1 . Benefits of Cross-Country Skiing
Cross-country skiing can be enjoyed by a wide range of students, from the youngest kindergartners to those secondary students. It is really a fun activity, providing students a gentle workout outside in winter. While having fun, students can gain physical and mental benefits .
The physical benefits of cross-country skiing are well known. If we look at Olympic cross- country skiers, we can see the positive effects on the body that result from training for cross-country skiing. The average best female cross-country skier carries 11 percent body fat, and best male skiers carry 5 percent. These percentages are well below the average for people who are considered to be athletic-17 percent for females and 10 percent for males. The high number of calories burned while skiing helps to keep skiers slim in a healthy and attractive way.
Cross-country skiing is also an efficient way to exercise a large number of muscles at once. Because skiers use ski poles as a means of propulsion, the force that drives skiers forward, the upper body gets much more of workout. Of course, the leg muscles also do their fair share. People who use cross-country skiing as a workout over several weeks will discover that the muscles of their entire body increase in strength.
Cross-country skiing on a regular basis has a tremendous effect on a person’s cardiovascular system. In addition to gaining strength in the muscles of the upper and lower body, people who use cross-country skiing as a workout method over several weeks will also discover that their heart is stronger. A strong heart pumps more efficiently, sending out more blood to the muscles with each contraction. Through weeks of skiing, people often discover that their resting heart rate has decreased. Highly trained Olympic cross-country skiers have resting heart rates between 28 and 40 beats per minute. Compare that to the resting heart rate of the average person, which is 60 to 80 beats per minute!
The benefits of cross-country skiing extend beyond overall general health. A lot of evidence exists indicating that regular physical activity increases the release of mood-lifting endorphins in the body. After one of the energetic and fun skiing lessons, students will be smiling and laughing; they will be relaxed and in a better mood than when they started class. Students will leave class with a sense of accomplishment, knowing that they have developed new skills in a fun activity.
Cross-country skiing is a great way to work the total body. Now more and more students are taking part in this exercise outside during the winter months. They are enjoying it and benefiting from it!
1. The underlined word “workout” means ______.| A．manner | B．exercise | C．application | D．opportunity |
| A．requires the use of most muscle groups | B．offers students a unique way to keep fit |
| C．can increase the athletes’ resting heart rates | D．can balance out the skiers’ increased calories |
| A．By making comments. | B．By giving examples. |
| C．By making comparisons. | D．By giving explanations. |
CP: Central point P: Point Sp: Sub-point (次要点) C: Conclusion
A． | B． |
C． | D． |
2 . Terasa Hill did not intend to do something unplanned. It began when Terasa, who had grown up around horses, was observing a horse auction (拍卖). A chestnut: racehorse was for sale? The horse had an injured leg, but that didn’t matter “She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen,” said Terasa.
When the bidding started, Terasa surprised herself by stepping in. There was no way she was going to allow that horse to have an uncertain future. At MYM450, the bidding stopped! Terasa became the new owner of Sierra, a nervous racehorse with an unfortunate past.
Sierra, limping (病) and hurt with pain from a broken knee, became a labour of love for Terasa. After three long months of nursing her under the guidance of a local animal doctor, the leg recovered and Terasa’s most impressive game began.
It wasn’t only Sierra’s leg that needed to recover; Sierra needed to relearn how to trust people. Terasa thought the best way to win Sierra’s trust and fondness was to feed her treats. Terasa provided Sierra with many treats, but none passed the sniff (嗅) test—Sierra turned up her nose at all of them. Desperate, Terasa experimented by making her own mixture of molasses and grains, which she baked in her own kitchen. The cookies were a hit with Sierra and other horses, sending Terasa’s life in a new direction.
Terasa look her treats, called “Barnies,” to a local store. They sold like hotcakes, and within months local businessmen began demanding for more. Terasa’s kitchen was no longer big enough for the increased demand, which forced her to move her operation to an Oshawa company.
Then a serious health problem threatened to derail her plans. Terasa called upon the same determination that had helped her save Sierra to help her overcome her own illness. Family and friends came to her rescue and kept Barnies Ltd. going. Almost a year later, healthy and more resolute than ever, Terasa found a national distributor and Bainies began selling in 144 stores across Canada.
And what about Sierra, the inspiration for all this success and change? The horse has fully recovered and has become a wonderful riding horse.
1. Why did Terase try making her own cookies?| A．To be able to work from home. |
| B．To set up a business of her own. |
| C．To provide a healthy diet for Sierra. |
| D．To find a way to bond with the horse. |
| A．Reject. | B．Develop. | C．Launch. | D．Ruin. |
| A．Determined and caring. | B．Capable and courageous. |
| C．Ambitious and out-going. | D．Strong-willed and humor. |
| A．A Remarkable recovery |
| B．Love me, Love my horse |
| C．A Labour of Love Inspires a Career |
| D．Animal Lover Lifts Limping Horse’s Spirits |
3 . Hey, You Looking at Me?
The renowned Spanish magician and magic theorist Juan Tamariz wrote in his classic book that to make an audience feel seen, a performer must extend “imaginary threads from the performer’s eyes to the spectators,” taking care to not break them during the performance.
A new study, published earlier this month, suggests that for spectators to feel that they have eye-to-eye contact with the person onstage, the latter needs not extend imaginary threads from his or her eyes to the eyes of the audience. In fact, we perceive direct eye contact from other people not only when they look us in the eye, but also when they look at any other part of our face.
Shane Rogers, Oliver Guidetti, and their collaborators at Edith Cowan University in Perth, set out to determine whether people experience an ‘eye contact illusion’ during natural conversation, and if so, how strong the misperception might be. They conducted two eye-tracking studies:
In the first experiment, Guidetti engaged in one on one ‘getting acquainted’ conversations with 46 students, with both Guidetti and the student wearing eye-tracking glasses. In one half of the 4-minute conversations, Guidetti looked at the student’s eyes most of the time, and in the other half of the conversations, he looked at the student’s mouth most of the time. The data showed that, whereas mutual face gazing was comparable in the two participant groups, mutual eye contact was much lower. Once the conversation was over, students rated how much eye contact they believed Guidetti had made, and how much they had enjoyed the conversation. Both subject groups produced equivalently high ratings in each measure, indicating that our perception of eye contact during conversation has more to do with mutual face gazing than with actual eye contact.
In the second experiment, 36 pairs of students (all wearing eye-tracking goggles) participated in an ‘eye gaze guessing game,’ where participants alternated the roles of gazer and guesser for 30 experimental trials. In each trial, the gazer looked for about 2 seconds at one of five locations on the guesser’s face: eyes, mouth, nose, forehead, or either ear. Then, the guesser tried to guess the location the gazer had just looked at. The guessers’ accuracy was above chance level, suggesting that people do possess some ability to figure out the location of another person’s gaze when actively watching out for it. However, participants were slanted to guessing ‘eyes’ when unsure.
Based on the combined findings from both experiments, the researchers concluded that, unless people are specifically attending to gaze location, they are not very sensitive to the exact focus of their partner’s gaze upon their face during the course of natural conversation.
The bad news is, your perception of soul-to-soul eye contact with your romantic partner may be all in your head (your soulmate could be looking at your mouth, or even your ear, as they declare their everlasting love). But the good news is, if the act of looking at other people’s eyes makes you anxious, or if you dread speaking in front of an audience, you don’t need to sweat the small stuff. Just look in the general direction of people’s faces and it’ll feel to them like meaningful eye contact. (Feb 22th, 2019, Scientific American)
1. What does the underlined word slanted probably mean?| A．certain | B．likely |
| C．doubtful | D．frustrated |
| A．are trying to get to know each other |
| B．look at the eyes in half of the conversation |
| C．misjudge the actual amount of eye contact |
| D．make more face gazing to reduce embarrassment |
| A．The gazer takes at least ten seconds to finish each trail |
| B．Eye contact makes participants enjoy conversations more |
| C．They are conducted to prove the significance of imaginary threads |
| D．People can be accurate about the exact focus of others5 gaze if focused |
| A．Soulful declaration of love doesn’t exist |
| B．Direct eye contact may cause anxiety |
| C．Mutual face gazing improves conversation quality |
| D．Eye contact illusion can be applied to real life |
Only after a week’s leave—— during which he read novels, listened to music and walked with his wife on a beach—— was Rudenstine able to return to work.
In our modern life, we have lost the rhythm between action and rest. Amazingly, within this world there is a universal but silly saying: “I am so busy.”
We say this to one another as if our tireless efforts were a talent by nature and an ability to successfully deal with stress. The busier we are, the more important we seem to ourselves and, we imagine, to others. To be unavailable to our friends and family, and to be unable to find time to relax—— this has become the model of a successful life.
Because we do not rest, we lose our way. We miss the guide telling us where to go, the food providing is with strength, the quiet giving us wisdom.
How have we allowed this to happen? I believe it is this: we have forgotten the Sabbath, the day of the week—— for followers of some religions—— for rest and praying. It is a day when we are not supposed to work, a time when we devote ourselves to enjoying and celebrating what is beautiful. It is a good time to bless our children and loved ones, give thanks, share meals, walk and sleep. It is a time for us to take a rest, to put our work aside, trusting that there are larger forces at work taking care of the world.
Rest is s spiritual and biological need; however, in our strong ambition to be successful and care for our many responsibilities, we may feel terribly guilty when we take time to rest. The Sabbath gives us permission to stop work. In fact, “Remember the Sabbath” is more than simply permission to rest; it is a rule to obey and a principle to follow.
1. The “alarm” in the first paragraph refers to “_______”.
| A．a signal of stress |
| B．a warning of danger |
| C．a sign of age |
| D．a spread of disease |
| A．be able to work without stress |
| B．be more talented than other people |
| C．be more important than anyone else |
| D．be busying working without time to rest |
| A．think that taking a rest means lacking ambitions |
| B．fail to realize that rest is an essential part of life |
| C．fail to realize that religions force them to rest |
| D．think that taking a rest means being lazy |
| A．We should balance work with rest. |
| B．The Sabbath gives us permission to rest. |
| C．It is silly for anyone to say “I am busy.” |
| D．We should be available to our family and friends. |
5 . You can’t walk into the office without Rihanna’s voice singing “work work work work work work” in your head. And that one line from Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” still makes you want to scream. These are commonly known as earworm songs—those sticky tunes that continue to play in your head. A recent study finds that more than 90% of adults report hearing earworm songs on a weekly basis.
Fortunately, most people report earworm songs as pleasant. But others find them annoying or even maddening. “Some people are troubled by them to the point that it disturbs life,” says Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis, a professor at the University of Arkansas who has studied earworm songs.
Margulis says earworm songs tend to have some predictable characteristics. For one thing, they tend to small parts of a song—not the whole track. And “the songs you’ve heard recently also have the most possibility to get stuck in your memory,” she says.
But sometimes something strange and unpredictable can also start a track paying in your head. “Once I was at the doctor’s office and saw a poster of a man who I thought looked like Gaston—a character from Beauty and the Beast,” Margulis recalls. A couple minutes passed, and she realized she couldn’t get “Be Our Guest”, the song in the movie, out of her head, even though she hadn’t thought of the tune in years. In that instance, she was able to identify her earworm’s trigger: the Gaston-looking man in the poster. “But the connections can be really unclear,” she says.
Margulis points out that, in all of human history, recorded music is a very new phenomenon. She says some have inferred that earworm songs are also new—the unintended consequence of being able to hear the same song played everywhere in the same way over and over again. So far, the convincing explanation for why human beings experience earworm songs remains a mystery. But there are some well-established ways to cast off the earworm songs.
“Finding a mentally demanding task and putting your mind on it usually shifts attention away from internal music. People tend to get earworms when performing tasks that don’t require their full attention—stuff like doing the dishes,” Margulis says.
Chewing gum can also help. When a song is stuck in our heads, it’s almost like we’re singing along with it. If you make your mouth do something else—chewing gum, eating a meal or talking with a friend—that can kick out the earworm.
You could also face your enemy. By listening to the full track that includes the passage stuck in your head, you may find “closure” and relief.
1. Which of the following is most likely to be an earworm song?| A．A song made up of simple words. |
| B．A song heard frequently these days. |
| C．A song sung by a most famous singer. |
| D．A song learned during one’s childhood. |
| A．Type. | B．Tune. |
| C．Cause. | D．Characteristic. |
| A．result from modern technology | B．be experienced over meals |
| C．help regain lost memories | D．hurt one’s hearing |
| A．Why we hear earworm songs. | B．Where to find earworm songs. |
| C．When we hear earworm songs. | D．How to get over earworm songs. |
You need only look at a professional cyclist to appreciate the potential effects of cycling on the body. But what about the mind? It’s a question that has long challenged anyone who has wondered how riding a bike can offer what feels close to a state of emptying your mind.
Dr. John Ratey thinks cycling increases “the chemistry in your brain that makes you feel calm,” but also that carrying out multiple operations while cycling can be an effective treatment, as shown in a German study involving 115 children, half of whom did activities such as cycling that involved complex movements, while the rest performed more straightforward exercises with the same aerobic (有氧的) demands. Both groups did better than they previously had in concentration tests, but the “complex” group did a lot better.
There have been other interesting findings too. In 2003, Dr. Jay Alberts rode a tandem bicycle, a bicycle built for two riders sitting one behind the other, across the American state of Ohio with a friend who has Parkinson’s (帕金森) disease, a condition affecting the nervous system. The idea was to raise awareness of the disease, but to the surprise of both riders, the patient showed significant improvements. Dr. Jay Alberts then scanned the brains of 26 Parkinson’s patients during and after an eight-week exercise programme using bikes. Half the patients were allowed to ride at their own paces, while the others were pushed harder. All patients improved, and the group which was pushed harder showed particularly significant increases in connectivity between areas of intelligence responsible for functions such as walking and picking things up.
We don’t know how this happens, but there is more evidence of the link between Parkinson’s and cycling. A video on the Internet shows a 58-year-old man with severe Parkinson’s. At first, we watch the patient trying to walk. He can barely stand and his hands shake uncontrollably. Then we see the man on a bicycle being supported by others. With a push, he’s off, cycling past cars with perfect balance. Doctors don’t fully understand this discrepancy either, but say that cycling may act as some sort of action that helped the patient’s brain.
The science of cycling is incomplete, but perhaps the most remarkable thing for the everyday rider is that it can require no conscious focus at all. The mindlessness of cycling can not only make us happier, but also leave room for other thoughts. On the seat of my bike, I’ve solved problems at work and made life decisions, as, I’m sure, have countless others.
1. What does the study described in Paragraph 2 suggest?| A．Cycling has a good effect on physical fitness. |
| B．The tasks involved in cycling can be hard for children. |
| C．Lack of exercise like cycling causes lack of concentration. |
| D．Cycling can improve the ability to focus attention on a task. |
| A．cycling does more good if sufferers put more effort into it |
| B．cycling on tandem bikes has a better effect on the disease |
| C．not every person with Parkinson’s will benefit from cycling |
| D．social awareness is more important for Parkinson’s sufferers |
| A．Why Parkinson’s affects some people and not others. |
| B．Why someone with Parkinson’s can cycle but not walk. |
| C．How cycling could be included in treatment for Parkinson’s. |
| D．How a link between cycling and Parkinson’s was discovered. |
| A．The effect of cycling is not yet fully understood. |
| B．Cycling is believed to be both complex and mindless. |
| C．Cycling has a significant influence on people’s mind. |
| D．People may be more intelligent with the help of cycling, |
But have you ever notice the smell? Unless it is bad, the answer is likely to be no. But while a shop’s scent may not be outstanding compared with sights and sounds, it is certainly there. And it is providing to be an increasing powerful tool in encouraging people to purchase.
A brand store has become famous for its distinctive scent which floats through the fairly dark hall and out to the entrance, via scent machines. A smell may be attractive but it may not just be used for freshening air. One sports goods company once reported that when it first introduced scent into its stores, customers’ intension to purchase increased by 80 percent.
When it comes to the best shopping streets in Pairs, scent is just as important to a brand’s success as the quality of its window displays and goods on sales. That is mainly because shopping is a very different experience to what it used to be.
Some years ago, the focus for brand name shopping was on a few people with sales assistants’ disproving attitude and don’t-touch-what-you-can’t-afford displays. Now the rise of electronic commerce (e-commerce) has opened up famous brands to a wider audience. But while e-shops can use sights and sounds, only bricks-and-mortar stores (实体店) can offer a full experience from the minute customers step through the door to the moment they leave. Another brand store seeks to be much more than a shop, but rather a destination. And scent is just one way to achieve this.
Now a famous store uses complex man-made smell to make sure that the soft scent of baby powder floats through the kid department, and coconut (椰子) scent in the swimsuit section. A department store has even opened a new lab, inviting customers on a journey into the store’s windows to smell books, pots and drawers, in search of their perfect scent.
1. According to the passage, what is an increasingly powerful tool in the success of some brand store?
| A．Friendly assistant. | B．Unique scents. |
| C．Soft background music. | D．Attractive window display. |
| A．show the advantages of brick-and-mortar stores |
| B．urge shop assistants to change their attitude |
| C．push stores to use sights and sounds |
| D．introduce the rise of e-commerce |
| A．a platform that exhibits goods |
| B．a spot where travelers like to stay |
| C．a place where customers love to go |
| D．a target that a store expects to meet |
| A．compare and evaluate | B．examine and assess |
| C．argue and discuss | D．inform and explain |
Dr.Rick Essner, who has been studying tailed frogs for the past few years, says, “ I’ve looked at thousands of jumps and have never seen them land on their feet like other frogs.” Most of the time, tailed frogs land on their stomachs and then bring their back legs in to prepare for another jump.
Essner forst noticed these frogs because of the way they swim. Other frogs kick both of their back legs at the same time. But when a tailed frog swims, it pushes first with one leg and then the other.
To try to find out why tailed frogs bellyflop, Essner and other scientists collected and filmed different kinds of frogs. They found that all of the frogs start their jumps the same way: they hold out their legs. The change comes in the landing. Tailed frogs can't move their back legs as quickly as other frogs do. Maybe they don’t need to. Tailed frogs live around water and quickly jump into the water to escape danger.
Early frogs developed around watery areas and could jump quickly into the water to escape danger. Scientists think those frogs blended in with (与…融合在一起) the green plants on the side of the rocky rivers, just like today’s tailed frogs. “Ｉwould guess that other animals would have problems detecting them, ” explains Essner. When other animals find those early frogs, the frogs could jump into the river. They didn’t need to continue hopping.
Tailed frogs and other kinds of frogs went their own ways about 200 million years ago. Tailed frogs stayed by rivers. Other kinds of frogs moved to places where new hopping skills allowed them to survive.
1. What’s special about the detailed frog ?
| A．It has a long tail |
| B．It jumps on one foot |
| C．It stars its jump differently |
| D．It lands differently from other frogs. |
| A．They have never left the water to live . |
| B．They have trouble in holding out their legs |
| C．Their back legs can’t catch up while jumping.. |
| D．Their front legs develop better than the back ones. |
| A．eating | B．killing |
| C．using | D．discovering |
| A．jump into the water for protection |
| B．hop around quickly |
| C．hide in the green plants near the river |
| D．jump into the rock |
