1 . “Preventing obesity and smoking can save lives, but it doesn’t save money,”reported researchers. “ It was a small surprise, for it is against the common belief,” said Pieter van Baal, who led the study. “But it makes sense. If you live longer, then your costs of the health system will be more.”
The researchers found that from age 20 to 56, fat people had the most expensive health costs. But on average, healthy people lived 84 years. Smokers lived about 77 years, and fat people about 80 years. Smokers and fat people tended to have more heart disease than healthy people. Therefore, in the long run, the thin and healthy group spent about $417,000, from age 20 on. Smokers spent about $ 326,000 and fat people $371,000.
“The result throws a bucket of cold water onto the idea, based on guesswork, that obesity is going to cost trillions of dollars,” said Patrick Basham, a professor of health politics. “If we’re going to worry about the future of obesity, we should stop worrying about its financial impact,” he said.
“The benefit of obesity prevention may not be seen immediately in terms of cost saving in tomorrow’s budget, but there are long-term gains,” said Baal. “These are often immeasurable when it comes to people living longer and healthier lives.” In the meanwhile, he said that governments should recognize that successful smoking and obesity prevention programs mean that people will have a higher chance of dying of something more expensive later in life.
“Lung cancer is a cheap disease to treat because people don’t survive very long. But if they are old enough to get Alzheimer’s(早年性痴呆症) one day, they may survive longer and cost more. We are not advising that governments stop trying to prevent obesity,” Baal said.” But they should do it for the right reasons.”
What would be the best title for this text?| A．A Recent Medical Study Shows the Truth about Health |
| B．Preventing Obesity and Smoking May Cost More |
| C．Obesity and Smoking Lead to Expensive Diseases |
| D．Governments Change Attitude towards Obesity and Smoking |
2 . To me, inspirations mean to put my thoughts, heart, and creations into my jewelry. Sometimes I become so inspired with what I’m working on that I can finish one or more sets in less than an hour. Because of that feeling, I have named my jewelry collection “Inspirations”.
I am a 17-year-old senior with sickle-cell anemia. With this, I am in and out of the hospital a lot. So I started making jewelry a year ago when I was in the hospital. I really needed something to do, so I was introduced to jewelry making by a child life expert.
One day while lying in my hospital bed, I decided to get up and go to the patient’s playroom, and look through the craft designs. That was when I became inspired to design my jewelry collection, and named it “Inspirations”.
When I’m not sick, I try to keep a positive attitude through reading, schoolwork, and craft activities. Even though it’s a lot of work, I try to stay focus at all times. When I need a break or just to be free I turn to my craft activities. This is a way to ease my mind and it always helps me to especially get through those stressful times.
I am getting very excited about graduating next year and preparing myself for college. Who knows my collection of Inspirations, would take me to the places I always dreamed of? I may see celebrities I admire and even sell them some of my beautiful “Inspirations”. If they wear my “Inspirations,” it will become well known and more demanding. What a great way to make some extra money for college! I never thought being sick would bring me “Inspirations”. I want people to look beyond my illness and see the creations I’ve made in my collection called “Inspirations”.
What is the best title of the passage?| A．My Jewelry Collection |
| B．My Illness |
| C．Creating Inspirations |
| D．How to Get Through Bad Times |
3 . US Army veteran (退伍老兵) Mazyck remembers when doctors told her she would never walk again. She’d been paralyzed from the waist down after a serious accident while parachuting in 2003.The doctors never said anything about floating, though. In 2021,she got to do just that.
Mazyck was one of 12 participants in a Zero G flight, organized by the group AstroAccess. This type of flight recreates the weightlessness that astronauts experience without going all the way to space. Flying over the Pacific Ocean off Southern California, the modified 747 jet airplane made 15 steep dives and climbs, allowing the flyers multiple periods of weightlessness.
The experience left Mazyck feeling joyful. “The flight was something that I would have never in my wildest dreams thought I would’ve experienced,” she says, “especially the floating, the weightlessness.”
Traditionally, strict physical requirements have prevented disabled people from becoming astronauts. AstroAccess is working to make space accessible to all. “Space removes the barriers between people; now is the time to remove the barriers to space itself,” says Mazyck, “It is sending a message to people who have historically been excluded from STEM that not only is there room for you in space, there is a need for you.”
During the flight, she says, the participants did experiments and made observations. They took note of things that people without certain disabilities might not realize are issues. For example, people who couldn’t grip with their legs needed another way to hold themselves still while weightless. The group also experimented with signaling lights for the deaf and with ways of using braille (盲文) for the blind.
These types of issues are easy enough to address. Now is the time to make space accessible — before space tourism or space settlements become commonplace. “I am so proud and elated about what’s happening here,” Mazyck adds. “We are paving the way for the future.”
Which of the following can be the best title of the passage?| A．Paving the Way for the Future |
| B．Disabled Americans Make It to Space |
| C．Making Space a Place for Everyone |
| D．US Veterans Experience Zero G Flight |
4 . I was a graduate student in Manhattan having breakfast on my rooftop on Sept. 11, 2001, when I witnessed planes hit the Twin Towers. For months afterwards, I shook with anxiety every morning. Unwilling to medicate, I tried everything else. Mindfulness meditation (冥想) caused panic attacks. Hot yoga built muscle but did nothing for my anxiety. I went to talks by Buddhist monks and meditation teachers hoping to attain inner peace, but in vain. Finally, I attended a SKY Breath Meditation class, which involves a 20-minute breathing regimen (养生之道) in different postures and rhythms. Though I went in skeptical,I came out calm. Two decades later,I never missed a day of my breathing practice, not even when I gave birth.
I’ve also devoted part of my research career to studying the benefits of breathing for mental health and well-being. Seven years after 9/11, I was working with veterans returning from war with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Traditional treatments had failed many of them, so my colleagues and I ran a randomized controlled trial to test the effects of SKY breathing. Compared with the control group, veterans practicing SKY every day for one week saw their anxiety drop to levels typical of the general population.
Even though most did not continue to practice, they maintained the benefits a year later.Emotions influence your breathing patterns, and changing your breathing can change your emotions. For example, anxiety and anger correspond to an irregular, short, fast breath. Adopting the slower and more regular breathing pattern that corresponds to a calm feeling signals relaxation by activating the vagus nerve (交感神经), slowing heart rate, easing blood pressure, and settling you down. A simple exercise you can try is to close your eyes and breathe out for twice as long as you breathe in. Do this for five minutes in the morning, before a stressful meeting or as you transit from work to home.
Which of the following is the best title for the text?| A．PTSD: more awareness needed |
| B．SKY: better well-being attained |
| C．Meditation: an effective treatment |
| D．Breath: detailed ways to conduct |
5 . With a name like The Daily Orange in America, you will think the Syracuse University student-run newspaper prints a new issue every day. The newspaper began operating at the Syracuse, New York-based school in 1903. But it only prints a new issue three times a week.
Editor in chief Haley Robertson worries about where she will find companies willing to pay for advertising space. She also worries about having to fire friends. And, she searches out former students willing to donate money so the newspaper can send reporters on the road to cover the university’s sports teams. Media executives many years older than Robertson are facing similar problems. The news industry’s financial difficulties have spread to colleges and universities across the US, which brought challenges to these young journalists. Student reporters train for the future in two main ways. They receive a traditional classroom education from professors. They also put what they learn to use in student-run newsrooms.
Chris Evans is president of the College Media Association, or the CMA. He notes that few college newspapers have shut down the way local newspapers in towns and cities across the country have, considering the central role they are playing. But some have had to cut the number of times they publish each week. Some would find a former student for donation or sell enough advertising to cover it.
The University of North Carolina reports that newspaper newsroom jobs across the country dropped from 52,000 in 2008 to 24,000 today. There are other kinds of jobs in the field, of course, but not a very high number of them. Many journalism educators have wondered whether their students can deal with that. Journalism schools should do more than just equip students for possible media jobs, said Marie Hardin, head of Penn State’s Donald Bellisario College of Communications. She said journalism educators need to teach students communication, critical thinking and writing. Such skills are highly sought in many different fields.
What can be the most suitable title for the text?| A．Journalism Schools Apply New Teaching Methods |
| B．US College Student Reporters Face Difficult Future |
| C．How to Run Traditional University Newspapers Well? |
| D．Is Transformation of College Newspapers Necessary? |
6 . If a cat or a dog shares your home, I’ll take a wild guess that you don’t refer to the four-footed family member who licks your face, naps in your lap, sleeps on your bed as “it”. You probably call them by a name; and refer to them as “he” or “she” and various nicknames inspired by their personality and habits.
A group of more than 80 people with an interest in animal welfare, including Dr Jane Goodall, have signed a letter calling on the editors of the Associated Press Stylebook to change their guidance so that animals in news stories would be identified as “she/her/hers and he/him/his when their sex is known, regardless of species, and the gender-neutral they, or he/she, or his/hers when their sex is unknown. ”
News organizations often follow the guidance of the AP Stylebook. The signatories of this letter hope that when we write about animals in zoos, shelters, fields, farms, forests, seas and labs, they are recognized as living beings who feel: hunger, fear, happiness and pain. It would mean writing sentences like, “The rat was injected with the virus ... ” or, “The deer was struck by the car ... ” and “he, she or they died”-not it.
The proposed change might seem difficult to imagine right now. But consider how the care we take with personal pronouns for humans has changed over the past several years. Ben Dreyer, copy chief at Random House and author of the bestseller Dreyer’s English. An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style, says these changes remind us that thoughtful adjustments to our language don’t have to wait for a stylebook.
Laura Hillenbrand, author of Seabiscuit and other bestselling books, told us that if we don’t refer to animals in personal terms, “we open ourselves to abusing, neglecting, and exploiting creatures whose capacity (能力) for suffering is no less than our own. Referring to animals in personal terms may help us recognize how much of life we share. ”
What can be a suitable title for the text?| A．What animal lovers value |
| B．Animals deserve gender pronouns |
| C．Animals deserve various nicknames |
| D．How to refer to animals in pronouns |
7 . DCDIt is an unpleasant extinction that will change the world and how people communicate: within 20 years, two thirds of all the planet’s languages will be dead.
Experts agree that nothing can stop it happening but one academic is trying her hardest to slow it down. Professor Antonella Sorace is one of a growing number who believe learning a second language has enormous potential benefits for the human brain. Research consistently shows that learning a new language could delay the start of dementia (痴呆) for four to five years — a better result than with any medication to date.
It is those benefits of bilingualism (双语) that should encourage us to preserve and protect Europe’s minority languages — Gaelic, Manx, Cornish and Ulster Scots, she says.
Already her work and the project she founded three years ago in Edinburgh, Bilingualism Matters — now expanding across Europe and in the US — have convinced the Scottish government to introduce languages to primary schools. From 2024 all Scottish children will be learning a language other than English in their first year at school, with two other languages to be introduced later.
Just as disappearing forests take with them secrets of undiscovered medicines, disappearing languages can take the key to a longer and better quality of life. The first battle is to remove the popular assumption that bilingualism might damage children’s brains. There were even suggestions that it could encourage schizophrenia (精神分裂症).
“Study after study has shown the opposite to be true,” says Sorace. “These prejudices are deeply rooted, but we are perhaps halfway to persuading people that the brain can cope. Then we have to persuade people that it is actually of benefit.”
Which can be the best title for the text?| A．The Benefits of Bilingualism |
| B．The Founding of Bilingualism Matters |
| C．A New Challenge Facing Language Teaching |
| D．A Professor Fighting to Save Minority Languages |
8 . Five weeks ago I had total hip replacement surgery (髋关节置换手术). In Canada, we have a great healthcare system. That means we get our new hips for free.
My hip had been hurting me for years before I went to the doctor. Of course, it was free. She referred me to a surgeon, but the earliest appointment was in 10 months. That is what being free gets you. Ten months later, after some free X-rays, the surgeon told me I needed surgery, which was about an 18-month wait, for some senior citizens had been on the operation list. Another 18 months! I dragged myself out of the surgeon’s office.
Walking through the hospital, I thought about the situation. As the breadwinner of a large family, I couldn’t wait that long, so I had to get to the front line. I was fully aware of what a Canadian should be like (Canadians are usually considered gentle and ca-ring), but this time I really needed to fight for myself. At that very moment, in the shop window of the hospital, I saw a sign which read, “Volunteers Needed.” Suddenly, an idea occurred to me—I would get the job. Fortunately, they signed me up immediately because the average age of the volunteers at the shop was 75. They were desperate for some young blood.
Every Friday morning, I was at the shop. While seeing the hospital staff, I’d casually be asked, What do you do? Then I'd tell them, Well, I'm getting my hip replaced—in 18 months. It’s going to be so great when the pain stops. Soon, all the staff got to know me. Naturally, in my next appointment, the surgeon recognized me. Moments later, I had a surgery date just weeks away.
I had to say it was actually my volunteering that got me to the front of the line. And I’m not ashamed of it, for I intend to stick with the volunteering. Also, even when I cheated the system, I did it in a way that benefits society.
Which can be the best title for the text?| A．How I Got My New Hip |
| B．The Doctor Who Saved My Life |
| C．How to Be a Volunteer in Hospital |
| D．The Problem of Canada’s Healthcare System |
9 . Seated at the grand piano in MIT’s Killian Hall last fall, first-year student Jacqueline Wang played one piece of Mozart’s music. When she’d finished, Mi-Eun Kim, a pianist and lecturer at MIT, asked her to move to the back of the hall. Kim tapped at an iPad. Suddenly, the music Wang had just played poured forth again from the piano - its keys sinking and rising just as they had with Wang’s fingers on them. Wang stood with a confused expression, taking in a repeat of her own performance.
This unusual lesson took place during a three-week residency (驻留期) of the Steinway Spirio|r, a piano that obtains the data of live performances and offers students new possibilities for studying and experimenting with music.
Wang was one of several participants to have the experience of hearing herself play while watching the data of her performance move up and down across a screen: color-coded rectangles (矩形) indicating the speed and duration of each note, and a moving line charting her use of the damper pedal (阻尼踏板). Wang could even edit her own performance when Kim suggested her rhythmic use of the pedal might be unnecessary. Using the iPad interface to erase the pedaling entirely, they listened to the playback again, the notes gaining new clarity,
For Wang, the session introduced an element she’d never experienced since beginning her piano studies. The visual display of how long each key was played and with what speed gave her a more precise demonstration of the ideas of voicing and evenness.
Playing the piano is one of the most complex activities that humans do with their hands. Some people might think the new technology will replace the pianist. In Kim’s view, that human complexity is complemented by this kind of technical possibility. But it doesn’t mean all of the things that go into learning music will be abandoned. It’s going to be an invaluable third partner: the student, the teacher, and the Spirio | r. It’s going to play a necessary role in lots of musical efforts.
What can be the best title for the text?| A．Making Full Use of MIT’s Program |
| B．The Evolution of Musical Instruments |
| C．Exploring Music with the Steinway Spirio|r |
| D．The Challenges of Learning a New Instrument |
10 . A new study suggests that science role-playing may help tighten the gender gap in science, technology, engineering, and math(STEM)education and careers for women simply by improving their identity as scientists.
Frustrated by the gender gap in STEM, in which some fields employ at least three times more men than women, Cornell graduate student Reut Shachnai wanted to do something about it. Reut said the idea to help foster young girls’ interest in science came to her during a lecture in a class she was taking on Psychology of Imagination.
Reut designed an experiment to test if assuming the role of a successful scientist would improve girls’ persistence in a “sink or float” science game. The game itself was simple yet challenging: a computer screen projected a slide with an object in the center above a pool of water. Kids then had to predict whether the object would sink or float.
She studied 240 four -to -seven -year -olds, because this is around the time kids first develop their sense of identity and capabilities. They were divided into two groups. Children in the “story” group learned about the successes and struggles of a gender -matched scientist before playing the game. Boys heard about Isaac Newton and girls were told about Marie Curie. Children in the “pretend” group were told to assume the identity of the scientist they just learned about.
All kids played at least one round of the game. No matter what group they were in, girls got the answers right just as often as boys -nearly 70% of the time. Boys, however, didn’t really benefit from the stories or make-believe. Besides, girls pretending to be Dr. Marie persisted twice as long at the sink-or-float game, playing just as much as the boys did.
Reut’s teacher Tamar Kushnir said, “Rather than merely hearing about role models, children may benefit from actively performing the type of actions they see role models perform. In other words, taking a few steps in the role model’s shoes, instead of merely observing her walk.”
What would be the best title for the passage?| A．Girls should get recognition like boys |
| B．A fine example has boundless power for kids |
| C．Girls can work on more science games |
| D．Make-believe exercises benefit girls in STEM |
