【推荐1】In English it’s common to say, “I know this town like the back of my hand!” While we may know our towns really well, how well do we actually know our hands? Maybe not quite as well as we think, said a scientific study.

Matthew Longo and his team from University College London studied the left hands of 100 people. With their hands placed palms down under a board, Longo’s team gave the instruction to point to their knuckles and fingertips with a marker. How did they do? Not that well.

“People think their hand is wider than it actually is,” said Longo. He said they also seemed to think their fingers were shorter than their true lengths. People were most accurate when finding their thumbs, but became less accurate with each finger, up to their little fingers.

“It is connected to our sense of position,” explained Longo. Humans know where different parts of our bodies are, even if we can’t see them. “It tells us whether a joint is straight or not,” said Longo. “We also need to know the distances between our joints,” he went on. Our brains know the sizes and shapes of our bodies from the maps they make for themselves. “This experiment tried to find those maps,” he said.

Maybe maps don’t need to be perfect. But why aren’t our brains more accurate? Longo said our brains “see” areas based on our sense of touch, with the stronger the sense of touch in a specific body part, the bigger that body part seems. An example is our lips. As they have more nerves than our noses, our brain’s map shows our lips are bigger. The same thing can happen with body parts that have a lot of nerves. If you’ve ever had something stuck in your teeth, it probably felt huge! That’s because our tongues also have lots of nerves.

If you want to have some fun, try this test with your classmates. Get some boards and some markers and have them mark the spots where they think their knuckles and fingertips are. Compare their hands to the marker spots and see how well they have performed.

1. Why is the saying mentioned in Para. 1?

A．To test readers.

B．To serve as a topic.

C．To prove a scientific study.

D．To attract readers’ interest.

2. What can be inferred from people finding their thumbs more accurately?

A．Thumbs are bigger.	B．Thumbs are much stronger.
C．Thumbs may have more nerves.	D．Thumbs may have strong sense of position.

3. What does the underlined word “they” in Para. 4 refer to?

A．Sizes.

B．Brains.

C．Shapes.

D．Maps.

4. What is the purpose of the experiment?

A．To find the maps in human brains.	B．To draw the maps in human brains.
C．To figure out how different senses cooperate.	D．To help people locate their body parts accurately.

【推荐2】Bad teeth may be painful and it’s getting worse without treatment. They can even ruin your life. Illness of the teeth can find its way into the blood system. This can increase the chances of a heart disease or other illnesses.

Experts say good care for teeth should start at birth. Mothers’ milk is the best food for the healthy development of teeth.

But dentists say a baby’s mouth and early teeth should be cleaned after each feeding. Use a cloth with a little warm water. Do the same if a baby is fed with a bottle. Experts say if you decide to put your baby to sleep with a bottle, give him only water.

When baby’s teeth begin to appear, you can clean them with a wet toothbrush. Dentists say it is important to find soft toothbrushes made especially for babies and to use them very gently. Young children often eat toothpaste (牙膏) when they brush, so they should be carefully watched when they brush their teeth.

Parents often ask what effect thumb sucking (咬手指) might have on their baby’s teeth. Experts generally agree that this is fine early in life. Most children stop sucking their thumbs by the age of four. If it continues, parents should talk to their children’s dentist or doctor.

Dentists say children should have their first dental visit by the time they are one year old. They say babies should be examined when their first teeth appear usually at around six months..

1. Why should people pay attention to teeth problems?

A．They can cause other illnesses.	B．They will bring bad luck.
C．They will bring the family much trouble.	D．They usually last a long time.

2. According to the writer, baby’s teeth should be protected from the day ______.

A．he begins to speak	B．he has his first tooth
C．he was born	D．he is fed with bottle milk

3. We can learn from the passage that_____.

A．children are not advised to brush their teeth

B．drinking water is better than milk before sleeping

C．children’s toothbrushes are always expensive

D．thumb sucking is common for kids under five years old

4. The underlined word “it” in Paragraph 5 refers to “_____”.

A．toothache

B．parents’ trouble

C．thumb sucking

D．experts’ advice

【推荐3】My name is Sara. When I was little, I played the drums. I also had a guitar. In fourth grade, I started playing the trombone (长号). I practiced about four hours a week. All of this might not seem like a big deal for a lot of kids, but I’m a bit different from others. I was born without hands. Since I was about one year old, I’ve worn prosthetics (假肢).

This year, I got an invitation to join the high school marching band (行进管乐队). I told my mom. I wanted to do it. But I had an instructor who thought I would not be able to march in the band— probably just because my body was different. All I wanted was to show that I could do it, so I joined the band. And it paid off!

Music gives me energy. One time I was so down, I didn’t even want to get out of bed. Then I hit my MP3 player by accident. A song came on, and I got up and started dancing. It helped me say to myself, “OK, I can get through today.”

When I’m with the band, I don’t feel as different as I do in other situations. It’s just another way that music makes me want to go on, and not to just sit down by myself and not care about life.

1. In what way is Sara different from other kids?

A．There’s something wrong with her body.

B．She knows how to play many instruments.

C．She learned to play the drums at a very early age.

D．She kept playing the trombone for the longest hours.

2. When invited to join the marching band, Sara ______.

A．said no at first	B．had no idea what to do
C．followed the instructor’s advice	D．believed that she would make it

3. How does Sara probably feel when she’s with the band?

A．Bored.

B．Relaxed.

C．Successful.

D．Afraid.

4. What would be the best title for the text?

A．A High School Band	B．A Young Drummer
C．My Love for Music	D．My Magic Hands

【推荐1】Dogs see the world through their noses. Their special ability to recognize specific scents helps them find bombs, guns, drugs and human remains. Man’s best friend may also be his best health ally. There are reports about dogs trained to sniff out cancer, diabetic conditions and other health problems. According to a new study, dogs can do something just as remarkable: sniff out stress in people.

While previous studies have suggested dogs might pick up on human emotions possibly through smell, questions remained over whether they could detect stress and if this could be done through smell. “This study has definitely proven that when people have a stress response, their odor profile changes.” said Clara Wilson, a PhD student and first author of the research. Wilson added the findings could prove useful when training service dogs that support people with emotional damage.

Wilson and her colleagues were able to train four dogs to indicate the container holding a particular breath and sweat sample, even when the line-up included unused gauze, samples from another person, or samples from the same person taken at a different time of day.

Then the team turned to samples collected from 36 people, who were asked to count backwards from 9,000 in units of 17. The participants reported feeling stressed by the task and for the 27 who carried it out in the laboratory, their blood pressure and heart rate rose. The dogs were taught to pick out samples taken just after the task from two containers holding unused gauze.

The researchers then included not only unused gauze but samples taken from the same participant just before the task, when they were more relaxed. Each set of samples was shown to a single dog in 20 trials. The results reveal that the dogs chose the “stressed” sample in 675 out of the 720 trials.

The team say while it was unclear what chemicals the dogs were picking up on, the study shows humans produce a different odor when stressed.

1. What has the new study found about dogs?

A．They can detect stress in people.

B．They can influence our emotions.

C．They can discover potential dangers.

D．They can sniff out diseases like cancer.

2. Why were the participants asked to count down numbers?

A．To help them better focus.

B．To crcate a tense situation.

C．To test their ability to count.

D．To monitor their blood pressure.

3. Which of the following can be inferred from the text?

A．Stressed samples are more difficult to identify.

B．Dogs can easily recognize their owners’ smells.

C．Humans produce a different odor under pressure.

D．The team will reveal the chemicals dogs nose out.

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

A．Dogs Might Also Suffer from Stress

B．Dogs Contribute to Relieving Pressure

C．Dogs Aid People with Mental Disorder

D．Dogs Know When You’re Stressed Out