1 . Sleep's Effect on the Brain's Performance
When you have a busy schedule, it can be easy to neglect your sleep because of the different items you want to get done on your checklist each day. Whether you stay up late responding to emails or cut your sleep short to exercise in the morning, lack of sleep can start to have a negative effect on the brain. Your sleep can affect your brain's performance in a few main ways.
When your brain doesn't have time to rest, it can slow down your ability to think quickly, as well as your reaction time. You may have difficulty trying to stay awake and become more alert, which can affect how well you make decisions. You may find yourself taking more risks than normal.
Studies also show that memory and sleep are closely linked, which means it can be difficult to recall certain details or facts if you fail to get at least seven hours of sleep each night. NREM (Non-Rapid-Eye-Movement Sleep) and REM (rapid eye movement) sleep are necessary for remembering basic facts to improve your efficiency and ability to perform different tasks. In particular, fragmented sleep can affect the memory even if you get seven to eight hours of sleep each night.
Those who are easy to suffer from migraines (偏头痛) are at a higher risk of developing a headache if they don't get consistent, quality sleep. Studies show sleep loss also increases the risk of diabetes. It affects the body's ability to release insulin, resulting in higher blood sugar levels. Your body also has more difficulty determining when it's full while eating, which can make it easy to consume more calories than you need throughout the day.
There are many ways your sleep can affect the brain's performance and impact every area of your life. Scheduling your sleep and creating a restful, comfortable setting in the bedroom can make it easier to feel relaxed and recharged.
1. What is the function of the first paragraph?| A．To stress what a busy life people live nowadays. |
| B．To warn the readers of the importance of sleep. |
| C．To show brain sometimes has poor performance. |
| D．To introduce the theme of the whole passage. |
| A．Your ability to drive safely will be influenced. |
| B．You can realize your mistakes in a short time. |
| C．Your ability to remember is likely to decline. |
| D．You can't carry out a few tasks at the same time. |
| A．Sound. | B．Broken. | C．Adequate. | D．Dreamless. |
| A．Sleep loss leads to the decline of insulin. |
| B．People fail to control the amount of intake. |
| C．People don't know the calories they need. |
| D．Sleep loss results in their poor appetite. |
2 . I am thrilled to welcome you to the 20th annual Roger Ebert's Film Festival, a special event in partnership with the University of Illinois College of Media, the greater Champaign-Urbana community, and movie lovers everywhere. Little did we think, back in 1999, that our experiment in reinventing the film festival — to make a festival that celebrated overlooked films and the women and men who made those films — would become a landmark annual event in the life of our community and contribute to the repairs of the remarkable Virginia Theater.
In selecting the films for this year, Chaz Ebert and I looked to women filmmakers for our inspiration. Fully half of our films are either directed or co-directed by women, and several others have women in powerful producing roles. Films directed or co-directed by women include 13th , directed by Ava DuVernay9 Belle, directed by Amma Asante, and American Splendor, directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini. And women producers include Lynda Obst and Emma Thomas winter stellar, and Ruth Ann Harnisch and Danielle Renfrew Behrens (Columbus).
Our opening night film is The Fugitive, directed by Andrew Davis, a graduate from University of Illinois. Our Saturday night film is the classic The Big Lebozvski. Our guest will be the Hollywood master Jeff Dowd. And of course The Alloy Orchestra will be back, this year with A Page of Madness, the classic Japanese silent film.
We would like to thank our sponsors, volunteers, festival pass holders, and individual ticket holders for their welcome participation. We look forward to your unwavering support to make our festival more successful each spring in central Illinois. We especially want to thank the University of Illinois for their loyal support year after year.
1. What was the purpose of reinventing Roger Ebert's Film Festival in 1999?| A．To enrich the life of residents. |
| B．To help rebuild Virginia Theater. |
| C．To work closely with the University of Illinois. |
| D．To honor people whose films were not box-office hits. |
| A．Hollywood classics. |
| B．Films produced or directed by women. |
| C．Diversity in themes. |
| D．Stories featuring female leading roles. |
| A．Consistent. | B．Original. | C．Legal. | D．Conditional. |
| A．The President of the University of Illinois. |
| B．A movie critic who is a friend of the Eberts. |
| C．A member of the Festival's organizing committee. |
| D．A journalist who reports stories about the Festival. |
3 . “Instagram(a social networking app) will cut out many users’ accounts on December 20. To protect your account, repost this warning #KeepMyAccountSafe.” Every few months, it happens again-a dozen of annoying posts from my kids’ friends suddenly start to appear on my Instagram news feed.
According to a new study by Stanford University, most kids don’t know what news is fake. Researchers asked more than 7,800 middle school and high school students to complete 56 tasks, like distinguishing an advertisement from a real news story on a website and determining which blog in a series was most reliable. They found that students judged the credibility of blogs based not on the source of the material, but on how much detail they contained, or whether a large photo was attached.
“Many people assume that because young people are fluent in social media, they can distinguish fake news, but our work shows the opposite to be true,” wrote lead study author Sam Wineburg, a professor at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education.
Both Google and Facebook are now taking steps to control misleading news from making its way on their platforms, but they won’t be able to eliminate it completely. That is why it’s now more important than ever to teach our kids to think critically when it comes to believing various information sources.
“In the coming months, we look forward to sharing our assessments and working with educators to create materials that will guide young people in the sea of disinformation they encounter online,” said Wineburg.
1. How does the author introduce the topic of the passage?| A．By stating opinions. | B．By showing findings. |
| C．By quoting sayings. | D．By citing a post. |
| A．The source of the material. | B．The popularity of the website. |
| C．The amount of details. | D．The size of relevant photos. |
| A．Digest. | B．Update. | C．Estimate. | D．Remove. |
| A．Stronger Together: The Internet Changes Our Life |
| B．Be Careful: Kids Are Bad at Identifying Fake News |
| C．Reliable News Has No Place on Social Media |
| D．Educators Have a Long Way to Go to Guide the Young |
4 . Here’s a simple question — answer it honestly, because your response could boost the level of pleasure in your daily life, put off dementia (痴呆), and even help you live longer. How many hours did you spend reading last week?
Recently, when researcher Mathew P. White and his workmates at the Yale School of Public Health dug into 12 years of information about the reading habits and health of more than 3,600 men and women, a hopeful pattern became known. Book readers who report more than three hours of weekly reading are 23 percent less likely to die than those who read only newspapers or magazines.
To understand why and what each of us can do to get the most out of our words, start by asking the same question the Yale team did. What is it about reading books that increases our brain power while reading newspapers doesn’t?
For one, the researchers suggest that chapter books encourage “deep reading”. Unlike, say, looking through a page of headlines, reading a book forces your brain to think creatively and make connections from one chapter to another, and to the outside world. When you make connections, so does your brain. Over time, these neural networks (神经网络) can promote quicker thinking, which provides greater protection against dementia.
Secondly, reading books, especially novels, has been shown to increase empathy (共鸣) and emotional intelligence. Developing social tools such as empathy and emotional intelligence can lead to more (and more positive) human interaction, which in turn can lower stress levels — both of which are proven to help you live longer and healthier.
That’s not to say that magazines, newspapers, and online articles are of no good. Reading anything that fills your mind seems to bring about mental benefits. When it comes to words, addiction is encouraged. Because it pays to increase your word power — today, tomorrow, and for the rest of your life.
1. What does the underlined word “boost” in Paragraph 1 mean?| A．Remove. | B．Reduce. | C．Improve. | D．Create. |
| A．By experimentation. |
| B．By direct observation. |
| C．By interviewing in person. |
| D．By referring to former facts. |
| A．Promoting brain growth. |
| B．Preventing us from ageing. |
| C．Keeping us free from stress. |
| D．Strengthening neural networks. |
| A．Negative. | B．Positive. | C．Uncertain. | D．Unconcerned. |
5 . People have many different ways to relax during break time at work or school. Smartphones are probably the number one choice for a quick mental vacation. Although it might seem like a good time, the result is opposite, according to a recent psychological study from Rutgers University.
For the study, more than 400 students were asked to finish a set of 20 word puzzles. Halfway though the task, the students were divided into three groups. One group was allowed to take a break and use cellphones to buy things online. The second group was asked to have a rest and buy things using a computer. The last group didn't take any break at all.
Surprisingly, the group that used their cellphones during the break went back to work feeling the most tired and least motivated to continue. They also had the hardest time solving the remaining word puzzles.
Terri Kurtzberg, co-author of the study, explained that they assumed looking at cellphones during a break would be no different from any other break—but instead, the phone may cause increasing levels of distraction that make it difficult to return focused attention to work tasks.
“Cellphones may have this effect because even just seeing your phone activates thoughts of checking messages, connecting with people, and more, in ways that are different than how we use other screens like computers, and laptops," Kurtzberg said.
This is echoed by a recent study from the US University of Chicago. It found that even if cellphones are turned off or turned face down, their mere presence reduces a person's cognitive capacity.
1. What can we learn from the study?| A．The participants were divided into groups at the beginning. |
| B．The last group had the hardest time solving the word puzzles. |
| C．Computers and laptops cause more distraction. |
| D．Cellphones may make people less focused on work. |
| A．Agreed. | B．Remembered. | C．Overcome. | D．Complained. |
| A．Try putting your smartphone away during your next break. |
| B．Using computers to shop online rather than cellphones. |
| C．Stop checking messages and connecting with people by cellphone. |
| D．Turning off your cellphone during work time. |
| A．Ways to relax for students. | B．The result from a word- puzzle game. |
| C．A study on using smart-phones to relax. | D．Effects brought by the smart-phone. |
6 . It was America’s deadliest wildfire in at least 100 years and the most destructive in California history. The Camp Fire started at 6:33 a.m. on November 8, touched off by faulty electrical transmission lines in the town of Paradise. It burned for 17 days and consumed 153,336 acres north of Sacramento. In all, the fire caused $16.5 billion in damage, destroying nearly 19,000 buildings, leaving 50,000 homeless, and killing 85.
Shane Grammer, a creative director for Disney’s theme parks, followed the news of the fire. When his childhood friend Shane Edwards posted pictures of his white chimney—the only part of his house to survive—Grammer felt helpless. And then he had an idea.
On December 31, Grammer spent three hours spray-painting a strikingly frightening black- and-white image of a woman on the chimney—a reminder, perhaps, of the beauty of life, or even just of life itself. Grammer posted the image on Instagram. The victims of the fire, especially, could not contain themselves. “Beautiful and unforgettable,” one said. Another posted, “You bring beauty and hope.”
Suddenly, Grammer realized that what he had thought was a purely artistic expression had morphed into something deeper, the nature of true art. “When the first picture moved so many people in this community, I knew I had to come back up,” Grammer told KRCR-TV in Redding. Over a period of three months he returned eight times, painting 17 portraits of victims on walls, pickups, and pieces of buildings. “There is hope,” he explains. “There is beauty in the ashes.”
Grammer’s work in Paradise has now become a movement. He has traveled the world painting pictures in dark places that badly needed some light: an orphanage in Tijuana, Mexico; a youth ministry in San Francisco. “I want to do something powerful and create art that moves people,” he says.
1. What can we learn from paragraph 1?| A．The Camp Fire was caused by nature. |
| B．California has witnessed many wildfires. |
| C．There should be a ban on using electricity. |
| D．The damage of the Camp Fire was inestimable. |
| A．Disappointing. | B．Impressive. | C．Frightening. | D．Abstract. |
| A．Changed. | B．Broke. | C．Divided. | D．Burst. |
| A．They are creative masterpieces. |
| B．They are drawn using a special technique. |
| C．They bring people hope out of misfortune. |
| D．They mainly focus on dark sides of society. |
7 . One spring day, once the flowers have begun to open, a bee will hover and zip through your yard and dive-bomb your picnic table. While you’re thinking about avoiding an attack, that bee is focused on something else entirely: me.
A honeybee has about six weeks to live. Today, like most days, her task is to fly as many as three miles from home, stick her long, straw-like tongue into a hundred or so flowers. When the bee has had her fill, she’ll fly home. There the bee will deposit what she has got into the mouth of one of her co-workers, who will relay it to another, and so on for about 20 minutes, until the mixture is ready to be placed into the comb. Then she and her 50,000 or so mates will hover in the dark all night every night, flapping their wings to create hot, breezy conditions to remove the water from the mixture. Several sunrises later, they will seal me off in a golden cell of beeswax. In her lifetime, our bee may visit 4,000 flowers, and yet will produce only one-twelfth of a tea spoon of me.
The average American consumes nearly a pound and a half of me every year, in tea, on toast, and beyond. If I do say so myself, I am a timeless treasure. Literally—I never go bad.
Unfortunately, my good health is not guaranteed. The problem lies in the growth of industrial agriculture and the use of pest control chemicals, as well as changes in weather patterns, all of which reduce the number of flowers bees have to visit. I’d appreciate your letting your own garden grow just a little wild. My future depends on all of us protecting nature’s wild flowers, thus helping the bees, who give so much—to you, to me—without ever asking for anything in return.
1. What does “me” in the passage refer to?| A．The flower. | B．The bee. | C．Garden | D．Honey. |
| A．Bees’ special talent. | B．Bees’ hard work. |
| C．Bees’ living environment. | D．Bees’ social behavior. |
| A．A bee will surely attack picnickers |
| B．A bee will generally live a long life. |
| C．American consumers can’t go without “me”. |
| D．The drying process of “me” can take a few nights. |
| A．To appeal for help for honeybees. | B．To talk about the history of a treasure. |
| C．To put forward techniques for gardeners. | D．To argue against the control of chemicals. |
8 . Sixth formers are to be quizzed on whether they can cook five hot meals and how often they should change their sheets, as part of a government-backed scheme to prepare them for university.
Ministers are urging schools to put on special workshops for students aged 16―18 to ensure they feel comfortable with the prospect of leaving home. The course, designed by the university accommodation provider Unite Students, will teach pupils how to manage their finances and how to live independently.
According to the course materials, teachers should ask students questions which may not have occurred to them, such as “what is the price of a liter of milk?” and “list 5 hot meals you can cook from scratch” and “how often will you wash your sheets once you move out of home?”
Damian Hinds, the Education Secretary, said, “We are all very conscious that moving away from home and going to university is one of the most exciting things that happens in your life but it can also be very daunting.” Mr. Hinds said that when he got to university, he discovered he had “relied on my mum more than I realized I did”, adding, “I wish I could have cooked better.”
Earlier this year, ministers set up a new task force called the Education Transitions Network, which includes representatives from Universities UK, UCAS and the National Union of Students. It is part of a drive by the Department for Education to address the rise in students who report mental health issues during their time at university.
Data released earlier this year showed that the number of students declaring mental health problems on arrival at university has surged. Figures obtained showed a 73 percent rise between 2014―2015 and 2017―2018 in students stating that they had a condition such as depression or anxiety before starting their courses.
1. What can we learn about the course?| A．It encourages students to leave home. |
| B．It is designed by the university students. |
| C．It helps students get ready for their college life. |
| D．It allows teachers to ask students familiar questions. |
| A．To show the joy of campus life. | B．To list the contents of the course. |
| C．To prove the necessity of the course. | D．To present the importance of college life. |
| A．Increased. | B．Dropped. | C．Doubled. | D．Remained. |
9 . Learning a second language is tough at any age. Now, in a new study, scientist have found out the exact age after which your chances of reaching fluency（流利）in a second language seem to plummet:10.
The study published in the journal Cognition, found that it's "nearly impossible" for language learners to reach native-level（母语水平）fluency if they start learning a second language after age 10. "It turns out you're still learning fast," says study co-author Joshua Hartshorne. "It's just that you run out of time, because your ability to learn starts dropping at around 17 or 18 years old," People who start a few years after age 10 may still become quite good at a language, the authors say, but they are unlikely to become fluent.
Kids may be better than adults at learning new languages for many reasons. Children's brains are more plastic than those of adults, meaning they're better able to adapt and respond to new information. Kids may also be more willing to try new things than adults are. Their comparatively new understanding of their native language may also be advantageous.
These findings may seem discouraging, but it was inspiring for scientists to learn that the key period for fluent language learning might be longer than previously thought. Some scientists believed that the window begins to close shortly after birth, while others made it longer to very early childhood. Compared with those judgments-age 17 or 18 —when language learning ability start to drop off—seems relatively old.
For this study, the researchers created an online test promising to guess people's native language and home country based on their responses to English grammar questions. Almost 670,000 people took it, giving the researchers huge amounts of data from English speakers of many ages and backgrounds. Examining the responses and grammar mistakes allowed them to made unusually exact judgments about language learning.
1. What does the underlined word "plummet" in paragraph 1 mean?| A．Drop sharply. | B．Increase greatly. |
| C．Appear gradually. | D．Double suddenly. |
| A．Adults tend to perform badly in learning a second language. |
| B．Children are at an advantage in acquiring a new language. |
| C．All these new findings are quite discouraging for scientists. |
| D．People have different key periods for mastering a language. |
| A．The purpose of the study. | B．The findings of the study. |
| C．The subject of the study. | D．The process of the study. |
| A．Kids Are Better at Learning New Languages |
| B．Adults Can't Learn a Second Language Well |
| C．Never Say Die When Learning a New Language |
| D．Better to Learn a New Language Before Age 10 |
10 . Time and how we experience it have always puzzled us. Physicists have created fascinating theories, but their time is measured by a pendulum (钟摆) and is not psychological time, which leaps with little regard to the clock or calendar. As someone who understood the distinction observed, ''When you sit with a nice girl for two hours it seems like a minute, but when you sit on a hot stove, a minute seems like two hours. ''
Psychologists have long noticed that larger units of time, such as months and years, fly on swifter wings as we age. They also note that the more time is structured with schedules and appointments, the more rapidly it seems to pass. For example, a day at the office flies compared with a day at the beach.
Expectation and familiarity also make time seem to flow more rapidly. Almost all of us have had the experience of driving somewhere we've never been before. Surrounded by unfamiliar scenery, with no real idea of when we’ll arrive, we experience the trip as lasing a long time. But the return trip, although exactly as long, seems to take far less time. The novelty of the outward journey has become routine.
When days become as identical as beads (小珠子)on a string, they mix together, and even months become a single day. To counter this, try to find ways to interrupt the structure of your day-- to stop time, so to speak.
Learning something new is one of the ways to slow the passage of time. One of the reasons the days of our youth seems to be full and long is that these are the days of learning and discovery. For many of us, learning ends when we leave school, but this doesn't have to be.
1. What is the underlined sentence in paragraph 1 used to show?| A．Psychological time is quite puzzling. |
| B．Time should not be measured by a pendulum. |
| C．Physical time is different from psychological time |
| D．Physical theory has nothing to do with the true sense of time |
| A．Our sense of time changes. |
| B．We spend less time at the beach |
| C．More time is structured and scheduled |
| D．Time is structured with too many appointments. |
| A．excitement | B．unfamiliarity | C．imagination | D．amusement |
| A．To give various explanations about time |
| B．To describe how we experience time physically |
| C．To show the differences of two kinds of time |
| D．To explain why time flies and how to slow it down |
