1 . According to a recent study in the Journal of Consumer Research, both the size and consumption habits of our eating companions can influence our food intake. And contrary to existing research that says you should avoid eating with heavier people who order large portions(份), it's the beanpoles with big appetites you really need to avoid.
To test the effect of social influence on eating habits, the researchers conducted two experiments. In the first, 95 undergraduate women were individually invited into a lab to ostensibly(表面上)participate in a study about movie viewership. Before the film began, each woman was asked to help herself to a snack. An actor hired by the researchers grabbed her food first. In her natural state, the actor weighed 105 pounds. But in half the cases she wore a specially designed fat suit which increased her weight to 180 pounds.
Both the fat and thin versions of the actor took a large amount of food. The participants followed suit, taking more food than they normally would have. However, they took significantly more when the actor was thin.
For the second test, in one case the thin actor took two pieces of candy from the snack bowls. In the other case, she took 30 pieces. The results were similar to the first test: the participants followed suit but took significantly more candy when the thin actor took 30 pieces.
The tests show that the social environment is extremely influential when we're making decisions. If this fellow participant is going to eat more, so will I. Call it the “I’ll have what she's having” effect. However, we'll adjust the influence. If an overweight person is having a large portion, I'll hold back a bit because I see the results of his eating habits. But if a thin person eats a lot, I'll follow suit. If he can eat much and keep slim, why can't I?
1. What is the recent study mainly about?| A．Food safety. | B．Movie viewership. |
| C．Consumer demand. | D．Eating behavior. |
| A．Big eaters. | B．Overweight persons. |
| C．Picky eaters. | D．Tall thin persons. |
| A．To see how she would affect the participants. |
| B．To test if the participants could recognize her. |
| C．To find out what she would do in the two tests. |
| D．To study why she could keep her weight down. |
| A．How hungry we are. | B．How slim we want to be. |
| C．How we perceive others. | D．How we feel about the food. |
2 . A strong coffee after a poor night's sleep is the kick-start many people need in the morning but new research suggests that it might be best to have a bite to eat first.
A study has found that drinking coffee first can have a negative effect on blood sugar control - a risk factor for diabetes （糖尿病）and heart disease.
“We know that nearly half of us will wake in the morning and, before doing anything else, drink coffee --- subjectively the more tired we feel, the stronger the coffee,“ said Professor James Betts, at the University of Bath in the UK.
For their study, researchers at the University of Bath got 29 healthy men and women to take part in three different overnight experiments, with at least a week between them.
In one, the participants had a normal night's sleep, roughly from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., and were asked to consume a sugary drink on waking in the morning. They then experienced an interrupted night's sleep, where the researchers woke them every hour for five minutes by sending them text messages to which they had to respond — and upon waking were given the same sugary drink.
On another night, participants experienced the same sleep interruption, but this time were first given a strong black coffee 30 minutes before consuming the sugary drink.
They found that one night of interrupted sleep did not worsen the participants' blood sugar and insulin （胰 岛素）responses when compared to the normal night's sleep-- although previous research suggested that losing many hours of sleep or many nights of poor sleep could have a negative effect. However, strong black coffee consumed before breakfast actually increased the blood sugar response by around 50% — suggesting that relying on coffee after a bad night to stop feeling sleepy could limit your body's ability to tolerate the sugar in your breakfast.
1. What does the underlined word “kick-start" in paragraph 1 refer to?| A．A kind of sport. | B．A kind of power. |
| C．A kind of medicine. | D．A kind of belief. |
| A．The duration of sleep. | B．The blood sugar response. |
| C．The sugary drink. | D．The intake of coffee. |
| A．A normal sugary drink. |
| B．A normal night's sleep. |
| C．An interrupted night's sleep. |
| D．A cup of strong black coffee. |
| A．By comparing the results. |
| B．By listing some examples. |
| C．By surveying the participants. |
| D．By referring to some documents. |
3 . A sleepover (过夜) program, which is designed to make kids believe that their favorite toys enjoy reading, can help encourage children to pick up more books, a new study suggests.
Toys sleepover programs are designed to get children interested in books. Children take their toys to a library for the night. At this point, workers and volunteers take photos of the toys which explore the library and read books. The next day, the children collect their toys and the photos of what the toys did during the night. They are given the books their toys chose to read.
It was found that before the sleepover the children did not spend time looking at the books in their play area at preschool. Immediately after the sleepover, the number of children who read to the toys was higher than the number who did not, but after three days the effect decreased gradually.
The researchers also tested a method for sustaining the effect. They reminded the children of the sleepover a month later, by hiding the toys and showing them the photos again the next day. This simple method brought an increase in the number of children reading to their toys.
The study proves for the first time that children who take part in sleepover programs read picture books to their toys more. “We wanted to know if there really was an effect, and if so, how long it lasts. Surprisingly, not only did the children show interest in the books, but they also began to read to their toys. This means that a new behavior pattern appeared that the children hadn’t had before. We did not expect anything like this,” said one of the researchers.
Reading is important for the development of children’s language skills and imagination. When parents read to their children, it is a passive way of reading for the child. However, when children read to their toys, it is a more active, self-directed way of reading, helping them develop into more active readers, researchers said.
1. What is the purpose of the sleepover program?| A．To develop children’s language skills. |
| B．To help children to sleep well. |
| C．To encourage children to read more. |
| D．To guide children to form a good sleeping habit. |
| A．Go around the library with their toys. |
| B．Sleep with their toys. |
| C．Read together with their toys. |
| D．Take their toys to the library. |
| A．keeping | B．testing | C．surveying | D．showing |
| A．Children showed no interest in the books. |
| B．The effect of the sleepover program could last long. |
| C．Children began to read to their toys on their own. |
| D．Whether the sleepover program had an effect remained unknown. |
4 . As people get older, the types of friends they have tend to change. As young adults, humans have a lot of friends. With age, they often prefer to spend their time with just a few close, positive individuals. Researchers long believed that this change was unique to humans, but a new study finds that chimps also have similar tendencies.
One explanation for the humans to get picky about social connections has to do with awareness of our limited life span. “People monitor how much time we have left in our life and choose emotionally-fulfilling relationships in old age,” says one of the study's lead authors Alexandra G. Rosati, a psychologist at the University of Michigan. As people age, they don’t want to be surrounded by a large group of negative friends, but would prefer to be near a handful of optimistic individuals.
Rosati and her colleagues were curious whether chimps would show similar features even though they don’t seem to be aware of their upcoming death. Researchers used 78, 000 hours of observations made over 20 years from the Kibale Chimpanzee Project in Uganda. The data looked at the social interactions of 21 male chimps between 15 and 58 years old. The researchers only studied male chimps because they show stronger social bonds and have more social interactions than female chimps.
Researchers found that wild chimpanzees share a similar pattern. “They interact with others in more positive ways as they get older. Younger adults, in contrast, show more aggression and were more likely to form one-sided relationships where their partner did not reciprocate. ”says Rosati. For example, the older chimpanzees would sit close to their long-time companions and groom (给……梳毛) each other, while younger chimps had more one-sided relationships where they would groom a friend, but the action wasn't returned. The study was published in the journal Science.
“This aging pattern may be the result of shared changes in our abilities to manage our emotions with age,” Rosati says. “This shared pattern between chimpanzees and humans could represent an adaptive response where older adults focus on important social relationships that provide benefits and avoid interactions that have negative consequences as they lose competitive fighting ability.”
1. Why do humans change their preference for friends in old age?| A．They don’t like making new friends. |
| B．Their friends pass away one by one. |
| C．They adapt to the changes in nature. |
| D．They know their life is running out. |
| A．To show the study was done scientifically. |
| B．To show how scientists tried to prove their assumption. |
| C．To show how hard it was to observe the chimps. |
| D．To show male chimps are unaware of upcoming death. |
| A．Repay their kindness. | B．Take care of them. |
| C．Get along well with them. | D．Sit close to them. |
| A．People Prefer Positive Partners in Old Age |
| B．Positive Bonds Benefit Chimps in Many Ways |
| C．Aging Chimps like Us Get Picky About Friends |
| D．Chimps Share Similar Tendencies with Humans |
5 . When there are some strangers in front of us, which of them will we trust?
According to a new study in the online PLOSOne, people make their decisions to trust others largely based on their faces. Your appearance can do a lot for you, especially if you are in the financial industry. The more trustworthy you look, the more likely people will buy what you’re selling.
Researchers from Britain’s University of Warwick Business School, University College London, and Dartmouth College, US, did a number of experiments.
The research team used computer software to make 40 faces, from the least to the most trustworthy-looking. The study said that the difference between a trustworthy face and one that isn’t as trustworthy comes from features that look slightly angry or slightly happy, even when the face is at rest. However, a slightly happy face is more likely to be trusted. Researchers gave participants some money and asked them which face they trusted to invest the money for them. Then researchers gave some good and bad information about the people with these faces, and asked the participants again whom they trusted. The results showed that even if they got different information, the participants didn’t change their choices. They were still more likely to invest their money with the more trustworthy-looking faces.
Chris Olivola, one of the study’s authors, said in the University of Warwick’s press release: “It seems we are still willing to go with our own instincts about whether we think someone looks like we can trust them.”
1. According to the study, which of the following faces is most likely to be trusted?| A．An embarrassed face. | B．A disappointed face. |
| C．A smiling face. | D．A nervous face. |
| A．Most participants gave their money to the trustworthy-looking faces. |
| B．Researchers took photos of the 40 people’s faces in colleges. |
| C．The trustworthy faces were given good information. |
| D．Participants liked to choose the faces with good information. |
| A．Feelings rather than opinions or ideas based on facts. |
| B．Judgements that are easily changed by others. |
| C．Good information that are given by people around. |
| D．Opinions that grow out of social practice. |
| A．Why people trust a stranger with good appearance. |
| B．People usually judge strangers according to their faces. |
| C．How different information affects people’s decisions. |
| D．Why the research team carried out the experiment. |
6 . When it comes to the most famous 20th century painters of the United States, Grandma Moses should be mentioned, although she did not start painting until she was in her late seventies. As she once said to herself , “I would never sit back in a rocking chair, waiting for someone to help me”. No one could have had a more active old age．
She was born on a farm in New York State, one of five boys and five girls. At 12 she left home and was in domestic service until at 27 she married Thomas Moses, the hired hand of one of her employers. They farmed most of their lives, first in Virginia and then in New York State, at Eagle Bridge. She had ten children, of whom five survived; her husband died in 1927．
Grandma Moses painted a little as a child and made embroidery (刺绣) pictures as a hobby, but only changed to oils in old age because her hands became too stiff (僵硬的) to sew and she still wanted to keep busy and pass the time. Her pictures were first sold at the local drugstore and at a market and were soon noticed by a businessman who bought all that she painted. Three of the pictures were exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art, and in 1940 she had her first exhibition in New York. Between the 1930’s and her death, she produced some 2,000 pictures: careful and lively portrayals of the country life she had known for so long, with a wonderful sense of color and form. “I think really hard till I think of something really pretty, and then I paint it” she said．
1. What can we learn about Moses?| A．She stopped painting in her late seventies. |
| B．She still led an active life when she was old. |
| C．Her marriage life was not happy. |
| D．She painted oils as a child. |
| A．Embroidering. | B．Farming. |
| C．Nursing. | D．Painting. |
| A．Directions. | B．Stages. |
| C．Surveys. | D．Descriptions. |
| A．Grandma Moses: the Best Woman Painter |
| B．Grandma Moses and Her Farm Life |
| C．Grandma Moses and Her Exhibition |
| D．Grandma Moses : A Famous Woman Painter of 20th Century |
7 . Scientists have been trying to figure out how to alter the genes of humans for many years, and it looks like they’ve finally cracked (破解) the code. But while this may seem like a great step forward in science, some also believe that it’s one step back when it comes to ethics (道德准则). In August, a group of scientists from the USA and South Korea worked together to successfully edit a human embryo (胚胎) and remove a genetic mutation (突变) that would have led to heart disease, reported The Guardian. This was done with the help of CRISPR, a gene-editing tool that allows scientists to “cut and paste” human DNA.
Although this was the first example of an embryo’s genes being changed successfully, the advantages of gene editing have already been tested in living patients. In 2015, a five-month-old girl from the UK was saved after doctors used edited cells to fight off her cancer. As of today, she’s alive and well. And in the USA last year, scientists managed to remove HIV cells from several patients by editing the genes inside their bodies.
Some people hope that in the future, diseases or birth defects could simply be "edited out”. However, others believe this could lead to so-called designer babies, giving parents the option to choose everything from eye color to intelligence. “You could find wealthy parents buying the latest “upgrades” for their children, leading to even greater inequality than we already live with,” Marcy Camovsky, director of the San Francisco Center for Genetics, told BBC News.
In spite of these ethical concerns, experts say it’s not possible to create the “perfect” human being. Despite the progress scientists have made, we don’t understand human genes enough to give all unborn children great brainpower or amazing singing abilities. “Right now, we know nothing about genetic enhancement,” Hank Greely, a director at Stanford University, USA, told The New York Times. “We’re never going to be able to say, honestly, this embryo looks like it would score high on the two-part SAT.”
So it looks like if we want good exam results, or to impress people with our piano skills, we’ll have to stick with the old fashioned method of plain hard work---at least for now.
1. The underlined word “alter” in Paragraph 1 probably means ________.| A．record | B．change | C．remove | D．increase |
| A．A genetic mutation related to heart disease was removed by scientists. |
| B．A newborn baby with cancer was saved by edited cells. |
| C．HIV cells were removed from patients9 bodies. |
| D．Some birth defects were simply edited out. |
| A．They don’t think it is an effective way to fight diseases. |
| B．They are concerned that it could lead to genetic mutations. |
| C．They think it could lead to designer babies and increased inequality. |
| D．They worry that it could make parents abandon children with birth defects. |
| A．Gene editing is regarded as the perfect way to treat birth defects. |
| B．There is still a long way to go to fully understand human genes. |
| C．Gene editing could help enhance human intelligence in the near future. |
| D．Scientists are pessimistic (悲观的) about the future of gene editing. |
8 . A simple gesture can be formed into a child’s memory so quickly that it will cause the child to give a false answer to a question accompanied by that gesture. A new finding suggests that parents, social workers, psychologists and lawyers should be careful with their hands as well as their words.
While memories of both adults and children are easy to react to suggestion, those of children are known to be particularly influenced, said lead researcher Sara Broaders of Northwestern University. Kids are used to looking to adults to tell events for them and can be misled even if not intentionally.
Previous research, for example, has shown that detail-loaded questions often cause false answers; when asked, say “Did you drink juice at the picnic?” the child is likely to say “yes” even if no juice had been available. It is not that the child is consciously lying, but rather the detail is quickly formed into his or her memory.
To avoid this problem, social workers have long been advised to ask children only open- ended questions, such as “What did you have at the picnic?” But an open-ended question paired with a gesture, briefly meaning a juice box, is treated like a detailed question. That is，children become likely to answer falsely.
And it isn’t just a few kids: 77% of children gave at least one piece of false information when a detail was suggested by an ordinary gesture. Gestures may also become more popular when talking with non-fluent language users, such as little kids, Broaders said as hand movements can impart meaning of unfamiliar words and phrases. “It certainly seems reasonable that adults would gesture more with children. ’’
In general, Broaders advises parents and other adults to “try to be aware of your hands when questioning a child about an event. Otherwise, you might be getting answers that don’t reflect what actually happened. ’’
1. What can we know about gestures from the text?| A．They are rarely used by people. | B．They have certain effect on children. |
| C．They have not any function at all. | D．They are often used by social workers. |
| A．Children are easy to tell lies. | B．These gestures are very attractive. |
| C．Their memories are affected easily. | D．These gestures are used frequently. |
| A．Where are you going Lucy? |
| B．What will you have for lunch? |
| C．Did you see anything else last night? |
| D．Did you cheat in the last English examination? |
| A．Pass on. | B．Tell apart. |
| C．Confuse. | D．Separate. |
9 . When you choose a friend, you should be very careful. A good friend can help you study. You can have fun together and make each other happy. Sometimes you will meet fair weather (晴天) friends. They will be with you as long as you have money or luck, but when you are down, they will run away. How do I know when I have found a good friend? I look for certain qualities of character, especially understanding, honesty and reliability (可靠).
Above all else, I look for understanding in a friend. A good friend tries to understand how another person is feeling. He is not quick to judge. Instead, he tries to learn from others. He puts himself in the other person’s place, and he tries, to think of ways to be helpful. He is, also a good listener.
At the same time, however, a good friend is honest. He does not look for faults in others. He notices their good points. In short, good friends will be honest to each other and accept each other.
Another quality of a friend is reliability. I can always depend on a good friend If he tells me he will meet me somewhere at a certain time? I can be sure that he will be there. If I need a favour, he will do his best to help me. If I am in trouble > he will not run away from me.
There is a fourth quality that makes a friend special, A special friend is someone with whom we can have fun. We should enjoy our lives, and we would enjoy our friendship. That is why I especially like friends who are fun to be with. A good friend likes the same things I like. We share experience and learn from each other. A good friend has a good sense of humour, too. He likes to laugh with me. That is how we share in the joy of being friends. And I know that he is looking for the same quality in me.
When I meet someone who is reliable, honest, and understanding, I know I’ve found a friend!
1. If you have fair weather friends, what will happen to you?| A．You will become rich |
| B．You can be sure that you get real friends |
| C．You will be refused when you get into trouble |
| D．They will give you all that they have when you need help |
| A．Honesty. | B．Reliability. |
| C．Understanding. | D．A sense of humour. |
| A．Cloudy. | B．Unusual. | C．Unhappy. | D．Pleased. |
| A．the qualities of a friend | B．where to choose friends |
| C．how to get along with friends | D．the importance of having a friend |
10 . Deciding to get her money's worth out of the wedding dress on which she spent over $1,000, an Australian woman has been wearing her wedding dress, a year after her wedding.
43-year-old Tammy Hall adopted a new lifestyle-anti-consumerism (反消费主义) lifestyle in 2016, after a trip to India opened her eyes to how much we as a society consumed. She decided not to buy any new clothes or footwear for a whole year after she returned home to Adelaide, in Southern Australia, and she managed to make it.
But last year, as her wedding day approached, she faced a dilemma. She wanted to look good on the most important day of her life, but how could she spend a small fortune on the wedding dress she would only wear on that day?
"In the end I decided that if I was going to get a wedding dress, I'd make sure I could get my money's worth," Hall tells PA Real Life.
"The first time I wore it after the wedding was to vote in the Australian election in early 2019," the 43-year-old adds. "Since then, it's been to all sorts of places. Wearing it on a crowded train was especially funny, but I've worn it to do housework, to football games and to the gym."
Hall says that she has gotten some strange looks from people, but no irritating comments. It may have something to do with the fact that the dress is not the fanciest, but she believes people are just too reserved to say anything. Anyway, she doesn't really care, because she knows she has to hit the goal she has set and wearing the dress multiple times is the most reasonable way she could think of to make the most of her wedding dress.
Hall now plans to wear her wedding dress on a trip to Iceland that she and her partner will take next summer.
1. Why did Tammy Hall adopt a new lifestyle?| A．To adapt herself to Indian life. | B．To cut down her consumption. |
| C．To save money for her next trip. | D．To get prepared for her wedding. |
| A．She brought fun to people with it. | B．She tried to wear it to earn money. |
| C．She wore it repeatedly in daily life. | D．She got it exchanged again and again. |
| A．Thrilling. | B．Annoying. |
| C．Amusing. | D．Confusing. |
| A．She is determined to turn her ideas into practice. |
| B．She values her wedding dress less than her trips. |
| C．She has been struggling to make the ends meet. |
| D．She has influenced people's lifestyle widely. |
