In 2009, the number of hungry people in the world reached one billion for the first time. It is difficult not to be shocked by the fact that more than one in seven people on the planet do not have enough to eat.
The UN estimates that almost two-thirds of the world’s hungry people are in Asia, which is of course the world’s most populous continent.
Although many people point out that there would be less hunger if the global population were smaller, few people would argue that there is not enough food to go around. The basic problem seems to be not a lack of food, but its distribution.In the last 50 years, global food production has risen even more quickly than the global population and there are of course many areas of the world where people generally have more than enough food.
| A．More than a quarter are in sub-Saharan Africa. |
| B．There are many reasons for world hunger. |
| C．It takes the effort of every country to fight against world hunger. |
| D．In those places, obesity is a far bigger problem than hunger there. |
| E．Those places need far more food than they actually get. |
| F．By the end of this year, more than 35 million people will have died as a result of not having enough to eat. |
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【推荐1】Eggs make for a delicious meal, and for the past few years, we’ve been able to enjoy them guilt-free. Now, they are declared as “bad egg” again.
Researchers from Northwestern University collected data from six previous studies that tracked the health of 29, 615 adults for about 18 years on average. After gathering results from the various studies, they concluded that 300 milligrams of cholesterol (胆固醇) per day slightly raised a person’s risk of heart disease. One egg contains about 186 milligrams of cholesterol.
“These participants weren’t given periodic questionnaires, they were given one questionnaire,” says Lauren Slayton, a nutritionist. “That’s like drawing conclusions about someone’s fashion sense by what they wore 20 years ago.” No one followed up to see if the diet reports were accurate or to find out whether people changed their diet.
Frank Hu, a professor of nutrition at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, told NPR: “So much data have already been published on this topic, which generally show that low-to-moderate egg consumption (no more than one egg per day) is not associated with increased risk of heart attack.” Plus, there are also many other risk factors that contribute to heart disease.
Before you quit your breakfast favorite, you should know that this research is far from the last word on eggs. In other words, don’t feel like you have to drop eggs from your diet based on one study. If you’re concerned about your cholesterol, discuss your diet with your doctor—and consider your exercise routine and other health factors, too. If your heart risk is rising, you may want to check out the best—and worst—diets for your heart.
1. What is the writing purpose of the text?| A．To test what previous studies found. |
| B．To discourage people from eating eggs every day. |
| C．To measure how much cholesterol an egg contains. |
| D．To show the link between egg-eating and health risk. |
| A．The findings are out of date. | B．This kind of research is limited. |
| C．No one cares about the research. | D．The results should be tested again. |
| A．Consult the doctor often. | B．Seek for professional aid. |
| C．Do exercise on a daily basis. | D．Have a sharp mind in your diet. |
| A．Cold. | B．Uncertain. | C．Doubtful. | D．Positive. |
【推荐2】You may have heard some of the fashion industry horror stories: models eating tissues or cotton balls to hold off hunger, and models collapsing (昏倒) from hunger-induced (因饥饿所致的) heart attacks just seconds after they step off the runway (T台).
Excessively skinny models have been a point of controversy (争论) for decades, and two researchers say a model’s body mass (体重) should be a workspace health and safety issue. In an editorial released Monday in the American Journal of Public Health, Katherine Record and Bryn Austin made their case for government regulation of the fashion industry.
The average international runway model has a body mass index (BMI) under 16-low enough to indicate starvation by the World Health Organization’s standard. And Record and Austin are worried not just about the models themselves, but about the vast number of girls and women their images influence.
“Especially girls and teens,” says Record. “Seventy percent of girls aged 10 to 18 report that they define perfect body image based on what they see in magazines.” That’s especially worrying, she says, given that anorexia(厌食症) results in more deaths than does any other mental illness, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.
It’s commonly known that certain diseases are linked with occupations like lung disease in coal miners. Professional fashion models are particularly vulnerable (脆弱的) to eating disorders (失调) resulting from occupational demands to maintain extreme thinness.
Record’s suggestion is to prohibit agents from hiring models with a BMI below 18.
In April, France passed a law setting lower limits for a model’s weight. Agents and fashion houses who hire models with BMI under 18 could pay $ 82, 000 in fines and spend up to 6 months in jail. Regulating the fashion industry in the United States won’t be easy, Record says. But with the new rules in France, U.S. support could make a difference. “A designer can’t survive without participating in Paris Fashion Week”, she says, adding, “Our argument is that the same would be true of New York Fashion Week.”
1. What do Record and Austin say about fashion models’ body mass?| A．It has caused needless controversy. |
| B．It affects models’ health and safety. |
| C．It is but a matter of personal taste. |
| D．It is focus of the modeling business. |
| A．Prohibition of models eating non-food stuff. |
| B．A change in the public’s view of female beauty. |
| C．Elimination (淘汰) of forced weight loss by models. |
| D．Government legislation (立法) about models’ weight. |
| A．It contributes to many mental illnesses. |
| B．It defines the future of the fashion industry. |
| C．It has great influence on numerous girls and women. |
| D．It keeps many otherwise qualified women off the runaway. |
| A．It has difficulty hiring models. |
| B．It has now a new law to follow. |
| C．It allows girls under 18 on the runway. |
| D．It has overtaken that of the United States. |
【推荐3】If you really want to go green, here’s good news: eating green foods is good for you. The very foods with a high carbon dioxide cost — dairy products, processed snacks — also tend to be filled with fat and calories. A green diet would be mostly vegetables and fruits, wholegrains, fish and lean meats like chicken — a diet that’s eco- and waistline-friendly. Eating green foods can be healthier and beneficial to the climate.
It may be hard to believe that a meal at McDonalds produces more carbon dioxide than that your trip to a faraway place produces. More than 37% of the world’s land is used for agriculture, much of which was once forested. Deforestation (砍伐森林) is a major source of carbon dioxide. The fertilizer (肥料) and machinery needed on a modern farm also have a large carbon footprint, as does the network of ships and trucks that brings the food from the farm to your plate.
The most efficient way to reduce the carbon footprint of your menu is to eat less meat, especially beef. Raising cattle takes a lot more energy than growing the equivalent (相等的) amount of grains, fruits or vegetables. What’s more, the majority of cattle in the U.S. are fed on grains and the fertilizer used to grow grains creates separate environmental problems.
Focus on eating food lower on the food chain, with more plants and fruits and less meat and fewer dairy products. It’s simple. We can change today what goes into our bodies for the health of our planet and ourselves.
1. According to the passage, eating green foods will ______.| A．protect the animals from being killed |
| B．promote the development of agriculture |
| C．help us lose weight and keep self-confidence |
| D．be good for our health and make a change of the climate |
| A．Deforestation. | B．Grains. |
| C．Machinery. | D．Fertilizer. |
| A．eat more vegetables than meat |
| B．stop raising cattle |
| C．plant more grains |
| D．use less fertilizer |
| A．The benefits of eating green foods. |
| B．How to reduce carbon dioxide. |
| C．The change of our menu. |
| D．The ways of keeping healthy. |
【推荐1】Feeling achy and feverish? Your misery has plenty of company. By the end of December, the tally (计数器) of flu-like illnesses in the state exceeded the peaks in the two previous seasons, when the biggest number of cases occurred in February and March. This time, the flu virus seems to be hitting even harder.
Flu is unique among human diseases. It circulates constantly in cool and dry areas. Because it spreads from person to person and can be picked up easily, nearly everyone is exposed. While it’s unclear whether the annual flu epidemic (流行病) will worsen this year, or just arrived earlier, fears have been increased by the severity of flu in Australia during its most recent season and the fact that the vaccine may protect against the predominant (盛行的) kind of the flu only 30 percent of the time.
Despite the worries, doctors and public health officials say there is no evidence that people are getting sicker than usual. Flu cases in Massachusetts started rising around Thanksgiving and increased steadily, with an especially steep climb in the last week of the year. “This is a bad flu season but not a horrible one,” said Dr. Andrew G. Villanueva, a lung specialist and chief quality officer at the Lahey Hospital & Medieal Centre in Burlington.
The flu season, while clearly in full swing, doesn’t “feel different” from previous years, Villanueva said. “We’re not seeing a lot of people being hospitalized because of flu,” he said. “Most people with the flu recover on their own without medical care.”
1. What’s the function of the first paragraph?| A．A lead-in. | B．A comment. | C．A summary. | D．A background. |
| A．The outbreak of the flu is terrible. |
| B．The flu has arrived earlier than before. |
| C．The vaccine against the nu is highly effective. |
| D．Everyone feels horrible at the mention of the flu. |
| A．Crowded | B．Changeable | C．Permanent | D．Active |
| A．To explain what flu is. |
| B．To rid people of flu panic. |
| C．To warn readers of how serious the flu is. |
| D．To inform readers how to prevent the flu. |
【推荐2】There are many colors in nature. But do you think that a color has weight? I think you'll say "no". But I'm afraid you are wrong. If you don't believe it, you may do a small experiment.
First, put two objects with the same weight into two boxes. Then cover the boxes. Third, wrap one box with a red piece of paper, the other one with white piece of paper. OK. Now hold the boxes with your hand one by one. It is certain that you will think the red one is a little heavier.
Why do you think so? A scientist found that different colors have different weights in man's mind. That is to say, every color has its own weight in our mind.
The scientist told us that colors also have smell. Can you smell the color? Of course not. Then why did the scientist say so? That is because every color stands for kind of light with a certain wavelength（波长）. It reaches our brain through sense organs.
According to this discovery scientists say that people accept the colors they like, and refuse the colors they hate. So your body and mind will be healthy by using the colors you like. Or you'll be nervous or even get ill. For example, you like blue and hate red. If you stay in a room with red windows, wallpaper and furniture for two hours, you'll feel you have been there for four hours. But if the room is blue, you'll feel you have been there for only an hour. And if a person walks out of a blue room and into a red room, his temperature will rise. That means our body temperature will change with different colors.
1. What can we know from the experiment?| A．The two boxes have the same weight. |
| B．Colors can change the weight of an object. |
| C．The red paper is heavier than the white paper. |
| D．Colors have different weights in people's mind. |
| A．The meal of colors is changeable. |
| B．People can sense the light from colors. |
| C．People can smell the colors through the nose. |
| D．All the colors have the same smell for the blind. |
| A．White color is heavier than red color. |
| B．People nay get ill if they refuse the colors they don't like. |
| C．People can stay longer in red rooms than in blue rooms. |
| D．People's body temperature will change with different colors. |
| A．short novel | B．news report |
| C．science report | D．advertisement |
【推荐3】HOW BIG should a business team be?It is an enormously important issue for companies, Teams that are too small may lack the skills required to get the job done:teams that are too big may be impossible to co-ordinate.
Robin Dunbar.an anthropologist at Oxford University,has done a lot of work on primate(灵长目）groups.His argument is that the size of the group is linked to the size of the brain.With their large brains,humans can cope with larger bands,A larger social group has many advantages,allowing for greater protection and specialization.
Whereas 150 is sometimes referred to as the"Dunbar number",the academic himself in fact refers to a range of figures.He observes that humans tend to have five intimate friends,15 or so good friends,around 50 social friends and 150-odd acquaintances.
Running a larger network can be difficult.The armed forces have spent more than 1,000 years experimenting with unit size.A Roman centurion(百天长）oversaw 100.The modern American army company has 180 members.Britain's equivalent numbers 120.These are rough estimates,rather than fixed figures.But it is striking that many group activities seem to be close to a Dunbar number. The Special Air Service of Britain has four-man patrols;when your life depends on it,you need to have absolute trust in your colleagues.As a result,such groups are limited in size.
For much of economic history,work was conducted in small units by peasants,tenant farmers and craftsmen.The coming of powered machinery enabled production at a much larger scale,with workers crowded into factories.These days the rise of the service economy means that workers are no longer concentrated in such large groups.
This may not be a bad thing.It was easy for employees in large factories to regard remote company owners as "them"rather than"us".The modern company may settle on a model with a small group of"core"workers and a larger group of contract workers.The result may be more united within the core staff but the non-core staff may be less well treated.The small core teams may work effectively.The big question will be the effect on morale of those outside those teams.
1. What does the first paragraph serve as in the whole article?| A．An example of the topic, |
| B．An introduction to the topic, |
| C．A guide to the whole article, |
| D．No relation to the passage at all. |
| A．Workers crowded into factories |
| B．'These days the service economy has risen. |
| C．Workers are no longer concentrated in such large groups. |
| D．Employees regard company owners as"them"rather than"us". |
| A．A large group of exact 150 workers. |
| B．A small group of less than 15 core workers. |
| C．A small group of peasants and a large group of factory workers. |
| D．A small group of efficient workers and more contract workers. |
| A．To offer companies some useful advice. |
| B．To introduce us the most suitable size of teams. |
| C．To arouse the readers' interest in Robin Dunbar. |
| D．To persuade companies to adopt the"Dunbar number". |
