1 . People who have kids live longer than those who remain childless, an academic study has suggested. Researchers believe it is because adults’ immune systems are “refreshed” when kids go to nursery and start picking up infections.
During the course of someone’s life, their immune system can become weaker. But when kids start bringing infections home, their parents’ immune systems get a workout. Non-parents — unless they are teachers or nurses perhaps — do not get the same exposure to infection.
Writing in the journal Scientific Reports, Miguel Portela said parents had less risk of dying from infection than non-parents and if they did, it was about five years later. He said that “a parent’s immune system is refreshed by a child’s infections at a time when their own protection starts wearing thin.” He added, “With this improved immune system, the parent has a better chance to defend whatever infections that might strike when old and weak and parenthood is rewarded in individual terms through an improved immunization against infections.” Naturally there are other reasons why some people live longer than others, but they may not be comparable with becoming a parent. The academics say that high income and house ownership are always associated with higher survival but less so than having children.
Mr. Portela admits the research is far from complete, saying that while the results “record a relationship between the presence of children and death rate, the specific transmission mechanisms remain unclear. He acknowledges the presence of other, perhaps behavioral factors in parents which result in changed death rate compared to individuals without children.” He adds, “While the relationships of lifestyle choices such as smoking, obesity, drinking and other behavioral factors with life expectancy and causes of death are well studied and understood, the same cannot be said for the individual decision to become a parent”.
1. Why did Mr. Portela say “parents had less risk of dying from infection than non-parents”?| A．Parents have healthier lifestyles. |
| B．Parents have less exposure to infection. |
| C．Parents have higher ability to fight against infections. |
| D．Parents have less experience to fight against infections. |
| A．By being exposed to their kids’ infection. | B．By working out with their kids. |
| C．By refreshing their kids’ life. | D．By strengthening their kids’ infection. |
| A．Rich life benefits parents more than having children. |
| B．Lack of sleep has nothing to do with life expectancy. |
| C．The presence of children can improve parents’ health |
| D．Behavioral factors contribute to higher death rate than having no children. |
| A．Parents and Non-parents | B．How to Achieve Longer Life Expectancy? |
| C．How Is Parents’ Immune Systems Changed? | D．Children’s Effect on Parents’ Immune System |
2 . This was the first real task I received in my new school. It seemed simple: go on the Internet and find information about a man named George Washington. As I searched the name, I found that there were two famous people having the same name who looked completely different! One invented hundreds of uses for peanuts(花生), while the other led some sort of army across America. I stared at the screen, wondering which one my teacher meant. I called my grandfather for a golden piece of advice; let the coin decide. I flipped(掷) a coin and Ah! Tails (背面)! My report would be about the great man who invented peanut butter, George Washington Carver.
Weeks later, I stood in front of the classroom and proudly read my homework. But things started to get strange. I looked around the room, only to find my classmates with big smiles on their faces and tears in their eyes and my stone-faced teacher. I was completely lost. “What could be causing everyone to act this way?”
Oh well, I dropped the paper and sat down at my desk, burning to find out what I had done wrong. As a classmate began his report, it all became clear, “My report is on George Washington, the man who started the American War of Independence.” The whole world became quiet! How could I know that my teacher meant that George Washington?
Of course, my subject result was awful. Sad but fearless, I decided to turn this around. I talked to the headmaster Miss Lancelot, but she said firmly: No re-dos; no new score. I felt that it was not fair, and I believed I deserved a second chance. So I threw myself heartily into my work for the rest of the school year. Ten months later, I sat in the headmaster’s office again, but this time a completely different conversation. I smiled and flashed back to the terrible moment at the beginning of the year as the headmaster told me I was good enough to skip(跳过) the 6th grade and started the 7th grade next term.
1. The task I received was to find information about ________.| A．uses for peanuts |
| B．American War of Independence |
| C．George Washington |
| D．my headmaster Miss Lancelot |
| A．I was too proud of my homework |
| B．I mistook what the homework was about |
| C．the whole world suddenly became quiet |
| D．the teacher’s face turned to a stone |
| A．the headmaster didn’t like the writer at all |
| B．the writer’s classmates felt sad at his mistake |
| C．the writer knew little about American history |
| D．the writer’s grandpa was a very wise man |
| A．Seeing is believing. |
| B．Where there is a will, there is a way. |
| C．One is never too old to learn. |
| D．A friend in need is a friend indeed. |
3 . September is an exciting month in every college freshman’s life. For many, it’s the first time that they’ve left home to live in a new environment. But after the hustle and bustle of a few weeks, excitement gives way to a less enjoyable emotion—homesickness.
Homesickness manifests itself in many ways. You may miss mum’s cooking, your pets, or even your old bed. All this becomes a fond memory of the past. Homesickness can be a bitter feeling for many students, especially when faced with the challenges of settling into an unfamiliar environment.
But remember, you’re not alone. According to a recent BBC article, 70 percent of British college students experience homesickness. In this increasingly globalized world in which people migrate to faraway places for a relationship, education or work, homesickness is a feeling shared by many adults.
Homesickness can have similar symptoms to depression and in extreme cases it can develop into a panic attack. As for the term, homesickness or nostalgia wasn’t invented until the 17th century. It was considered a disorder by a Swiss physician, who attributed soldiers’ mental and physical discomfort to their longing to return home, “nostos” from Greek, and the accompanying pain, “algos”.
Studies in recent years, however, have shown that nostalgia may have some benefits to our mental health. After a decade of surveys and researches, Constantine Sedikides, a US social psychologist, found that nostalgia is what makes us human. He explains that nostalgia can resist loneliness, boredom and anxiety. Therefore, it’s necessary for college students to learn some ways to overcome the uncomfortable feeling.
1. From the first two paragraphs, we can infer that ________.| A．homesickness means a fond memory of the past |
| B．only a few students will experience homesickness |
| C．homesickness is an enjoyable emotion among freshmen |
| D．college freshmen usually suffer from homesickness after weeks |
| A．negative | B．supportive | C．skeptical | D．critical |
| A．Some benefits about homesickness. |
| B．Other problems in college freshmen’s life. |
| C．How to make campus life more meaningful. |
| D．Some tips on how to cope with homesickness. |
| A．Let’s embrace homesickness |
| B．How to fit into the college life |
| C．A harmful emotion—homesickness |
| D．The disadvantages of homesickness |
4 . It was a very hot day in late summer. I was a young dad working in a local wood mill. It was dangerous, back-breaking work that paid very little. In the year I had worked there only four other people hadn't quit and been replaced with new faces. Those of us who stayed did so only because there was no other work to find to support our families.
On this day the fans weren't working and all of us were covered in sweat and sawdust. When I looked around every face I saw looked angry and frustrated. Suddenly,a voice called out:“Hey! There's a deer in here.” A lost little doe had wandered through the open loading bay doors and was now cowering(蜷缩）in between the huge stacks of wood. All of us stopped working and went looking for her as she ran about looking for a way out.
Now most people where I live hunt deer for meat in the fall, but also treat them with great kindness the rest of the year. Many will even buy 50lb bags of corn to help feed them during the harsh winter months. It was no surprise then that all of us were soon quickly working together to free this little doe. By blocking off all the other routes we were able to guide her panic search back to the open bay doors. We watched as she jumped out of the building and back into the woods. Then we walked back in to work. I noticed something, though. On every face there was a joyful smile. It was as if this one single act of kindness had energized us again and reminded us of what life is all about.
1. Why were few people willing to work in the wood mill?| A．They wanted more freedom. |
| B．They didn't like the boss. |
| C．The pay and conditions were bad. |
| D．They wanted more pleasure. |
| A．The workers often saw a deer there. |
| B．The deer was a light to the dull work. |
| C．The deer was trapped in a big well. |
| D．All the workers wanted to catch the deer. |
| A．By opening one route. |
| B．By dropping some food. |
| C．By using familiar signals. |
| D．By imitating another deer. |
| A．Bad-tempered but patient. |
| B．Hard-working and loving. |
| C．Cautious and courageous. |
| D．Bad-tempered and demanding. |
5 . In May 1987 the Golden Gate Bridge had a 50th birthday party. The bridge was closed to motor traffic so people could enjoy a walk across it. Organizers expected perhaps 50,000 people to show up. Instead, as many as 800, 000 crowded the roads to the bridge. By the time 250,000 were on the bridge, engineers noticed something terrible：the roadway was flattening under what turned out to be the heaviest load it had ever been asked to carry. Worse, it was beginning to sway（晃动）. The authorities closed access to the bridge and tens of thousands of people made their way back to land. A disaster was avoided.
The story is one of scores in To Forgive Design：Understanding Failure, a book that is at once a love letter to engineering and a paean（赞歌）to its breakdowns. Its author, Dr. Henry Petroski, has long been writing about disasters. In this book, he includes the loss of the space shuttles（航天飞机）Challenger and Columbia, and the sinking of the Titanic.
Though he acknowledges that engineering works can fail because the person who thought them up or engineered them simply got things wrong, in this book Dr. Petroski widens his view to consider the larger context in which such failures occur. Sometimes devices fail because a good design is constructed with low quality materials incompetently applied. Or perhaps a design works so well it is adopted elsewhere again and again, with seemingly harmless improvements, until, suddenly, it does not work at all anymore.
Readers will encounter not only stories they have heard before, but some new stories and a moving discussion of the responsibility of the engineer to the public and the ways young engineers can be helped to grasp them.
"Success is success but that is all that it is," Dr. Petroski writes. It is failure that brings improvement.
1. What happened to the Golden Gate Bridge on its 50th birthday?| A．It carried more weight than it could. |
| B．It swayed violently in a strong wind |
| C．Its roadway was damaged by vehicles |
| D．Its access was blocked by many people. |
| A．No design is well received everywhere |
| B．Construction is more important than design. |
| C．Not all disasters are caused by engineering design |
| D．Improvements on engineering works are necessary. |
| A．Failure can lead to progress. | B．Success results in overconfidence |
| C．Failure should be avoided. | D．Success comes from joint efforts. |
| A．A news report | B．A short story. |
| C．A book review | D．A research article. |
6 . Almost all calligraphy(书法) lovers agree that writing characters with a brush and ink on straw paper offers a way to communicate with not only history and culture, but also oneself. But now Chinese character handwriting is under threat from computers and mobile phones.
A college graduate looking for a job was reportedly turned down by a company because he wrote 24 characters incorrectly in a 400character handwritten resume. A survey by HorizonKey, covering people from 12 major cities in China, found that nearly one third of those interviewed often experience “character amnesia(遗忘)”， with 94 percent saying this is a problem for them.
The main reason is that most Chinese rely too much on the pinyinbased Chinese language input method, which is replacing the tradition of writing characters stroke(笔画) by stroke. The software will conveniently choose the right characters according to the context or word frequency, as there are dozens of characters with the same pronunciation in Chinese.
Education is another problem. In college, most homework and papers are printed out, instead of handwritten. And few teachers use chalk and blackboards, with Microsoft's PowerPoint the mostoften used software to teach knowledge to students.
The number of electronic devices in the classroom is thought to be another reason why students are easily satisfied with just a poor knowledge of the Chinese language and characters. It is quicker to look up a character in an electronic dictionary, but traditional printed dictionaries offer more detailed information on the usage and meaning of the characters. Students pay more attention to remembering a character's pronunciation, but not the other knowledge related to it, which edictionaries rarely provide.
Another worry is the “pollution” of Chinese characters by Internet language. Young people regard using Internet language as cool and fashionable. After they learn to use these expressions, they automatically include them in their writing.
1. With the example of a college graduate, the author shows ________.| A．that practicing can improve writing |
| B．why certain people are poor writers |
| C．that there are differences in students' writing |
| D．why Chinese character handwriting is in great danger |
| A．are not good at handwriting |
| B．can't write characters accurately |
| C．show no interest in handwriting |
| D．find jobs much more difficultly |
| A．Dependence on electronic devices. |
| B．Advantages of electronic dictionaries. |
| C．Mastery of knowledge of the characters. |
| D．Disadvantages of published dictionaries. |
| A．Favorable. | B．Uncaring. |
| C．Disapproving. | D．Friendly. |
7 . A star athlete at the college where I work recently stopped by my office. After committing a few unforced errors during a weekend match, she suffered severely by self-criticism.
This student, like many I teach, strongly believes she should be able to control the outcomes of her life by virtue of her hard work. In her mind, “Nothing can stop me but myself”. So when these students fall short of what they imagine they should accomplish, they are filled with self-blame, reasoning, “If my accomplishments are mine to control, my failures must be entirely my faults, too”, which makes it extremely difficult for them to move on.
We often owe young adults struggling with failure to their parents’ overprotection of them from discomfort. But there is another factor at play: a message transmitted by indulging (纵容的) parents who have falsely promised them that they can achieve anything if they are willing to work for it. However, the cruel reality of life is that you can do everything in your power — and still fail. Then what should be done to help?
Psychologists Luthar and Kumar urge parents and teachers to spend time helping students find purpose, or goals they genuinely love to pursue and that make an impact on the world, which may help them gain greater life satisfaction and become more psychologically mature. Besides, instead of allowing our kids to beat themselves up when things don’t go their way, we might all question a culture where one is considered lazy without full devotion. The point is to remind them that life has a way of sucker-punching (出其不意) us when we least expect it. It’s often the people who learn to say “stuff happens” who get up the fastest.
1. What does the underlined phrase “by virtue of” in paragraph 2 mean?| A．in addition to | B．in spite of | C．by means of | D．for fear of |
| A．they are not taught how to deal with difficulties |
| B．they are short of the ability to handle failure |
| C．they are under the protection of their parents |
| D．they are misled by their parents’ false message |
| A．To teach students how to avoid faults. |
| B．To lead students to set their truly loved goals. |
| C．To help students to discover a path to success. |
| D．To allow kids to blame themselves. |
| A．Students don’t care about failure at all. |
| B．Students are sure to succeed if they try their best. |
| C．Students should bear all the failures on their own. |
| D．Students with positive attitudes can move on more easily. |
8 . An experimental cleanup device called RemoveDEBRIS has successfully cast a net around a dummy (仿真的) satellite, imitating a technique that could one day collect spaceborne garbage.
The test, which was carried out this week, is widely believed to be the first successful demonstration of space cleanup technology, experts told CNN. And it symbolizes an early step toward solving what has already been a critical issue: junk in space.
Millions of pieces of junk are turning around in orbit, the result of 50 years of space travel and few regulations to keep space clean. At orbital speeds, even a small bit of paint crashing with a satellite can cause critical damage.
Various companies have plans to send thousands of new satellites into low-Earth orbit, already the most crowded area.
The RemoveDEBRIS experiment is run by a company and researchers led by the U. K.’s Surrey Space Center and includes Airbus, Airbus-owned Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. and France’s ArianeGroup.
Guglielmo Aglietti, the director of Surrey Space Center, said that an operational version of the RemoveDEBRlS technology would cast a net that remains fastened to the main satellite so the debris can be dragged out of orbit. It could target large pieces of junk, including dead satellites up to 10 meters long.
The RemoveDEBRIS satellite will conduct a few more experiments in the coming months, including testing navigation features that could help guide the satellite to a specific piece of debris.
Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said the success of this week’s experiment was exciting, but he cautioned against “over- publicizing” it.
There are still enormous barriers to clear before operational cleanup tasks are underway, he said, and the most discouraging is figuring out how to fund such projects.
Aglietti, the Surrey professor who helped lead the RemoveDEBRIS project, said “The challenge will lie in persuading the relevant authorities to sponsor these tasks.” Aglietti said he hopes RemoveDEBRIS will conduct a few cleanup tasks per year, targeting the largest pieces of junk in the most crowded orbits.
1. What is the use of the RemoveDEBRIS satellite?| A．Demonstrating space technology. |
| B．Imitating a developing technique. |
| C．Collecting wastes existing in space. |
| D．Symbolizing great progress in space. |
| A．By throwing a net to take the junk from orbit. |
| B．By fastening it to the main satellite tightly. |
| C．By dragging satellites up to 10 meters long. |
| D．By targeting large pieces of junk carefully. |
| A．Accomplish. | B．Support. | C．Oppose. | D．Provide. |
| A．The RemoveDEBRIS Project Is Perfect |
| B．How RemoveDEBRIS Is Invented in the Lab |
| C．Why the RemoveDEBRIS Satellite Is Invented |
| D．Satellite Collects Space Junk for the First Time |
