New York Times admitted that most of its obituaries (讣告) were about the lives of white men, and has started publishing obituaries of famous women in a special section titled “Overlooked”. After all recognizing overlooked mistakes is what makes us grow.

1. What is special about the April issue of National Geographic magazine?

A．It is devoted to race in memory of Martin Luther King.

B．It is released to mark National Geographic’s 130th anniversary.

C．It is the first issue since Susan Goldberg became the editor-in-chief.

D．It is in this issue that readers can see Mason’s investigation report.

2. Which of the following can prove National Geographic’s coverage was racist?

A．It often pictured colored people with decent jobs.

B．Natives were often pictured as unclothed happy hunters.

C．It asked ordinary people to shoot pictures of their daily lives.

D．It only featured minority groups in America but overlooked others.

3. What can we learn about the National Geographic?

A．It used to tell stories from the perspective of a white Jewish woman.

B．The overall image of natives in it was brave, intelligent but uncivilized.

C．It pushed other media organizations to reflect on their coverage of race.

D．Its texts and choice of subjects were diverse and had no racial prejudice.

4. According to the writer, recognizing the mistakes may _______.

A．affect the image of the world famous magazine

B．eliminate racial discrimination around the world

C．help the magazine to move forward and grow better

D．discourage the editors from reporting bravely and honestly