Fall is finally here! This is the most glorious time of the year. Leaves are turning yellow, and the weather is cool enough to wear your favorite sweaters. But for some, the changing of the seasons is vexing, and can lead to a sudden dip in energy, making many people wonder why they get more tired in the fall.
Many studies show that some viruses causing the common cold are more active in cooler weather, which may further lead to fall fatigue (疲劳).
However, the cold weather isn’t the only reason you may be feeling run-down this fall. The lack of sunlight can also have a significant impact on how energetic we feel. “There’s a special circuit from your eyeballs that goes directly to your brain that picks up sunlight, and the most important signal is sunlight in the morning. That sunlight in the morning helps wake you up, and also helps keep you awake all day long.” said Dr. Michael Howell, a sleep specialist. So, sleepiness is unavoidable in a season without much sunlight. When people’s exposure to sunlight is increasingly limited, some people may suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD. Too often, SAD is treated as a punchline, but for the estimated 10 million Americans who suffer from it, it’s not a joke. SAD is a form of depression that is related to the change in seasons, which makes people feel tired easily. Symptoms can include high pressure, feelings of depression and a heavy feeling in arms and legs, etc. And most people experience them during the fall and winter.
While the fall is a beautiful season, the disorder it can bring to your body and mind is no joke. Be sure to put your health and wellness first as you head into fall. It’s an ideal time to cook soup and stew, clean out your room, take a walk outside, or relax with a good book. Sleep tight, my friends.
1. What does the underlined word “vexing” mean in paragraph 1?| A．Annoying | B．Shocking. | C．Enjoyable. | D．Important. |
| A．Creating more energy. | B．Keeping people awake. |
| C．Helping people sleep tight. | D．Showing the change of seasons. |
| A．It depends on temperatures. |
| B．It strikes people in sunny seasons. |
| C．It is clearly understood by most people. |
| D．It has both physical and mental impacts. |
| A．How you keep awake in the fall? |
| B．Why you are more tired in the fall? |
| C．What you should do to stay energetic in the fall? |
| D．Who you can turn to for tips on SAD in the fall? |
相似题推荐
There are four levels of sleep, each being a little deeper than the one before. As you sleep, your body relaxes little by little. Your heart beats more slowly, and your brain slows down. After you reach the fourth level, your body shifts back and forth from one level of sleep to the other.
Although your mind slows down, you will dream from time to time. Scientists who study sleep point out that when you are dreaming, your eyeballs begin to move more quickly (although your eyelids are closed). This stage of sleep is called REM, which stands for rapid eye movement.
If you have trouble falling asleep, some people suggest breathing very slowly and very deeply. Other people believe that drinking warm milk will make you drowsy. There is also an old suggestion that counting sheep will put you to sleep.
1. The text makes us know that not getting enough sleep might make you _________.
| A．suffer form poor health | B．enjoy more |
| C．dream more often | D．breathe quickly |
| A．you move restlessly |
| B．you start dreaming |
| C．your mind stops working |
| D．your eyeballs move quickly |
| A．lazy | B．sleepy | C．relaxed | D．pleased |
【推荐2】Cold Weather Helps Your Body
We think of winter as cold and flu season, but the chilly temperatures have powerful biological upsides too.
Boosts your brain
Burns calories
When its cold, your body works harder to keep your core temperature, which is typically about 98.6 degrees.
Encourages better sleep
Your body's core temperature drops when you're trying to sleep.This process can take up to two hours in the summer, but it's much faster in winter.
Fights infections
Yes, you might get more colds during the winter. However, studies have shown that the immune(免疫的)system can be activated by colder temperatures, which improves our ability to fight infections. That said, the flu virus becomes stronger in cold, dry air, and time spent indoors increases your chance of infection.
Strengthens your heart
In cold weather, the heart works harder to pump blood and keep the body's core temperature. That's a good thing .
| A．Any activity can leave your heart driving. |
| B．Plus, with darker mornings, you naturally sleep later. |
| C．Colder temperatures can help you think more clearly. |
| D．Exercising in the winter makes heart muscles stronger. |
| E．Storing up too much ordinary fat can endanger our health. |
| F．Our bodies use a large amount of energy to keep us warm. |
| G．To reduce risk, get your annual flu shot, wash your hands frequently. |
Treating disease by taking bathing has been popular for centuries. Modern medical bathing first became popular in Europe and by the late 1700’s has also become popular in the United States.
For many years frequent bathing was believed to be bad for one’s health. Ordinary bathing just to keep clean was avoided, and perfume was often used to cover up body smells!
By the 1700’s doctors began to say that soap and water were good for health. They believed that it was good for people to be clean. Slowly, people began to bathe more frequently. During the Victorian Age of the late 19th century, taking a bath on Saturday night became common.
In the United States ordinary bathing was slow to become popular. During the 18th and early 19th centuries, many Americans were known as “The Great Unwashed!” In one American city, for example, a person was only allowed to take a bath every thirty days! That was a law!
Frequency of bathing today is partly a matter of habit. People know that bathing for cleanliness is important to health. Doctors know that dirty bodies increase the chance of diseases. As a result, in the United States, people generally bathe often. Some people bathe once a day at least. They consider a daily bath essential to good health.
1. In the 18th century doctors believed that being clean was _______.
| A．unimportant | B．good for health |
| C．harmful | D．popular |
| A．the Americans ever took a bath every thirty days |
| B．frequent bathing was avoided |
| C．people used perfume to cover up body smells after bathing |
| D．the British people generally took a bath once a week. |
| A．bathing in the USA |
| B．the good points and bad points of bathing |
| C．the history of bathing |
| D．the modern medical bathing |
【推荐1】Endangered polar bears are breeding (繁殖) with grizzly bears (灰熊), creating “pizzly” bears, which is being driven by climate change, scientists say.
As the world warms and Arctic sea ice thins, starving polar bears are being forced ever further south, where they meet grizzlies, whose ranges are expanding northwards. And with that growing contact between the two come increasing hybrids (杂交种).
With characteristics that could give the hybrids an advantage in warming northern habitats, some scientists guess that they could be here to stay. “Usually, hybrids aren’t better suited to their environments than their parents, but these hybrids are able to search for a broader range of food sources,” Larisa DeSantis, an associate professor of biological sciences at Vanderbilt University, told Live Science.
The rise of “pizzly” bears appears with polar bears’ decline: their numbers are estimated to decrease by more than 30% in the next 30 years. This sudden fall is linked partly to “pizzly” bears taking up polar bears’ ranges, where they outcompete them, but also to polar bears’ highly specialized diets.
“Polar bears mainly consumed soft foods even during the Medieval Warm Period, a previous period of rapid warming,” DeSantis said, referring to fat meals such as seals. “Although all of these starving polar bears are trying to find alternative food sources, like seabird eggs, it could be a tipping point for their survival.” Actually, the calories they gain from these sources do not balance out those they burn from searching for them. This could result in a habitat ready for the hybrids to move in and take over, leading to a loss in biodiversity if polar bears are replaced.
“We’re having massive impacts with climate change on species,” DeSantis said. “The polar bear is telling us how bad things are. In some sense, “pizzly” bears could be a sad but necessary compromise given current warming trends.”
1. Why do polar bears move further south?| A．To create hybrids. | B．To expand territory. |
| C．To relieve hunger. | D．To contact grizzlies. |
| A．Broader habitats. | B．More food options. |
| C．Climate preference. | D．Improved breeding ability. |
| A．A rare chance. | B．A critical stage. |
| C．A positive factor. | D．A constant change. |
| A．Polar bears are changing diets for climate change. |
| B．Polar bears have already adjusted to climate change. |
| C．“Pizzly” bears are on the rise because of global warming. |
| D．“Pizzly”bears have replaced polar bears for global warming. |
【推荐2】Playing video games for hours on end may prepare your child to become a laparoscopic (腹腔镜检查的)doctor one day, a new study has shown. Reorganization of the brain’s cortical (皮质的，皮层的)network in young men with experience of playing video games gives them an advantage not only in playing the games but also in performing other tasks requiring visuomotor (视觉眼肌运动)skills. Researchers from the Centre for Vision Research at York University in Canada compared a group of 13 young men in their twenties, who had played video games at least four hours a week for the past three years, to a group of 13 young men without that experience. The subjects were placed in a functional magnetic resonance imaging ( MRI) machine and asked to complete a series of increasingly difficult visuomotor tasks, such as using a joystick or looking one way while reaching another way.
“ By using high resolution brain imaging (MRI), we were able to actually measure which brain areas were activated at a given time during the experiment,” said Lauren Sergio, associate professor. “We tested how the skills learned from video game experience can transfer over to new tasks, rather than just looking at brain activity while the subject plays a video game.”
The finding that using visuomotor skills can reorganize how the brain works offers hope for future research into the problems experienced by Alzheimer5s patients, who struggle to complete the simplest visuomotor tasks.
Lead author Joshua Granek added that, in future, it would be interesting to study if the brain pattern changes are affected by the type of video games a player has used and the actual total number of hours he has played, and to study female video gamers, whose brain patterns in earlier studies were different from those of males.
1. What do the underlined words “The subjects” in Paragraph 1 refer to?| A．The 13 young gamers. | B．The 13 young men not interested in games. |
| C．The people involved in the study. | D．Those having trouble with visuomotor tasks. |
| A．The lifestyle. | B．The names of the games. |
| C．The study they join in. | D．The work of brain areas. |
| A．By studying how experienced skills work on new tasks. |
| B．Only by watching the brain activity. |
| C．By playing video games. |
| D．By reorganizing how brain network works at different times. |
| A．The advantages of playing video games. | B．The effect of watching videos. |
| C．The ways to deal with Alzheimer. | D．The research into brain diseases. |
【推荐3】Anxiety is part of your body’s stress response system, and it can be uncomfortable, overwhelming，and sometimes plain confusing.
“I describe anxiety as a future-centred emotional response to a threat,” says Joel Minden, PhD, a clinical psychologist and the author of Show Your Anxiety Who’s Boss. “We anticipate that something bad will happen. Maybe we have evidence. Maybe we don’t. But we have a belief that something disastrous might occur.”
Minden says, sympathetic nervous system controls involuntary processes such as breathing and heart rate. This leads to releasing adrenaline and cortisol (肾上腺素和皮质醇), two of the crucial substance that drive your body’s fight-freeze flight response and prompt anxiety’s physical symptoms. Your heart races, your blood pressure rises, your eyes became wider, you get short of breath, and you break put in sweat.
For Arthur, chronic (慢性) physical pain and discomfort were the most powerful manifestation of her disorder, but anxiety can show itself in many ways. You might constantly overthink plans or spend all of your time creating solutions to worst-case imagination. Maybe you feel uncertain and fear making the wrong decision. Or you might find yourself restless, nervous, and unable to relax.
Often, those symptoms last only as long as certain situations are present. Other times, anxiety can tip into becoming a chronic anxiety disorder such as generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, stress disorder, or a panic.
The distinction between circumstantial or temporary anxiety and a more severe case isn’t always easy to make, says clinical psychologist David Carbonell, PhD, founder of the Anxiety Treatment Center in Chicago.
“There isn’t a blood test for anxiety. At some point, everybody experiences it,” he says. “It becomes a disorder when it disturbs your behavioral choices and your ability to do as you wish in life.”
1. Why is anxiety described as a future-centred emotional response?| A．It is a reaction to an unknown threat. |
| B．It will bring about some physical action. |
| C．It is part of your body’s stress-response system. |
| D．It is a reaction to something bad going to happen. |
| A．Effect. | B．Demonstration. | C．Outcome. | D．Function. |
| A．Accomplishing a tough task. | B．During the flight to another city. |
| C．Waiting for an important interview. | D．Before attending an important exam. |
| A．Anxiety can be examined through a blood test. |
| B．Temporary anxiety tends to become permanent at some point. |
| C．Anxiety may become a disorder when it involves hard choices. |
| D．It is easy to identify the difference between temporary anxiety and a serious disorder. |
【推荐1】The history of flying cars is almost as old as that of powered flight itself. It started with the Curtiss Autoplane of 1917, an awkward-looking device with wings that could be disconnected. It never left the ground. Later machines made it into the skies but failed to take off commercially. Thanks to better batteries and special materials, the vehicles, some of which have been in the making for ten years, are ready to carry passengers.
Midway between a taxi and a helicopter, flying taxis have apparent advantages over both. Quiet electric engines allow them to operate services repeatedly. Unlike noisy helicopters, which face strict operating limits in most cities, they require only a small flat area to land and can fly four or five times faster than a taxi can drive. Moreover, they don't get stuck in traffic. Prices can be kept low by ride-sharing.
Money is now flooding into flying taxis. Carmakers, tech companies and others are putting large amounts of money into the field. Morgan Stanley, an investment (投资)bank, assumes the market for this industry could be worth S674 billion by 2040 - a sign indicating the business will fly.
Joby, based in Califomia says its five-seater machine will enter commercial service in 2024. The tar-up cost of around s4 per person per mile may soon fall by 25%. A trip from Manhattan to JFK airport would then cost S30-40 per passenger. It counts Toyota, a Japanese car giant, among its backers and in December it bought the flying car business of Uber. Some companies are even closer to take-of. One, eHang, is close to certification (认证) in China, its home market.
A new age will come when fully automatic (自动的) driving saves the cost of a pilot，With the technology advancing, it won't be long before it comes true.
1. What greatly decides the commercial service of flying cars?| A．Automatic driving. | B．Disconnected wings. |
| C．A great deal of money. | D．Batteries and materials. |
| A．To reflect the financial difficulty. |
| B．To introduce an investment bank. |
| C．To show the bright future of flying taxis. |
| D．To attract more international companies. |
| A．Joby. | B．Morgan Stanley. | C．Toyota. | D．eHang. |
| A．Whole History of Flying Cars |
| B．Flying Taxis About to Take Off |
| C．Flying Taxis in Place of Planes |
| D．Competition Between Car Giants |
Old trains are very attractive and mysterious, whether it’s because of their history and their function or simply because they look so fierce and huge. Many old derailed trains have been transformed into anything like homes, art galleries and even amusement parks. As part of a recovery program to restore a failed railway, Ecuadorian design firm Al Borde transformed a tired, old train into a mobile cultural center, which they call “Wagon of Knowledge” (Vagon del Saber).
Selected by the Ecuadorian(厄瓜多尔)Ministry of Culture and Heritage, the community oriented project is to reactivate settlements along its route. After more than a decade of absence, these areas not only recover a means of communication but are enhanced economically, as the cultural promoters use the train car as an activator of public space and a meeting point for the locals. The multifunctional nature of the carriage — it is without a strictly defined architectural program and can therefore be designed flexibly — allows for musical performances, theater shows, training programs and celebrations.
The train was renovated(修复)to achieve the greatest number of uses with the minimum number of elements.
A public square and a theater with a capacity of 60-80 people, as well as work spaces for 20 users were incorporated by attaching three extensions to the train: a roof with several deployment( 部 署 )options, retractable furniture and two storage spaces — simple systems operated by the cultural romoters turn the cart into their desired requirements. Set to travel around the route, the cultural unit will begin to accumulate and facilitate new stories.
Intended to move from place to place without a strict set of limitations to define its use, it becomes something flexible that adapts to the needs of the moment, so that it “carries neither goods nor tourists, but culture and public space”. As we can see here, there are a lot of possibilities, thanks to various interchangeable components that can allow the train to shift from conference space to a performance venue in a snap.
It’s a creative way to give new life to a historically important train that was once even derailed, and to ensure that it can keep on serving the public. One more thing, people don’t have to go to this public space; it will travel to come to them.
1. Why did the design firm Al Borde carry out the project?| A．To boost the local tourism. |
| B．To sharpen rural people’s communication skills. |
| C．To bring communities along the railroad line to life. |
| D．To provide recreation for the community residents. |
| A．Advanced architectural design techniques. |
| B．The railway systems that are easy to operate. |
| C．Flexible construction features of the train car. |
| D．The financial assistance provided by cultural promoters. |
| A．By extending the length of the carriage. |
| B．By adding three components to the train. |
| C．By freely changing the position of the roof. |
| D．By expanding the seating capacity of the train. |
| A．It used to be the meeting point for the locals. |
| B．It can perform different working functions. |
| C．It was used to carry goods and tourists. |
| D．It will stay in one place to entertain locals |
| A．It is meaningful. |
| B．It is large-scale. |
| C．It is pioneering. |
| D．It is impressive. |
【推荐3】Singapore uses about 430 million gallons of water every day — a number it expects could double in the next four decades. That kind of consumption is piling pressure on the Asian city state to address growing concerns about global water shortage. So it’s building new technology to prepare itself for a future where obtaining clean water will be even more difficult.
Rapid urbanization and rising global temperatures are making access to natural water sources increasingly hard to come by. Today, a quarter of the world lives in areas of high water stress. Singapore is home to more than five million people and is covered in fountains, landscape pools and other water features (水景设计). But it has no natural water sources of its own, instead relying heavily on recycled water and imports from its neighbors.
Snyder’s research facility is one of several places developing solutions for Singapore’s water dependency. The hope is to create projects that could be used across the city. One development: a small, black sponge (海绵) called carbon fiber aerogel can clean waste water on a mass scale. The material is being further developed for commercial use by Singapore-based startup EcoWorth Technology. According to CEO Andre Stoltz, the company will first enter Singapore’s waste water market before eventually developing this material for use on a global scale.
Another company, WateRoam, is already taking innovation from Singapore to the rest of the region. Founded in 2014, WateRoam says it has developed a lightweight, portable filtration (过滤) device that they say has already provided clean drinking water to more than 75,000 people across Southeast Asia.
The water filtration device is no bigger than a bicycle pump, yet it can provide clean water to villages of 100 people for up to two years, according to the company.
“We’ve been very blessed to have access to clean drinking water,” Pong said. “It’s a privilege that we should be able to bring forth to the rest of the region, and advocate that clean water is an essential aspect for life on earth.”
1. What do we know about Singapore according to the text?| A．It consumes much more water than any other country in the world. |
| B．Its demand for water also results from facilities using a lot of water. |
| C．Its water shortage is partly due to the absence of recycled water. |
| D．It imports most of the water resources from neighboring countries. |
| A．Snyder’s research facility has developed a sponge for commercial use. |
| B．The material carbon fiber aerogel has been used throughout Singapore. |
| C．The device produced by WateRoam has been available in Southeast Asia. |
| D．The water filtration device invented in 2014 has provided water ever since. |
| A．Technology. | B．Culture. |
| C．Business. | D．Lifestyle. |
