1 . According to a new study, putting preschooler(学龄前儿童) in bed by 8 p.m. could reduce their chances of becoming overweight or obese later in life by half. Preschoolers are children around the age of 4 or 5.
The World Health Organization says obesity can lead to serious long-term health problems like diabetes, heart disease and stroke.
Researchers from the Ohio State University’s College of Public Health have found that young children who go to bed after 9 p.m. are twice as likely to be obese later in life. The researchers wrote their findings in The Journal of Pediatrics.
The lead author of the study is Sarah Anderson. She is a professor of epidemiology(流行病学). Anderson says that, for parents, the results of the study support the importance of creating a bedtime routine.
She says that having a usual bedtime routine is something “families can do to lower their children’s risk” of becoming overweight.
Researchers used data from 977 children for the study. These children are part of a larger project called the Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. The project follows healthy babies born in 1991 in 10 cities in US.
When these children turned 15 years old, the researchers looked at their rates of obesity. Of those with the earliest bedtimes, only one out of 10 was obese. Of those who went to bed between 8 and 9 p.m., 16 percent became obese. And out of those with the latest bedtimes, 23 percent became obese.
The World Health Organization reported in 2014 that the number of overweight babies and young children worldwide had increased from 31 million in 1990 to 44 million in 2012. If that trend continues, the WHO warns, there will be 70 million obese children in the world by 2025.
1. According to the passage, the risk of obesity ______.| A．can be cut by half if children go to bed by 9 p.m. |
| B．can lead to low blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease |
| C．is the highest at the age of 4 or 5 |
| D．is higher for those children who sleep late at night |
| A．heavy | B．light | C．fat | D．slim |
| A．The research is organized by the World Health Organization. |
| B．The result shows that children sleeping before 8 p.m. have the lowest rate of obesity. |
| C．The findings are based on the data provided by The Journal of Pediatrics. |
| D．The research is funded(提供资金) by the Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. |
| A．Objective(客观) | B．Disappointed | C．Positive | D．Satisfied |
2 . Here are a few good ideas for Easter party games for kids, teens, and adults, which are sure to be a hit.
Kids are the age group that is the easiest to please. They love getting into the spirit of Easter.
Eyeball Relay Race: The children should be divided into teams. The first child of each team should be given a spoon along with a ping-pong ball painted to look like an eyeball. They have to carry the eyeball on the spoon to the end of a course and return, and hand it to the next child. The team that is done first wins.
Guess the Scarecrow’s （稻草人的） Nose: A sheet with a scarecrow painted on it will have to be made ahead of time. Cut out the nose part of the scarecrow. The children should be divided into two teams. Each child from the team outside puts his or her nose through the hole in the sheet, while the children inside the room try and guess whose nose it is.
Ghostly Waiter: The children are divided into teams. The first child of each team has to balance a balloon on a paper plate. Each child has to walk as fast as he or she can up and down a set course. The team that finishes first is the winner.
Easter Freeze Monster （怪物）: All the players should be in Easter costumes. The player who becomes the Freeze Monster must run after the others; trying to touch them. Every time he or she touches a player, that player has to stand still until somebody unfreezes them. To unfreeze a frozen player, somebody must come close to the frozen player and guess out aloud who he or she is. If they don’t guess right in three tries, they have to go away and try unfreezing somebody else. The player who is the Freeze Monster can freeze the player trying to unfreeze somebody.
1. The underlined word “hit” in the first paragraph means ______.| A．a thing that is popular | B．an act of beating something |
| C．an idea of pleasing others | D．a game played in a party |
| A．paint a table tennis ball quickly |
| B．run with a ball on the spoon quickly |
| C．give the spoon to the next child |
| D．hold the spoon and eyeball firmly |
| A．Eyeball Relay Race | B．Ghostly Waiter |
| C．Guess the Scarecrow’s Nose | D．Easter Freeze Monster |
| A．Eyeball Relay Race and Guess the Scarecrow’s Nose. |
| B．Ghostly Waiter and Eyeball Relay Race. |
| C．Guess the Scarecrow’s Nose and Easter Freeze Monster. |
| D．Easter Freeze Monster and Ghostly Waiter. |
I'm afraid I have some very bad news for you. I have been very naughty and the school master is very angry with me. She is going to write to you. You must come and take me away from here. She does not want me in the school any longer. The trouble started last night when I was smoking a cigarette(香烟) in bed. As I was smoking, I heard footsteps coming towards the room. I did not want a teacher to catch me smoking, so I threw the cigarette away. Unluckily, the cigarette fell into the waste--paper basket. It caught fire.
There was a curtain near the waste-paper basket. It caught fire too. Soon the whole room was burning. The master phoned the fire brigade. The school is a long way from the town and before the fire brigade arrived, the whole school was on fire. The master said that the fire was all my fault and I must pay for the damage. She will send you a bill for about a million dollars.
I'm very sorry for this.
Much love
Sarah
1. Why did Sarah write to his parents?| A．He missed them very much for they hadn’t seen each other for a long time. |
| B．He told his parents what he had done in school. |
| C．He was tired of studying, and wanted to leave school. |
| D．He thought he was old enough to help them do something. |
| A．in the classroom | B．in the Dinning hall |
| C．in the street | D．in the dormitory |
| A．Because he was too naughty |
| B．Because he was too lazy |
| C．Because he caused a big fire |
| D．Because he stole something from the school |
| A．$1,000,000 | B．₤10,000,000 | C．￥100,000 | D．$ 100,000 |
| A．They should not smoke, because smoking is dangerous to them. |
| B．They should not dance, because dancing would waste a lot of money. |
| C．They should not make friends, because making friends would take them absent. |
| D．They should not wear expensive clothes because they would waste a lot of money. |
4 . How to visit Argentina
What can holidaymakers do in Argentina? Express. co. uk might help you to find more.
When is the best time of the year to visit Argentina?
As with most holiday destinations, when you want to visit depends on what you wish to do during your trip.
If you want to avoid crowds and peak price(人群和高峰价) while still enjoying everything on offer, Lloyd Boutcher advises visiting from October to mid-December(Argentinian spring) and April to mid-June(their autumn).
If you want to see the Patagonia penguins(企鹅), Tom Bourlet advises going between October and March.
If you like to party, Tom Hughes recommends heading to Argentina during carnival(狂欢节) time in February.
Where are the best places to visit in Argentina and why?
Thanks to Argentina’s size, the country has something to offer everyone.
“Buenos Aires is a melting pot of cultures,” said Tom Hughes. “Here travellers will discover a wealth of culture, not to mention it is the birthplace of a fast dance, tango. Nature lovers should head to the world’s largest waterfall system, Iguazu Fail.”
“I highly recommend San Carlos de Bariloche—a beautiful and fantastic town in the Andes mountains,” Tom Bourlet said. “It also acts as a good base for exploring the Lake District.”
What is the best accommodation in Argentina?
Lloyd advises avoiding some of the chain hotels. “While it may be attractive to stay at well-known hotels, I recommend some of the smaller boutique hotels in the city,” he said.
1. Which of the following will be the best time of the year to visit Argentina for an animal lover?| A．June | B．April |
| C．December | D．September |
| A．Discover diverse culture. |
| B．Explore the Lake District. |
| C．Get to know the origin of tango. |
| D．Appreciate the world’s largest waterfall system. |
| A．Science | B．Travelling |
| C．Education | D．Nature |
5 . Lizzie’s diary from Antarctica(南极洲)
Day 3: Tuesday December 2
We planned to go to Rothera that morning. We’d be staying there for the next two weeks. Because Antarctica is the windiest place on earth, sometimes you can’t fly at all.
We had a nervous wait over breakfast to find out if we’d be leaving that day. People have to stay in Stanley for weeks while the pilots wait for good weather.
It turned clear at 9:30 and we took off at 10:30 on a little red plane called Dash-7.But even when we were in the air, there was still a chance we wouldn’t be able to fly the whole day.
Day 4: Wednesday December 3
After waking up in the Antarctica for the first time today I can understand why everybody who comes here falls in love with the place. It is really beautiful.
We’re staying at Rothera Survey base with mountains of ice all around. It is very cold, but the regulars( 常客)here are often seen walking around in T-shirts!
Day 5: Thursday December 4
I woke up to another beautiful sunny day here in the Antarctic. I’m told it’s a bit colder today, but it’s not very windy so it feels warmer. Those of us who are new to the base have to do a special training course before we’re allowed to go off base to other stations or to go snowboarding over the nearby hill.
Day 7: Saturday December 6
Not a cloud in the sky and it’s warm enough to sit outside (in a jacket).
The most amazing thing about this place is how the scenery(风景) changes every day.
At first I thought I was going mad. I’d step outside in the morning and think, “I’m sure that big mountain of ice wasn’t there yesterday.” It’s because the sea ice is always moving---slowly thankfully!
1. When did Lizzie sit outside wearing a jacket?| A．On Tuesday | B．On Wednesday |
| C．On Thursday | D．On Saturday |
| A．Strong winds | B．Thick clouds |
| C．Mountains of ice | D．Low temperature |
| A．Afraid | B．Nervous | C．Amazed | D．Bored |
6 . The comeback
Fausto Ruiz got off the boat at the port of the city where he was born fifty years ago, and to which he had been away for twenty years. There were lots of new buildings up on the hills around the city now, buildings which he didn’t recognize. Yet many of the old buildings were exactly the same, although many of the old shops were there no more.
He walked up the main road and saw that there was still one small cafè there which was the same as it had been. Walking into the cafè, he recognized the owner behind the bar as well as the waiter working there. They both looked much, much older. Fausto felt certain that he didn’t look as old as they did, even though they were all twenty years older now.
Fausto sat at a table and waited. He raised his arm and shouted to the waiter, then to the owner behind the bar, but it was useless. They didn’t come and ask him what he wanted. They were ignoring him.
Angry, Fausto got up and walked out of the cafè. Such ignorant people, he thought. Now I remember why I left this town twenty years ago, and why I never came back.
He walked along the main street as far as the main square in the town, and when he arrived there he remembered the other reason why he had never come back. In the main square there was the theatre. He had a terrible memory of what happened there twenty years ago.
Twenty years ago, Fausto Ruiz was the most famous singer in the world. He had sung in all of the most famous opera houses in the world. Everywhere he went, people paid large sums of money for tickets. When they saw him sing they clapped and applauded and cheered. When he was at the height of his fame, Fausto decided to come back and held a concert in the theatre.
The concert was announced, and all the tickets sold out within a few hours. Thousands of people crowded into the theatre to see the legendary Fausto Ruiz sing in the theatre.
There was silence as Fausto walked onto the stage. Then he began to sing, one of his best known songs. And at the end of the song, there was just silence. Fausto waited, very surprised for a moment, and then started to sing another song. At the end of this song, there was silence for a moment. Then the people began to boo, and to hiss. Fausto tried to cover the noise by singing another song, very loudly this time. But it got worse. The louder he sang, the louder the boos and hisses became. Soon, there was a rain of rotten fruit and vegetables and smelly old shoes falling down. Fausto was extremely angry. He stormed off the stage and out of the theatre. He left his hometown that night, and he said that he would never, ever go back there ever again.
Now, he decided to walk into the theatre. As he walked in he saw it was the same man selling tickets in the box office. Fausto said hello to him but the man said nothing and ignored him. “Still the same” thought Fausto. He felt sad, and left the theatre and decided to see the house where he had been born.
He walked all the way across the town, expecting to be recognized by people. He saw some men in the park, who were the same age as he was, and he remembered them. They were his friends when he was at school. He walked over to them to say hello, but they, too, ignored him.
He was so angry and so disappointed that he began to shout, “I am the great Fausto Ruiz!!!
The greatest singer the world has ever heard!!!” Nobody took any notice of him.
When he finally reached his old house, he at least had a pleasant surprise. Outside the house, there was a statue（雕塑）, and it was a statue of himself. “Finally!” thought Fausto, “Somebody has recognized my genius!”
Fausto went to have a closer look. There was some writing at the bottom of the statue. “Fausto Ruiz” it said, “Singer”. Fausto was disappointed that it did not say “the greatest singer in the world”, but at least it was a statue. There was some more writing. He looked carefully at it. There was his date of birth, fifty years ago. And then there was something else. It was another date, and it was yesterday. …It was the date of his death.
1. When he returned home twenty years later, Fausto Ruiz really expected .| A．to see the great changes in his hometown |
| B．that the people as old as him could remember who he was |
| C．that the people could still appreciate his singing |
| D．to tell the people there that he could still recognize them |
| A．His singing in the most famous opera houses in the world. |
| B．Too much admiration for him and his singing. |
| C．What the people did to him in the theater. |
| D．His willingness to be famous all over the whole world. |
| A．thought highly of him and his singing |
| B．became very excited when hearing him singing |
| C．were ignoring him and his singing |
| D．were extremely disappointed in him and his singing |
| A．open-minded and humorous | B．ignorant and stupid |
| C．lively and cheerful | D．sensitive and proud |
7 . Everyone knows booking all your accommodation with the same hotel chain earns loyalty points, which can be traded for free stays and the occasional bottles of wine. Now a study shows that there could be performance benefits too.
People often experience trouble sleeping in a different bed in unfamiliar surroundings. This is a phenomenon known to psychologists as the “first-night” effect. This is because if a person stays in the same room the following night, he or she tends to sleep more soundly. Yuka Sasaki and her colleagues at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, set out to investigate the origins of this effect.
Dr. Sasaki knew the first-night effect probably has something to do with how humans evolved. The puzzle was in what way it can be beneficial. She also knew from previous work conducted on birds and dolphins that these animals put half of their brains to sleep at a time so that they can rest while remaining alert enough to avoid predators. This led her to wonder if people might be doing the same thing and feeling tired the next day as a result.
To take a closer look, the team studied 35 young and healthy people as they slept in the unfamiliar environment of the university’s Department of Psychological Sciences. The participants each slept in the department for two nights and were carefully monitored each time with neuroimaging techniques that looked at the activity of their brains. Their heart rates, muscle and eye movements were also recorded.
Dr. Sasaki found that, as expected, the participants slept worse on their first night in the lab than they did on their second, taking more than twice as long to fall asleep and sleeping less overall. During deep sleep, the participants’ brains behaved in a similar manner seen in birds and dolphins. More specifically, on the first night only, the left brain did not sleep as deeply as the right brain did.
Wondering if the left brains indeed remained awake to process information detected in the surrounding environment, Dr. Sasaki re-ran the experiment while presenting the sleeping participants with a mix of regularly timed beeps of the same tone and irregular beeps of a different tone during the night. She worked out that, if the left brain stayed alert to keep guard in a strange environment, then it would react to the random beeps by waking people up and would ignore the regularly timed ones. This is precisely what she found.
Based upon these feelings, Dr. Sasaki argues in Current Biology that the first-night effect is a mechanism that has evolved to function as something of a neurological night watchman to wake people up when they hear noises when sleeping in an unfamiliar environment.
1. What puzzled the researchers about the first-night effect?| A．What role it has played in evolution. | B．What benefit can be gained from it. |
| C．To what extent it can affect people. | D．The relationship between it and circumstances. |
| A．conducted studies on young and old people |
| B．got some idea from previous studies on birds and dolphins |
| C．found birds and dolphins had nearly the same sleeping patterns |
| D．found half of birds’ and dolphins’ brains remain awake while asleep |
| A．She analyzed the negative effects of irregular tones on brains. |
| B．She recorded the participants’ adaptation to changed environment. |
| C．She exposed the participants to two different kinds of noises. |
| D．She compared the responses of male and female participants. |
| A．They differed in their tolerance of irregular tones. |
| B．They tended to regard irregular beeps as a threat. |
| C．They felt sleepy when exposed to regular beeps. |
| D．They tended to enjoy certain tones more than others. |
8 . How does an ecosystem (生态系统) work? What makes the populations of different species the way they are? Why are there so many flies and so few wolves? To find an answer, scientists have built mathematical models of food webs, noting who eats whom and how much each one eats.
With such models, scientists have found out some key principles operating in food webs. Most food webs, for instance, consist of many weak links rather than a few strong ones. When a predator (掠食动物) always eats huge numbers of a single prey (猎物) , the two species are strongly linked; when a predator lives on various species, they are weakly linked. Food webs may be dominated by many weak links because that arrangement is more stable over the long term. If a predator can eat several species, it can survive the extinction (灭绝) of one of them. And if a predator can move on to another species that is easier to find when a prey species becomes rare, the switch allows the original prey to recover. The weak links may thus keep species from driving one another to extinction.
Mathematical models have also revealed that food webs may be unstable, where small changes of top predators can lead to big effects throughout entire ecosystems. In the 1960s, scientists proposed that predators at the top of a food web had a surprising amount of control over the size of populations of other species—including species they did not directly attack.
And unplanned human activities have proved the idea of top-down control by top predators to be true. In the ocean, we fished for top predators such as cod on an industrial scale, while on land, we killed off large predators such as wolves. These actions have greatly affected the ecological balance.
Scientists have built an early-warning system based on mathematical models. Ideally, the system would tell us when to adapt human activities that are pushing an ecosystem toward a breakdown or would even allow us to pull an ecosystem back from the borderline. Prevention is key, scientists say, because once ecosystems pass their tipping point (临界点) , it is remarkably difficult for them to return.
1. A strong link is found between two species when a predator ______.| A．has a wide food choice | B．can easily find new prey |
| C．sticks to one prey species | D．can quickly move to another place |
| A．The prey species they directly attack will die out. |
| B．The species they indirectly attack will turn into top predators. |
| C．The living environment of other species will remain unchanged. |
| D．The populations of other species will experience unexpected changes. |
| A．Uncontrolled human activities greatly upset ecosystems. |
| B．Rapid economic development threatens animal habitats. |
| C．Species of commercial value dominate other species. |
| D．Industrial activities help keep food webs stable. |
| A．By getting illegal practices under control. |
| B．By stopping us from killing large predators. |
| C．By bringing the broken-down ecosystems back to normal. |
| D．By signaling the urgent need for taking preventive action. |
Be careful what you say around your dog．It might understand more than you think．
A border collie named Rico recognizes the names of about 200 objects, say researchers in Germany．The dog also appears to be able to learn new words as easily as a 3-year-old child．Its word-learning skills are as good as those of a parrot or chimpanzee．
In one experiment, the researchers took all 200 items that Rico is supposed to know and divided them into 20 groups of 10 objects．Then the owner told the dog to go and fetch one of the items and bring it back．In four tests, Rico got 37 out of 40 commands right．As the dog couldn't see anyone to get clues, the scientists believe Rico must understand the meanings of certain words．
In another experiment, the scientists took one toy that Rico had never seen before and put it in a room with seven toys whose names the dog already knew．The owner then told Rico to fetch the object, using a word the dog had never heard before．
The correct object was chosen in seven out of ten tests, suggesting that the dog had worked
out the answer by process of elimination（排除法）．A month later, Rico remembered half of the new names, which is even more impressive．
Rico is thought to be smarter than the average dog．For one thing, Rico is a border collie, a breed （品种）known for its mental abilities．In addition, the 9-year-old dog has been trained to fetch toys by their names since the age of nine months．
It's hard to know if all dogs understand at least some of the words we say．Even if they do, they can't talk back．Still, it wouldn't hurt to sweet-talk your dog every now and then．You might just get a big, wet kiss in return!
1. From paragraph 2 we know that __________．
| A．animals are as clever as human beings |
| B．chimpanzees have very good word-learning skills |
| C．dogs are smarter than parrots and chimpanzees |
| D．dogs have similar learning abilities as 3-year-old children |
| A．Rico is smart enough to get all commands right |
| B．Rico can recognize different things including toys |
| C．Rico has developed the ability of learning mathematics |
| D．Rico won't forget the names of objects once recognizing them |
| A．Rico has a better memory partly because of its proper early training． |
| B．The purpose of the experiments is to show the border collie's mental abilities． |
| C．The border collie is world-famous for recognizing objects． |
| D．Rico is born to understand its owner's commands． |
| A．To train your dog． | B．To talk to your dog． |
| C．To be careful with your dog． | D．To be friendly to your dog． |
10 . Is a picture worth a thousand words? We think so! Take a digital (数码的) photograph that answers this question: Why is Earth Day important to our planet?
The winning photographer will receive a digital camera, and the photo will be published in TIME for Kids magazine. Get details below.
●The competition is open to students from 8 to 13 years of age.
●Judges will look for originality (原创性), creativity, photo composition (构图) and relation to the Earth Day theme.
●Students must include their first name only; their e-mail address; a parent’s or a teacher’s e-mail address(very important), a caption (说明文字); the location in the photo; and the date when it was taken (must be between June 1, 2018, and December 20, 2019).
●Competition begins: October 9, 2019
●Competition closes: December 20, 2019
●To enter, students should visit timeforkids.com/2019earthdaycontest and follow instructions to provide an original digital photo.
●The winner will receive a digital camera.
●All entries must follow the official rules for consideration.
1. Who can take part in the Earth Day Photo Competition?| A．Students aged from 8 to 13. | B．Professional photographers. |
| C．Students and their teachers. | D．Students and their parents. |
| A．include their full name | B．post the photo on the Internet |
| C．provide information about the photo | D．provide parents’ email address |
| A．An exhibition guide. | B．An announcement. |
| C．An environment review. | D．An official report. |
