1 . As athletes get stronger and faster, the pace of play continues to increase. The burden of making sure games are played according to the rules and that the officiating (裁判) is accurate is now being taken out of human hands and falling more and more into the lap of technology. It’s called the video replay.
The National Football League is expanding its replay system this upcoming season to include pass interference (传球干扰). Major League Baseball now relies on it for safe-or-out and home run calls. If you’ve been watching the FIFA World Cup, you may have noticed that the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) played a key role in almost every game. And in the Kentucky Derby, a horse was disqualified for knocking another horse. No one knew why until a video replay confirmed the call and controversy was avoided.
However, many purists—those who want people to follow rules carefully and do things in the traditional way—especially in soccer, argue it’s not the way the game was invented, and that the video replay is tainting the sport. But don’t you want to see the proper application of the rules throughout the games? I know I do. Yes, it can slow the game down, but I feel it is worth it. If technological advancements allow fans watching from home to spot mistakes instantly, those same views need to be available to the officiating crews. Another example occurred in the most recent National Football Conference (NFC) Championship Game between the Los Angeles Rams and the New Orleans Saints. When obvious pass interference was committed by the Los Angeles Rams player Nickell Robey-Coleman, with just 109 seconds to play, no flag was raised on the field. It weakened the New Orleans Saints spirits. The Los Angeles Rams won a 26-23 overtime victory. The no-call deeply angered the public. The video replay showed the referees had just missed one of the most apparent pass interference calls.
There are no easy answers regarding replay technology and whether it is a curse (魔咒). But for me, keeping the officiating honest and on task is the right step in limiting controversy.
1. What trend in sports can be observed in paragraph 2?| A．The video replay has been widely used. |
| B．League games have become competitive. |
| C．Rules of professional games are becoming stricter. |
| D．People are showing more interest in sports than before. |
| A．Tricking. | B．Promoting. | C．Damaging. | D．Restoring. |
| A．They relied a lot on the video replay. |
| B．They cared too much about details. |
| C．They were definitely stressed out. |
| D．They were terribly disqualified. |
| A．Video replays: high-end technology in sports |
| B．Is technology like VAR a blessing in sports? |
| C．Officiating: a duty that requires honesty |
| D．What do qualified referees really mean? |
2 . What is the best sport for your body type?
Just because someone has dreamt of playing football from childhood does not mean it is the best sport for him or her. Finding the sport your body is best suited to can make a big difference to how much you enjoy it and how good at it you are.
A person with an ectomorph body type is tall and slim with little fat or muscle. This person has narrow shoulders and hips, and thin arms and legs. Ectomorphs have difficulty putting on weight because of a fast metabolism (新陈代谢).
Mesomorph body types are the typical image of an athlete. Their arms and legs are muscular and they have broad shoulders and narrow hips. Mesomorphs can put on or lose weight easily and build muscle quickly.
A person who is an endomorph naturally carries more body fat. They are often short, with a high waist, and well developed upper arms and thighs.
It is important to note that the three body types are extremes. No one is 100% ectomorph or completely endomorph.
| A．Everyone is a bit of a mix |
| B．If you want to be a world champion |
| C．If a person with this body type is very tall |
| D．A person with this body type has more choice of sports |
| E．For the same reason, it takes them longer to build muscle |
| F．While it may seem that an endomorph will not be very athletic |
| G．Endomorphs must work a little harder to maintain a perfect body weight |
3 . As early as 1894, the newly formed International Olympic Committee (IOC) considered ice skating as a possibility for the first modern Olympic Games which would be held in 1896.
In 1911, a member of the IOC suggested that winter sports should be staged as part of the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm. Some opposed the idea. At last, the IOC decided to hold Winter Olympic Games in 1916. However, World War I broke out in 1914. After 1920, the national governing bodies for winter sports in several countries began talking about the possibility of a separate Winter Olympics.
The town of Chamonix, in the French Alps, planned to hold a winter sports festival in 1924; at the same time Paris was to host the Olympics. The Marquis de Polignac, a member of the IOC, suggested that the festival be formally recognized as the Winter Olympic Games. The IOC didn't go that far, but did agree that Chamonix could call its festival an “Olympic winter carnival”.
The festival drew 258 athletes from 16 countries to compete in bobsledding (雪橇比赛), figureskating, hockey, Nordic skiing and speed skating. Charles Jewtraw from the United States won the first gold medal in the 500metre speed skating, but the festival's hero was Claus Thunberg from Finland. He won five medals, three of which were gold in speed skating.
Weather has often been a major story at the Winter Olympics and so it was at Chamonix. The festival opened with rain and the unseasonably warm temperature turned snow and ice to mud. Then temperature dropped as far as 25 below zero and the mud became ice.
Despite the weather, more than 10, 000 people showed up. In 1926, the IOC recognized the Chamonix festival as the first Winter Olympics and decided that the Winter Games would be held every four years, just like the Summer Olympics.
1. Why were the first Winter Olympic Games not held in 1916?| A．Because the IOC didn't agree to it. |
| B．Because it was still under discussion. |
| C．Because some people opposed the idea. |
| D．Because World WarⅠbroke out in 1914. |
| A．the weather destroyed the first Winter Olympics. |
| B．people from 16 countries watched the first Winter Olympics. |
| C．Charles Jewtraw won the most medals in the first Winter Olympics. |
| D．Finland got 3 gold medals in speed skating in the first Winter Olympics. |
| A．The Winter Olympics were held every two years in the beginning. |
| B．The 1924 Winter Olympics and Summer Olympics were held in the same city. |
| C．The Winter Olympics depend much more on the weather than the Summer Olympics. |
| D．The IOC agreed to recognize the Chamonix festival as the first Winter Olympics in 1924. |
| A．The development of the Olympics. |
| B．The importance of weather in the Olympics. |
| C．The story of the first Winter Olympic Games. |
| D．How the Winter Olympics came into being. |
4 . Race walking shares many fitness benefits with running, research shows, while most likely contributing to fewer injuries. It does, however, have its own problem.
Race walkers are conditioned athletes. The longest track and field event at the Summer Olympics is the 50-kilometer race walk, which is about five miles longer than the marathon. But the sport’s rules require that a race walker’s knees stay straight through most of the leg swing and one foot remain in contact (接触) with the ground at all times. It’s this strange form that makes race walking such an attractive activity, however, says Jaclyn Norberg, an assistant professor of exercise science at Salem State University in Salem, Mass.
Like running, race walking is physically demanding, she says, According to most calculations, race walkers moving at a pace of six miles per hour would burn about 800 calories(卡路里) per hour, which is approximately twice as many as they would burn walking, although fewer than running, which would probably burn about 1,000 or more calories per hour.
However, race walking does not pound the body as much as running does, Dr. Norberg says. According to her research, runners hit the ground with as much as four times their body weight per step, while race walkers, who do not leave the ground, create only about 1.4 times their body weight with each step.
As a result, she says, some of the injuries associated with running, such as runner’s knee, are uncommon among race walkers. But the sport’s strange form does place considerable stress on the ankles and hips, so people with a history of such injuries might want to be cautious in adopting the sport. In fact, anyone wishing to try race walking should probably first consult a coach or experienced racer to learn proper technique, she says. It takes some practice.
1. Why are race walkers conditioned athletes?| A．They must run long distances. |
| B．They are qualified for the marathon. |
| C．They have to follow special rules. |
| D．They are good at swinging their legs. |
| A．It’s more popular at the Olympics. |
| B．It’s less challenging physically. |
| C．It’s more effective in body building. |
| D．It’s less likely to cause knee injuries. |
| A．Getting experts’ opinions. |
| B．Having a medical checkup. |
| C．Hiring an experienced coach. |
| D．Doing regular exercises. |
| A．Skeptical. | B．Objective. |
| C．Tolerant. | D．Conservative. |
5 . E-Sports,short for electronic sports,is one of the growing industries in the world,with prizes totaling around $25 million up for grabs in some tournaments. E-Sports are professional multiplayer video game competitions. Any video game with a strong competitive element is considered e-Sports.The competition models itself after traditional professional sports in several ways: it uses corresponding tournament formats,involves player contracts, and is governed by regulations. The athletes who compete in e-Sports competitions are gamers．
The history of e-Sports dates back to 1972 when some Stanford University students competed in the Intergalactic Space War Olympics for the opportunity to win a one-year subscription to the Rolling Stone Magazine. E-Sports pretty much continued on the rather quiet path until the 80s when competitions like the Space Invaders Championship shot them to the spotlight. 2002 marked the beginning of a new era for the sport and laid the foundation for what e-Sports would become thanks to the release of the Xbox live, which brought online play to consoles. Halo Ⅱ became the first game to be shown on national television for Major League Gaming in 2004, paving the way for e-Sports to become a global phenomenon.
Today, e-Sports are growing at a rapid pace thanks to advance in technology and the arrival of streaming services like Twitch which have exposed video game competitions to a new audience due to their extensive reach.
To understand how much impact Twitch has made, data from gaming analyst group Newzoo show that e-Sports global audience increased 43 percent from 204 million to 292 million between 2014 and 2016. Interestingly, this coincides (一致) with Amazon's acquisition of Twitch in 2014 and its effort to make the competition a spectator sport.
1. What do we know about e-Sports?| A．They are strongly competitive. |
| B．They spread worldwide overnight. |
| C．They totally differ from traditional ones. |
| D．The athletes in the sports are programmers. |
| A．The origin of e-Sports. |
| B．The variety of e-Sports. |
| C．The advantages of e-Sports. |
| D．The development of e-Sports. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Uncertain. |
| C．Hopeful. | D．Worried. |
| A．To introduce Newzoo. | B．To conduct a research. |
| C．To show the influence of Twitch. | D．To arouse the audience's interest. |
6 . For the first time in 10 years, the United States government has changed its guidance on how much exercise people need to stay healthy and when they should start.
For children and teens
The new guidance states that the most important time for children to begin exercising is between the ages of 3 and 5.
Doctors say it is important to start young.They add that from birth to age 5, a child’s brain develops more than at any other time in life.
But that does not mean putting a small kid on a treadmill(跑步机)or other exercise equipment.
For adults
For adults, the guidelines recommend exercising 150 minutes a week. That could be walking, gardening, dancing, etc.
| A．Any kind of activity that gets people exercising will do. |
| B．Aerobic activity works only if it lasts for at least 10 minutes. |
| C．Simply giving a kid the time and space to play actively is enough. |
| D．Children above 5 can have a relatively shorter time for daily exercise. |
| E．Children in this age range require about three hours’ active activities daily. |
| F．Attaining the health benefits from exercise may be harder than earlier thought. |
| G．These developments have a 1asting effect on a child’s ability to succeed in life. |
7 . For many adolescents, “screen time” is almost a full-time job that could lead to obesity, diabetes and other health issues, a Canadian researcher says.
Adolescents now spend an average of six hours a day in front of some type of screen, whether it’s a television or computer screen or one of the many portable devices now popular with young people, studies done by Dr. Ian Michael Janssen show. “They spend more hours daily in front of a screen than they do in a classroom in a given year,” said Janssen, a researcher at Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada
. The result is a rise in obesity rates among adolescents. Unfortunately, fixing the problem isn’t as easy as simply cutting down screen time, Janssen cautions. “Decreasing screen time will not automatically increase physical activity levels,” said Janssen, Some active kids also spend a lot of time in front of television and computer screens, and some kids who have low screen times also have low levels of physical activity, he points out.
As well, screen time is not necessarily bad, Janssen said. “The tricky part is that children today need to be using computers,” he said. Computers are required for schoolwork, and technological skills are important for future job prospects. The quality of screen time matters too, along with the quantity---consider the negative health messages found in food advertising during children’s shows, he said. Ideally, children should aim for no more than two hours of recreational screen time a day.
Janssen’s real worry about the rise in childhood obesity rates is not that there are now rare cases of type diabetes in kids, where once there were none, but the health problems these children are likely to face in the future as adults, including high blood pressure, high cholesterol and cardiovascular disease.
1. Which one doesn’t belong to “screen time” according to the passage?| A．Watching TV. | B．Surfing the Internet. |
| C．Seeing a film on an MP4. | D．Making a telephone call. |
| A．lose weight. | B．decrease screen time |
| C．take physical activities | D．go on a diet |
| A．Concerned. | B．Passive. |
| C．Positive. | D．Frightened. |
| A．many of the people having full-time jobs suffer from obesity and diabetes. |
| B．decreasing screen time can’t really solve the problem |
| C．children today most use computers to finish their school work |
| D．a new type of obesity in kids becomes Janssen’s real worry |
8 . It’s cold and dark outside, and your bed is so warm and comfortable. Going for a run seems like such a bad idea. But before you hide your running shoes, it might be worth giving that crazy idea a go.
According to The Huffington Post, an outdoor run in winter, as opposed to one on a treadmill (跑步机), burns more calories because the body is working hard to regulate (调节) its core temperature. Furthermore, research shows that race times are faster in cold weather than in warmer temperatures—and quicker runs burn more calories. Similarly, cold weather also makes the heart work harder to distribute blood through the body, making that vital muscle even stronger.
Outdoor exercise also turns up your energy and rids you of the stress and depression that build up every day. The heat and humidity in the summer can drag you down and tire you faster, but cold weather is refreshing. It adjusts you to your surroundings, making you feel alive.
Of course, the threat of smog in some built-up areas is a further hurdle to winter exercise. Heart attacks, stroke, lung cancer and asthma are all dangers of running in smog. The combination of air pollution and exercise increases the potential problems. If you do choose to run outside on smoggy days, take a path in a park or residential area to avoid car exhaust (尾气), and go early in the morning, before rush hour. But staying inside on smoggy days and waiting for the next clear day to run is best.
1. How does cold weather benefit runners, compared with warm weather?| A．They can run more slowly. |
| B．They can take in more calories. |
| C．Their hearts can function harder. |
| D．Their body temperature can get lower. |
| A．It builds up their energy quickly. | B．It makes runners tired easily. |
| C．It lessens runners’ stress. | D．It causes heart attack. |
| A．Stop driving cars. | B．Do more exercise. |
| C．Avoid outdoor exercise. | D．Run late in the morning. |
| A．Refresh with a Winter Run | B．Take Outdoor Exercise in Summer |
| C．Go to Run in a Park | D．Follow the Tips to Reduce Stress |
Born in 1949, Diana Nyad took an early interest in swimming as a sport and was a Florida State High School swimming champion. Like many young athletes, she had Olympic dreams, but a serious illness kept her from competing in the Games. The disappointment didn’t stop her from going forward. Instead, she became interested in marathon swimming. A brilliant athlete, she was well-conditioned for spending long periods of time in the water. As a long-distance swimmer, she would compete against herself and the obstacles presented by distance, danger, cold, and exhaustion.
For ten years Nyad devoted herself to becoming one of the world’s best long-distance swimmers. In 1970, she swam a ten-mile marathon in Lake Ontario, setting the women’s record for the course. In 1972 she set another record by swimming 102.5 miles from an island in the Bahamas to the coast of Florida. Then she broke a third record when swimming around Manhattan Island in 1975.
Nyad attempted to swim the distance between Florida and Cuba in 1978. Though the span of water is less than 100 miles wide, it is rough and dangerous. After battling the water for two days, she had to give up for the sake of her own health and safety. Even so, she impressed the world with her courage and strong desire to succeed. For Nyad her strength of purpose was just as important as reaching Cuba. That is how she defined success. It did not matter that her swim came up short; she believed she had touched the other shore.
When Nyad ended her career as a swimmer, she continued to try new things---travelling the world as a reporter, writing books and giving public speeches about her life. Diana Nyad works to inspire others, just as she did when she swam the waters of the world.
1. What prevented Nyad from taking part in the Olympic Games? (Not more than 5 words)_______________________________________________________________________
2. What does the underlined word “obstacles” mean? (1 word)
_______________________________________________________________________
3. What achievement did Nyad make in 1970? (Not more than 10 words.)
_______________________________________________________________________
4. Why did Nyad believe that she had touched the other shore? (Not more than 10 words)
_______________________________________________________________________
5. Please explain how you are inspired by Nyad. (Not more than 20 words)
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